Episode 144: All About Ozempic, Sugar Cravings, and Client Psychology

0:00:11.7 Michael Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

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

0:00:13.8 Michael Vacanti: Welcome to the How to Become a Personal Trainer Podcast.

0:00:15.0 Jordan Syatt: Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.

0:00:18.0 Michael Vacanti: Always. I’ve been wanting to get you on the show for a very long time, and so I’m really glad that we’re getting this in.

0:00:25.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Our schedules finally linked up, ready to go.

[laughter]

0:00:29.6 Michael Vacanti: Our schedules have linked up.

0:00:31.5 Jordan Syatt: Bro, cottage cheese.

0:00:33.4 Michael Vacanti: Wow. You have a great memory.

0:00:34.2 Jordan Syatt: You thought I wouldn’t remember. You thought I wouldn’t remember.

0:00:35.2 Michael Vacanti: Now I need to write down the story that you just said because I wanna make sure I remember that.

0:00:42.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, no one’s gonna forget that one.

0:00:45.3 Michael Vacanti: We got some good stuff in this episode. Well, yeah, after my workout, I was talking to you on the drive back to my house and I said, “I have a new breakfast option that I haven’t even bought yet. It literally just popped into my head, which is I’m gonna start having cottage cheese with fruit on the rotation for my breakfast.” And you immediately were like, “Let’s hold this and talk about it on the podcast.”

0:01:10.7 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’m a big cottage cheese guy. What got you involved in the cottage cheese world?

0:01:20.4 Michael Vacanti: I used to be quite heavily involved in the cottage cheese world, circa 2006-2009, college life, not using the kitchen, discovered protein and calories and their effect on body composition, and realized that fat-free or low-fat cottage cheese was absolutely dialed and I enjoyed t he taste. And so I would have it as a snack in college when I was, unknowingly, over-restricting total calorie intake. It was one of my go-tos. And then I had it sporadically, from the 2010-2020 timeframe, maybe 1/8 of that time I was consistently having cottage cheese, haven’t had it for a few years. And on my training days now, I like a very light breakfast because I work out shortly after my meal and I don’t want a lot of food in my system. And so just having a scoop of protein powder is my protein with that breakfast.

0:02:29.9 Michael Vacanti: And then I also like having a protein shake post-workout, just the ritual of it, the enjoyment of it. And so I’m getting, 25 plus 40, I’m getting 65 grams of protein from powder on every training day. And so it’s like, “Ah,” and oftentimes on rest day breakfast, I’ll do Greek yogurt, sometimes I’ll do eggs if I’m in the mood for it, sometimes I’ll do a protein powder, but in the interest of getting more non-protein powder grams of protein in my regimen, I have decided to get some cottage cheese with fruit a couple rest days a week.

0:03:09.2 Jordan Syatt: Are you gonna go low fat or no fat?

0:03:12.1 Michael Vacanti: I’ll probably start with 1%, if my memory serves me right. That’s like 2.5 fat, 13 protein, 13 carb, or somewhere in that range. And so two servings of that, five 26, 26 with… I really like red grapes in the cottage cheese. I find that a little bit of salty sweet combo is quite delicious.

0:03:37.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s a good one. You just have the whole grape? Do you cut them in half or you just put the whole grape in?

0:03:42.3 Michael Vacanti: Ever since I stopped being… Around age three or four, when your parents cut the grapes up for you, I just eat the grape. Do you cut your grapes?

0:03:52.1 Jordan Syatt: You just drop the whole grape in there.

0:03:53.3 Michael Vacanti: Do you cut your grapes in half?

0:03:55.4 Jordan Syatt: No. I’m not a big grape guy in general, but I’m imagining that taste in my head and I can see that being a really good one. But for some reason when I’m imagining that bowl of cottage cheese with grapes, I’m imagining grapes sliced in half, which is why I asked that. That was just the movie playing in my head. I was like, “Oh, he’s gonna slice them.” [laughter]

0:04:20.0 Michael Vacanti: No, no. In the interest of saving time and just… I like a good whole grape.

0:04:27.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Okay, nice. Dude, cottage cheese is super good. And it annoys me that so many people say, “Oh, I don’t like how… I don’t like the… ” It’s a palate thing. It’s like, I don’t understand it. It tastes amazing. It tastes really good.

0:04:44.1 Michael Vacanti: I would imagine that the… I agree with you. I think some of those people might be influenced by its appearance.

0:04:53.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It doesn’t look good.

0:04:54.0 Michael Vacanti: No. Chunky, white, kind of weird-looking. But yeah, I’m a big believer in… My whole life I hated mushrooms over the last 12…

0:05:07.5 Jordan Syatt: Right.

0:05:08.6 Michael Vacanti: Yeah. Did not like mushrooms. Over the last 12-18 months… Pick them out of everything, they were the one food I didn’t eat. Last 12-18 months, I’ve just started saying, “Whatever.” And it’s a texture thing. I just don’t like the texture. It feels weird in my mouth. I just started eating them and now I don’t mind them. I don’t love them, but I’ll eat them and it doesn’t bother me. I don’t know if I believe in liking and disliking foods. I think we can force ourselves through repetition to like things enough.

0:05:36.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I very much agree with that.

0:05:40.8 Michael Vacanti: With mushrooms, who cares? There’s no real benefit. But with something where it’s a high protein, low calorie option and someone might be struggling to have a variety of those food options, force it the first five to 10 times, see what happens.

0:05:55.8 Jordan Syatt: Coffee is the prime example. No one starts off liking coffee ever…

0:06:01.2 Michael Vacanti: Correct.

0:06:01.6 Jordan Syatt: But they keep drinking it, keep drinking it, keep drinking it, all of a sudden they’re like, “I love coffee. I need it.” It’s like, well, maybe you won’t get to that point with mushrooms, but you can get to a point where it’s good enough for sure.

0:06:11.9 Michael Vacanti: Right, right. Well, and mushrooms don’t have the 200% dopamine spike that you get from caffeine, which ingrains the habit and the pattern. But you’re absolutely right. Yeah, the benefit you get from it almost over time makes you enjoy it more consciously or unconsciously.

