Episode 139: Gym Alternatives for Those Who Hate It, Cold Plunges for Fat Loss, Mike’s Favorite Seasons, and More…

0:00:12.7 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:13.5 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael?

0:00:14.4 Mike Vacanti: I’m about to make a bold claim.

0:00:15.9 Jordan Syatt: Damn, you’re starting this podcast off strong. Let’s hear it.

0:00:20.1 Mike Vacanti: Summer, as far as seasons go, summer is grossly overrated.

0:00:26.1 Jordan Syatt: I can’t wait to hear this one.

0:00:28.7 Mike Vacanti: We’ve been conditioned since our youth to overrate summer because there’s no school. So school, even if you like school, like compared to summer school sucks, May, June roll around. You’re very excited. It’s summer. There’s warm weather. There’s fun things to do. You can go to the pool. You can play outside. It depends on the climate, et cetera. But generally speaking, we love summer, especially as kids, because we’re not in school. As adults, and summer might still be the best season, but it’s definitely overrated. Here we are recording this podcast on August 31st, tomorrow’s September 1st, and I am very excited for fall.

0:01:14.6 Jordan Syatt: What are you excited about?

0:01:16.1 Mike Vacanti: Well, football, for one. I think fall weather is superior to summer weather. There is more routine in the fall. I think I can, for me personally, but I think I can say generally speaking, especially for people with school-aged children, there’s more routine in the fall, which leads to a better life. Unless your summer obligations are really, really fun, for a lot of people, depending on your age, it’s the umpteenth wedding or seeing this family, traveling here, doing this. Summer has a lot of obligations relative to fall and a lot more chaos. I think the number of days where you’re really utilizing the really nice weather, which might mean being out on a lake, which might mean you have 76 and sunny with low humidity and you’re golfing or you’re playing at the park or you’re doing something outside. If it’s 95 and high humidity, that’s not a great day. I’d take most fall days over that day.

0:02:24.0 Mike Vacanti: I just think that somehow at the age of 36, I’m coming to the realization that my whole life I’ve been brainwashed into thinking that summer is drastically better than all other seasons when really I think it’s not. It’s overrated. It’s an overrated season.

0:02:39.4 Jordan Syatt: If you had to rate the seasons in order from best top season to worst season, where would each one go?

0:02:52.1 Mike Vacanti: I think I like them all equally.

0:02:54.8 Jordan Syatt: No, don’t play that equality crap. There is no equality with seasons, Michael.

[laughter]

0:03:01.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s not equality.

0:03:04.7 Jordan Syatt: I don’t wanna hear that. We don’t play that game on this podcast. They’re not equal.

0:03:07.0 Mike Vacanti: You wanted to use that word. All right. I’m gonna give spring the worst. This is for me personally because over the last three to seven years, we essentially haven’t had spring. Winter has dragged on too long and then summer hits, whereas April, May used to be really nice in the Midwest and even out East, whereas now it’s just crappy longer and then hotter sooner, so you don’t really get a spring, even though spring is usually glorious because you’re coming out of winter and it’s like a gradual like, “oh, there’s a day that’s in the fifties and it’s sunny and you wanna wear shorts,” even though you normally wouldn’t. The thing I like about winter is getting out of the cold. So I’m fortunate enough to get down to Florida or get somewhere a couple of times during the winter.

0:04:00.2 Jordan Syatt: [laughter] The thing I like about winter is not being in winter. [laughter] So, so like it gives you perspective because during winter you’re able to get out of it. Okay. Okay.

0:04:10.7 Mike Vacanti: And then, and then there’s winter activities, right? Skiing, snowboarding, playing hockey outside, doing these things. Christmas, New Year’s like… All right. So if I had to rate them right now, I’m going fall one, summer two, winter three, spring four. But if we were to have a legitimate spring, spring might take the two seat.

0:04:38.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow. So it’d be fall, spring, summer, winter. Got it. Okay. Like those tweener spots would be one and two and then like the full blown hot versus cold would be three and four.

0:04:51.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s right. And it makes sense. I like change. How about you? How do you rate the seasons? You can’t just copy me. We don’t have copying on this podcast, Jordan. You said, “I like that.”

0:05:06.1 Jordan Syatt: I didn’t… You didn’t even give me half a sec. And I said, I like that. I like what you said. It doesn’t mean that I am gonna choose the exact same order or even the same reasons.

0:05:11.7 Mike Vacanti: All right, Equity Jordan.

0:05:15.3 Jordan Syatt: You’re Equity Michael. Yeah, they’re all equal over here. We all treat all the seasons the same. I don’t see seasons. I see…

[laughter]

0:05:25.6 Mike Vacanti: All right. Syatt Fitness legitimately has an HR department. No one knows about this, but I do.

0:05:30.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s not true at all. [laughter]

0:05:30.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s true. It’s true.

0:05:31.9 Jordan Syatt: Who is it? Who runs the HR department at Syatt Fitness?

0:05:36.2 Mike Vacanti: I’m not gonna blow your spot up. I’m not gonna say it.

0:05:36.3 Jordan Syatt: Do it. Blow it up. Blow it up.

0:05:37.3 Mike Vacanti: I’m not going to.

[laughter]

0:05:39.5 Mike Vacanti: But I know there’s HR meetings. Yeah.

