Episode 195: Building Muscle in a Calorie Deficit, How Women Should Train, Unconventional Ways to Grow Your Audience, & More…

0:00:10.0 Mike Vacanti: Hello Jordan.

0:00:12.8 Jordan Syatt: What’s up Michael?

0:00:14.8 Mike Vacanti: You just got back from your favorite city on earth. How was it?

0:00:17.6 Jordan Syatt: It was all right, man. It was all right. It was, uh, it was overwhelming. It’s very different. I hadn’t been back in several years And…

0:00:26.8 Mike Vacanti: We’re talking about New York City, by the way, not actually Jordan’s favorite city, but a city that we have a real affinity towards.

0:00:32.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s interesting. It is, it is the greatest city in the world. It’s not my personal favorite city anymore, but it is objectively the greatest city in the world.

0:00:44.6 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:00:45.4 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think there’s any way around that, but yeah, it was, uh, when I lived there, when we lived there, it was just like, I love the busyness, love the hustle, love the grind. And then, I live in like a little neighborhood now, cul-de-sac, quiet. And now, and then I go back, I’m like, oh my God, this is too much stimulation. I’m not a fan of this anymore. I need to get the hell out of here.

0:01:09.1 Mike Vacanti: You called me, you must have been walking for, I don’t know, 15 minutes. You got to your hotel on Friday and you were there to give a talk at a fitness event, but you got there…

[overlapping conversation]

0:01:19.5 Jordan Syatt: Strong New York, Kenny Santucci. It was a good event. Very good job. Kenny killed it.

0:01:20.8 Mike Vacanti: Cool. And we can even talk about that. I just, uh, when you first landed, you got there, you were walking for like 15 minutes and you called me and, what did you say? Oh, you were like, you’re like, I miss my cul-de-sac. You’re like, I need to be back at my cul-de-sac. And I hear honking in the background. I hear like people yelling and screaming and you’re like, it is so busy. I just need to get back to my cul-de-sac.

0:01:47.7 Jordan Syatt: I’m paranoid. I’m looking over my shoulder every, every like half second, like who’s behind me? What is that? It’s just, and there’s no room or space, like I could see into another hotel room window. I could have reached into that hotel room if I wanted to just like, yeah, it was no space, no room, too many people.

0:02:06.6 Mike Vacanti: That’s something I forgot about that I remember having a strong impact on me when I first moved to the city in 2013 was I could literally reach out the window of my second floor walk up, up in East Harlem and touch the building next to us. Like there was, there was like enough room for you to fall down there and potentially get lost forever and die, but not enough room for anything else to happen.

[laughter]

0:02:31.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Dude, it’s crazy.

0:02:35.0 Mike Vacanti: The event went well though? What’d you talk about?

0:02:37.7 Jordan Syatt: I only had 20 minutes, which was a real downer, so my talk was, my talk was for fitness enthusiasts, not business stuff, which over the last three years I’ve spoken way more about business than I have about fitness. But it was… Basically I was like, okay, I’ve only got 20 minutes. So how do I make this the most impactful 20 minutes that I can? And so I spent the first 10 minutes telling a story ’cause that I think is the best way to make an impact, like rather than just like giving data and numbers and facts, I think telling a story is the best way to actually get people to develop a relationship with you and to really internalize the message that you’re getting across.

0:03:25.8 Mike Vacanti: Was the story about Friendly’s Ice Cream?

0:03:28.1 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no, no. The story was about how I got into wrestling and then how I was able to manipulate my weight on the scale and how essentially when I first got into high school wrestling after… I wrestled since I was eight, but when I got into high school and I had to cut from 112 to 103, I cut like, I had a month to cut from 112 to 103 before the season started and I didn’t know what to do. And so I just ate less, ate more fruits and vegetables, had more protein and I lost four pounds in that month. And for an average of a pound a week is a great rate of progress, but because I had to lose nine pounds by that time, well, four pounds now all of a sudden look terrible. And so then my wrestling coach, he taught me how to just sweat out pounds and pounds of water, not drink after sweating for hours and hours and hours, not eat for a couple of days. And then within a day I had lost the remaining five pounds. So it took me a month to lose four and then a day to lose five.

0:04:39.2 Jordan Syatt: So then I was like, well, why would I eat really dialed and everything for the entire season when I could just eat whatever I wanted and then just before a competition, starve myself, dehydrate myself, and then I’ll be able to make weight. And this was a message around how easily the scale is to manipulate, how dangerous it is to have timelines for your weight loss goals. Like it doesn’t have to happen in a certain timeline. An arbitrary number by an arbitrary date is sort of irrelevant. And so I used that story to get that point across. And then I spent the remainder of my time explaining how to find out your calories, how to find out your protein, how to find out your fiber. And that was it.

0:05:15.9 Mike Vacanti: Nice, bro.

0:05:17.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:05:17.1 Mike Vacanti: Sounds like a good one.

0:05:17.7 Jordan Syatt: Telling a story is always a very good way to get a message across.

0:05:21.3 Mike Vacanti: I like that. I like that story, too. I don’t know that I knew that story.

0:05:25.9 Jordan Syatt: There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Michael. There’s a lot.

[laughter]

0:05:27.7 Mike Vacanti: Is there?

0:05:29.2 Jordan Syatt: Dude, so much. You kidding me?

0:05:32.3 Mike Vacanti: The mansion?

0:05:32.9 Jordan Syatt: No, you know about the mansion.

[laughter]

0:05:38.1 Jordan Syatt: The hypothetical mansion, the dream mansion? No.

0:05:40.8 Mike Vacanti: No, it was a real mansion.

0:05:42.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, I thought you were making a rich joke.

0:05:46.3 Mike Vacanti: No, I’m not making a… Dude, that’s not a joke. You are rich. That’s nothing to joke about.

0:05:48.8 Jordan Syatt: No, you’re rich. You’re way more rich.

0:05:52.3 Mike Vacanti: I’m talking about the mansion that you went to as a kid.

0:05:55.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that was so weird. No one listening knows that story, though.

0:06:00.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s all right. It’s a teaser. It’s a teaser for the future.

0:06:04.5 Jordan Syatt: I was forced to go to this… I didn’t live in a mansion. I was forced to go to this mansion to learn meditation, and I had horrible experiences at this mansion, which is why I don’t like meditation personally. I have trauma around meditation, and now Mike has trauma around meditation.

[laughter]

0:06:21.7 Mike Vacanti: We both do. That’s enough of a teaser for today. Okay. Got a long list. We have a lot, we have a couple of great questions. We have a sale for the Fitness Business Mentorship coming up around Black Friday. We’re probably gonna announce it sometime before Black Friday, so if you want to be first to hear about the sale, jump on the email list. You can do that in the YouTube description or in the show notes of the podcast. You’ll also get a really cool guide, 30 ways to build your online fitness business that Jordan and I put a lot of effort into and that people have really liked, so you can sign up if you wanna be first to hear about the sale here in the next few weeks.

0:07:07.1 Jordan Syatt: Everybody likes it. Everyone says, oh, wow, this is a great guide. Everyone loves it.

[laughter]

0:07:14.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s actually what they say in that voice. That’s uncanny.

[laughter]

0:07:21.5 Jordan Syatt: And I’m writing a book, 12 books. They’ve all done very well. [laughter] Do you know that? Have you seen that video?

0:07:29.8 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:07:30.1 Jordan Syatt: Where you have…

0:07:31.2 Mike Vacanti: Is that a Trump quote?

0:07:31.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s a Trump quote, but it’s probably my favorite video of all time. Someone made this incredible video of you have Obama talking about an incredible raid that the US military conducted, and he’s super professional. He’s like, the United States military conducted a raid last night ending in the destruction of so-and-so, and then you have Trump, and he’s like, beautiful dogs went in, ripped him apart, and he cried. He cried like a dog. I wouldn’t have cried. And then Obama’s like, and then they conduct this operation, and Trump is like, beautiful dogs looking, they’re amazing. They didn’t even, you know, usually you just knock, knock, hello, knock. They just barged right in.