0:06:33.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So true. Cottage cheese.

0:06:36.5 Michael Vacanti: Cottage cheese.

0:06:37.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s a good protein to end the day with too, slow digesting…

0:06:41.6 Michael Vacanti: Completely agree. Oh, wow. Jordan’s got a little bodybuilder in him. He’s like casein before bed to maximize MPS and just eke out those last little bit of gains.

0:06:51.0 Jordan Syatt: Bro, are you kidding me? Been doing that since 2009. Big fan.

0:06:56.6 Michael Vacanti: Very nice.

0:06:57.4 Jordan Syatt: I used to have… When I got my absolute leanest, leanest, leanest, leanest, I would have cottage cheese and egg whites before bed. That would be my…

0:07:09.6 Michael Vacanti: Wow.

0:07:09.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Just real slow digesting, real filling high protein.

0:07:15.3 Michael Vacanti: That’s dialed.

0:07:16.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:07:18.0 Michael Vacanti: It’s a dialed food choice. You just told me a funny story about a couple of friends of yours.

0:07:25.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:07:25.7 Michael Vacanti: Do you wanna tell that again?

0:07:27.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’ll tell it. I’ll tell it. I think it’s hilarious. And they’ll remain nameless. But basically, yesterday, as we’re recording this, yesterday was Yom Kippur, which in Judaism is it’s the day of repentance. And I know a lot of people who aren’t religious. They don’t like that type of stuff. “What are you repenting for?” We could go into that if you really want to, but yeah, they get, “What are you repenting for?” I was like, “I don’t know. Were you perfect all fucking year?”

0:07:27.1 Michael Vacanti: Sins.

[laughter]

0:07:55.6 Michael Vacanti: What?

0:07:58.6 Jordan Syatt: But I don’t know. They have an interesting thought process on… I don’t know. Anyway, well, we can talk about that after. I’ll go into the story first. So during this day, you fast. Now, I actually think it is important, and we could talk about this, the… What many people will say, and I’ve said this before, is if you ask two Jews for their opinion, you’ll have three different opinions. Even in Judaism, a major part of Judaism is arguing and debating. And so one of the main reasons that Jews will say that we fast is it’s sort of your way of cleansing and it gives you a clear mind to repent for your sins. You’re not focusing on food that day.

0:08:45.6 Jordan Syatt: And so it gives you an opportunity to just reset and repent. And so what I like about it is having one day a year where I don’t eat, if nothing else, gives me incredible perspective to know… For what it must be like to not have access to food all the time. Right? It’s not difficult for me to fast 12, 16 hours. Once I start getting to 20 hours, 22 hours, 24 hours, it starts getting difficult. And those last four hours or so, where normally I would have eaten by now, where I really have to sit there and struggle, is very good perspective to just be so grateful for what I have. And so I think that for me has been a great part of it. What are you smiling at, Mike?

0:09:37.3 Michael Vacanti: You are so good at making ideas palatable for people who are resistant to them. There was no reason for you to give that explanation. I enjoyed hearing it, but…

0:09:51.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:09:54.4 Michael Vacanti: Man, I’m not even thinking about the listener when I’m talking and you’re just dialed. It’s really world class, I gotta say.

0:10:04.8 Jordan Syatt: Thank you. Thank you, bro. Anyway, so that’s one of the lessons that I like to take from fasting. But anyway, the break fast at the end, so after the fast is over, generally in Judaism, you get together with a bunch of other Jews who’ve been fasting, and there’s a whole big amount of food, and there’s bagels and lox and cream cheese, and there’s eggs and there’s drinks and there’s chicken. There’s tons of food. There’s desserts, there’s just… Everyone gets together and you eat a lot. So I went with my wife and our daughter to our friend’s house and they had 20-plus people there, big, big break fast. It was super fun. Ironically, only three of us were fasting, which was me and then my two friends. My wife, she fasted a little bit, but she didn’t go the full time.

0:11:02.4 Jordan Syatt: And so no one else was fasting except us three, me and my two friends and their husband and wife. Now, [laughter] the husband is just irate. He is in a terrible mood because he hasn’t eaten in a long time and he’s not handling it well. I’ve had a history of fasting and it’s just not that big of a deal for me. And his wife is handling it very well. She’s in a good mood. She’s feeling fine. And the husband is just pissed. Imagine it’s like a 25-hour fast. He is not happy. Not to mention we’re the only ones who’s fasted. So everyone else in the party is eating and drinking and da, da, da da. And my buddy is just… He doesn’t wanna talk. He’s, “I just need to get through half an hour more and then we can eat.”

0:12:00.1 Jordan Syatt: And his wife, she looks at me and she says, “This fast has been pretty easy.” And this is actually her first ever fast. She historically has never fasted before. And she was like, “Yeah, I’ll fast this year.” And her husband whips his head around and looks at her and he goes, “Yeah, because of the drugs that you’re on.” And the wife looks at me with that, almost like a kid who got caught lying or something look. And she goes, “Oh, yeah. I’m on Ozempic. It’s amazing.” [laughter] Which is like… She’s like, “So I don’t get hungry ever.” She’s like, “Literally, I’m never hungry anymore.” And she goes… The next words out of her mouth, I didn’t even tell you this part of the story, she goes, “Before, I could eat 15 Twix bars, no problem. Now I can barely have two.” That was it.

0:12:56.9 Michael Vacanti: Incredible. Incredible. And she’s not some Hollywood actress who’s trying to get to…

0:13:05.3 Jordan Syatt: No. She’s struggled with her weight.

0:13:06.6 Michael Vacanti: To 90 pounds. Yeah.

0:13:07.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. She’s really struggled for a long time.

0:13:10.5 Michael Vacanti: Using it for the right reasons.

0:13:13.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:13:14.0 Michael Vacanti: The husband’s reaction is funny. And I wanted to talk about this on the podcast because I have a client who started Ozempic in May, I believe, someone who struggled with food for many years and struggled with his weight, and his weight has crept up and crept up very slowly, but over the years, he was overweight and has continued to gain more weight. Since he got on, he’s lost 30 pounds.