0:05:42.7 Jordan Syatt: There’s absolutely not. You’re not a liar, Michael. You’re not… [laughter]

0:05:45.8 Mike Vacanti: But I can joke around sometimes.

[laughter]

0:05:51.8 Mike Vacanti: All right. Rate the seasons.

0:05:52.8 Jordan Syatt: All right. So I think we both have a unique perspective because we both grew up in a place that has all four seasons. Right now, I don’t have it as much because Texas, granted there is some cold weather and they even have ice storms, but like they’re just woefully ill prepared for it. And then when I lived in Israel, they didn’t have it really like winter was just like a little bit rainier than usual. So winter is the worst by far for me. Like I hate the winter. It’s just like there are some wonderful things about winter time. Like I like going snowboarding and Hanukkah is great and all of that. But when I’m thinking of the seasons, I’m thinking of being able to experience the season, which means like me being outdoors. So I fucking hate it. So winter is the worst. Go on. What do you think?

0:06:49.6 Mike Vacanti: Can I push back on your opinion?

0:06:52.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Even though I didn’t push back on yours, you’re welcome to push back on mine. [laughter]

0:06:58.1 Mike Vacanti: Just for fun. Just for the love of the game.

0:07:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Just J it up, Michael.

0:07:00.8 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. What if the shitty things about winter actually make it great? Like shoveling snow or like walking to class when thinking back to college when it’s cold and windy and or gonna coach Gary, having to wake up at 5:20 and get up to the Upper East Side back in 2017 and it being zero degrees outside and you just freezing.

0:07:32.1 Jordan Syatt: If I was David Goggins, yeah, then I would agree with you, but I’m not David Goggins and I like…

0:07:36.2 Mike Vacanti: But then the joyous part is then you get indoors and you get back to your apartment and you make a little Turkish coffee and you pull out your computer and you’re ready to go. And now it’s the reprieve from the pain.

0:07:49.6 Jordan Syatt: No, because my hands are still cold and they’re like so cold that I can’t even open and close them quickly. And it’s just, it’s not, and I don’t wanna… And then I forget something outside and I don’t wanna go outside or… No, no, winter’s the worst by far.

0:08:04.9 Mike Vacanti: I respect your opinion.

0:08:06.0 Jordan Syatt: And I love snowboarding. I love ice skating. I love throwing snowballs at people.

0:08:11.5 Mike Vacanti: How many times have you been ice skating in your life? I’m not letting you get away with it.

0:08:13.9 Jordan Syatt: I used to go ice skating a lot as a kid.

0:08:15.9 Mike Vacanti: Really?

0:08:16.3 Jordan Syatt: Dude, you know I’m a rollerblader.

0:08:19.0 Mike Vacanti: I know you’re a rollerblader. I didn’t know you were an ice skater.

0:08:21.3 Jordan Syatt: I used to go ice skating all the time. All the time. Ask my mom.

0:08:27.3 Mike Vacanti: I didn’t know that. Yeah. I believe you.

0:08:29.3 Jordan Syatt: We’ll get her on the… Should I call my mom right now?

0:08:31.5 Mike Vacanti: No, I believe her.

0:08:32.9 Jordan Syatt: “Hey mom, how many times did you go to the Natick ice rink?” No, all the time.

0:08:35.2 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Cool.

0:08:36.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. I’m better at rollerblading than I’m ice skating, but yeah. So you were surprised at how good I was at rollerblading. I think you were like, “oh wow. I didn’t expect that.”

0:08:46.6 Mike Vacanti: I wasn’t expecting that. That’s true.

0:08:49.9 Jordan Syatt: So winter’s the worst. And then I would say… Oh man, this is tough because I actually really like, I love the other three. I’m gonna say, and this is gonna be a very unpopular opinion, and I know this is gonna be unpopular. Actually, no, I’m gonna go the other way. I think spring is the third, spring is third. Then I think fall is number two.

0:09:14.1 Mike Vacanti: Even though your birthday’s in the spring too.

0:09:17.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And I love the spring. I love all three of these. If I have to rate them, I will. Spring is three, fall is two. And this is the tough one. I know this is unpopular one, everyone loves fall, “oh, the changing of the seasons and the leaves.” I love the fall because apple picking and apple cider donuts. And like, I love that weather, Halloween, it’s awesome. But I love the heat, like heat for like, I just love the heat.

0:09:46.8 Mike Vacanti: You think that’s unpopular?

0:09:49.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:09:50.4 Mike Vacanti: I think everyone loves summer and fall’s the clear two.

0:09:55.3 Jordan Syatt: I think most people are gonna be like, “yeah, fall’s the best.” ‘Cause I feel like that’s just like pumpkin spice lattes are out and, and pumpkin this. And then, and leave changing and all that. I think most people would say fall.

0:10:07.9 Mike Vacanti: Interesting. I thought most people would say summer.

0:10:11.1 Jordan Syatt: Definitely kids. Most kids would say summer. I think most adults would say fall, especially adults with kids. [laughter]

0:10:17.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s true, with like just the chaos of this camp and this… And kids being home, etcetera.

0:10:27.3 Jordan Syatt: Speaking of weather and temperature, you’ll never guess what I’m doing tomorrow.

