Episode 207: Anti-Diet Nonsense, New Years Resolutions, Alcohol and Immunity, And More…

0:00:12.4 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.5 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael?

0:00:13.4 Mike Vacanti: Happy New Year.

0:00:14.3 Jordan Syatt: Happy New Year, man.

0:00:15.5 Mike Vacanti: 2025, January 2nd, 11:36 AM central time, ready to go.

0:00:20.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude. We’re doing it, we’re back. Took a week off.

0:00:23.2 Mike Vacanti: Fifty-one weeks on, one week off. You got to deload the podcast now and again, you need to regulate intensity. You can’t just progressively overload the podcast forever. That’s not how these things work.

0:00:36.8 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s good to take a little break. Even though it wasn’t a planned deload, it was sort of a cybernetic periodization deload, where it’s like, oh shit, stressed out, stressed out, you got to to take a break.

0:00:46.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s exactly right. We’re not 15-year-olds maxing out every single day in the gym. We don’t need planned deloads. We take deloads as needed. Those were the days.

0:00:56.1 Jordan Syatt: Do you like the posting I’ve been doing on the PT pod Instagram page and YouTube channel?

0:01:02.6 Mike Vacanti: I saw this morning you have been posting shorts and reels without any reminders, just getting in there and posting. 2025 Jordan is a new beast.

0:01:13.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah. New beast. I’ve got a to-do list. Wake up, I do my to-do list every morning now.

0:01:18.0 Mike Vacanti: You’re on another level, dude.

0:01:19.4 Jordan Syatt: Hey, I’m two days in. I’m only two days in, but I’m 100% for two days.

0:01:23.8 Mike Vacanti: Two is better than zero.

0:01:25.0 Jordan Syatt: Two is better than one.

0:01:26.7 Mike Vacanti: And one is better than zero.

0:01:28.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s right.

0:01:31.2 Mike Vacanti: I literally within the last hour realized… I’m going to give you some credit on something because you pointed something out to me that I didn’t recognize myself. I can feel myself on the verge of getting sick and I haven’t gotten sick in, going on three years, over two and a half years, between two and a half and three years. I’m not going to. I’m gonna drink water, vitamin C, vitamin D, mentally will myself go to bed at eight o’clock tonight. It’s not I’m not going to get sick. It’s a promise, but I realized that I drank for the first time in a year, three days ago, and…

0:02:10.4 Jordan Syatt: Trulys.

0:02:12.1 Mike Vacanti: White Claws.

0:02:12.5 Jordan Syatt: White Claws.

[laughter]

0:02:14.4 Mike Vacanti: Was at a wedding. It was an open bar. Everyone’s drinking espresso martinis. Moscow mules, do you know what that is?

0:02:21.9 Jordan Syatt: Do I know what a… Yeah, it’s an amazing drink. If there’s an open bar, that’s one of the drinks I’m getting and you’re the only guy at this entire event that’s going to this open bar and be like, can I get a White Claw?

0:02:35.5 Mike Vacanti: I was the only person at the event drinking White Claws. Not the only guy, Jordan. I was…

0:02:40.8 Jordan Syatt: Making the bartender’s job very easy.

0:02:42.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, Georgie. He was a good dude. I didn’t want to make him… Slaving away back there making daiquiris or whatever.

0:02:49.4 Jordan Syatt: But you love the Claw. You love Trulys. You like that type of, you don’t like alcohol in general, but if you’re going to drink, you do like that kind.

0:02:57.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s not even enjoyment, it’s what I know. I get to the bar and I don’t know drinks, but I know, “You got any seltzers back there? Cool.”

0:03:06.1 Jordan Syatt: Have you never had a Moscow mule?

0:03:07.7 Mike Vacanti: I had a sip of one. I don’t like ginger beer, I’ve learned.

0:03:11.2 Jordan Syatt: You don’t like… We have such different flavour taste profiles. We have the complete opposite. The ginger beer is super good.

0:03:18.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You like ginger beer. You like tomato.

0:03:22.1 Jordan Syatt: You don’t like tomato?

0:03:23.3 Mike Vacanti: As like a meal.

0:03:24.4 Jordan Syatt: Well, I don’t like tomato as a meal either.

0:03:26.4 Mike Vacanti: Shakshuka.

[laughter]

0:03:33.9 Mike Vacanti: You know what it is? I don’t even mind the taste of a little tomato, ’cause I like pizza, but I think my body doesn’t know what to do with all that acid. I think there’s a acid limit to my genetics…

0:03:47.3 Jordan Syatt: That makes sense.

0:03:48.0 Mike Vacanti: That you have a higher cap on. You might’ve trained yourself to have higher tomato tolerance than I have.

0:03:53.4 Jordan Syatt: I think I trained it.

0:03:54.4 Mike Vacanti: Just like the splits.

0:03:55.3 Jordan Syatt: I just drank a lot of tomatoes, a lot, a lot of Shakshuka.

0:04:00.5 Mike Vacanti: So anyway, I’m not going to get sick. But I hadn’t thought about how much not liking alcohol, not wanting to drink, making the decision not to drink has led to increased immunity for myself over the years, and it’s a real factor.

0:04:14.7 Jordan Syatt: Are you taking any supplements aside from vitamin C?

0:04:19.7 Mike Vacanti: Vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin K2 with vitamin D. I’ve been taking magnesium relatively consistently, some ZMA at probably not even a clinically effective dose, but just a little placebo. I don’t track it in my food, so I’m not sure I’m getting enough, but I’m taking that.

0:04:36.6 Jordan Syatt: You get any weird dreams with the ZMA?

0:04:39.1 Mike Vacanti: You know what? That’s a great question. I had…

0:04:42.6 Jordan Syatt: I love when I ask a question that you like. It gives me a lot of joy and I get excited when I see the eyebrows raised and I see, I can hear that you’re excited about that one.

0:04:52.6 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know if it was the ZMA, but boy, did I have a weird dream the other night that involved… The crux of the dream was there were some friends of friends at my house who were sketchy dudes and people were uncomfortable with them being there, so I politely showed them the door. And then thinking they were on their way out, I went downstairs to grab a gun. And the next thing I know, I’m getting shot at by the sketchy dude.

0:05:23.9 Jordan Syatt: Geez.

0:05:24.4 Mike Vacanti: And he hit me in the stomach. And so I’m down, shot in the stomach, not in a good place, and I’m returning fire and my bullets are hitting him literally in the face, but they’re not doing anything.

0:05:37.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh no.

0:05:38.8 Mike Vacanti: It was the worst.

0:05:40.0 Jordan Syatt: That is a horrible, that is arguably the worst. That is the worst, where it’s like you’re hit and no matter what you shoot at ’em, it just melts in, it doesn’t do anything. That’s terrible.