[laughter]

0:08:13.4 Mike Vacanti: I can see how that could be edited to be extremely funny.

0:08:16.0 Jordan Syatt: It was, it’s one of my favorite videos of all time. It’s absolutely incredible. And at the end of it, Obama goes, and I just wanna say thank you to the United States military, and Trump goes, and I’m writing a book.

[laughter]

0:08:32.7 Mike Vacanti: Not at the end of the speech, at the end of the edited clip.

0:08:34.1 Jordan Syatt: At the end of the, yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:08:35.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s, that’s hilarious.

0:08:38.4 Jordan Syatt: It’s absolutely hilarious.

0:08:40.6 Mike Vacanti: What else you got for us?

0:08:43.3 Jordan Syatt: Well, to be a downer, today’s October 7th, one year since October 7th. I know I’m bringing it down, but I had to bring it up. Yeah. It’s crazy. It’s been a year. It’s been the fastest and slowest year of my life, and I’m sure for many others, but yeah, I got an, I told you I got in a big debate in Washington square park the other day, ’cause you were like, go to Washington square park, see what’s going on. And then of course, there were a lot of like, anti-Israel people, and I just like, I couldn’t hold my tongue. I just couldn’t do it and just went off.

0:09:17.3 Mike Vacanti: Jordan goes to New York City and starts like treating it like it’s small town Texas, and just striking up conversations left and right. You’re like standing at a street corner and this kid’s talking to his dad and you like interject, you’re like, oh, this is, he likes the airplanes. You like airplanes, buddy? Like you get to Washington square park. There’s like people debating. You just kind of sneak in there like, yeah.

0:09:38.5 Jordan Syatt: Well, yeah. Someone says something that’s factually incorrect, I just like, nope, you’re wrong and just like launched. I just launched.

0:09:46.6 Mike Vacanti: I had not even realized that it’s October 7th. That makes a lot of sense.

0:09:52.0 Jordan Syatt: What makes a lot of sense?

0:09:55.5 Mike Vacanti: I feel like you weren’t in the best mood today.

[laughter]

0:10:00.2 Jordan Syatt: It makes, makes a lot of sense now, the day.

0:10:02.9 Mike Vacanti: I hadn’t put two and two together and now I’m understanding, now I get it. Yeah, man. Really sad.

0:10:10.0 Jordan Syatt: You were coming at me today. You were just blazing.

0:10:15.1 Mike Vacanti: Dude, when you call looking for coins, when the extrovert goes, I’m under stimulated, who in my phone book is gonna give me the best stimulation? Sometimes that’s what you get. When you go, did you ever go trick or treating as a kid, Jor?

0:10:29.7 Jordan Syatt: No, actually I… Yes, of course I went trick or treating every…

0:10:32.6 Mike Vacanti: Cool. All tight, so you’re going first house, you get like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. You’re pumped. Next house, Peanut M&Ms. Like you’re feeling…

0:10:41.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, that’s way better. I love Peanut M&Ms.

0:10:44.2 Mike Vacanti: The third house, I don’t know, a little mini Milky Way bar and a mini Snickers bar. The next house went big and did the full size candy bars. You get a full size Butterfinger. You’re just feeling it.

0:10:54.6 Jordan Syatt: Sour Skittles.

0:10:56.6 Mike Vacanti: Maybe you’re not a chocolate guy. Maybe you’re a Sour Skittles guy. Yeah. You get all your favorite candies. And then the 23rd house, you know, they might give you an apple or they might give you a nickel or they might give you a little veggie of carrots and celery, or once in a while that’s what you get when you’re looking for coins and making phone calls and looking for coins almost every day, you’re gonna get coins, but sometimes I don’t have any coins and I’m trying to do some work and you just come out, guns are blazing. You just get celery and a toothbrush sometimes. And that’s a bad beat. And unfortunately…

0:11:32.5 Jordan Syatt: I got poison celery and a toothbrush.

[laughter]

0:11:35.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s a lie. Outright lie. Unfortunately, it appears you got celery and a toothbrush on October 7th, which isn’t good.

0:11:44.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, it’s okay, man. It’s all right. You must not be on social media today.

0:11:51.1 Mike Vacanti: No, I haven’t. I haven’t been for a little bit.

0:11:51.6 Jordan Syatt: You haven’t been scrolling?

0:11:52.8 Mike Vacanti: Have not been scrolling.

0:11:53.9 Jordan Syatt: You had a scrolling phase.

0:11:54.7 Mike Vacanti: Instagram was amazing, but I think I churned through all the best content over there in like five days or something.

0:12:00.2 Jordan Syatt: That must’ve been a wild five days.

[laughter]

0:12:03.9 Mike Vacanti: No, honestly, this time of year, what occupies more of my leisurely attention is the NFL, and watching the Vikings yesterday, there were pretty good football games on yesterday. So just…

0:12:18.3 Jordan Syatt: 3-0 now, right?

0:12:18.9 Mike Vacanti: Chilling. 5-0, Vikings are 5-0.

0:12:23.3 Jordan Syatt: They’ve already had five games. Geez. I thought it was three. 5-0, that’s crazy. Vikings are on a tear.

0:12:27.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, they actually are. They didn’t even play very good at all. The defense was really good. They beat the Jets over in London and, uh, yeah.

0:12:36.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s actually really genius that the NFL is bringing it overseas just to get wider viewership. It’s actually a really, really smart idea.

0:12:44.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Trying to expand the league, London, Brazil. There was a game down there, uh, second game of the season I wanna say, but anyway, yes, I’m not consuming as much on social media these days, neither are you. You just create.

0:13:00.0 Jordan Syatt: No, I consume, I consume way more than I should.

0:13:01.8 Mike Vacanti: When you say more than you should, how much should you be consuming?

0:13:07.9 Jordan Syatt: If I’m consuming realistically, I mean, here’s what I’ll do. I’ll allocate, I’ll allocate 15 minutes of leisurely consuming as acceptable. Like a day.

0:13:18.7 Mike Vacanti: Oh, wow. That’s not, that’s not very much.

0:13:20.1 Jordan Syatt: If that’s not that much, then that’s really, it is a bad sign.

[overlapping conversation]

0:13:24.5 Mike Vacanti: Society is not an issue?

0:13:26.5 Jordan Syatt: For you to be like, that’s not that much, that’d be like saying someone having 1500 calories a day of sugar isn’t that much.

0:13:34.7 Mike Vacanti: Well, if you look at how many minutes are in a day and then you think 15 minutes out of the day, it’s just not very, it’s like 1% of the day.

0:13:42.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. But think about how much content you can see in 15 minutes on Instagram. Like there’s so many, if it was 15 minutes of YouTube, that’s fine. Like that’s nothing. Like I would say two hours of YouTube long form, two hours of podcasts, but like 15 minutes of scrolling, I think is, oh my gosh, dude, there’s just, and I do more than that. I definitely do more than that. What I would say is…

0:14:11.1 Mike Vacanti: 15 would be…

0:14:11.8 Jordan Syatt: Like, I do a significant amount of research of like looking at other content, trying to figure out, okay, this did well in a different industry. Let me try this. And in the fitness industry, like I do a fair amount of that. And if you look at my text messages to myself, I’m constantly texting myself, sending myself ideas and looking at other strategies that people use. So a lot of it is research or R&D, but like, um, a lot of it is also just, I get sucked into the vortex. There’s this one video. I must’ve been served this video 200 times and I have to watch it every time, multiple times every time it comes up, there’s a video of this guy who’s running into a garage and he’s gonna close the garage door. But apparently the time before when… He tries to close it and then run back out of the garage, but when he tried to close it before the sensor caught it and the garage went back up. So now he closes the garage door and as he’s running, he’s trying to jump over the sensor and he smashes his head into the garage door. And everyone in the car who’s filming is losing it laughing. It’s like top best video of all time. And I get this video pretty frequently from different accounts and I just, I can’t help but just watch that over and over and over again. I’m breathless every time I watch it. Have you seen that video?