0:10:35.2 Mike Vacanti: Friday, September 1st. You had a dentist appointment yesterday, weather and temperature…

0:10:42.4 Jordan Syatt: Specifically temperature. And with that clue, you really might get it.

0:10:49.1 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Are you… Oh, I definitely know what you’re doing.

0:10:52.9 Jordan Syatt: You saw my Instagram story?

0:10:55.1 Mike Vacanti: No, I didn’t see your Instagram story. Although I have been on TikTok, ’cause I deleted Twitter. I made the swap recently. I was like, “I’ve had enough Twitter, but I’m gonna indulge in a little TikTok.”

[laughter]

0:11:05.5 Jordan Syatt: At least with TikTok, you probably feel better than with Twitter. Twitter you just feel probably terrible. Yeah.

0:11:09.7 Mike Vacanti: Awful. Like the world is ending. This sucks. And I got my TikTok curated well for myself. Are you doing some kind of like cold plunge and filming it to prove that it doesn’t do anything?

0:11:23.9 Jordan Syatt: You’re so good with the guessing game. You and my mom are the two best people at the guessing game ever. Yes. That’s exactly what I’m doing. So my buddy, actually my old wrestling coach, Taylor Crews, he was like, “Hey man, you should see what a cold plunge does to your blood sugar,” which I found very interesting because blood sugar is highly responsive to stress, to cortisol specifically and adrenaline. And so I have a feeling it’s gonna spike the shit out of my blood sugar. And I don’t know… I have had some type one diabetics reaching out to me ever since I posted it. And they were like, “Oh yeah.” Like some of them said it absolutely spikes their blood sugar. Other ones have said that cold doesn’t, but heat does, like a hot tub does.

0:12:13.5 Jordan Syatt: And I would imagine so much of it is based on the individual’s perception. I would think that maybe heat for me wouldn’t do it because I love heat, but cold will, whereas for someone who is okay with cold, but hates the heat, heat would do it. And I’ve had other people say, “when I initially started doing it, it spiked it. But as I did it over time, I got more used to it. And then the spike wasn’t as bad,” which I also found very… ’cause that perceived stress, that anxiety would probably diminish as the more they did it. So I’m very excited to try that. Actually, I’m not excited at all. You’ve seen me do cold plunges. I hate them, but I’m interested to see the result.

0:12:50.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s smart. That’s good for content. People really like that. And just something new to mix it up.

0:12:57.1 Jordan Syatt: People like watching people be very uncomfortable. That’s like good content and just, yeah, let’s… Sort of like jackass. That was the whole concept of Jackass, which is arguably still one of the greatest shows of all time. But just like watching people get hurt and do the most uncomfortable things. That was the entire concept of the show in the movie. [laughter]

0:13:18.3 Mike Vacanti: Speaking of MTV shows, last useless conversation transition before we dive in. Dude, MTV’s The Challenge may have been the greatest TV of all time.

[laughter]

0:13:34.3 Jordan Syatt: Was that the one Kenny was on? Was it Kenny Santucci?

0:13:36.1 Mike Vacanti: Kenny Santucci.

0:13:37.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:13:38.3 Mike Vacanti: Yes, he was.

0:13:39.9 Jordan Syatt: What a beast. What an absolute beast.

0:13:41.3 Mike Vacanti: There are so many… And all basically all of the seasons are available if you have, I forget one of the, the subscriptions through Amazon Prime. So they get you on the seven day free trial and then you can watch this. And so we were watching one season, I don’t know, from back, Rivals II or whatever it was from like 2012. And and then I realized like all 35 or all 38 seasons are actually available through that thing. So now instead of a seven…

0:14:11.8 Jordan Syatt: 38 seasons. Oh my God.

0:14:13.6 Mike Vacanti: It’s been going forever. So many names from like back in the day. And just the concept of the show actually having the political alliance strategy side of it, the physical competition. So you can be dog shit at alliances, but then you just win challenge after challenge or you go down into the jungle or the gauntlet or whatever it is and you just keep winning and you can end up winning that way by sheer talent and hard work and effort. And then there’s the like entertaining side and they used to do this more. I’m realizing watching a more recent season, there’s not as much of it. And then watching previous seasons was like the partying and the degeneracy…

0:15:00.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. [laughter]

0:15:00.3 Mike Vacanti: MTV just feeding them alcohol and trying to make good TV, which it did. That’s been a guilty pleasure as of late.

0:15:06.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, that show is so good. The Real World and The Challenge were my favorite shows in like high school. They were so good.

0:15:14.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And The Challenge, it was the real world, except it added this new element of competition.

0:15:20.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. Genius. So I know like CT was like the most savage of all the dudes there, but there was like a blonde haired guy and he was pretty jacked. You know who I’m talking about? He was like a little bit annoying, but Abe, Abe…

0:15:36.1 Mike Vacanti: Abram.

0:15:38.3 Jordan Syatt: Abram. I literally saw you make, your mouth was about to go to A, and I was like, Abram, that Abe, that was it. Yeah. He was one of the guys that like, there was something about him I wasn’t the biggest fan of, but he was a beast, like he was an absolute beast with all the challenges. And everyone got so annoyed by him, especially ’cause I feel like he was winning a lot. But CT was by far my favorite for sure.