0:05:51.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. Thankfully, just a dream.

0:05:54.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s definitely a ZMA dream.

0:05:55.8 Mike Vacanti: It might’ve been a glycine dream too, like a chamomile tea, glycine plus ZMA.

0:06:00.9 Jordan Syatt: I take glycine. I have no issues with glycine. The glycine has never given me weird dreams, but…

0:06:05.8 Mike Vacanti: How much do you take?

0:06:06.7 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know the exact dosage, whatever the bottle says and whatever Marek Health has told me to take.

0:06:11.4 Mike Vacanti: Oh, they have you taking glycine?

0:06:13.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. I take glycine, I take magnesium. The only one I don’t take out of that is the zinc.

0:06:18.4 Mike Vacanti: You take glycine in pill form? What time?

0:06:24.0 Jordan Syatt: I feel like I’m being interrogated right now. Yeah, it’s pill form. I take it, I don’t know, sometime between 9:00 and 11:00.

0:06:30.1 Mike Vacanti: AM or PM?

0:06:31.0 Jordan Syatt: PM, before bed.

0:06:32.5 Mike Vacanti: Oh, interesting.

0:06:33.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:06:34.0 Mike Vacanti: Anyway, our bodies do react very… Tomatoes, ZMA, glycine, we’re just…

0:06:39.4 Jordan Syatt: I used to take ZMA and the dreams that I would have. I had to stop taking it because it really screws with me.

0:06:47.2 Mike Vacanti: Interesting.

0:06:48.0 Jordan Syatt: Was that the only weird dream you’ve had recently?

0:06:50.1 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know. I don’t…

0:06:51.9 Jordan Syatt: Keep track of it. Maybe keep a dream log.

0:06:54.8 Mike Vacanti: You know what? You should keep a dream log for 2025 and bring it to the podcast. I think people would be interested in your dream log.

0:07:00.7 Jordan Syatt: I’m not keeping a dream log, but I did meditate this morning for one minute.

[laughter]

0:07:06.3 Mike Vacanti: You’re excited to tell me that too, weren’t you?

0:07:09.0 Jordan Syatt: Well, I just wanted to get away from the dream logs. I have no interest in keeping a dream log, but I feel like you would like that.

0:07:14.7 Mike Vacanti: I have so much less interest in a dream log than you, and you wanted me to keep one. So I actually want, I really want you to keep one. I think that’s something you’d be really good at.

0:07:24.0 Jordan Syatt: I’m not keeping a dream log.

0:07:25.2 Mike Vacanti: I think that…

0:07:25.9 Jordan Syatt: You keep one and then maybe in ’26 I’ll keep a dream log.

0:07:28.0 Mike Vacanti: Just keep it by your bed. When you wake up in the morning, just write down whatever you… I mean, if you wake up at 2:00 AM had a dream, write it down right then, just some cliffs, bring it to the pod, and in 20… If you do that for two years, in 2027, I’ll keep a dream log.

0:07:39.8 Jordan Syatt: No, I’m not keeping a dream log.

[laughter]

0:07:46.3 Mike Vacanti: What else is happening?

0:07:47.2 Jordan Syatt: It would not be good. What else is going on? Dude.

0:07:52.8 Mike Vacanti: Dad life.

0:07:53.7 Jordan Syatt: Dad life is going on. Yep. Yep. I’m glad you… I was gonna take a bad route, like what the news is showing us. I’m really glad that you steered it that direction.

0:08:01.0 Mike Vacanti: I deleted Twitter. I deleted X, so I don’t even know.

0:08:03.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, good. That’s good. You don’t want to know. It’s bad. It’s bad out there.

[laughter]

0:08:09.1 Mike Vacanti: Give me like one to two sentences and I don’t even wanna dive in on it. I just want the headline.

0:08:13.6 Jordan Syatt: Terrorist Attacks in America.

0:08:16.4 Mike Vacanti: Ah, yeah. The New Orleans thing?

0:08:19.2 Jordan Syatt: New Orleans, and then the Tesla truck that blew up outside Trump Tower in Vegas.

0:08:24.2 Mike Vacanti: I saw headlines on both. Yeah, we don’t need to dive in on that.

0:08:27.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. 15 people were killed in New Orleans.

0:08:30.6 Mike Vacanti: Are you serious?

0:08:30.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Apparently like seven have been injured by the Tesla truck, but 15, at least as of now. And this is the day after 15 people were killed in New Orleans and many more injured. Yeah, dude.

0:08:42.6 Mike Vacanti: Not great.

0:08:43.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s crazy. And like we don’t have to dive in on it, but like the, this is what I was talking about, like immediate post October seven. Like I worried about stuff like this coming to the United States and…

0:09:00.8 Mike Vacanti: You didn’t worry. You said they’re already here. There are sleeper cells, like…

0:09:05.3 Jordan Syatt: Yes, correct. And these people that we see at these protests who are saying things like globalize the intifada, they’re saying these words that they don’t understand. When you Google search the First Intifada, the Second Intifada, and you start realizing what was happening, what these groups were doing to innocent Israelis and you’re saying something like, globalizing, this is what you’ve been asking for. When you say globalizing intifada, this is what you’ve been asking for, terrorist attacks on innocent civilians, that’s what that is.

0:09:41.5 Mike Vacanti: Not good.

0:09:42.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s scary shit. Very scary stuff.

0:09:43.2 Mike Vacanti: Are you seeing that on Instagram?

0:09:44.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah. I see it on Instagram. Yeah. I mean there’s just a huge crossover between the stuff that I see in regard to the Middle East and then this. There’s a lot of crossover discussion around it. So like they, I get a lot of information on both of those.

0:10:00.8 Mike Vacanti: Almost exclusively on Instagram though, right?

0:10:02.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I’m not watching Fox or CNN or I’m not watching The View or any of that, you know what I mean? I’m not [laughter] I’m not watching any of those. [laughter] Yeah, it’s mainly just when it pops up on Instagram, which is unfortunately way more often than I would like right now.

0:10:23.4 Mike Vacanti: It was very cute, completely changing the subject, when your daughter FaceTimed me on New Year’s Eve to wish me a happy New Year.

0:10:30.4 Jordan Syatt: Bro, she asked for you, specifically. My mom was here for 10 days and she loves Nana. She loves Nana, but Nana had been here for 10 days and so the day after she left I was like, do you wanna call Nana? And she just goes, “Call Mike. Call Mike.” I was like, “All right, we’ll call Mike.” Yeah, dude, she loves you.

0:10:46.3 Mike Vacanti: That was cute.

0:10:46.5 Jordan Syatt: She absolutely loves when she sees Uncle Mike.

0:10:48.6 Mike Vacanti: That was cute. I can’t wait to get down there. And we’re doing the Instagram growth guide update.