0:15:34.0 Mike Vacanti: I did. And now I’m trying to, I’m wondering, did you send me that recently and that’s why I saw it, or did I just see it randomly?

0:15:39.9 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think I sent it to you recently. I might’ve sent it to you at some point. That’s like my all time favorite video. I should watch that video when I wake up every day and just put me in a good mood. It’s just, it’s extraordinary.

0:15:50.8 Mike Vacanti: I don’t understand how that happens.

0:15:52.9 Jordan Syatt: How the guy smashes his head?

0:15:55.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Like…

0:15:55.9 Jordan Syatt: He was just totally unaware, just like he didn’t even try and duck it looked like, there was just, yeah, it was really bad. Smashed himself. And you think he wrecked the door too. It was incredible.

0:16:07.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Cause he came with speed. Like he was, he was moving. You gotta get low. That guy might need to do a little mobility. He might’ve been a little too upright. He might not have had…

0:16:18.5 Jordan Syatt: He does not have your mobility. That’s for sure.

0:16:20.9 Mike Vacanti: That is for sure. That is for sure. All right, 15 minutes a day. That’s a good number.

0:16:26.8 Jordan Syatt: I think it’s a good amount of just leisure scrolling. And there doesn’t, you can, there are other leisure activities you can do, but leisure scrolling on Instagram is you get fed so much in 15 minutes nowadays. It’s just, that’s enough.

0:16:39.9 Mike Vacanti: All right. What do we have here?

0:16:41.2 Jordan Syatt: We have any good questions you want to start with?

0:16:43.7 Mike Vacanti: Latest body scan says losing muscle and fat, how to minimize muscle loss.

0:16:51.1 Jordan Syatt: You wanna start?

0:16:54.1 Mike Vacanti: Sure. So I assume because this person said scan, I assume this is a DEXA scan. Although there’s a chance that it’s something like an InBody scan, which are much more popular. If your InBody scan says that at two random points in time you have lost muscle and fat, or really, if it tells you anything at all other than your weight, I would throw the piece of paper in the garbage because an InBody scan isn’t good for anything other than telling you your scale weight, right? All of the other metrics, which are, the bioelectrical impedance method is used to derive those numbers like body fat percentage. It’s not an accurate way of estimating body fat. There’s an argument that can be made that with high sample size over a long period of time, you’re gonna get a decent trend line using an InBody. I’m not a fan.

0:17:51.9 Mike Vacanti: I would rather you take waist measurements plus scale weight over time rather than InBody body fat plus scale weight over time. Let’s assume that this is a DEXA scan. There’s still going to be variance over time, based on factors like hydration, food and gut, right? Like lean mass on a DEXA scan is weight minus fat mass. And there are many things that are gonna count as lean mass that aren’t actual muscle tissue, water being the big one that can vary within a short amount of time. So it’s important not to freak out or put too much stock in two single points in time. Oh my gosh. These two scans are eight weeks apart. And my second scan says this and then change everything. That’s not enough data for you to go change everything. All of that being said, let’s assume that someone is losing muscle and fat, what are some things… What’s the question? How to minimize muscle loss? There are three big ones that come to mind for me, getting enough protein, strength training with intensity, and three, and I’ve changed my mind slightly on this, but being in too large of a calorie deficit/being in too large of a calorie deficit for too much time is a third one, and so I’ll let you take it from there, otherwise I can dive in on any of those three.

0:19:30.0 Jordan Syatt: I was just thinking, slight shift in the direction, do you remember the training advice for fat loss when we were kids?

0:19:44.3 Mike Vacanti: When we were kids? Yeah, high reps, baby.

0:19:44.9 Jordan Syatt: When it was like high rep, low weight…

0:19:46.8 Mike Vacanti: High reps, feel the burn.

0:19:47.5 Jordan Syatt: Pump work. It’s just… It’s really funny, and I’ve spent time wondering where that came from, and I have a feeling that that came from like roided out bodybuilders who were doing this pump work when really anything would have worked for them, and they were just like, “Yeah, I’m tired from being in a calorie deficit, and we’re just gonna feel the pump, so you don’t wanna lift too heavy when you’re cutting, so you’re just gonna do this pump work instead,” and really anything would work for them, but now we have so much more science and data on how to actually build muscle in a deficit or minimize muscle loss, which really comes down to keeping intensity high and lifting heavy while you’re in a deficit, and that might mean reducing the volume, like total sets, instead of doing three sets, you could do one or two sets, but keeping the reps between six to 12, and 12 being really on the higher end, but six to 12 heavy as opposed to what we grew up with, which was like 10 to 25…

0:20:55.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:20:56.5 Jordan Syatt: Was what you would be doing in a cut, which I think, dude, that’s brutal.

0:21:00.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:21:01.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s brutal, glycogen depleted, doing all that, and I think it’s more likely to lead to more muscle loss. So… Unless you’re keeping intensity high throughout that, which in a deficit, especially after a long time, is just unbelievably difficult.

0:21:16.6 Mike Vacanti: And it’s just so hard, if you’re doing the same number of hard sets, like say you’re doing 15 hard sets in a training session, it’s so mentally and physically, but mostly mentally exhausting if you were to make those all in the 20 to 30 rep range. Like imagine doing 15 sets of 20 to 30 and you’re taking all of them within one to two reps of failure.

0:21:40.6 Jordan Syatt: Dude.

0:21:41.3 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely brutal.

0:21:43.6 Jordan Syatt: Dude.

0:21:45.5 Mike Vacanti: Versus, like you said, having most of your training in the six to 12 rep range.

0:21:50.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:21:50.7 Mike Vacanti: Now, does that mean you can’t do some doubles, triples, sets of four, sets of five? No, you absolutely can. Does that not mean you can’t do some sets of 15, some sets of 20, you absolutely can, but aiming for the bulk of your work to be in that six to 12 range makes a lot of sense.

0:22:06.4 Jordan Syatt: Also, I would say, having those doubles or triples and also having that 15, 20, 25 rep range, now we’re getting into more of a performance-based program, whereas if I’m working with someone, like if your goal is just straight up muscle growth, I might not have doubles and triples…

0:22:21.6 Mike Vacanti: Or retaining… Yeah, yeah.

0:22:25.4 Jordan Syatt: Or maintaining, yeah, or like, and might not go 15, 20s, but like if I’m more, looking for a more well-rounded program that incorporates maximal strength, that incorporates explosive power, rate of force development, that incorporates joint, tendon, ligament health, that incorporates like… Then that’s when I’m adding those different rep ranges in because there are benefits to all of it. But if it’s just pure muscle growth, I’ll happily stick between six to 12 reps and like it’s just not a well-rounded program, but some people don’t want well-rounded results, they just have a focus and that’s what the focus is.

0:22:53.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. And if they’re a psychopath, I mean that in kind of a good way where…

0:23:00.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, in an endearing way, yeah.

0:23:00.1 Mike Vacanti: They’re going to do whatever you program them, and they don’t need the psychological stimulation of mixing in some higher rep pump stuff, mixing in some heavy stuff, yeah. But, yeah, you make a good point, if that’s what… If you are simply optimizing for gaining muscle at all costs or not losing muscle mass in a deficit at all costs.