0:15:58.5 Mike Vacanti: There are so many, like just watching old seasons, you’re like, “I completely forgot this person existed,” and just…

0:16:07.7 Jordan Syatt: I think I remember one, there was one challenge where I think they were like tied together and they were like, had to like try and crawl.

0:16:17.7 Mike Vacanti: Okay. So here’s what it was. This was cutthroat and they brought in a…

[laughter]

0:16:26.1 Mike Vacanti: It was Johnny and Tyler were in the cutthroat arena to get eliminated and they brought in a mercenary. A mercenary was a person who’s not actually on the show, but like an old challenge competitor to come and they had to compete against that person. And the mercenary was CT.

0:16:45.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah. [laughter]

0:16:47.7 Mike Vacanti: So yes, they were sitting back to back, they were tied together and there was a garbage, there was a trash can, I don’t know, 40 feet in front of one of them and a trash can 40 feet in front of the other. And the goal was to drag the person towards the trash can and make them hit the trash can. And with Johnny attached to his back, CT just immediately like moves to his side, stands up and starts taking these like monster Frankenstein strides towards his trash can. And Johnny’s flailing. So they’re back to back, CT’s leaning forward, taking these big strides, Johnny’s like arms and legs are kicking in the air and CT gets to the trash can and like rolls into it and just falls down. So Johnny falls flat on this metal trash can. Iconic.

0:17:39.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That’s like, I think like the greatest scene of all time for that show. Yeah. CT is just a freak. Good. Good talk. Good nostalgia.

0:17:50.8 Mike Vacanti: Highly nostalgic. Should we fire up a question?

0:17:54.9 Jordan Syatt: The crazy thing about that is Johnny’s not a small dude. Like he’s thick, like he’s strong too. So for CT to be able to do that is like, it just even more wild, but anyway, yeah, let’s fire up some questions.

0:18:06.0 Mike Vacanti: No, here’s the other… No. If you wanna take it here, I love this because seeing them at different stages is hilarious because you’ll see someone in one season, not so much with the women, but with the guys who’s like 2, 10, 7% body fat, just looking absolutely juiced to the gills. And then like three seasons later, which isn’t that much time, but maybe a couple of years later, they’re like 50 pounds lighter and soft looking. And it’s like, “all right, they ran a cycle for this season, but they didn’t for this one.” It’s funny. Wes, Wes was a real…

0:18:47.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, Wes. Yeah.

0:18:49.3 Mike Vacanti: He won a bunch. He was impressive and entertaining.

0:18:53.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh man. All right. Should we fire him up?

0:18:54.2 Mike Vacanti: We have one left from our list of screenshots that we took, which was alternative to the gym for someone who thinks it sucks ass.

0:19:05.8 Jordan Syatt: I mean, there’s so many, you could go hiking. You could go rucking, which I think is just hiking with a weighted vest on. So you could do that. You could go swimming. I could name all these different options. Like you could go cycling, you could do home workouts. You could get like equipment and have it at your house. You could…

0:19:34.8 Mike Vacanti: I think we’re gonna assume they mean strength training sucks ass, but I like the way you positioned that because some people really don’t like the gym experience.

0:19:43.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I mean, you could do calisthenics style training, gymnastics style training. Yeah.

0:19:48.7 Mike Vacanti: Let me even lead you a little. Let me lead you a little here.

0:19:52.7 Jordan Syatt: Give me some weight in it. I need a leader in my life.

0:19:56.0 Mike Vacanti: No, you don’t. [laughter] But what if I was like, or someone close to you who had been consistently strength training for a long time, wanted to just be done with strength training forever. Is there anything that that person could do to replicate the health and longevity benefits associated with even low dose strength training consistently into their forties, fifties, sixties, seventies?

0:20:26.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So the way you framed it makes it very different than like what I had in my mind and specifically in regard to someone who has already done a fair amount of strength training in the past. So they’ve built up a fair amount of muscle. They’ve built up a fair amount of bone density. They have a good technique. These are someone who’s strength trained for at least, I don’t know, three to five years. They’ve already gotten pretty strong and they’re like, “I’m tired with it and I don’t wanna do it anymore.” I would give that person a very different recommendation probably than someone who just has never strength trained ever and is super weak and like just, they need to do it. Right.

0:21:02.2 Jordan Syatt: So for the person who has already done it for a while, I would say like, you could literally do it one to two times a week for 20 to 30 minutes max and you’re fine. Like you could do a few sets. You could do like eight total sets over an entire week and you’re good. Maybe even less, maybe even like six sets depending on what you’re doing. But like you don’t…

0:21:28.4 Mike Vacanti: One set per body part?

0:21:30.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. If you really wanted to, if you really wanted to. But I mean even like, I’m thinking more from like deadlift one to two sets, squats, one to two sets, chin ups, couple sets, right? Like you don’t need to too much. And the point I’m trying to make is once you’ve already built up the muscle and the bone density and the strength, you don’t need to keep chasing maximal strength forever and you don’t need to have a super rigorous routine.

0:22:02.6 Mike Vacanti: True.