0:13:49.6 Jordan Syatt: Wow.

0:13:50.9 Michael Vacanti: He’s s feeling really good. The way that he describes how he’s feeling is, basically exactly how Spencer outlined it on the podcast that you guys did. And his main thing is… The number one thing he says is, “I just don’t feel as tempted. I don’t think about food all of the time. I have an appetite, but I just eat a reasonable amount. And once I’m done with my meal, I’m not still thinking about food like I was before. I’m not going for extra snacks or more dessert. I just feel satisfied and feel like,” in his words, the way that he should feel, which is amazing.

0:14:36.4 Michael Vacanti: But it’s funny because he said he’s gotten some negative feedback from various people, and I asked, “Are these people in your life or people that you’re just seeing online?” And he said, “Yeah, kind of both. There are definitely some people in my life who use the word ‘cheating’ or are very skeptical and negative and have a high degree of cynicism around it,” which is hilarious because, what are you cheating at? This isn’t a sanctioned professional sports league where you’re not allowed to take a banned list of substances. It’s life. And you’re making a decision based on potential known and unknown risks and the pros and cons of taking this drug and made the decision with his doctor that the benefits outweigh any potential costs, which I agree with for him. But it’s so fun.

0:15:32.8 Michael Vacanti: And I know that your buddy was more just fasted 25 hours, kind of in a bad mood, like little one-line zinger with his wife, who knows their dynamic. But the people’s reaction to it is very interesting. People’s reaction to seeing other people on these drugs is interesting.

0:15:52.6 Jordan Syatt: There’s a lot of hate. And I would say the majority of it is hate. And I would say the reason these drugs… These drugs have been around for a while, which I actually didn’t even understand until I spoke with Spencer and Danielle. But the reason there’s so much hate is I think because the reason they’ve been popularized recently is because of these celebrities using it to lose seven pounds. And unfortunately, the hate that is warranted in that scenario is not warranted for people who actually need it. The people who are diabetic, pre-diabetic, severely overweight, the health risk from maintaining that high level of body fat are far, far worse than what we’re seeing from actually taking the drug.

0:16:40.7 Jordan Syatt: And I just think it’s ironic and hilarious that people are like, “Oh, my God, do you know the side effects that these have?” And I’m like looking at them as they’re drinking alcohol or whatever, it’s like, “Really? You’re gonna talk about side effects and things that are legitimately bad for you with that big glass of wine in your hand? Are you sure you wanna that?” [laughter] It’s ridiculous.

0:17:02.9 Michael Vacanti: I think there’s a degree of pride and arrogance and almost… It’s in our nature to evaluate ourselves relative to other people. And when you have someone else… I’m not pinning this on any individuals, but I think a lot of it comes from taking pride in their ability to maintain whatever health or aesthetics or weight they have and being positioned relative to this other person as, “Oh, this guy’s always been bigger. This guy’s overweight. He’s just there and I’m here.” But now seeing him lose weight makes them insecure about themselves or makes them not like where they stand relative to this person in their life.

0:17:57.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, that’s exactly right. There’s jealousy. [laughter] There’s anger. Yeah, it’s very, very interesting, the social dynamics around it. I just think it’s… I think it’s interesting ’cause a lot of people… It’s not natural playing into the naturalistic fallacy, which is just, it’s so easy to display how ignorant of an argument that is where it’s like, “Oh, you’re just taking the easy way out.” It’s like, “I don’t know. I think that you could say the same thing for you if you have one of those fireplaces that you just hit a button and fire comes on. Yeah, you’re just taking the fucking easy way. Why don’t you make a legit fire, motherfucker?”

0:18:42.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s the easy way out. You’re taking the easy way out by flying across the country. What about the people on the Oregon Trail? Where are the fucking… You’re taking the easier way out. This argument plays out every which way. And that was one of the great parts about learning from Spencer and Danielle. Which by the way, when I got on that podcast with them, I thought they were gonna go the other way. I didn’t expect them to go…

0:19:03.1 Michael Vacanti: Interesting.

0:19:03.8 Jordan Syatt: I did not expect them to take that route. I wouldn’t say they’re pro those drugs. I would say they’re anti being vehemently anti-those drugs, which is like there is a time and a place for them, and in the right situation, they can be very helpful. But it’s not like, “Yes, let’s get everyone on this drug.” It’s first, let’s attack behaviors, let’s help them, let’s educate them, let’s try and improve. But there’s… I mean, anyone who talks about how having excess body fat to a large degree is very unhealthy for you and it can have a real negative side effects, then they should also probably understand there are so many downstream effects mentally, emotionally, physically that might be going on with them that if you have a healthy level of body fat, you might not understand, you might not have actually been through.

0:19:58.3 Michael Vacanti: Yeah. And do you think that a lot of these people, if not every single one, haven’t tried for years, if not decades, to make the kind of progress and lose the weight and become healthier without using these drugs? This is almost a last resort for the majority of these people.

0:20:18.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:20:19.0 Michael Vacanti: Anyway, that’s probably enough on Ozempic. Funny story though. Where do you wanna go?

0:20:29.4 Jordan Syatt: Bro, I’m a P. You can J it up. I J’d the cottage cheese. You can P the rest of the episode… Er, I’ll P the rest of the episode. You J it.

0:20:38.5 Michael Vacanti: We’re gonna get into a couple of questions. I’m gonna present a thought that I was having earlier today. And I went and grabbed a book that I read a few years ago. It’s called “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover.” It’s a…

0:20:50.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow. [laughter]

0:20:54.3 Michael Vacanti: You remember me talking to you about this?

[laughter]

0:21:00.0 Jordan Syatt: Yes, I do. I did not expect you to whip that book out.