0:23:24.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, and then you said something about not staying in a deficit too long, which I think we should talk about that ’cause I get questions on this all the time, and then I’ll get someone who is 50% body fat and being like, “Well, I don’t wanna be in a deficit for too long.” I’m like, “Well, let’s hold your horses here.”

0:23:41.9 Mike Vacanti: So… So…

0:23:43.3 Jordan Syatt: “You could be in there for a while.” I…

0:23:43.4 Mike Vacanti: But not being in a large deficit for too long.

0:23:48.3 Jordan Syatt: But even then, depending on the person, and obviously the outliers, like someone who has lot to lose, like for… My brother, for example, he lost like 150 pounds, and he was in a pretty large deficit for a year and a half, which is way longer than someone who… If someone they’re like… If a woman is like 22% body fat, or for guys, 15% body fat, now all of a… Yeah, you don’t wanna be in a large deficit for a long period of time, that’s… You’re gonna be wasting away pretty quick.

0:24:14.9 Mike Vacanti: Not to mention, if you have 200 pounds to lose, retaining every drop of lean mass shouldn’t be a top priority.

0:24:24.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Correct.

0:24:26.0 Mike Vacanti: Because if you have that much weight to lose to be healthy, like if you lose 10% more muscle mass over the course of time, isn’t gonna make a difference, what matters most is that you can actually lose that body fat in a way that you can keep it off forever. And that usually doesn’t mean completely optimizing for all muscle retention in the process.

0:24:49.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. 100%.

0:24:50.0 Mike Vacanti: And, yeah, getting enough protein has been beaten to death in the industry, but it is… If you go from not focusing on protein whatsoever, so let’s say you end up eating like 0.2 grams per pound of body weight…

0:25:06.6 Jordan Syatt: Lean mass. Yeah.

0:25:08.4 Mike Vacanti: And you take it to someone who’s very focused on doing whatever they can to maximize muscle retention, and so this person isn’t gonna be that overweight when they start their cut, and so we’ll say 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of body weight, awesome. Or even less than that, you could say 0.7 to 1 lean mass, and there’s gonna be a big difference between that and barely eating any protein in terms of how much muscle you retain.

0:25:36.5 Jordan Syatt: What’d you eat today for protein?

0:25:36.6 Mike Vacanti: What did I eat today for protein? I woke up, I had… I’m all out of Cocoa Cereal-flavored whey protein powders so I had…

0:25:47.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh right, Legion has great Cocoa Cereal flavor, I like that one a lot.

0:25:50.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s the best by far.

0:25:53.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s the best.

0:25:53.2 Mike Vacanti: It’s so good. I don’t know how that Mike Matthews guy does it, he just… He must have the best food scientists in the world working over there because that’s the best tasting protein powder I think I’ve ever had.

0:26:03.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s really good.

0:26:04.5 Mike Vacanti: I went with the Fruity Cereal, a little over a scoop with almonds, and I actually had a, this like frozen waffle, it’s like 20 carb, four fat, and I sliced up two-thirds of a banana and put a bunch of blueberries on it.

0:26:24.4 Jordan Syatt: Nice.

0:26:24.5 Mike Vacanti: And then I had a turkey sandwich right here before the podcast.

0:26:29.9 Jordan Syatt: So where are you at?

0:26:32.1 Mike Vacanti: Let’s see. 25, 32. 35, 36. Not a ton. Over 80.

0:26:41.3 Jordan Syatt: Okay. You got some work to do for tonight.

0:26:44.6 Mike Vacanti: Got some work to do tonight, I’ve been enjoying these Halo Tops. I’ve realized…

0:26:48.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, they’re so good. They’re so good.

0:26:51.3 Mike Vacanti: They… I don’t know what Halo Top did in the last few years…

0:26:54.3 Jordan Syatt: Dude, they fixed their fucking method, that’s for sure.

0:26:56.6 Mike Vacanti: Unbelievable.

0:26:58.5 Jordan Syatt: Dude.

0:26:58.7 Mike Vacanti: And not for… The proteins, whatever, you’re getting 18 grams of protein in a ice cream, here’s what it is for me, if you give me a candy bar, if you give me a chocolate chip cookie, if you give me any kind of cookie, like most dessert foods, I don’t want 300 calories of them, I either don’t want it at all, or I want to eat it until I don’t feel good. That’s how I am with most dessert foods. With pretty much any ice cream, I can eat ice cream in a moderate amount and feel great and be done, for whatever reason. The Halo Top, you get the volume of a full pint, for 360 calories, you’re getting 18 grams of protein with it, I have no digestive distress, I know they’re a little higher in sugar alcohols, erythritol, so some people might not feel good having too much of that digestive-ly, I feel amazing digestive-ly…

0:27:46.6 Jordan Syatt: I have no issue with it.

0:27:48.2 Mike Vacanti: And when I’m… And when I’m done, when I’m done eating it, I don’t want more.

0:27:53.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:27:53.9 Mike Vacanti: I’m good. So…

0:27:53.9 Jordan Syatt: And it’s delicious, like it’s creamy, like the cookies and cream and the cookie dough are wildly, wildly good. I don’t know when they shifted their system or whatever the scientific method that they use to make these things, but whoever did it is a genius, because it’s fucking outrageous.

0:28:17.2 Mike Vacanti: Dude, not only the texture of the ice cream, but the delicious goodies within the ice cream.

0:28:26.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:28:27.1 Mike Vacanti: So there’s one that is a, I think it’s brownie pieces in there, which is really good.

0:28:33.8 Jordan Syatt: No, I haven’t had that one yet. Geez.

0:28:34.5 Mike Vacanti: I just bought it, it’s a chocolate caramel brownie.

0:28:39.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, man. Okay.

0:28:40.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s not even the best one, there’s another one that’s chocolate icing cake, I wanna say.

0:28:45.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow.

0:28:46.6 Mike Vacanti: Chocolate ice cream cake, I believe that’s the flavor. It has icing in it that is… It’s insane, I can’t believe it’s 360 calories for the pint.

0:28:57.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, my favorite is the Oreo, the Oreo cookie, I think is what it’s called, and then the chocolate chip cookie dough is just… Oh, no, cookies and cream, cookies and cream and chocolate chip cookie dough are just… They’re insane.

0:29:11.1 Mike Vacanti: Chocolate chip cookie dough was always awesome with the little pieces of cookie dough in it.

0:29:15.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:29:17.3 Mike Vacanti: And the fats are reasonable too.

0:29:17.3 Jordan Syatt: People have been talking about their Ninja Creamis, and they’re like, “Why don’t you just get a Ninja Creami?” And I’m like… And I mean, that’s great, but also like I could just… I could have a Halo Top, and I don’t have to make it myself. And the Ninja Creamis, they look great, they look awesome, but with two kids and craziness schedule, I know it doesn’t take that much time, but I’m also like, I’d rather just have this fucking Halo Top. The Ninja Creami, some of these things look amazing, but the Halo Top is really freaking good.

[laughter]

0:29:46.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s so much better than it used to be, and yeah, convenient, you don’t need to wash anything, you don’t need to do any dishes, it’s… I’m with you.

0:29:53.6 Jordan Syatt: Did you ever have Arctic Chill in 2014?

0:29:56.8 Mike Vacanti: Unfortunately I did.

0:29:58.1 Jordan Syatt: Or Arctic Ice or…

0:30:00.4 Mike Vacanti: Whatever it was called.

0:30:00.5 Jordan Syatt: Those were so bad.

[laughter]

0:30:02.4 Mike Vacanti: Disgusting. They were awful.

0:30:06.5 Jordan Syatt: Those were so bad. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Those are absolutely horrible. They’ve really improved the formula since then.

0:30:14.9 Mike Vacanti: In fairness, weren’t they like 35 calories for a pint?