0:10:55.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yeah.

0:10:55.9 Mike Vacanti: Very soon.

0:10:56.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, yes.

0:10:57.5 Mike Vacanti: Down in Texas.

0:10:58.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’m excited, ’cause I really feel like I’m starting to get a handle on Instagram recently. I’m starting to make some some strides on that. And I’m excited ’cause for the mentorship, I put together the last Instagram growth guide five years ago or so, when the landscape was very different. And like we’ve spoken about the growth guide and they’re, the principles are still the same in regard to how to make good content. It’s more just the tactics now are different, like the principles of creating good content are all the same.

0:11:30.5 Mike Vacanti: Correct.

0:11:31.0 Jordan Syatt: The tactics of…

0:11:31.9 Mike Vacanti: Which is, and the principles are the majority of the guide.

0:11:34.5 Jordan Syatt: Correct, exactly. Correct. There are just some extra tactics now about probably more like video editing, hooks, all that stuff that can actually make a substantial difference, especially now that there is more competition, which you need to be more aware of how to get people’s attention in a…

0:11:52.6 Mike Vacanti: More competition meaning more people creating content.

0:11:55.3 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, the number of people making content is just insane. It’s more than literally ever before. So it’s helpful and important to understand. So I’m excited. Do you know, what are we thinking? March, you’re gonna come down?

0:12:09.9 Mike Vacanti: Could be sooner. We’ll see. As soon as possible. I would say that’s the latest.

0:12:14.9 Jordan Syatt: Cool.

0:12:15.2 Mike Vacanti: I’d say that’s the latest. Yeah. Yeah. Between now and then.

0:12:21.5 Jordan Syatt: Nice. Yeah. Put that together. Get that back in the mentorship.

0:12:25.3 Mike Vacanti: Yes, sir. It’s gonna be good.

0:12:27.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s it. That’s it. What else? You have anything going on with you? How’s your nutrition?

0:12:33.5 Mike Vacanti: Much better than it has been.

0:12:36.2 Jordan Syatt: Good. I’m glad to hear it.

0:12:37.3 Mike Vacanti: And I don’t even… I’m very pro having really bad nutrition for certain periods of the year.

0:12:45.7 Jordan Syatt: I’ve never heard you say that before.

[laughter]

0:12:47.2 Mike Vacanti: I’m a huge fan of it.

[laughter]

0:12:50.9 Mike Vacanti: If you’re at maintenance, if you’re gaintaining, if you don’t have explicit fat loss goals, even if you do have explicit fat loss goals and you’ve been very diligent and you wanna take Christmas Eve, Christmas day off, you wanna celebrate New Year’s, you want to take three days in there and really enjoy holidays, family, I’m a massive fan of the approach for myself and for others.

0:13:12.0 Jordan Syatt: For everybody?

0:13:14.9 Mike Vacanti: For a substantial majority of people. Yeah, absolutely.

0:13:18.4 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Okay.

0:13:19.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I mean look, we don’t need… For people who don’t have any kind of regimen whatsoever, yeah, it’d be good to put something solid together and string together some days, weeks, months of solid nutrition protocols so that then you can really enjoy the times off. I’m gonna do a real throwback to an old Joe Rogan quote along the lines of, “Rest isn’t enjoyable unless you work hard.” Like if all you do is rest, then you feel guilty, you feel lazy, you feel like a piece of crap. But if you work your butt off for a period of time.

0:13:58.8 Jordan Syatt: Sure.

0:14:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Then when you do rest, it’s more beneficial. It’s more enjoyable, it’s more rewarding.

0:14:04.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s true.

0:14:05.9 Mike Vacanti: If your nutrition is always kind of in the trash can and then it’s in the trash can on a holiday, it’s just kind of another day. But if you’ve been putting together some really solid weeks and then you want to enjoy a couple days, good for you.

0:14:19.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s why Shabbat is so nice. Work so hard during the week, then you get the day of rest. It’s good.

0:14:25.6 Mike Vacanti: That’s exactly right. Two weeks ago we did an overrated, underrated. I said that pumpkin… Maybe it was three weeks ago. I said that pumpkin seeds were massively overrated. I didn’t know what pumpkin seeds were, because last night I’m eating this salad my wife made and it was delicious. And she’s like, oh yeah, and the pumpkin seeds add a lot. It’s like, there’s no pumpkin seeds in here. Because I’m thinking back to carving pumpkins as a kid. There’s these giant white seeds. I thought that’s…

0:15:00.9 Jordan Syatt: You realized the pepitas were…

[laughter]

0:15:01.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. They’re these little, you know, almost like a greenish, brownish, and had really good flavor. And then I literally was digging through my salad looking for ’em and tasting them. They’re really good.

0:15:13.1 Jordan Syatt: Let’s go baby, let’s go.

0:15:15.1 Mike Vacanti: So pumpkin seeds are either properly rated or slightly underrated. I revise my opinion upon receiving new information.

0:15:22.0 Jordan Syatt: That just made my year. 2025 off to a good start. Aside from the terrorist attacks, this is a really good year. [laughter]

0:15:27.6 Mike Vacanti: Because Mike likes pumpkin seeds.

0:15:32.0 Jordan Syatt: Yep, love that. Big pumpkin seed fan.

0:15:35.2 Mike Vacanti: I had…

0:15:35.5 Jordan Syatt: And you’re right, obviously the shell is that big white thing, but you de-shell it, and then all of a sudden you’ve just got that little pepita.

0:15:41.5 Mike Vacanti: Fascinating. I’m continuing to learn. So that little pepita is what’s inside of the white shell.

0:15:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:15:50.5 Mike Vacanti: Didn’t know that either. I had always eaten, not always. The one or two times in grade school, middle school, when we ate pumpkin seeds, ate the shell, like they got toasted with the shell on and they were very chewy, they were hard to eat.

0:16:06.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I prefer it with the shell on, to be honest with you, but they’re great either way. And they’re awesome on salads. So your wife making good salads over there. Pepitas on salad are top tier.

0:16:20.3 Mike Vacanti: I had my first no music, no pre-workout lift in about one year.

0:16:28.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh wow. Today?

0:16:30.6 Mike Vacanti: Nope. Was out of town for the wedding. My wife’s cousins are three athlete-type guys who love to work out. One of them’s 24, the other one’s 21, the youngest one’s 18. And just went to the gym and absolutely got after it. You made that the post about deloads that got uploaded to Personal Trainer podcast Instagram page. That might have been this morning. Either yesterday or today.

0:17:03.8 Jordan Syatt: It was this morning, yeah.

0:17:05.9 Mike Vacanti: And how the age demo that you said really needs deloads is the 14-24 who just love to train, obsessed with training, train every day, take everything to failure. That was the bulk of the workout. And it was a light workout for them.