0:21:06.9 Michael Vacanti: The subtitle, “Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine”. And so, real quickly, the premise of the book is these four masculine archetypes, are king, warrior, magician, lover, and to simplify it, we can think of warrior as doing, magician as thinking, lover as feeling and king as being. And king is a little bit harder to… I don’t even know that I fully understand it. But the reason I’m bringing this up is I personally am struggling with, and what I’m seeing is that we as a society at large are struggling in a massive way with an abundance of the lover archetype, which is acting out of feeling. And this has happened to me in ways that I can’t even fully describe or didn’t understand until recently.

0:22:18.5 Michael Vacanti: When you, Jordan, are on a plane and just sitting there doing nothing and you grab for your phone because you just hit 10,000 feet and now you have internet and now you know that you can scroll, you’re doing that to feel a certain way. You’re doing that to change how you’re feeling, to be stimulated, to be entertained, to laugh at whatever funny things are on there. When I’m scrolling TikTok, feeling, when I want dessert food or hyper-palatable processed food, to feel a certain way. Too much of our behavior is driven by wanting to feel better. Drug addicts are driven to the maximum by this behavior, needing to feel a certain way.

0:23:10.6 Michael Vacanti: And I’m not gonna make any grand proclamations about how we got here as a society, an abundance of comfort… I don’t even know. All I know is that we’re here. And during my workout today, a thought popped into my head which was… And it’s so funny, we talked about fasting before and you talked about some of the non-religious benefits that you get from fasting. A thought popped into my head mid-workout which was, “I’m quitting dessert for a year.” Now, we’ll play with that because now that I said it out loud, I’m immediately not gonna wanna do it. But there’s benefit to sacrifice in general, and it’s almost like practicing acting in accordance with the right way to live rather than acting to serve my material earthly feelings, my animal instincts.

0:24:11.6 Michael Vacanti: So I’m playing with that in my head. There’s a slight amount of health benefit too that could be interesting, more so in performance. Anyone who stumbled across IIFYM in 2009 or beyond knows that you can eat Oreos and still have insane aesthetics. So that has 0% to do with this. But there’s… Yeah. I’m toying with the idea of doing this in a sacrificial dial in behavior and action kind of way.

0:24:49.0 Jordan Syatt: Is that what you think one of, if not your biggest vices, is desserts? Is that where you feel like you really need to rein it in from a feeling perspective?

0:25:01.5 Michael Vacanti: No. I think desserts is just… Would be… I mean, yeah, one of. Definitely, one of. Desserts would be slightly easier, I think, than this cell phone.

0:25:17.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:25:19.2 Michael Vacanti: I think that would be really hard, just given how much we use it in a way that we need to be using it. I need to reply to a text, and then the habit of going on an app. But yeah, those are both up there in the top few, certainly.

0:25:33.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. That would make sense. You’ve also… I feel like with nutrition for you, you’re just so good with your nutrition that it would have so many positive benefits for you. ‘Cause any time you don’t have sugar, you feel amazing. Just based on my knowledge of every time you don’t have sugar for a while, you’re like, “Bro, this is it. This is it.” So you feel great.

0:26:01.8 Michael Vacanti: Performance ability to think, not getting injured, less total body inflammation, yes.

0:26:07.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that’s a big one that I’ve noticed with you when you talk about eliminating sugar is your joints feel better, your back feels better, your neck feels better. And I think that those positive benefits combined with how much control you have over your nutrition, that makes total sense. You’re so dialed with your nutrition. When you decide to make a change, it’s done. So that is very interesting. And I think that the feeling… It just sounds like impulse control. It’s like, are you impulsive or not? And what are you doing with your impulses? Not you, I mean everybody, where it’s like we’re being taught to just, “Oh, you want it, have it.” Or your greatest… Whatever. “Oh you want it, you deserve it. You’ve earned it. You’re a queen. You’re a king.” It’s like you just have it, whatever you want. It’s like, what the fuck? And especially in terms of whether you’re eliminating desserts. It’s not because you think they’re bad, but I think it sounds more of like a mental and a spiritual exercise as opposed to you can’t have it for your health. That’s not what it is. This is more of like a different type of journey.

0:27:23.3 Michael Vacanti: That’s absolutely right. Yes. And when we say… When you use sugar or when I use sugar, we don’t mean it technically that I would give up sugar. We mean… I’m still eating fruit. I’m still eating…

0:27:35.8 Jordan Syatt: Right. It wouldn’t be the cookies.

0:27:36.5 Michael Vacanti: A flavored Greek yogurt that has a few grams of added sugar. Right. We’re talking cookie… We’re talking literally processed desserts, baked goods, everything that falls under the dessert umbrella.

0:27:50.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’ve been thinking about doing that with alcohol.

0:27:57.3 Michael Vacanti: When I said addict, it could be a heroin addict on the street who’s the end of the spectrum versus someone who has a drink or two every night and could, and this isn’t you, and could stop at any time but continues to have a drink or two every single night. But they could stop, everything on the spectrum.

0:28:19.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. When I was doing the blood sugar spiking challenge, I only drank three times. It was my wife’s birthday, my daughter’s birthday, and then we had our anniversary dinner. Those are the only times that… Or maybe there was one other time. So it was like four or five times throughout the month, and it was never ever to the point of being really drunk. It was just a couple of drinks. But it was interesting because it was so few times. It was like five times or so throughout the month. I really got very good at pinpointing how I felt that next day relative to the majority of days which I didn’t drink.

0:28:57.7 Jordan Syatt: And it was very obvious. Even with minimal drinking, I was never even close to blasted at all. It was just maybe a little… I felt a little bit, but like a… It was just a couple of drinks. And you know what’s also crazy is… And this is something I’ve never really cared about, and I still don’t really care about, but I guess this is just part of getting older. Dude, my skin feels so much better when I don’t drink. And this is the weirdest thing for me to say because I would never talk about skin health and I don’t know anything about it. But when I drink, the next day my skin feels so bad on my face. It feels dry and… I’ve never noticed this before in my entire life, but now, for whatever it is, I started feeling it. I was like, “Ugh.” And so when I don’t drink, I don’t feel that. It’s very odd. And I don’t know if it’s dehydrating. I don’t know what’s going on. But I was like, “Ugh, I just don’t like how this feels.” So I might be… In 2019, I gave up alcohol for a year and a half or so, and I might do it again, just to be like, “You know what, screw it. I don’t need it.”