0:22:03.1 Jordan Syatt: You could even structure it rather than on a seven day week, you could cycle it on a 10 day week type thing, which is what a lot of what more advanced lifters will do as they get stronger and stronger and stronger. And an intermediate lifter could do that for their lifestyle strength training routine. So once like every like 10 days getting two training sessions in would be fantastic for someone who’s just like, “oh, I went to the gym once and I tried strength training and I hated it.” Like you’ve just got to fucking figure out a way to strength train and sort of earn your right to do less. Do it for a few years. You could either…

0:22:38.1 Jordan Syatt: Here’s how I look at it. Doing it consistently for a few years, like between two to four times a week for three to five years or doing it for the rest of your life with slightly less consistency. But I think if you really earn your right to reduce the amount that you’re doing it, do it for three to five years, super consistently three to four times a week. And then after that, you can take your foot off the gas a little bit and focus on something else that you enjoy more. But the main benefits that you’re gonna get from strength training, I think are really gonna come from the first few years of, of serious, serious consistency. That’s what’s gonna take you… That’s what’s you’re gonna get the most benefit in terms of muscle bone density and the overall health benefits.

0:23:21.5 Mike Vacanti: I agree with all of that. I would probably have slightly higher volume recommendations for maintenance, but on the whole, we’re very on the same page, especially with the difference between those two groups. Either way, what I’m gonna say to this person, or maybe I’m not gonna say it to this person, but I’m gonna say it to everyone here on this podcast, because it’s more general and I feel like I can be more blunt is like, I’m gonna read it again. Alternative to the gym for someone who thinks it sucks ass. Alternative to fruits and vegetables for someone who thinks it sucks ass. Alternative to water for someone who thinks it sucks ass. These are all more common than you’d think that people have aversions to and don’t wanna eat or do or drink or whatever.

0:24:06.8 Mike Vacanti: Alternative to working for someone who thinks it sucks ass. There are things in life that we have to do even though we don’t want to do it. There are things, and we all have natural strengths and weaknesses and things that we enjoy more than others, and those are different for each of us, but we need to do the things, at least some of the things that we don’t wanna do because they’re necessary. If you don’t wanna suffer the consequences of not doing them and suffering, the consequences of not ever strength training are on average, earlier death, earlier bone breaks in life. The strength decreases and how that bleeds into what you’re gonna be able to do in your 60s and 70s relative to someone who continues to strength train to that age.

0:25:02.8 Mike Vacanti: Who’s to say that we know what we should do based on what we wanna do too? Just because we don’t wanna do something doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. There are a lot of things that I don’t wanna do that I have made myself do that make my life better. This is definitely one of those for me, which is, “Nike, just do it.” [laughter] I’m thinking of people in my life who I love. “I don’t like water.” “I don’t care that you don’t like water. We’re gonna fight… ” Sure. Put a little sweetener in it, maybe like there… Do you like bubbly water? Okay. But at the end of the day, like you got to get some hydration in you.

0:25:46.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Or it’s like if your kid was like, “hey, you have any alternative for me? Because I don’t really feel like doing this homework. It sucks ass.” It’s like, “I don’t give a fuck. You’re gonna sit down at that kitchen table and you’re gonna do that homework.” Right?

0:26:01.7 Mike Vacanti: Yep. Yep. I believe the exact sentence you used in the book was, “tough shit, Charlie, do your homework.”

0:26:10.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. That wasn’t where we use the name Pitts, which we just thought was hilarious. [laughter]

0:26:16.8 Mike Vacanti: We were on like a writing trip down in Miami and we…

0:26:21.8 Jordan Syatt: Was that the Miami trip?

0:26:23.7 Mike Vacanti: I think so. We were both just geeking out, laughing about Pitts. And…

0:26:27.9 Jordan Syatt: We thought that was hilarious.

0:26:29.4 Mike Vacanti: And of all of the things that we gave into in the editing process to our multiple editors, we held our ground on that one.

[laughter]

0:26:42.5 Jordan Syatt: If you haven’t read the book, we like use different names, like for various conversations. And one of them, for whatever reason, Mike and I thought Pitts would be a hilarious name to use in the book. And our editors come back and they’re like, “can you change the name?” And we just dug our heels in. We were like, “absolutely not. This is vital to the integrity of the book. We are not changing this name.” [laughter] We just wanted like some semblance of control on that. So no, and yeah, that made it in the book. Pitts.

0:27:14.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. And man, we were laughing for, I don’t know, a good half hour.

0:27:20.5 Jordan Syatt: I wish I could see someone who like doesn’t know us, but who picked the book up in the library and like, I could see like a video of them as they’re reading it and they come across Pitts and like, just to see their reaction, did they laugh? Did they like double-take? I wish I could see that reaction. [laughter]

0:27:38.0 Mike Vacanti: There were probably a lot of double-takes.

0:27:42.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Pitts.

0:27:43.0 Mike Vacanti: Pitts.

0:27:43.1 Jordan Syatt: “Did they mention Pitts earlier in the book?” [laughter] “Is this like a term?”

0:27:51.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. I got a question here from Gemini. Okay. “Hey guys, I’ve been listening to your podcast weekly for the last year and a half and have listened to every episode you guys have made some more than once. Love you guys.”

0:28:06.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s awesome. Thank you so much. That’s amazing.

0:28:09.5 Mike Vacanti: I’m curious to know what your thoughts are on cold plunges. I keep seeing videos of Gary Brecka… I don’t know who that is.