0:17:22.6 Jordan Syatt: Really? That was a light workout for them?

0:17:25.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. They were like, “It’s vacation. We’re just getting something in type workout.”

0:17:30.5 Jordan Syatt: And they just went hard.

[laughter]

0:17:32.1 Mike Vacanti: Well, I mean, we started it out supersetting three sets of chin-ups, three sets of pushups, all to failure. So it’s like…

[laughter]

0:17:39.1 Jordan Syatt: All right, boys, little warmup? [laughter]

0:17:42.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

0:17:44.4 Jordan Syatt: Just get the juices flowing.

0:17:46.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. But it really reminded me of team atmosphere, high school gym. You see videos of a pro athlete squatting 600 pounds or a college athlete doing a really heavy squat with his entire team around him jumping up and down, that kind of hyper masculinized environment that almost doesn’t exist. I mean, it exists in martial arts, it exists in sports growing up, it exists in the armed services, but really doesn’t exist in this day and age compared to previous generations. That is very beneficial for me.

0:18:30.0 Jordan Syatt: Especially as you get older, I think it’s harder to find it, like…

0:18:32.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you gotta work to find it.

0:18:34.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Whether it’s joining a team, an extracurricular team or whatever it is or, but yeah. I think when you’re younger and you’ve got all these sports teams available to you, it’s much easier. Or even not sports, like, just any comradery you get from joining a group is super helpful.

0:18:50.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And sports especially because there’s gonna be a higher average testosterone level on a hockey team than on a debate team, like there just is.

[laughter]

0:19:06.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, man.

0:19:09.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s kind of funny and we can laugh, but it’s also… And by the way, I think both are good and both are important. I love chess. I’m obsessed with chess.

0:19:17.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You are obsessed and you’re really good at it too. I’ve never beat you.

0:19:20.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. [laughter] Well, you’ve never really played and I’ve played my whole life.

0:19:24.8 Jordan Syatt: I mean, I’ve played you.

[laughter]

0:19:27.7 Mike Vacanti: Great story down in Florida with the life-size pieces. [laughter] Wait, you’re better than him. Why are you white, then? It’s like he wanted to be dark. He said he was dark until he beat me. That was his position. And it doesn’t matter. But anyway, yeah, I had my first no music, no caffeine workout in a while, and it was great.

0:19:51.4 Jordan Syatt: Those are fun. Those are really fun sometimes. I’ve actually done a few of those recently ’cause I’ve mainly been listening to audio books or podcasts recently and just one day I was like, I just don’t wanna listen to anything, and I just worked out in silence. It was nice. Obviously you get used to whatever you do, and so eventually I’d be like, all right, I need to have something going on. But it can be nice, especially, I like it ’cause I work out outside and so hearing nature, hearing the birds, all that, it’s nice to have that.

0:20:19.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, absolutely. And remember when you first started coaching Gary and we were out east with him for that month and we loaded up 135 on the bar and literally in the middle of the night in the middle of the country, it was like walk as far as you can with 135 on your back and then drop it and then switch, and then you walk it back.

0:20:43.8 Jordan Syatt: It’s on your YouTube channel.

0:20:44.5 Mike Vacanti: Is that on my YouTube channel?

0:20:45.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s on your YouTube.

0:20:47.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s amazing. I think the majority of men need more of that in their life, and probably women to an extent, but I can’t speak on women’s issues as accurately as I can men’s on the subject.

0:21:04.2 Jordan Syatt: Just need to get the two trash bins, put them close together, so they’re like a squat rack. Remember? Loaded up at 135 and I think we walked like a mile.

0:21:13.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yep.

0:21:14.0 Jordan Syatt: That was awesome.

0:21:16.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Have you been doing much? Well, your back was giving you problems for a while, but have you done much rolling or…

0:21:24.1 Jordan Syatt: No, I haven’t trained jiu-jitsu in, what was it, since June or July, but I was just talking to my coach. Once we moved to the new house, I’m gonna start training again. ‘Cause my back feels really good.

0:21:41.5 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:21:43.6 Jordan Syatt: My back feels very good.

0:21:46.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s great.

0:21:48.5 Jordan Syatt: So yeah, I’ll start. And between that and then my second daughter being born, and it just didn’t really make sense for me to be spending extra time doing that when I could be doing other things. So I’m thinking that by the time we get into the new house, God willing, I’ll have maybe two times a week where I’ll do some jiu-jitsu. I’m out of the phase where I’m trying to be the best in the world. [laughter]

0:22:10.6 Mike Vacanti: You could be champion of the world.

0:22:13.9 Jordan Syatt: I’m now like, I’m very much like, okay, I’m just a recreational hobbyist, and that’s good.

0:22:18.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That is good.

0:22:21.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:22:21.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s fun, it’s good cardio. It’s a good skill to keep sharp and back to the comradery and osmosis thing.

0:22:27.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s just a good skill. I feel like for me, you love chess and you almost do chess almost as like a relaxing thing, I think, it takes your mind off stuff, but it’s relaxing physically, but mentally it keeps you stimulated. jiu-jitsu is actually, I think very similar for me, in that obviously I’m not relaxing physically, but I think short term, it obviously is draining and stressful physically. Long term I actually think it’s more relaxing physically ’cause after I’ve got that aggression out and I’ve got that, I actually am way more calm once I’ve done it. And then also the mental side of it, as you know, it is very similar to chess and you’re thinking moves and moves and moves in advance and you’re trying to plan what you’re gonna do and thinking about what they’re doing. So it is very similar from that perspective. But I think jiu-jitsu for me is often how chess is for you.

0:23:22.2 Mike Vacanti: I can see some similarities. Jiujitsu is a far superior hobby than chess, objectively speaking.

0:23:29.2 Jordan Syatt: I wouldn’t say that, but…

0:23:31.7 Mike Vacanti: I definitely would. I definitely would. I hadn’t heard you make the point you just made, which is also in Fight Club. When he says after Fight Club, the volume of the rest of life is turned down.

0:23:46.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah.

0:23:46.8 Mike Vacanti: It’s like, when you’re doing something that intense, everything else is just down a couple of notches. It’s harder to bother you, it’s harder to rattle you.

0:23:53.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I actually wonder if, ’cause I’ve taken now, what, eight months off or whatever it is, and I’ve been doing other things and mobility training, and being a father, and…

0:24:04.4 Mike Vacanti: You can do the splits.

0:24:04.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, well, almost can do the splits, but…

0:24:10.3 Mike Vacanti: In the summer.

0:24:10.4 Jordan Syatt: I do wonder, you know what’ll be interesting, ’cause my productivity and business has gone up, especially in content creation. I wonder if that’ll go down once I start doing jiu-jitsu again. ‘Cause I get that anger, competitiveness, like, that post didn’t do as well. Let me make another one type of thing and I wonder if once I start jiu-jitsu, if that’ll calm down.