0:30:10.7 Michael Vacanti: That’d be really cool. And for the same reasons, it sounds like.

0:30:14.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:30:16.5 Michael Vacanti: We need more being. And I probably need less thinking too. It depends. I enjoy thinking. But there’s definitely not enough king or warrior ethos in our culture, and a whole lot of magician and a whole lot more addicted lover, something that a lot of younger men struggle with, with the no fap movement. That’s all born out of that. There’s… Sex addiction is something that is real, I think, or seems to be. I don’t know. I remember after…

0:30:54.8 Jordan Syatt: I think. [laughter]

0:30:57.0 Michael Vacanti: That’s a real backtrack. After The Tiger Woods incident happened in 2008 or 2009, I remember him coming out and saying, “I’m a sex addict,” and being like, “And I’m going to therapy for it and I’m gonna resolve these issues.” And in my mind I was like, “You’re just trying to save your sponsorships and it’s not a real thing.” But it seems to be a real thing. That’s not my vice, but all of these things born out of having feeling at the top of the value hierarchy, consciously or unconsciously. And so this is almost gonna be a way of training lowering it and getting something else up there.

0:31:38.0 Jordan Syatt: Was that Bill Burr who had an amazing bit about Tiger hooking up with all those…

0:31:44.6 Michael Vacanti: It was either Bill Burr or Louis CK.

0:31:46.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. [laughter] All of these guys who were like, “Ugh, I can’t believe you would do that.” Maybe it was Louis C.K. It was either Louis C.K. or Bill Burr. And he was like, “You’re saying that from your couch at home and no women wanna be be with you.” Tiger has bus loads of women who are trying to be with him at all points in time. It’s very easy for you to say, “I would never do that,” when no woman wants to be with you anyway. Your wife doesn’t even wanna be with you. [laughter]

0:32:18.9 Michael Vacanti: It’s easier for you to say you don’t have bus loads of Swedish bikini models waiting for you at the the 18th green.

[laughter]

0:32:24.8 Jordan Syatt: Exactly.

0:32:26.2 Michael Vacanti: Yeah.

0:32:26.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, exactly.

0:32:27.6 Michael Vacanti: Yeah.

0:32:29.7 Jordan Syatt: What is the… Is the clown one of them? The clown or the…

0:32:35.8 Michael Vacanti: The magician?

0:32:36.8 Jordan Syatt: Magician. [laughter]

0:32:39.8 Michael Vacanti: King, warrior, magician, lover… Clown, the fifth archetype.

[laughter]

0:32:46.2 Jordan Syatt: What’s the magician’s characteristics?

0:32:51.4 Michael Vacanti: This is actually a pretty quick read. I think you might enjoy it.

0:32:53.1 Jordan Syatt: I would love to, but just for the sake of the conversation.

0:32:56.9 Michael Vacanti: I literally just picked it up so I could reference it in this podcast. I don’t remember well enough.

0:33:01.6 Jordan Syatt: Got it, got it. Okay.

0:33:03.6 Michael Vacanti: I believe it was the summer of 2020.

0:33:03.9 Jordan Syatt: It makes me think of someone that would be putting up all these fake… Just essentially trying to blend in and maybe manipulating, moving the chess pieces around, almost like a Baelish in Lord of the Rings.

0:33:18.2 Michael Vacanti: I think that’s probably correct.

0:33:19.6 Jordan Syatt: Not Lord of the Rings. Jeez.

0:33:19.6 Michael Vacanti: Game of Thrones.

0:33:20.8 Jordan Syatt: Sorry. Game of Thrones. [laughter]

0:33:23.5 Michael Vacanti: No, I think that’s… I didn’t even say anything. I think that’s absolutely right. I think Ned probably possesses king energy. I don’t actually know well enough to speculate on this.

0:33:34.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Okay.

0:33:41.8 Michael Vacanti: That actually led me to another similar… We’ll divert. That’s enough of this, I think.

0:33:48.7 Jordan Syatt: Okay. You’re the boss. You’re the J. I’m just the lowly P.

0:33:54.1 Michael Vacanti: That’s not true at all. You led hard with cottage cheese. Cottage cheese.

0:33:57.3 Jordan Syatt: Do you want me to get a question?

0:33:58.3 Michael Vacanti: Should we make a… Should we make something… Yeah, we can start firing up a question. Should we make something formal around this?

0:34:05.9 Jordan Syatt: Formal? What do you mean?

0:34:07.6 Michael Vacanti: Around this giving things up? Or let’s just see how it goes for the next 30 days and circle back.

0:34:11.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, you mean like a reverse bet type thing?

0:34:13.8 Michael Vacanti: I don’t wanna do that. I’ve found that I don’t like the feeling of being locked in. I’ve learned that about myself. The Four Tendencies was actually a really good book around that.

0:34:25.3 Jordan Syatt: Is that avoidant?

0:34:28.0 Michael Vacanti: No. That’s like attachment theory. I don’t think we’ve ever even talked about that.

0:34:33.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, got it, got it. Okay.

0:34:35.1 Michael Vacanti: Jordan’s been brushing up on psychology on reels. You got that algorithm dialed. No, that was Obliger…

0:34:45.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:34:46.9 Michael Vacanti: It’s whatever you are and whatever I am. The book was basically like, these “Two make amazing business partners and couples. Because this person does this and this person does this.” Uphold, there’s one. I don’t remember all of them, but The Four Tendencies was the name of that book.

0:35:02.5 Jordan Syatt: Got it. Okay.

0:35:04.7 Michael Vacanti: Let’s see how the next 30 days ago. I also don’t necessarily… We don’t need to lock in to an all-or-nothing mentality just yet, but I don’t know. I used to be really disciplined. And it’s almost a test that I’m interested in. I am gonna bring up the thing that I was not even gonna bring up before, which is a sentence that I thought of. “Discipline is only useful if you are first properly aimed.” Meaning if you’re disciplined but you’re going in the wrong direction or you’re chasing the wrong thing, and then you get to 90, what was that discipline for?