0:28:17.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, I know who the fuck that is. I just got someone sent me one of his clips today. He literally said… Let me see if I can find this clip.

0:28:25.6 Mike Vacanti: Hang on. Let’s…

0:28:26.8 Jordan Syatt: Keep reading.

0:28:26.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s gonna be aligned with the question. I keep seeing videos of Gary Brecka talk about how, “no amount of cardio strength training hit, etcetera, compares to getting in a cold tub.” And I can’t help but believe that he’s putting out a false narrative. And the way these videos are clipped, almost encouraging people to stop trying to work out and only sit in ice baths to lose weight. I just wanted to know what your thoughts are on the subject. Thanks.

0:28:53.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude. It’s so crazy. Someone literally just sent this clip to me today at 8:19 AM. This is what he says. I’m gonna try and play this directly into the microphone so people can hear this outrageous lunacy. All right.

0:29:07.2 Gary Brecka: There is nothing on the surface of the earth that will remove calories from your body or burn fat at the rate that getting in cold water will. If you actually read the story about…

0:29:20.2 Jordan Syatt: Did you hear that? There is nothing that will remove calories or body fat more than getting in a cold plunge? Absolute, I’m trying to think of a politically correct word, idiocy, just like to put it lightly, that’s… Gemini… Mike, you take it, you start. Let me cool off.

0:29:44.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, Jordan, you cool off. I like the idea of a cold plunge. And I like the idea of a cold plunge because there is solid evidence around the increases in dopamine and norepinephrine during and for a sustained period post cold plunge, cold plunge has been used in many cases in addiction recovery for cocaine addicts specifically and has been effective for many years for those individuals. And I also have a theory that addiction isn’t binary, that it’s on a spectrum and that if we look at food and if we look at social media and if we look at how we all live our lives, and I’ve talked about the pleasure pain seesaw here from Anna Lembke’s Dopamine Nation, we would all benefit from implementing some of those ideas from that book into our lives, one of them being leaning into pain and a cold plunge being a form of pain where if you lean into it, your body’s gonna seesaw back into pleasure.

0:31:05.7 Mike Vacanti: I like the idea of from like a David Goggins, from a, “do hard stuff, do something you don’t wanna do,” mental placebo, getting cold water because it’s hard. I like doing other things because it’s hard that might be more beneficial, maybe more than cold plunging, but I don’t hate it for that reason, especially if you’re doing it for your own benefit and you’re not doing it to post on social media and like, whatever, clout chase based on that. For the purposes of fat loss, I have never seen any good evidence showing that getting in cold water is gonna do anything more than burn an immaterial slight uptick or have an immaterial slight increase in calorie expenditure compared to not going in cold water.

0:32:06.1 Mike Vacanti: So yeah, for body composition, for its direct effects on fat loss, I would not recommend getting in cold water and the fact that this guy says that… It’s not even saying like it’s slightly beneficial or it’s probably worth doing. He’s saying that it’s the most beneficial thing you can do to lose body fat, like compared to reducing your calorie intake is a completely ridiculous and misleading and like, I don’t know, clickbaity statement.

0:32:38.9 Jordan Syatt: And can we just clarify something? Because I think a lot of people, even when you said like the, I think I forget the exact verbiage, but you said to the effect of like an immaterial amount of fat burn, right? And maybe like more caloric expenditure. Can we just clarify what this means? It does not mean that if you sit in a cold bath and then you eat over your caloric allotment, that you’ll have burned fat that day. It’s like, no, that means you’ll have gained fat that day because you ate too many calories.

0:33:08.9 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:33:09.8 Jordan Syatt: So that’s number one, regardless of what of your cold plunging habits, if you’re eating too many calories, you’re not gonna lose body fat.

0:33:17.2 Mike Vacanti: Of course.

0:33:18.1 Jordan Syatt: The second thing is this. What do you think would burn more calories sitting in a cold plunge for 10 minutes or going on a 10 minute walk?

0:33:28.9 Mike Vacanti: Going on a 10 minute walk.

0:33:33.1 Jordan Syatt: Period. So like for this guy to say there is nothing that would remove calories, which is another way of saying like burn calories faster or better. It’s like, well, that’s wrong. The same amount of time that you spend in that fucking cold water, walking burns more calories. Period. That is just so remarkably stupid and manipulative, to think of how he’s phrasing it. No, actually from a metabolic perspective walking is better.

0:34:00.7 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:34:00.8 Jordan Syatt: And it’s not to say there aren’t benefits to cold… Everything you said is fact based on current knowledge and evidence of cold plunging. Everything you said is fact. This is the perfect example of how someone can take one single thing, like a very reductionist view of something and extrapolate it and manipulate it to make it look more effective than it really is and completely disregard other things that are simpler, relatively easy, more accessible, more comfortable just for the sake of clickbaits and views. And listen, and I don’t… Let me google search this guy real quick. Gary Brecka is his name. Gary Brecka. I’m…

0:34:34.6 Mike Vacanti: What’s funny is that clip you just played, I saw it last night on TikTok. So it’s a good thing I’m back consuming on the TikTok. Then in the rest of the clip, what he says, his evidence for why that’s true is an anecdotal N=1 uncontrolled story about Michael Phelps Olympic training. And he was essentially saying that Phelps, when he was in, I don’t remember if it was Tokyo or he was in another country for the Olympics many years back. And the water in the pool where he was training for the Olympics was four degrees colder. And the rest of his training regimen was exactly the same, which doesn’t seem right, but whatever. We’ll pretend that’s correct.