0:24:33.9 Mike Vacanti: If that happens, would that be a reason for you not to do jiu-jitsu?

0:24:37.1 Jordan Syatt: If my business is suffering because of it, then yeah, absolutely. Or maybe just a little bit less. Yeah.

0:24:47.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Interesting.

0:24:48.0 Jordan Syatt: Are you gonna do fight club?

[chuckle]

0:24:50.9 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think I have anyone to join me in fight club, unfortunately.

0:24:54.5 Jordan Syatt: What about just you and that dude?

0:24:55.8 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah. I’m gonna, yes, I’m gonna train, but that’s not fight club. That’s getting one-on-one striking coaching.

0:25:03.8 Jordan Syatt: In his garage?

0:25:05.1 Mike Vacanti: We’ll see. We will work out the details. I’m a be about it, not talk about it kind of guy.

0:25:09.0 Jordan Syatt: Got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:25:12.4 Mike Vacanti: But yes, that’s on the docket.

0:25:12.4 Jordan Syatt: I didn’t realize there was a name for this, by the way. I just saw it the other day. You’ve spoken for years about how when people say they’re gonna do something, they’re less likely to do it because they get some form of fulfillment and positive feedback before they’ve actually done it. It’s like, I’m going to run a marathon, and then they don’t actually run the marathon because, oh wow, you’re gonna run a marathon. There’s literally a psychological name for this. I saw it the other day, I forget what it’s called, but there’s a name for when you get that feedback before it’s actually done and then you lose motivation to do it.

0:25:47.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s in that willpower book that we were reading. And I didn’t realize that because this is my first time… I think I might’ve started it once, but this is my first time finishing it and in one of the last couple chapters they talk about that phenomenon.

0:26:00.8 Jordan Syatt: It’s a real argument against sharing your New Year’s resolutions.

0:26:04.5 Mike Vacanti: It is, but in the book they talk about the other personality type, which is, you are motivated by being held accountable. You told all these people you’re gonna do something. You don’t wanna be the type of person who says something and then doesn’t do it. You really care about what those people… That’s more you.

0:26:25.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s me, for sure.

0:26:26.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:26:27.2 Jordan Syatt: And you’re the other way.

0:26:28.6 Mike Vacanti: Complete opposite. If I say it, I’m actively not gonna do it.

[laughter]

0:26:33.7 Jordan Syatt: As soon as people are like, oh, that’s so sick, you’re so cool for doing that, you’re like, I hate you. I’m not gonna do this anymore.

[laughter]

0:26:41.4 Mike Vacanti: It’s actually not that cool. It’s not cool at all. I don’t even know why I wanted to.

0:26:45.2 Jordan Syatt: I’m a loser for even thinking of that.

0:26:49.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s good to know yourself and operate based on that information.

0:26:55.5 Jordan Syatt: Bro, absolutely.

0:26:58.3 Mike Vacanti: Oh, I have a quick story. I have a quick follow up. Remember the strategy of people emailing unsubscribed contacts?

0:27:05.0 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:27:09.5 Mike Vacanti: One of the big names who did that to me, I’m not gonna name them, one morning, he’s sending weekly emails, so he sent another email. And I hit reply and I just said, Hey, I’m genuinely just curious about the email marketing strategy, I’m trying to learn more about what you’re doing here.

0:27:30.1 Jordan Syatt: Stop.

0:27:30.7 Mike Vacanti: No, I’m dead serious. I was like…

0:27:30.9 Jordan Syatt: Is this the big name?

0:27:33.5 Mike Vacanti: Not the biggest. We can bleep it out. His name… Definitely bleep it out, [REDACTED] from something [REDACTED]. But it’s like a million person email list.

0:27:42.2 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Geez. And that’s only the active subscribers.

0:27:47.1 Mike Vacanti: Well, now I’m wondering if he’s publishing unsubscribes too, but I searched my email inbox, and I don’t think I told… You tell me if I already said this, but it happened before in December of 2022, so I was originally…

0:28:04.9 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think you said that.

0:28:05.8 Mike Vacanti: I was originally subscribed in 2018 for like half a year or a year. Unsubscribed in 2019. In December, 2022, I randomly started getting the weekly newsletter again. I unsubscribed after three or four weeks, didn’t get anything, and now two years almost to the day, December, 2024, randomly, he starts sending it to me again. And so I sent this email asking about the email marketing strategies, is this a new thing, I’m trying to learn, and didn’t reply, he didn’t reply. And then he sent his weekly email, the next one, and I copy pasted it. I was like, Hey, man, just bumping this. Just being pretty obnoxious. But I’m annoyed that…

0:28:44.3 Jordan Syatt: Did you have any anger in there when you sent the email?

0:28:46.7 Mike Vacanti: No. Oh, did anger show or did I feel a little?

0:28:50.4 Jordan Syatt: No. Did you feel anger?

0:28:55.8 Mike Vacanti: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I felt a little anger. That stuff, bad business practices really upset me or unethical business practices, and someone replied and said something to the effect of, no, we never do that. Someone else must have added your email to our website and done it. We’re going to block your email so you’ll never get this again, support, with no name, so no one signed off the email. They just wrote “support.” So I think it was him and he didn’t wanna get in a back and forth.

0:29:25.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:29:27.7 Mike Vacanti: You need the double opt in confirmation.

0:29:31.7 Jordan Syatt: Right, correct.

0:29:31.7 Mike Vacanti: And I never got that email saying like, hey, click here to confirm your opt in and… I was actually gonna test it to make sure from a different email address, and I’m still going to, but basically, basically I’m 99.9% sure that this is a strategy some big creators are using for some reason. To piss off their audience? I don’t know. Maybe they think you’re gonna forget to boost active subscriber numbers, so they can use that as marketing, or they can use that for ego. Because I didn’t realize how big a competition it is amongst some of these people who are like, join my email list of 700,000 weekly readers. Like that’s their tagline to get you to sign up.

0:30:15.5 Jordan Syatt: I would imagine in their mind, and I would like to see the date on it, I would imagine they think it’s gonna increase sales.

0:30:25.7 Mike Vacanti: They think I’m gonna forget that I unsubbed and just be like, oh, cool, I’m hearing from this person again.

0:30:29.4 Jordan Syatt: Again, I would need to see the data, but in my mind, by the time you hit unsubscribe, you’ve thought about it enough and you’ve had such of an emotional response to where it’s like, I’m done. That seems like it wouldn’t… You’re doing way more damage. You’re doing way more damage. And even if you get some sales, it won’t be enough to offset the damage that you’re doing. I don’t think that… Yeah, and again, who knows? Maybe a lot of people are somehow forgetting that they’ve unsubscribed and now they’re reading their emails like crazy and decide to buy whatever product they’re selling maybe, but I wouldn’t put money on it.