0:35:43.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s the same concept of, it’s not enough to be on the railroad track. You gotta make sure you’re going the right way.

0:35:51.9 Michael Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:35:52.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:35:52.7 Michael Vacanti: Yeah.

0:35:53.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s exactly right. And it’s funny, I use the phrase, “If you fall off track, it’s fine. Just get back on track.” But recently, a lot of people have become averse to that phrase. “Well, you’re implying that you messed up, as though that’s a bad thing.” And I don’t like this aversion to messing up. We have to pretend like you didn’t make a mistake. It’s okay to make mistakes. The solution to making mistakes is not pretending that we didn’t make a mistake. The solution to making mistakes is recognizing the mistake, realizing how to overcome it, and then fix it. Just pretending as though you didn’t make a mistake doesn’t actually help. It actually hurts more than anything.

0:36:46.2 Michael Vacanti: 100%.

0:36:47.2 Jordan Syatt: And someone recently commented on one of my post being like, “I don’t like how you said that you fell off track. I feel like there’s no way that you can fall off track, da, da, da.” I was like, “Well, the reason I deliberately phrased it this way is because I think there are different tracks.” In this case, it was nutrition-related, I guess a calorie deficit track. I think there’s a muscle gain track. There’s a maintenance track. There’s a… Whatever track that you’re…

0:37:16.1 Michael Vacanti: Vacation track.

0:37:17.3 Jordan Syatt: Exactly. Right? So if you’re on the calorie deficit track and then you end up like binging, well, yeah, you fell off track. You fell off the calorie deficit track. That’s fine. So figure it out, what caused that binge, then get back on track and fix it the next time. If you’re on vacation, yeah, it’s a different track. You’re not going on the same direction. You’re going on the same train. It’s a completely different railway than the calorie deficit track. So I think it’s important to be able to say, “I made a mistake,” or “I fell off track. I didn’t follow through with what I was gonna do.” It’s not something that’s bad. It’s it’s important to recognize it.

0:37:53.7 Michael Vacanti: Who are these… I was gonna ask where you’re seeing it, but it makes sense that it would be in the comment section. This feels like more than a one-off to you, like there’s more of a movement. Do you think that’s younger generation-related? Do you think that’s society at large? Do you think that’s any specific demographics? Because I can’t even imagine having a serious face-to-face conversation with someone who would say that the tracks don’t exist.

0:38:23.8 Jordan Syatt: I think it’s the same people who want everyone to have participation trophies.

0:38:28.9 Michael Vacanti: Got it.

0:38:31.4 Jordan Syatt: And to clarify, I think it’s all from good intent. Participation trophies have good intent behind it. They don’t want people to feel left out. These people don’t want people to feel bad for making a mistake. So rather than recognizing the mistake, they just say, “Well, the mistake didn’t happen,” just because they don’t want them to feel bad, without realizing that by eliminating the mistake, they’re actually removing a learning opportunity and giving them a chance to grow. So it’s coming from a place of, “I don’t want anyone to feel bad,” but part of life is understanding sometimes feeling bad is the best thing that can happen to you. Sometimes understanding that feeling and going through that adversity, that’s where greatness comes from in all aspects of life is recognizing something bad that happened or that may be bad that you did, crazy enough. We all do bad things. And then, well, how do we fix it? And that’s how we learn. Any parent, any good parent would understand that’s how you raise a child and that’s how you improve as an adult. So I think it’s all born out of good intent, but it actually has a negative outcome.

0:39:38.1 Michael Vacanti: That makes sense.

0:39:39.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:39:40.7 Michael Vacanti: Let’s grab a question.

0:39:42.5 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Let’s try this one. And I’m saying this one just because you spoke about how you might wanna give up sugar for a while. Someone asked, “Do you have any advice to deal with sugar cravings?” And you’re a sweet tooth guy. You like sweets. How do you deal with it?

0:40:01.1 Michael Vacanti: Man, so this is a completely separate discussion from everything we talked about before, which is not related to physical health, body composition, consistency around nutrition, and is purely using nutrition as a mechanism to do something else on a emotional, mental, spiritual level. That said, deal with sugar cravings. Number one, I don’t fight them. I plan to have within my calories and my macro nutrients, I plan to have foods that are sweet and delicious and that I enjoy on a somewhat regular basis. I’m not restricting myself in terms of only eating clean foods, except for this next year.

0:40:47.3 Jordan Syatt: Yet.

[laughter]

0:40:53.2 Michael Vacanti: Number two, I like relying on artificial sweeteners to a degree. I like a little Splenda in my coffee. I like certain Greek yogurts that I can’t believe they have 80 calories, 12 grams of protein and somehow tastes like a dessert. I’m okay with, not in excess, but low calorie, artificially sweetened snack options. Getting enough protein, being properly hydrated, setting up your life in a way where you are as unlikely as possible to have any kind of cravings, sugar cravings being one of them, meaning get enough sleep, get high quality sleep, do all the right things around your room, temp, darkness, sound machine, phone before bed, blue light, do all of the standard stuff that we’ve talked about before. Try to set your life up in a way where… I mean, sleep is the anchor, sleep and how your day is set up. The food you have in your environment. We know that if you have a bowl of peanut M&M’s out on the counter compared to a bowl of apples and pears and peaches, that you’re far more likely to grab the snack that’s there, whichever it may be. And so setting up your environment with foods so that you’re not giving into that craving. That’s a handful of my best ideas.