0:35:23.9 Jordan Syatt: He used literally the exact same training regimen. Okay. [laughter]

0:35:28.3 Mike Vacanti: And that he had to increase his calories to 10,000 calories a day because of the cold water. But he also didn’t state what his calories were previously. Like that was his evidence, at least in the clip that I saw.

0:35:48.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So Gemini, don’t, yeah, I can’t even formulate a proper sentence. No.

0:35:58.7 Mike Vacanti: So the moral of the story is if your goal is to lose body fat, stopping your training regimen and your cardio regimen and your calorie deficit, and your prioritizing sleep and replacing it with more time in cold water is not a good idea and is not recommended by the hosts of the How to Become Personal Trainer podcast.

0:36:17.4 Jordan Syatt: Nothing makes me wanna retire from being a personal trainer more than talking about all of the different ways that people make it seem like fat loss, like how crazy it is, how complicated it is. Like I am so tired of people coming up with new horseshit ways to try and confuse people around fat. Like nothing is more annoying to me than having to continue talking about this. It’s like, “ugh.”

0:36:46.1 Mike Vacanti: I’m gonna defend you a little. I don’t even think that’s true. I think you’re partly blinded by being on day 24 of this cut.

0:36:55.4 Jordan Syatt: Mini cut. Yeah. That’s true.

0:36:58.4 Mike Vacanti: And it’s starting to hit you. And it’s funny because we talked about the effects of trying to get too lean and stay too lean for too long in the last episode. And even today was kind of one of the first days of the cut where you’ve started to be like, “my neat is down. My energy is pretty low.”

0:37:15.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yep. Still feel that way. [laughter]

0:37:18.5 Mike Vacanti: Still wanna retire. No, it’s not that, it’s that I wanna retire. You know what? I have a question that might be interesting.

0:37:32.5 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:37:33.8 Mike Vacanti: So in addition to the fact that I’m normally just not a great orator verbally…

0:37:39.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s not true. That is like completely false.

0:37:41.5 Mike Vacanti: No, it’s not. Relative to other skills, live on the fly podcast, rather than being able to pre-plan, like it’s my worst form of content creation, objectively speaking. I just don’t like random podcasts. And so over the… I used to do it 2015, 2016, I did a handful, but over the years basically just had a canned response saying, no. I’m curious to hear your…

0:38:05.8 Jordan Syatt: Are you saying that your worst form of content creation is podcasting?

0:38:10.9 Mike Vacanti: A hundred percent.

0:38:12.6 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I could not disagree… I’m not gonna argue, but like, I do disagree. But anyway…

0:38:17.8 Mike Vacanti: Not our podcast, which is different because this is a conversation with a friend, but trying to like articulate intelligently. I just know myself and know it’s my… Like relative to writing relative to a YouTube video…

0:38:33.2 Jordan Syatt: You do have very good writing. Yeah. Okay. All right. Keep going.

0:38:33.9 Mike Vacanti: Thanks, Jordan. One of the other things that historically pushed me away from podcasting or going on people’s podcast was this, this mindset of, “okay, I don’t really wanna be doing this. I’m not that good at it,” but like they’re in the industry and they want me to come on and they’ve asked a few times. So I guess I’ll like do them the solid of going on and giving them an hour of my time. And so I would go on and do the hour and it was fine. And then afterwards, not all the time, but many times there was this bizarre expectation where I like email my list, a link to the episode where they like made, it used to be a graphic to post on my feed, “hey, post this on your feed to promote the episode.” Or now it’s more like, “here are these clips to post on your feed to promote the episode.”

0:39:30.5 Mike Vacanti: And it made me so uncomfortable because I wasn’t like, it felt strange to me to just be like, “no,” right. To be direct about it. It also felt, it left a bad taste in my mouth because the ask was like, I thought the ask was to go on the podcast, but then there’s like this followup of like, “I want you to promote my podcast for me.” And it’s like, that felt a little icky. And so what I would do in those situations was just ignore the email, like not be like, “no, I’m not gonna post this.” I wouldn’t say anything. And maybe one out of five, I’d post something on my story if I thought it was a really good episode. But part of me is like, I don’t really wanna push my audience this because I felt like I was shit on the episode anyway, not because of anything wrong with the host.

0:40:17.1 Mike Vacanti: And then a high percentage of the time within six months, that person would unfollow me on social media. And I’m like, “okay, so this whole thing was you wanted promotion of your horseshit podcast.”

[laughter]

0:40:35.2 Mike Vacanti: And so I’m curious to ask you what your take on, from going on a lot of podcasts, what your take, your honest to the bones take of that post podcast process has been like for you over the years?

0:40:51.5 Jordan Syatt: It’s the exact same thing. It’s literally the exact same thing. I mean, I’ll give you an example of how much I hate that. So I had Maxx Chewning on my podcast a couple of weeks ago, and I just published it the other day. And he said, “hey, could you please let me know when you publish the podcast and send me the link so I can share it.” And all I did was once I publish it, is I texted him, I said, “hey, man, I just wanna let you know, I don’t expect you to share it. It is published. If you want me to send the link, let me know and I will.” And that was the… I didn’t send the link in the first, I just like, “if you want me, but I do wanna let you know it’s published.” That was it.