0:31:12.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I highly doubt it. I’m with you.

0:31:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Maybe it is an ego thing. It’s like people buy followers on social media knowing those followers aren’t going to buy anything from you. They’re not real people, but you’re just doing it to show people that you have a large audience.

0:31:30.4 Mike Vacanti: Crazy, crazy.

0:31:32.4 Jordan Syatt: Man.

0:31:35.6 Mike Vacanti: Alright, let’s see what we got in that Q&A.

0:31:36.6 Jordan Syatt: If you were in a bar… This is from @beckcantrell. If you were in a bar fight, what song would you want playing in the background?

0:31:42.5 Mike Vacanti: Probably something angry from the 2004 era.

0:31:49.4 Jordan Syatt: Hundred percent Eminem, Lose Yourself.

0:31:52.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That’s a great option. That’s a great option. I think that’s the answer.

0:32:00.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s the answer. That is the answer. There’s no other… That’s it.

0:32:05.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you’re right.

0:32:09.4 Jordan Syatt: You can only do… This is from @renemarquez. You can only do…

0:32:11.9 Mike Vacanti: What’s up, Rene?

0:32:16.8 Jordan Syatt: One thing to keep yourself as healthy as possible. What is that one thing?

0:32:20.0 Mike Vacanti: Breathe. Otherwise you die.

0:32:26.2 Jordan Syatt: No, that’s keeping yourself alive, not healthy.

0:32:32.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, bro, I don’t know if you knew this, but you’re not healthy if you’re not alive.

0:32:33.4 Jordan Syatt: Correct. But you can be alive and not healthy.

0:32:38.4 Mike Vacanti: The most unhealthy living person is healthier than the healthiest dead person.

0:32:44.3 Jordan Syatt: Well, of course.

0:32:45.8 Mike Vacanti: We don’t need to… Okay. I know I’m being a little annoying with my answer, so we’ll pick a different one. So we’ll set aside involuntary actions like a beating heart, breathing.

0:32:52.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:33:01.4 Mike Vacanti: Only one thing?

0:33:03.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s the question. We can change the question if you want.

0:33:05.8 Mike Vacanti: Do you have anything? I mean, I’m debating between, like, ideas I’m having are walking, eating, lifting.

0:33:21.0 Jordan Syatt: So my brain goes to, number one, I don’t like these kinds of questions just because we can’t only do one thing.

0:33:27.6 Mike Vacanti: You picked it.

0:33:29.4 Jordan Syatt: I know. I’m just giving my thoughts.

0:33:31.8 Mike Vacanti: Okay. All right, all right.

0:33:33.9 Jordan Syatt: And the thing is, a lot of the people who listen, they don’t realize, ’cause the conversations get cut, where I’ll pick like 12 questions. You’d be like, not that one, not that one, not, not that one, not that one.

0:33:43.2 Mike Vacanti: I’ll bet you, your new house that we’ve never done 12 that got rejected.

0:33:46.8 Jordan Syatt: Not 12. That was an exaggeration. Two, three, four, not that one.

0:33:51.3 Mike Vacanti: Not four.

0:33:51.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:33:52.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. There might be two…

0:33:53.8 Jordan Syatt: Sometimes I’ll just pick questions even if I don’t like them thinking you’re gonna like them. I actually thought you were gonna like this one.

0:33:58.6 Mike Vacanti: I want you to pick what you like, ’cause I like what you like.

0:34:02.1 Jordan Syatt: Sounds like we’re a married couple. I want you to want to come to the grocery store with me.

[laughter]

0:34:06.0 Mike Vacanti: Oh man. Yeah.

0:34:09.8 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no. Okay. I don’t like these types of questions just because that’s, there’s never gonna be an instance where you can only do one thing.

0:34:18.8 Mike Vacanti: Do you enjoy joint grocery shopping, Jordan?

0:34:22.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude. Do you enjoy shopping?

0:34:24.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Shopping is the worst.

0:34:27.1 Jordan Syatt: Shopping is the worst. It is the worst in… I would rather be under Taliban rule than be shopping. I hate it. I absolutely, like, I get anxiety, I get angry. I get like… It’s just the worst.

0:34:45.6 Mike Vacanti: Did you ever do clothing shopping as a kid?

0:34:50.4 Jordan Syatt: It was the absolute worst. Awful worst.

0:34:55.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:34:56.3 Jordan Syatt: Dude, it was horrible. Going to a store with my mom. And what a blessing to be able to go and buy new clothes, I get it. But honestly, like, shut up. This was the worst. You go, oh, it took hours and hours and hours and trying on new clothes. And then my mom being like, “No, not that one. We’re gonna take a different one. Gotta try. No, no, no, no, no.” I’m just like, I could be playing with my friends. I could be, I don’t know. I don’t care. I don’t need these new clothes. I’ll just have old clothes and I’ll just go…

0:35:28.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I’m the same way. I’ll wear the same clothes forever. Oh, they don’t fit anymore? That’s okay. They have holes in them? I like them. They’re comfortable.

0:35:35.5 Jordan Syatt: Gives it character.

0:35:38.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:35:38.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I don’t need new clothes.

0:35:38.8 Mike Vacanti: Shopping is the worst. I’m with you. Okay. But you were saying you don’t love this type of question.

0:35:43.6 Jordan Syatt: But with that said, I asked it ’cause I thought you might like it. So anyway, we’ll answer the question. If I can only do one thing, my brain is going to, my brain is going to, it has to be something that I enjoy, that makes my life better. And so that’s where I’m trying to… It honestly, if I have to pick, it’s probably gonna be like hiking, like hiking specifically out in nature because in hiking you inherently get different elevations, so you’re gonna be having a little bit more difficulty, periods of more leisure, periods of difficulty. You’re gonna get some probably extra bone density stuff ’cause you’re gonna be going downhill sometimes so you get that more, that greater force. Like there’re oftentimes you can jump and do all these, like just have more fun. You get the fresh air, you’re out in the sun. Oftentimes you can do it in a group. Like I don’t wanna just say something simple like walking or Zone 2. I specifically am gonna put in hiking outdoors.

0:36:57.9 Mike Vacanti: Are we assuming that you’re like, you can drink water?

0:37:00.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You’re really ISTJ-ing this. You’re like alright, breathe.

[laughter]

0:37:04.0 Mike Vacanti: Breathe.

0:37:07.5 Jordan Syatt: Pump the blood through my veins. [laughter]

0:37:07.6 Mike Vacanti: The order of things that keep… Yeah. Yeah. Have a functioning heart was actually, that crossed my mind. Sleeping. It’s like the order of things where if you don’t do them, you die. And it’s something like, yeah, breathing, blood flow, water consumption or…

0:37:27.4 Jordan Syatt: No, we’re…

0:37:27.9 Mike Vacanti: Hang on, hang on. Just let me let, come on. You answered it your way. You’re a hiker. I love it. You got different elevations. You can do a lot. You do it with friends.