0:30:20.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:30:20.7 Mike Vacanti: Or weren’t they like…

0:30:22.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

[laughter]

0:30:22.6 Mike Vacanti: But like didn’t have anything in them, and they didn’t have artificial sweetener either, it was… They were really flavorless.

0:30:29.3 Jordan Syatt: They were… It was, you were just basically eating ice.

0:30:32.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:30:32.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. But it would fill you up. It would fill you.

[laughter]

0:30:37.5 Mike Vacanti: Old school dieting. Yeah.

0:30:43.8 Jordan Syatt: I saw someone eating a rice cake the other day in New York, and they were really…

0:30:49.8 Mike Vacanti: Hang on…

0:30:49.9 Jordan Syatt: Savoring it…

0:30:50.0 Mike Vacanti: Hang on, you know what we should do?

0:30:50.5 Jordan Syatt: What?

0:30:50.8 Mike Vacanti: We should make a list of things that trigger Jordan, because on it, I’m gonna put, number one, rice cakes, and number two, loading plates onto a bar, are definitely in the top eight.

0:31:02.3 Jordan Syatt: You know, it’s funny, loading plates onto a bar really infuriates me, it’s just really annoying. The rice cakes, I don’t like it when people pretend like they’re delicious, like come on, let’s use that word more sparingly and accurately. But I have more empathy for this individual that I saw eating the rice cake because I feel like she’s in a real bad part or a bad way, because she was savoring every bite of this rice cake. And it wasn’t even one of the flavored ones, it wasn’t even like the Red Pepper ones, or any of the better ones.

0:31:40.2 Mike Vacanti: Was this at the fitness event?

0:31:41.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it was at the fitness event.

0:31:44.1 Mike Vacanti: So she was quite lean?

0:31:46.8 Jordan Syatt: She was super lean, and she’s holding on to it, and trying to make it last for as long as possible, like I know, I’ve been there, I’ve been there, but I was like, “Oh, gosh.” It’s just… It’s…

0:32:01.1 Mike Vacanti: Maybe she was competing.

0:32:03.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, there were a lot of competitors there.

0:32:03.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:32:03.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, who knows, maybe she… Who knows, either way…

0:32:04.8 Mike Vacanti: Whole food.

0:32:05.6 Jordan Syatt: I mean, there are a lot of people who competed who regret it. Either way, I just, I was like, “Oh man, that sucks.”

0:32:11.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:32:11.4 Jordan Syatt: I know that phase…

0:32:13.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s not a fun…

0:32:13.8 Jordan Syatt: I’ve been there, I’ve been there, it’s a terrible phase to be in.

0:32:15.4 Mike Vacanti: Not a fun place to be.

0:32:17.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:32:18.4 Mike Vacanti: But I will push back slightly on your rice cake hate. Different people have different taste preferences.

0:32:24.8 Jordan Syatt: No one prefers… All right, here… I’ll give you the one exception in which a rice cake is a really good option. It’s a great vehicle for texture.

0:32:37.1 Mike Vacanti: For other things? Agreed.

0:32:38.6 Jordan Syatt: It can be a great vehicle if you wanna add some texture, some low calorie crunch, fantastic, it’s a valid tool. But in no circumstance can anybody say that it is delicious or that they’re amazing, or that you would prefer it over any other legitimate carbohydrate source, like it’s just, it’s not real. You can’t… Don’t even try.

0:33:11.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, first of all, I’m not in a rice…

0:33:11.3 Jordan Syatt: I don’t accept it, and they make a mess. They are so…

0:33:13.9 Mike Vacanti: They’re messy.

0:33:14.8 Jordan Syatt: Fucking messy.

0:33:15.3 Mike Vacanti: I’m not a…

0:33:15.3 Jordan Syatt: Do it in your car, good luck, you’re gonna find it in 10 years. It’s the worst.

0:33:20.3 Mike Vacanti: I’m not a rice cake guy, but I’m gonna steelman the other side of this because I think you’re wrong.

0:33:25.7 Jordan Syatt: Steelman it.

0:33:26.6 Mike Vacanti: I’ve just seen…

0:33:27.0 Jordan Syatt: No, I’m not.

0:33:28.3 Mike Vacanti: Enough… I’ve seen enough people on the Internet disagree with you who like rice cakes to know that there are people who really like rice cakes. You…

0:33:35.9 Jordan Syatt: No, they’re not people who are right in the head, these are people who are savoring every bite of their rice cake, and they’re defending it.

0:33:42.6 Mike Vacanti: Here’s what I know, I know there are foods that you really like, that your palate likes, that I don’t like at all, and so the inverse of that has to be true.

0:33:52.6 Jordan Syatt: It is not objectively true that rice cakes are delicious or amazing or great…

0:34:00.2 Mike Vacanti: There’s no…

0:34:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Objectively.

0:34:01.7 Mike Vacanti: Taste is a subjective phenomenon…

0:34:04.0 Jordan Syatt: No, there’s…

0:34:04.1 Mike Vacanti: That varies from person to person.

0:34:05.9 Jordan Syatt: You know how there is objective right and wrong, good and bad in the world?

0:34:11.2 Mike Vacanti: I… Do I know that? Yes.

0:34:15.0 Jordan Syatt: Do you know that? Yeah.

0:34:15.2 Mike Vacanti: I think I taught you that in 2017. [chuckle]

0:34:16.2 Jordan Syatt: You did teach me that. And objectively rice cakes, objectively bad.

0:34:25.2 Mike Vacanti: All right, Jordan doesn’t like rice cakes, I’m over here stuck defending them when I don’t really like them either, I can’t remember the last time I ate a rice cake.

[laughter]

0:34:34.9 Jordan Syatt: You don’t even like them.

0:34:35.0 Mike Vacanti: I don’t really like them, but I know that someone could. I know someone could.

0:34:41.5 Jordan Syatt: Not really, not unless they… No. They don’t, they don’t actually, and one day when they’re like 90, or hopefully sooner, they’re gonna be like, “Yeah, I didn’t actually like those, I’m just… I was just having… “

0:34:53.3 Mike Vacanti: I like them for the macros. And…

0:34:56.0 Jordan Syatt: So you don’t actually like them.

0:34:58.1 Mike Vacanti: Well, I don’t eat… They’re… Look, they’re not something that I eat. I can’t remember the last time I had a rice cake, you’ve probably eaten a rice cake more recently that I have.

0:35:05.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I’ve done taste tests on Instagram, and I’m glad to crunch them up as like a low calorie addition.

0:35:16.1 Mike Vacanti: I wouldn’t even do that, I’d rather not have them, to be honest, but I know people like them.

0:35:20.8 Jordan Syatt: And that is my point.

0:35:20.9 Mike Vacanti: I know that people like them.

0:35:22.1 Jordan Syatt: And that is my point.

[laughter]

0:35:27.6 Mike Vacanti: All I know is that Jordan could eat like… Jordan could eat a tomato like an Apple, and I…

0:35:33.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’ve done it.

0:35:35.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, and I could not, because that would not taste good for me, different people have different taste preferences.

0:35:41.6 Jordan Syatt: We have very different palates, like for example, you were explaining the icing cake ice cream, and I hate cake, like I don’t like cakes, I…

0:35:49.5 Mike Vacanti: It doesn’t taste like cake, like it… It’s a bad title. It’s not cake.

[laughter]

0:35:56.7 Jordan Syatt: What is it?

0:35:58.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s ice cream with small kind of chunks of what feel like brownie, although that’s probably the quote unquote “cake”.

0:36:05.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s amazing. Yeah, that’s amazing.

0:36:07.0 Mike Vacanti: But what’s really good about it is the little streaks of icing are sweet and very good.

0:36:13.8 Jordan Syatt: You love sweet, you like sweet.

0:36:16.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you’re a fried chicken guy.

0:36:16.9 Jordan Syatt: I like… Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:36:18.5 Mike Vacanti: Pizza.