0:41:27.7 Jordan Syatt: Because I get so many people who are like, “hey, do the exact same thing as you. Hey, please share this, please share this.” And I did the same thing. Like if it was a very good podcast, and I really enjoyed the person who was on it, and they clearly did their homework and it was a… Then I’ll absolutely share it. Otherwise, sometimes I won’t share it because they just did a really bad job. Sometimes I won’t share it because I didn’t like how I spoke. And other times I won’t share it because I have done a lot of podcasts and I forget that like, and I just got a lot of emails or whatever it is, or because I have other content I wanna emphasize that day, as opposed to sharing their podcast.

0:42:12.4 Jordan Syatt: So their goal is to grow their podcast. That’s their number one goal. And that’s why they’re having us on is because… That’s why people are like trying to get, “big names,” on, because they want their podcast to grow. It’s usually a selfish endeavor, which is not necessarily bad, but the reason they want you to share it is so that their podcast can grow. So really, the only time I’ll do it is if it was really, really good on everyone’s part. And I wanna share it from that perspective.

0:42:34.6 Mike Vacanti: Well, and in that Maxx example, he asked you to send him the link. So…

0:42:36.5 Jordan Syatt: Exactly.

0:42:39.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:42:40.1 Jordan Syatt: And even then I didn’t send the link because I don’t want him to feel like any sense of obligation.

0:42:46.8 Mike Vacanti: Obligated. Yeah. Yeah.

0:42:48.3 Jordan Syatt: And before we started recording the podcast, like the clip that we had before we started, I said, “Hey man, I just wanna let you know, I have no goal with this.” Maybe it was actually while we were recording. I said, “I have no goal with this. I admire you and I just wanna like learn from you.” And that was it. And I think that creates a better relationship with the person you’re recording with because there truly is no expectation on the backend to share. And I’ve had similar things where they’ll unfollow or be like, “Hey, what’s going on? Why aren’t you sharing?” It’s like, because it’s not my content. It’s yours. And I have other things I wanna promote, or the worst was when I got on, and this has happened, not tons, but a handful of times where people only got me on their podcast because…

0:43:32.5 Mike Vacanti: To talk about Gary.

0:43:35.1 Jordan Syatt: Well, there was that for sure. And then they would put Gary in a thumbnail of the podcast and not me. And anyway, the worst though is when they just wanted someone with a larger audience and I’d get on and I could tell that they didn’t know anything about me. Maybe one of their friends was like, “Hey, you got to get this guy on your podcast.” And then they reached out, we get on. And there’s one time vividly, I’m thinking of him right now, where he’s asking me questions and I could tell by the questions that he didn’t know anything about me. So I was like, “do you know what I do?” And he was like, “yeah.” I was like, “what do you think? What do you think of my messaging?”

0:44:16.5 Jordan Syatt: And I see him going on his computer and typing on the screen and I’m like, “are you going to my website?” And he was like, “yeah.” And I said, “all right, man, so we’re done.” I was like, “next time if you wanna have me on, just make sure you know.” And he was, this is a doctor. And he was like, “yeah, man sorry, I just… ” I don’t even remember, but, “yeah, sorry. I should have been more prepared.” So, yeah. [laughter]

0:44:43.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m glad you’ve had similar experiences and it’s funny ’cause we haven’t talked about that. Maybe we have, but it’s been years. But I brought it up because it happened somewhat recently with a guy who I’m friends with, who’s a good dude. And he just started a podcast and he actually did a really good job interviewing. And then afterwards he did the thing where it’s like, “Hey, can we collab on this? Can you share this?” And like, “there’s two of these, can we do this?” And because I’m close with them, I just told it to him straight. I was like, “look, man, here’s my experience. And the reason why I haven’t done… One of the reasons I haven’t done podcasts historically.”

0:45:17.6 Mike Vacanti: And he was very apologetic and like, “dude, I had no idea. I got this marketing guy helping me out with this. I just started the pod. And he said, you’re supposed to like do this.” I was like, “bro, it’s completely fine. But I,” it was a situation where I had to be direct about why I wasn’t gonna be sharing it, ’cause we’re close.

0:45:33.8 Jordan Syatt: Right. Can’t ignore it.

0:45:36.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And it reminded me of these experiences I had with people who I didn’t know at all who like didn’t really hit… Yeah. I’m just… Cool. Let’s wrap it. I got some good stuff for us to lead the next episode on. We’re weekly, Tuesday morning uploads. Hope you have a wonderful… Oh, Jordan, tell them in 20 seconds or less, what’s going on with the mentorship and with pricing changes.

0:46:02.4 Jordan Syatt: 20 seconds or less, here’s what you need to know. The price in the mentorship is going up very soon. If you are an active member in the mentorship, then the price won’t go up for you unless you decide to cancel. But if you’re always an active member, then your price will never go up. So if you wanna join now in order to save money and not have to pay a higher price, join right now. That’s it. Link in the description.

0:46:25.2 Mike Vacanti: Have a great day. We’ll see you next week. Goodbye.