0:37:36.6 Jordan Syatt: Okay. I’m sorry. You’re right.

0:37:39.2 Mike Vacanti: You get sunlight. After, so then I think you can go longer without sleep than you can without water. So water consumption would be pretty high. And then sleeping. How long of sleep deprivation till you die? Something like 11-15 days, something like that. Don’t ask ChatGPT. ChatGPT doesn’t know anything.

0:37:57.9 Jordan Syatt: I’m doing Google.

0:37:58.9 Mike Vacanti: I like that.

0:38:01.7 Jordan Syatt: The exact amount of time a person can go without sleep before dying varies, but it’s generally agreed that most people can survive up to two weeks. The longest recorded time without sleep is 264 hours or just over 11 days.

0:38:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Wow.

0:38:11.5 Jordan Syatt: Which was achieved by Randy Gardner in ’65, science fair experiment. [laughter]

0:38:17.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I think I remember…

0:38:20.2 Jordan Syatt: You’re right. 11 days. I didn’t realize it was that little.

0:38:23.4 Mike Vacanti: And then eating. If we’re adding like a kind of broad physical activity, mine would be going to the gym ’cause they got weights, they got cardio equipment, they got people. I don’t wanna limit myself to one form of training.

0:38:36.8 Jordan Syatt: Just going to the gym.

[laughter]

0:38:37.9 Mike Vacanti: Just going to the gym.

0:38:38.7 Jordan Syatt: Doing whatever’s there.

[laughter]

0:38:40.3 Mike Vacanti: Whatever they got.

[laughter]

0:38:44.5 Jordan Syatt: Do you think Randy Gardner did that natty?

0:38:47.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yep.

0:38:48.7 Jordan Syatt: You think he just did that, no stimulants?

0:38:52.7 Mike Vacanti: No, he did it as a… It was a study so that he was being observed and they wanted to see what happened. And after like a certain number of hours, he started hallucinating, after a certain number of hours, he thought he was on fire. I remember reading about this. After a certain amount of time, he thought people were conspiring against him. Yeah.

0:39:15.3 Jordan Syatt: Holy shit. And so he didn’t have anything. How did they keep him awake?

0:39:22.9 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know. This might be something we do a little independent research on, but yeah, it was an experiment, if I recall correctly.

[overlapping conversation]

0:39:33.4 Jordan Syatt: That’s crazy. Sounds incredibly unethical.

0:39:35.7 Mike Vacanti: I remember 11 days. Yeah, the ’60s. ’60s were a wild time. Speaking of, I watched the movie Remember the Titans on my flight home yesterday. That holds up. That’s a very good movie.

0:39:47.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude. That’s a top 10 all time movie.

0:39:50.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, like multiple times I was on the verge of crying, which I didn’t remember about that movie.

0:39:55.4 Jordan Syatt: Strong side.

0:39:56.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that was one of ’em. Left side, strong side. I mean, I don’t wanna spoil ’cause I had actually forgotten a lot of the movie, but I’m gonna spoil when Bertier gets in the accident and then his mom comes to the next game and gets the standing ovation from everyone. It’s a great movie.

0:40:17.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude, there’s so many aspects of that movie. It’s layered, really layered.

0:40:23.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And all the race relations. Colorblindness. It’s good, it’s very good.

0:40:29.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Super good movie. What do you like better, that movie or Miracle?

0:40:33.2 Mike Vacanti: I mean, Remember The Titans is a more profound and has more social implications, obviously.

0:40:47.4 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:40:48.5 Mike Vacanti: Miracle is quite accurate about an unbelievable historic event, the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team. Both amazing movies.

0:41:01.8 Jordan Syatt: So you can’t really compare ’em, apples to oranges.

0:41:06.4 Mike Vacanti: It’s almost like…

0:41:09.5 Jordan Syatt: Different genres.

0:41:12.2 Mike Vacanti: No, it’s like you have your two best friends and you know that one is better at something than the other one. But you might even like the one who’s not as good more.

0:41:19.6 Jordan Syatt: But you know one is better.

0:41:24.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You know one’s better, but you’re not publicly gonna be like, oh yeah, Harry’s better than Winston. It’s like…

0:41:27.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s a good analogy.

0:41:28.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:41:29.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s a good analogy. So I’m assuming Miracle is the one that you actually like better, but you know that Remember The Titans is probably the actually better one.

0:41:41.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Miracle’s my boy, we go way back. I’m not gonna say a bad thing about Miracle, but puts ’em… Everyone knows Remember the Titans is really good.

0:41:49.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, man, I got some real kickback on a post.

0:41:51.3 Mike Vacanti: What was it about?

0:41:55.7 Jordan Syatt: I mean, I just can’t believe this is still a thing. I made a post basically saying I can’t believe that this is still a thing that people actually believe starvation mode is real and that people are gonna…

0:42:07.0 Mike Vacanti: Wasn’t this a couple of weeks ago?

0:42:08.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Did we talk about that?

0:42:09.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but I don’t think we did it in detail. Sorry. The way you reacted, I thought that you were just seeing yourself getting kickback on a post.

0:42:17.7 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no.

0:42:19.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, and people were like starvation, it is a real thing. People do gain fat from not eating enough. There were a lot of people that thought that.

0:42:28.1 Jordan Syatt: The biggest person who left the comment, her handle was something about a no-diet dietitian, which is one of the most obnoxious things that I see. And I feel like it was really big in 2018, ’19, that anti-diet, we don’t diet type crowd and I can always see what was really big at various times because I can go back in my own content and see what my content was about. So right now is the raw milk, seed oils, da da da da da. But back in 2018, 2019 was the health at every size, no anti-diet movement. And it’s just really crazy to me that people who went to school for this and who are credentialed in this are either so brainwashed or on the other end of it, which would be really bad, I would rather them be brainwashed, or they’re knowingly being disingenuous in order to sell their service or whatever is they are providing. It’s mind blowing.

0:43:45.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I don’t even get how… There are certain subjects I understand getting brainwashed on. I don’t understand how somebody can be a dietitian and not have any concept of thermodynamics and think that eating less leads to fat accumulation over time. Having looked at any of the research or anyone talk about the research and come to that conclusion.

0:44:20.4 Jordan Syatt: And how can someone be an anti-diet dietitian?

0:44:23.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, I mean that’s just marketing. That’s just illogical.

0:44:27.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s in your name.

0:44:27.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:44:28.7 Jordan Syatt: You are a dietitian. That’s like being an anti-trash trash man. Actually, no, that would actually make sense. You’re throwing shit away. That would be an anti-plumbing plumber. An anti-training trainer. It makes no sense.