0:42:30.6 Jordan Syatt: Great ideas. I’ll just add one, ’cause I love all of those. The one that I’ll add is, there are some people that just… They have this feeling that they just can’t say no, or that they can’t have it in moderation. And for those people, the idea in their mind that they just can’t say no, that’s what we have to overcome first, is the feeling in their mind that they can’t say no to it. Which is why for some of these people, I’ll be like, “Listen, all I want you to do is for one night, just one, don’t have any sugar. Don’t have anything sweet. For just a night, just one night.” ‘Cause early on in my career, I’d be like, “Hey, let’s take two to four weeks off.” That’s a much bigger challenge. But if I just say, “Hey, just for tonight, don’t have dessert. Just tonight. You’re not gonna die. You can’t use FOMO. It’s just a regular night at your house. Don’t have dessert. Just don’t do it.” And then the next day they wake up and they have that amazing feeling that you and I were actually talking about the other day where it’s like they’re so glad that they didn’t have it.

0:43:44.6 Jordan Syatt: And for the first time in maybe their entire life, they’re like, “I can’t believe I did it. I can do it.” They prove to themselves that they can do it. And the point of this exercise isn’t to say that they can never have it. The point is to make them realize that they can not give in to that craving, that it is a choice. They do have power over that. Which then sets them up for so much success down the road because now they believe that they can do it. They just proved to themselves that they can. It’s something similar that I would do this with calorie counting. Most people I like are more moderate calorie deficit. But sometimes I like a very strict severe calorie deficit, especially for people who are very overweight and do not believe they can succeed, because, oftentimes, if you give them a more moderate deficit, there are many issues with it, but sometimes with these people is they’re gonna go over. It’s a moderate deficit. They’re like, “Ah, screw it,” they’re gonna stop counting, they just end up going over. They don’t take it seriously.

0:44:51.4 Jordan Syatt: So sometimes I’ll give them a super big calorie deficit, like 800 calories for a week. We’re just gonna do one week at 800 calories. And people are probably freaking out. There’s actually a lot of research around this if you wanna dive into it. But what’s crazy about this is when you have them on such a strict deficit, just for a week, they have to be very strict with their counting, and they take it very seriously and they’re like, “Okay, which foods are high protein? Which foods are gonna fill me up for lower calories? Okay, I can have a lot of vegetables, I can have a lot of tuna, I can have a lot of eggs, I can have a lot of this, I can have a lot of chicken, I can have lot of this.” And then when you bring them back up to a more moderate calorie deficit, they have all these skills that before they didn’t have. They know which foods are high protein. They know which foods they actually like that are relatively low calorie and very high volume. I’m not putting them on 800 calories for six months. It’s a week where it’s strict enough to like, “Alright, I’m gonna do this,” and they get really intense about it, and then they learn from that experience.

0:45:47.5 Jordan Syatt: So, going back to the sugar cravings, sometimes having just one night where you say, “Don’t do it tonight,” can be enough of a catalyst to just prove to them, “I can really do it.” The ultimate goal is moderation. But that’s an advanced variation. Moderation is an advanced form of dieting. Being a flexible dieter is the ultimate dieter that we want to become. And just like… Ideally, I want people to be able to do a full ass-to-grass squat. I’m not starting off with that for people. I’m not starting them off with a ass-to-grass overhead squat. Starting off with a goblet squat to a box. So let’s start off with different variation and progressions to see what works well for people.

0:46:35.4 Michael Vacanti: Excellent point for people listening and especially for coaches working with clients who are beginners in their understanding of nutrition and nutrition for fat loss specifically. So, very well-outlined.

0:46:50.5 Jordan Syatt: Thanks, brother.

0:46:53.5 Michael Vacanti: Completely changing topics. [laughter]

0:46:57.4 Jordan Syatt: J-ing it up. [laughter]

0:47:00.5 Michael Vacanti: Well, I was gonna bring this up in this episode. My whole Travis Kelce rant in the last episode?

0:47:08.1 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:47:08.6 Michael Vacanti: No one cares. No one…

0:47:09.6 Jordan Syatt: Was I right?

0:47:11.1 Jordan Syatt: So we recorded that on Saturday the 23rd. Today is Tuesday the 26th. And all anyone cares about is the fact that Travis Kelce is dating Taylor Swift and that she went to his game, and then he got a touchdown, and there’s Swifties who like football, and there’s jokes on TikTok about “Taylor Swift put Travis Kelce on the map. Say this to your husband. It’ll be funny. Prank him.” No one cares at all that he did a sponsored post for Pfizer. And so I’m just completely off the mark on my understanding of human beings amd human behavior and culture. And this isn’t related to… It still blows my mind that… It’s like, “Here’s your code to promote this supplement.” “Here’s your Audible discount code.” Like, “Hey, influencer, use this Amazon affiliate link.” All of these things make sense to me. I don’t even like those things, meaning when I see someone promote their new supplement code after for years they’ve been saying they don’t like supplements, I’m like, “You’re a sellout, you’re a shill.” In my mind, I’m like, I lose respect.

0:48:20.8 Michael Vacanti: So for someone to do that for big pharma and someone to do that on his level really hit me in some type of way, unrelated to thoughts about vaccines. But it was just completely wild to me. Apparently, no one cares. And so, I don’t know. And maybe this is an anti-capitalistic sentiment that I’m developing, but the thought that a big pharma company can pay a celebrity to promote a medical procedure, it’s wild. It doesn’t seem like it should make sense. And maybe I’m wrong. But the culture has spoken and no one cares about that. And people only care about Taylor Swift.

0:49:10.4 Jordan Syatt: It’s crazy ’cause I’ve seen a lot of it. My feed is filled with stuff about Taylor being at the game. I saw that Travis Kelce’s jersey sales went up 400%. Now he is in the top 10 jersey sales of the year, or whatever it is. People are buying his jersey. Which is crazy that this… It wasn’t a mistake that this happened days after he made that post. And literally, I think probably the most famous woman in the world, most famous person in the world is now in his stands cheering him on. I would imagine it was like, “Hey, we need to get people back on his side. Can we get Taylor to come out and show public support for him?” And immediately, I haven’t seen a whisper about any of that stuff, which is just… It’s hilarious. It’s so much that I forgot about it until you just brought it up.

0:50:11.6 Michael Vacanti: Yeah. So I’m clueless.