0:36:19.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:36:19.8 Mike Vacanti: Have we told the story of when you and I were walking around downtown Dallas?

[laughter]

0:36:24.5 Jordan Syatt: No. I don’t think so.

0:36:28.9 Mike Vacanti: We didn’t tell that publicly?

0:36:30.3 Jordan Syatt: You tell the story. This is like 2021 or something? 2022?

0:36:36.7 Mike Vacanti: I think this is within… I feel like it was within a month of you moving to Texas.

0:36:40.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it was definitely early on. Yeah, so probably 2021. Yeah.

0:36:42.6 Mike Vacanti: Within the first couple of months, I’m there visiting, I think we were doing, we were doing some work stuff and we were just hanging out, and we’re walking around… Downtown Texas isn’t… Or downtown Dallas, sorry, isn’t huge. We’re walking around there, and kind of on the perimeter, I’m just kinda looking around and pointing out, and I’m like, “Oh, a Pizza Hut.” And Jordan goes, “That’s REALLY good to know.” I was like, “That’s REALLY good to know?” You’re like, “Yeah.” I was like…

0:37:17.6 Jordan Syatt: I really, I was like, “Oh, really? That is REALLY good to know.”

0:37:22.1 Mike Vacanti: “That’s really good to know.” I was like, “Yeah?”

0:37:24.8 Jordan Syatt: Do you know why? Okay, so I have a better… ‘Cause you came in, I was working with Mitch already, right? ‘Cause we did stuff for the mentorship.

0:37:32.4 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:37:33.7 Jordan Syatt: So this must have been probably September or October of 2021. And so we’re walking around, and I remember ’cause I had gone to my buddy Sean’s lakehouse within the last month or two prior to that, and we ordered stuffed crust pizza from Pizza Hut, and I hadn’t had stuffed crust pizza since I was a kid, and I… In my mind, when I think of pizza, the best pizza ever, it’s stuffed crust pizza, it is just, is the best. And I don’t know anywhere else that makes it except for Pizza Hut. So when I saw that there was a Pizza Hut walking around with you within minutes of my apartment, I was like, “Oh, that is very good to know.” And you stopped in the middle of downtown Dallas, and you’re like, “Why is that something that is very good… ” You could be like, oh, that’s like, nice. Or like, I’ll keep that in mind.

0:38:29.3 Mike Vacanti: Oh, good enough.

0:38:29.8 Jordan Syatt: But you’re like, why is that so good to know?

0:38:34.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

0:38:35.0 Jordan Syatt: And the worst part is I never ordered from there. I never got…

0:38:39.3 Mike Vacanti: That might be the best part. Might be the best part.

0:38:42.4 Jordan Syatt: I never ever ordered it. I haven’t had stuffed crust pizza in like two and a half, three years.

0:38:45.6 Mike Vacanti: That’s probably the right frequency for stuffed crust pizza.

0:38:48.4 Jordan Syatt: Probably good for my cholesterol, but…

0:38:50.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, stuffed crust pizza is dense. Although I’m with you. I have such good childhood memories of stuffed crust pizza.

0:38:56.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. Just the nostalgia there is amazing.

0:38:58.8 Mike Vacanti: Was it heavily marketed towards us? Weren’t there commercials where you would eat it backwards?

0:39:02.6 Jordan Syatt: Yes. Yes. 100%.

0:39:07.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Capitalism’s just infected our brains.

0:39:08.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:39:09.8 Mike Vacanti: The government should run everything. I’m kidding.

[laughter]

0:39:16.0 Jordan Syatt: Just give it all to the government. You guys, you’re good. You know how to make good decisions.

[laughter]

0:39:19.3 Mike Vacanti: But that was a campaign, right?

0:39:23.6 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:39:23.7 Mike Vacanti: Stuffed crust pizza?

0:39:24.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, for sure. It absolutely was.

0:39:27.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. “Bench every day, good? Woman here, trying to lift like a guy to build muscle.”

0:39:37.1 Jordan Syatt: Where did you get these questions?

0:39:39.5 Mike Vacanti: You read them to me off of your Instagram like three weeks ago.

0:39:40.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh. I was wondering who’s sending you questions that sound like questions that I get.

[laughter]

0:39:48.5 Jordan Syatt: Bench every day, good? Woman here…

0:39:50.2 Mike Vacanti: Trying to lift like a guy to build muscle.

0:39:53.8 Jordan Syatt: There’s just so much to discuss here.

0:39:55.8 Mike Vacanti: I agree.

0:39:55.9 Jordan Syatt: First, no, don’t bench every day. That’s not good. Bench every day, no good.

[laughter]

0:40:03.6 Mike Vacanti: Is there any circumstance where you think bench every day is a good idea?

0:40:11.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. If someone was like, I want to make terrible progress. I wanna reverse my progress in my bench press, and I wanna be outrageously sore and potentially cause an injury to my pecs, into my delts, into my rotator cuff. Well, bench every day.

0:40:23.5 Mike Vacanti: Who was the guy who did squat every day?

0:40:25.7 Jordan Syatt: Matt Perryman. That’s different though. He did such a good job. Like, to be fair, Matt Perryman is like an absolute genius. And he did a really good, and to be fair, I don’t think it was optimal. To be fair, I don’t think it was optimal. I do think it was a very good program and it wasn’t squatting heavy with a barbell.

0:40:45.9 Mike Vacanti: Oh, I thought he barbell back squatted every day. Obviously he varied intensity.

0:40:48.6 Jordan Syatt: He might have. He might have. He might have.

0:40:48.9 Mike Vacanti: Varied intensity very intelligently.

0:40:53.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:40:54.3 Mike Vacanti: And I don’t remember the time span he did it over, but yeah. For almost everyone, not a good idea.

0:41:00.9 Jordan Syatt: You just really like to steelman anything I say, anything I say you like to go the other way. Oh, you say that, I’ll say this. You say this, I’ll say that.

0:41:07.2 Mike Vacanti: No, I’m with you. I’ve never… Look, in my entire career, I’ve never programmed a client to bench press every single day. Even the ones who wanted to maximize their bench press or wanted to maximize the amount of chest growth that they saw. So I’m with you.

0:41:20.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I think the most is three times a week. And even then you’d have some real variance and intensities and speeds and loading. Trying to lift like a dude. I think this is what she said. She’s like, she’s trying to lift like a guy to build muscle.

0:41:38.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:41:40.6 Jordan Syatt: It’s an interesting… I saw someone make a video about this the other day, basically saying, they were saying that there are ways to lift like a guy and to not lift like a guy. And for me, that just doesn’t make sense. Like you lift for the goal that you want to achieve regardless of gender. Like, if you want to build muscle, then you train this way. I don’t care if you’re a man or if you’re a woman. The way to build muscle is going to be the same. If you want to get more explosive, then this is what you follow. These are the principles. If you want to have better endurance, these are the principles. And then if there are issues along the way, then you adjust based on individual issues. But I don’t think that those individual issues are determined by gender. I think they’re determined by the individual.

0:42:34.5 Jordan Syatt: Now, I know there are some people in the industry who say women do better with like less intensity and more volume. Women do better… Like they say all these different things. In my experience, I haven’t found that to be true. I haven’t found there to be a one size fits all. Women do better with this. Men do better with that. Like not from a training perspective per se. I have, at least not from like a physiological response to training, I have noticed maybe in how you communicate, generally speaking, there are generalizations you can make, but not definitively. But in terms of physiological adaptations, I haven’t noticed like men or women need really anything different as long as the training principles are met based on their goal.

0:43:18.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I’m with you. Some on the psychological side of things, maybe a beginner dude is more likely to go to failure, to his detriment might I add, or increased risk of injuring himself than a beginner woman is likely to take sets close to physiological failure. But yeah, you’re programming for the individual, not for the gender, and the individual’s goals specifically. What I was interpreting with this question might have been something to the effect of, I’m a woman, I see that men tend to build muscle at a faster rate or tend to build more muscle than women. So I want to train like a man so that I can build muscle at a faster rate or build more muscle. When in reality, the reason that men build more muscle than women or can build muscle faster than women isn’t because of the training style or the specific program that a dude is doing, but based on the inherent biology of a man, of our hormones, of the God-given things that allow us to develop more muscle mass on average.

0:44:32.4 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah. It’s what you’re born with.

0:44:43.5 Mike Vacanti: When you’re working with populations, yes.

0:44:44.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:44:46.9 Mike Vacanti: All of that being said, if you wanted to do whatever you could to maximize muscle growth, is benching every day a good idea? No. Like we alluded to earlier, it’s not a great idea. Training each body part close to failure twice a week on average for, I don’t know, we don’t need to go into number of working set recommendations per body part, but for, in the 10-ish sets per week range, it’s gonna be more than that for some body parts, maybe a little bit less than that. It’s gonna vary some from person to person, getting enough protein, being in a slight calorie surplus. I’m seeing more and more push around you don’t need to be in a surplus to build muscle. Yeah, technically true. And there are instances where you can build muscle when you’re not in a calorie surplus. But it’s much easier to build muscle in a slight surplus than it is to build it in a slight deficit for basically everyone.

0:45:50.3 Mike Vacanti: We’ll remove the steroid population, we’ll remove the beginner population. We’ll remove the, I took six months off of training, I’m restarting population. Like yeah, there are people who can recount more easily than others, but for most people, being a slight surplus is gonna help. And making sure you’re recovering properly, making sure you’re getting enough sleep, making sure you’re not taking 30,000 steps every single day, making sure you’re not playing four hours of rec sports every single day if your primary goal is to build muscle, which it sounds like this woman’s is. So getting enough intensity and volume with good technique, eating enough calories and protein, getting enough recovery, be consistent with the program over a long time. And when I say long, I mean years. I don’t mean do this for a month or two months, and you’ll see this great progress. It takes a long time to build an appreciable and visible amount of muscle mass.

0:46:44.2 Jordan Syatt: There’s a woman in the Inner Circle today, in the Inner Circle live, she was asking about substitutions for exercises. And she was like, and basically… It was amazing. She said, she started with me a while ago and she was like, hey, I wanna add more machines to it. How should I do that? And I was explaining, as long… And I explained why I don’t program any machines, not because I don’t like them, but because I’m programming for a large number of people and all the stuff. I was like, but since you’ve been doing this for a long time now, like, just make sure you’re hitting a machine that works the same prime movers of the exercise that we’re doing. And she was like, oh no, no, like that makes total sense. And she was like, just so you know, when I joined the Inner Circle, I said that I would do it for five years so that I wouldn’t be program hopping and doing other programs. And I was like, that’s amazing that you… Like whatever program, you’re gonna do it for five years before you move on. Like that’s super admirable. And like, that’s how you get great results. And that’s when people say like, oh, you’re lucky. You’re genetically whatever. It’s like, no, that’s ’cause you stuck with one style of programming for years and you saw amazing results with that rather than program hopping.

0:47:48.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s an incredible mindset and realistic outlook and perspective and awesome amount of patience, good for her.

0:48:03.4 Jordan Syatt: On like the building muscle in a calorie deficit versus surplus, I think it’s become something where people are so worried about gaining any bit of fat that they’re like, all right, well, I’ll just stay in a deficit or eat as little and just try and build muscle here. And like, well, yes you can, you can also, if you have a knife and someone else has a gun, like you can win. But like, it’s way harder. It’s much, much, much, much harder to do that. And I think a good compromise is eat around maintenance for the majority of time and then like have a couple days a week, probably your training days where you’re eating a slight surplus. It’s like…

0:48:41.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I like that. So you end up in a surplus.

0:48:43.9 Jordan Syatt: You end up in a slight surplus, whereas like, you don’t have to eat in a surplus every day, but eat around maintenance and then on your training days, eat in a slight surplus and like now you’re good. And you give your body the fuel that it needs. And also it’s nice because on the day that you’re training, when you’re eating more calories, you will be expending more energy as well. So like the amount that you are actually eating in a surplus, the amount of fat gain is minimal, minimal, minimal, but there’s also nothing wrong with fat gain. And it will help you build more muscle in the long run.

0:49:13.0 Mike Vacanti: Absolutely. Help you build more muscle, help you build muscle faster. The thing is, if you’ve been training for at least a year or two and you’ve squeezed out a good chunk of your newbie gains, and you’re not using steroids, which we, I don’t know if it was last week or the week before, we were talking all about the fake natty influencers, it takes a long time to build muscle even in a surplus. And so then to like say, oh, you can do this while you’re in a deficit, I haven’t seen it to the extent that so many others supposedly have. And I would challenge basically anyone who’s an intermediate or advanced lifter who does a six month or a one year muscle gain phase, right? So let’s say you’re in a 300 calorie surplus on average per day for an extended period of time, which is a pretty small surplus. It’s like a 2 pounds a month of weight gain is kind of what you’re targeting there, which is super reasonable, and not gonna lead to a ton of excess body fat gain. At the end of that year, go from your 300 calorie a day surplus to a 500 calorie a day deficit. Do that for the next six months and show me how you’re gonna build muscle over those six months in a deficit. You’re 100% gonna lose muscle in that deficit. Outside of the standard, the ones that I mentioned earlier, the situations I mentioned earlier. Brand new to lifting, you’re someone who’s taking drugs, you’ve taken time off. It’s so hard to build appreciable muscle in a deficit.

0:50:50.3 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:50:50.4 Mike Vacanti: And I like your strategy a lot by the way, which is for someone who isn’t trying to do a dreamer bulk, for someone who doesn’t wanna be like Lee Priest on Lyle McDonald’s website where he is eating the chicken wing. He’s got the giant belly and he gains a ton of muscle, but he gains a lot of fat with it. For someone who doesn’t wanna do that but thinks I wanna gain some muscle, I don’t care how fast it happens, but I don’t want to gain a ton of excess body fat in the process. I’m not a professional bodybuilder. Like I just wanna feel good while building muscle and I’m cool doing it slowly. Awesome. In that case, aim for maintenance or being in a slight surplus maybe on training days or maybe like on event days, holiday, family time, fun. You end up in a slight surplus. That’s a great strategy. But I haven’t seen the, I haven’t even, I haven’t seen the science to back the thesis that you can gain muscle in a deficit. And I haven’t even seen the anecdotes to back that thesis either. So, I’m not understanding it, outside of what you just described, which is people really, really, really don’t wanna gain any body fat.

0:51:50.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I think that’s really it.

0:51:53.4 Mike Vacanti: “Hi Mike/Jordan. You guys are the best. Your podcast, your characters and your knowledge of all fitness and nutrition related issues. I can’t thank you enough for the no BS information you share.”

0:52:05.6 Jordan Syatt: Thank you. Super nice.

0:52:07.6 Mike Vacanti: “How do you reach your potential niche if you don’t use social media much? I only have an Instagram account that is limited to close family and friends. Thanks so much. Nadine.” Thank you, Nadine.

0:52:18.8 Jordan Syatt: Thank you very much, Nadine. You have two options basically. Oh, you have more. One option would be writing website articles, which does not technically count as social media. Fair warn, like it’s… You’d have to be not only unbelievably good at writing website articles, but also unbelievably good at search engine optimization and essentially online marketing to solely write website articles with zero ads, with zero social media to get enough people to drive you there, to drive… Like that would just, it would be and does happen, but it’s rare, very rare. So I would, I’ll say this, it’s far easier to build muscle in a calorie deficit than it is to do that.