0:50:15.3 Jordan Syatt: ‘Cause after the podcast, you’re like, “Bro, football fans are a different breed.”

0:50:19.6 Michael Vacanti: I know.

0:50:19.8 Jordan Syatt: We’re not gonna… [laughter]

0:50:20.1 Michael Vacanti: I wasn’t making this sound like… That wasn’t me. That was… Maybe it’s partly me. But I just assumed… Yeah. I was so far off. I can’t believe it.

0:50:35.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s crazy.

0:50:36.3 Michael Vacanti: Will you at least give me this that… Or here, let me… Have you ever seen a giant big pharma company use a major celebrity as an influencer as their marketing campaign? Is that just the direction that we’re going?

0:50:57.3 Jordan Syatt: I know I’ve seen celebrities in commercials for various drugs before, for sure. There is…

0:51:04.5 Michael Vacanti: Really?

0:51:05.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:51:05.9 Michael Vacanti: I can’t think of one. When I think of like a Viagra commercial… Oh, and then this. I just see a random good-looking 64-year-old dude who’s holding hands with his wife on a swing and it’s like, “If you have a boner longer than nine hours, contact your doctor.”

0:51:16.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I see… Oh, no. I know for sure.

0:51:20.8 Michael Vacanti: You’ve seen celebrities in those?

0:51:22.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, 100%. I know for a fact, ’cause I remember I had a conversation, I forget who it was with, but I remember seeing… You’re gonna laugh. I don’t know the name of the football player. Maybe it was Joe Namath or something, on one of these crazy commercial… And don’t take my word for it. I just threw a name out there. I don’t know who the fuck it is. But I remember seeing retired sports players in some of these Viagra commercials, Cialis commercials, whatever it is, and it being because the people who were now at that age watched those players when they were younger.

0:52:00.8 Michael Vacanti: I’m with you to an extent. I remember Frank Thomas promoting over-the-counter test boosters. I saw that. But supplements and pharma are still like…

0:52:10.4 Jordan Syatt: Are different.

0:52:10.6 Michael Vacanti: One is regulated, one is unregulated. Yeah. And supplements, I’m with you. I don’t know that I’ve seen it from big pharma.

0:52:19.2 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know. I’m not sure. It wouldn’t surprise me. But I thought that I had, but I could be wrong.

0:52:28.6 Michael Vacanti: Okay. I’m just just lost in my own little world here. Is this like, I hate Athletic Greens, but everyone else likes it? Or everyone else is fine with it and I’m like, this is garbage marketing?

0:52:42.7 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I hate on Athletic Greens every day.

0:52:45.1 Michael Vacanti: No, no, no, no, but like… Come on.

0:52:49.0 Jordan Syatt: What? I don’t understand… [laughter]

0:52:56.1 Michael Vacanti: I actually hate discount code life.

0:52:58.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, oh, oh, got it. Okay. Yeah.

0:53:01.9 Michael Vacanti: Is that what is blinding me on this?

0:53:05.0 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:53:06.8 Michael Vacanti: So why am I so far off of the pulse of culture?

0:53:09.6 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think you’re… I think it’s just that you disagree with it so much and we’re so disappointed by it, and you simultaneously don’t give a shit about celebrity culture, whereas, unfortunately, a lot of people really do give a shit about celebrity culture. And so I think it was… You know what I’m thinking about? I was thinking about… Remember in the Hunger Games, those amazing, amazing movies, when you have these young kids who are going to fight to the death and they’re going on this train, and then they go in front of these people for this big show, and the people at the show, all the viewers just lose their mind over these stories that are told, this fake love story that’s made up. And I’m not saying Travis Kelce and Taylor are a fake love story. I don’t know. But the actual viewers, the citizens of the city are just enamored in this very ugly… There’s a very ugly, disgusting competition that’s happening right in front of them, but they overlook it because of the charade that’s being put in front of them, the odd celebrity culture.

0:54:31.3 Jordan Syatt: And I think that’s one of the geniuses of that series, that book series turned into a movie. It’s like, that’s real life. That’s real life. And this was the perfect example of that, where I think most people are blinded, or they’re not paying as close attention, whereas for you, it’s it’s top of mind. “I can’t believe that happened. I’m looking at things from a moral perspective. I’m looking at things from, should this be happening?” Not just, did this happen, but should it happen? How is it being allowed to happen? And how are people so quick to forget? I don’t think most people are thinking on that level, which is… There were a couple of people in The Hunger Games who were real fighters, and… Like for example, Katniss’s, her designer, the guy who made all of her costumes and her clothing, he was a real fighter. He didn’t like what was going on. He participated in it but only because he had to just so that he could help her out, and of course then he was later killed off. I don’t think you’re off the pulse. I just think you’re so much more invested in this than a lot of other people.

0:55:43.0 Michael Vacanti: I’m Lenny Kravitz and I’m gonna get killed? Is that what you’re saying? [laughter]

0:55:47.1 Jordan Syatt: I forgot that was Lenny Kravitz. No, you’re not gonna be killed. You really care. And you really care. The difference is Lenny Kravitz played the game. You don’t play the game. Does that make sense? It’s like he…

0:56:01.3 Michael Vacanti: Maybe I do though. Maybe I am playing…

0:56:05.6 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think you’re playing the game.

0:56:05.7 Michael Vacanti: Maybe I’m still playing it a little bit too much.

0:56:07.4 Jordan Syatt: Alright. Let’s stop playing it then.

0:56:08.5 Michael Vacanti: That’d be good. Okay. Next episode. [laughter] Fitness business mentorship, price is going up very soon. We’ve given seven weeks’ notice on this that may or may not be an exaggeration. So if you wanna get in… Actually, let’s look and see when this episode is going live. This episode is going live on October 17th. So you have 10 days max to jump in before the new price, which is about 500% higher on an annual basis than our current price. We’re making some adjustments within the group. Yeah, we’re really excited.

0:56:54.9 Jordan Syatt: Let’s go. We hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please leave a five-star review, iTunes, Spotify. They’re super helpful. And we hope to see you in the mentorship. Goodbye.