[laughter]

0:53:19.9 Jordan Syatt: And the other options are running ads. So you don’t necessarily have to post or do much on social media, but you run ads, that will lead people to your website, for example. Again, without any experience, very, very, very difficult. And with the added issue of it being costly because you’re spending a lot of money on it. And the other option is you get on social media, like that’s really it. Or if you have people that you’ve already worked with for a while, you get word of mouth referrals and like, that is a very great option as well. But that takes time and getting in front of people. So, I mean, the nice thing about social media is as of right now, it is the simplest, easiest and free way to get you attention, to get in front of more people. So that’s why it, or one reason why it’s so beneficial.

0:54:13.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. It’s true.

0:54:14.0 Jordan Syatt: I would make another Instagram account. You have one for your family and friends, which quite frankly, you’re probably not gonna use very much if you’re posting very consistently on your business social media. But like, you could have one that’s private just for family and friends and then make another one for your business.

0:54:29.1 Mike Vacanti: And that would be only if you had some reason to keep that private one for family and friends if you wanted to…

0:54:34.6 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:54:35.7 Mike Vacanti: Post stuff that you didn’t want being posted publicly. But if you’re open to it, it would actually be more beneficial to switch that to your business account. And then you have a built in audience who will be engaging with, you know, that’s how the majority of us started with our first clients, was from people we already knew, people who were already Facebook friends or Instagram followers who we knew in real life. The only idea I would add to what Jordan just mentioned is some kind of in-person, in real life interaction. And that could be, let’s say you’re an in-person, personal trainer, and you volunteer to give a talk to a company for free to their employees on a lunch break, and you pass around a sheet of paper and collect everyone’s email address when you go and give the talk. Like there are ways to pound the pavement, guerrilla marketing. Like, I don’t know, I remember doing flyers and doing, I was trying everything when I first moved to New York City to bring the episode full circle to how we started it. I remember doing like sidewalk chalk writing the website URL. I remember, like free workout, little things that I would put with 20 of my phone number and then stick it to a lamp pole. You could pull ’em off. There’s ways to unconventionally go find attention. They’re all way more difficult than social media, which is why so many people use social media.

0:56:17.8 Jordan Syatt: I’ve been thinking about getting a billboard on the highway.

0:56:22.4 Mike Vacanti: Have you looked into pricing?

0:56:24.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude, they’re wildly expensive.

0:56:27.8 Mike Vacanti: Are they?

0:56:27.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Hold, let me… Hold on. Billboard…

0:56:30.2 Mike Vacanti: What would you put on the billboard?

0:56:30.3 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it. Billboard price. Yeah, they’re very, very expensive. The average price for a billboard around Dallas is almost $7000 a month, which isn’t like that bad, but that’s like the average. And if you want one in a really good area, it’s gonna be significantly more than that.

0:56:52.3 Mike Vacanti: Would your billboard be a, it wouldn’t be a right hook, I would imagine.

0:56:57.8 Jordan Syatt: No, no. I mean, it would probably be something like, following me on Instagram, like free fat loss, like free science-based fat loss. Like follow me on Instagram, some type of thing, or push to my podcast or my YouTube, something along those lines. That would probably be what I do. It wouldn’t be like, join the Inner Circle. It would be like the best free fat loss tips Jordan Syatt mini-podcast, something like that. And see how that goes.

0:57:23.3 Mike Vacanti: How long have you been thinking about doing that?

0:57:25.9 Jordan Syatt: Every time I go on the highway, because there, like, there’s this one guy here in Dallas, Jim Adler, who just has, he’s got these billboards everywhere and this guy must be spending millions a year in billboards and everyone knows his name and he’s just like, if you get hurt in a car accident, Jim Adler, that’s your guy. Like, and he has all these really clever signs, but he must be spending tens of millions. One of my friends like apparently knows his family and they just, they absolutely crush it. And I was just like, oh man, I wonder what, like, if one would do any good, it would be interesting to see, realistically I’d probably push to podcast if I had to push to one because like they’re driving, and so they could put it on. I might literally say like, the best free fat loss advice, put my podcast on while you’re driving. I’d figure out a way to say it better, but like, that way they search my podcast, they just listen to it while they’re driving, they don’t need to try and look me up on Instagram and look through my posts and then have to deal with all the algorithm stuff. I’d probably rather just like, hey, go listen to my podcast right now. Want help with fat loss? Go listen to my free podcast. Something like that I think would be, we should try that for the mentorship for this podcast. Like, wanna become a personal trainer? Free podcast.

0:58:43.0 Mike Vacanti: So here’s… And now I’m thinking back to so many times that I was a fly on the wall for conversations Gary had about the beauties of social media and the ability to find audience who’s interested in what you provide. Thankfully, for all of us coaches, most people need fitness help in some way. Like most of the population has an interest in fitness, could argue all of the population actually. We all eat.

0:59:17.3 Jordan Syatt: We all wanna be healthy, even if we say we don’t. Like everyone wants to be healthy.

0:59:23.9 Mike Vacanti: Right. The population for wanting to be a personal trainer is a fraction of the actual population. So I’m just thinking every car that drives by how many of them could be a, it fits the target market of a fitness coaching business. Basically everyone could, or at least a substantial chunk of them do. Whereas for this podcast, even though it’s not everything we talked about, but for the mentorship, it’s a much smaller percentage.

0:59:51.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that makes sense.

0:59:53.9 Mike Vacanti: I wonder how many cars drive by like one of these billboards per day?

1:00:00.1 Jordan Syatt: Thousands. Thousands and thousands and thousands.

1:00:02.3 Mike Vacanti: I wonder if you could find out exactly how many back into that. If it’s, let’s say 5000 a day, 150K a month, how many of those people are looking and gonna see it? What would a cost per download to your podcast be worth to you? Like where would you be happy, if 7000 people downloaded it over the course of a month?

1:00:32.0 Jordan Syatt: Well, that would be what? A dollar?

1:00:33.9 Mike Vacanti: Or 7000 people listened to one episode. A dollar a person.

1:00:37.4 Jordan Syatt: No. I mean, each… No, I would say each per, each download would be worth 15, 20 bucks, maybe even more.

1:00:45.1 Mike Vacanti: Really?

1:00:46.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, because the, if one of them signs up for the Inner Circle, that’s $50 a month. So that’s like 150 for a signup, which is… ’cause the minimum sign up is three months. So if one of them signs up, it’s 150 bucks. So I mean, maybe even one download, and a significant number of the people who listen to the podcast eventually become Inner Circle members.

1:01:13.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. But a significant number of regular listeners probably do, a significant number of people who listened once, I wonder what percentage of people who listen once become regular listeners.

1:01:24.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that would be interesting data.

1:01:28.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

1:01:28.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s another way, Nadine. Billboards.

[laughter]

1:01:32.0 Mike Vacanti: Well, and that’s true. That’s why social media is so great, is…

1:01:34.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s a billboard. It’s interest.

1:01:35.9 Mike Vacanti: The cost is time and energy to make content.

1:01:39.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

1:01:40.5 Mike Vacanti: If you have money and you can spend that money getting eyeballs in front of something, that’s easier.

1:01:45.8 Jordan Syatt: The other thing about a billboard, you drive by the billboard, you forget it, that’s it. With social media they come across your post, go to your page, you’ve got all your content right there. You build trust immediately. You don’t build trust from a billboard. You just get interest. You get attention.

1:02:01.9 Mike Vacanti: Good episode.

1:02:05.0 Jordan Syatt: Billboards. Big sale coming for the mentorship soon. You might see us on a billboard, you might not. But, that’s it. Don’t eat rice cakes. Don’t lie to yourself.

[laughter]

1:02:17.1 Mike Vacanti: Have a great week. We’ll be back next Tuesday. See you then.