0:44:47.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, that’s exactly what it is.

0:44:50.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s like I’m a trainer but I’m against training. That’s what it’s like. It’s so stupid, especially because diet doesn’t necessarily even mean weight loss.

0:45:00.2 Mike Vacanti: We all have diets.

0:45:01.2 Jordan Syatt: Diet is just what you eat.

0:45:02.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s right. You can be against it, but you still have one. And if you don’t eat anything, that’s your diet.

0:45:11.3 Jordan Syatt: I’m gonna say that the next time an anti-diet dietitian comments, like I’m an anti-training trainer.

0:45:13.9 Mike Vacanti: You got that one loaded and ready to go. You’re not gonna forget. You might forget some things, but that one, yeah.

0:45:22.5 Jordan Syatt: That one’s sticky.

0:45:23.8 Mike Vacanti: You’re like, I’m gonna win that debate. People are gonna Love it.

0:45:28.6 Jordan Syatt: I wonder who the first person who thought anti-diet dietitian. What is that?

0:45:34.0 Mike Vacanti: Anti-diet was just so popular as a marketing term for people who had tried so many different fad diets unsuccessfully. And then it’s like, I’m the anti-diet coach. Here’s my program, sign up here.

0:45:43.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s so true. It’s like reverse dieting. Now they have anti-dieting. Yeah.

0:45:48.2 Mike Vacanti: Alright, let’s hit a couple more quick ones.

0:45:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Would you invest in a sauna blanket? Why or why not?

0:45:53.6 Mike Vacanti: I’m intrigued by the question. I don’t know what that is, but I’m intrigued by the question. It sounds like a blanket that you put on and really heats you up.

0:46:01.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s like an electric blanket. You did not wanna answer this question.

0:46:05.0 Mike Vacanti: I did, I do. But is it supposed to be a less expensive replacement for a sauna?

0:46:12.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s less expensive and more obviously space, you could travel with it.

0:46:19.1 Mike Vacanti: I just wanna make sure I’m understanding. Is it just a heated blanket or is it one of those little like pods that you get in that’s barely bigger than your body and you zip up inside of it and it’s like a little indoor sauna type?

0:46:33.3 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s not one of those.

0:46:34.7 Mike Vacanti: Okay. It’s just a blanket.

0:46:36.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s essentially like a sleeping bag. It’s like a sleeping bag that you get in that like, you’re like essentially a hot pocket.

0:46:45.1 Mike Vacanti: Does it…

0:46:45.6 Jordan Syatt: You’re a human hot pocket.

0:46:47.0 Mike Vacanti: Is it like a normal sauna in that it gets to 180 degrees in there?

0:46:50.7 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know how hot it gets. I doubt it can get to 180, ’cause you’re touching it. Like you’re up against it and so that would burn you. So I think it just probably makes you sweat a little bit. I mean, obviously you can get hot, but it can’t get up to 180 ’cause it’s touching you.

0:47:05.4 Mike Vacanti: I would say invest, if you really wanna sauna, I would invest in something like a gym membership at a place that has a sauna, would be, if you’re not in a… Because it’s thousands of dollars for an actual sauna. So there’s probably better alternatives, but I’m not an expert in the sauna blanket. And I’m intrigued. Do you have any thoughts?

0:47:29.1 Jordan Syatt: I think one of the benefits of the sauna is it’s being fully in the sauna and not having your head out. And so like with the sauna blanket or even one of those like things that you zip up but your head is out of it, you’re not fully in this heat. And I would imagine part of the lung capacity benefits come from being in that heat, like those cardioprotective benefits. The lung benefits come from being in that heat, breathing in that heat. Whereas when you’re out of it, as soon as you get outta the sauna, you can feel like breathing is easier. And so if your body is just getting really hot, but you’re actually not in there, your head isn’t in there, then I would imagine you’re probably not, it would be an interesting study actually, ’cause I can’t say that definitively, but it would be interesting study to see. I would say, yeah, go to a gym, get a gym membership, go to a real sauna. I wouldn’t invest in in one of those, ’cause essentially what you’re doing is you’re just getting really hot.

0:48:30.8 Mike Vacanti: I like your theory. If I had to guess, I would say you’re right.

0:48:35.8 Jordan Syatt: Is there a resolution that you’ve made in the past that you’ve kept and you think is the most meaningful to you?

[laughter]

0:48:50.6 Mike Vacanti: I’m trying to really think about the specifics. I kind of know the time period. We’ve told a funny story about fall of my freshman year of college. I saw a picture of someone like bent over brushing his teeth in his underwear and I thought it was someone else because of the low back fat and the love handles. And then it’s like, “No, that’s you.” And then the combination of the journaling I was doing at that time, the quest to be a better person. And then simultaneously, the decision to start taking nutrition and training more seriously, starting in in January of 2006, I think was probably a springboard to a lot of…

0:49:44.5 Jordan Syatt: Nineteen years ago.

0:49:46.6 Mike Vacanti: A lot of both fitness as well as I guess we’ll call it self-improvement for lack of a better term, but almost like moral self-improvement or like a seeking. So it wasn’t a specific resolution, but I started marathon training around that time in the second semester of my freshman year of college. And from there was P90X and from P90X was the two plus two poker forums and finding starting strength and more proper barbell training and etcetera. So I don’t know if that’s a a good answer, but because it wasn’t like a okay, I’m not drinking alcohol for an entire year and then I didn’t, and it had all these benefits, but it was a conscious, I need to be better. And I wasn’t perfect for the entire year, but, on any front, but it was some kind of springboard that I continued to build on year over year going forward.

0:50:54.5 Jordan Syatt: Completely changed your life.

0:50:56.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And you know, there was things happened before, right? Growing up in athletics, the encouragement of my parents, having anger that I realized strength training was the outlet for the anger. Like, it’s not like I had just started taking these things seriously, but it was a springboard.

0:51:14.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Love that.

0:51:15.9 Mike Vacanti: How about you?

0:51:18.5 Jordan Syatt: I think the coolest one and potentially the most impactful was in 2020 I made a YouTube video about my goals and resolutions. And the main one was my blood pressure. ‘Cause my blood pressure was elevated at that point. And that was like, I wanna get it down and that’s crazy. It was like five years ago now, which is nuts. But thank God, blood pressure’s good. I took it this morning and it was 105/58.

0:51:43.8 Mike Vacanti: Wow.

0:51:44.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:51:45.0 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go.

0:51:45.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So hopefully it’ll stay there, stay in a good range, yeah. But that’s probably the most impactful one and the just the cool factor of having it publicly out there as well.

0:52:00.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s such an important metric for health and longevity.

0:52:06.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:52:07.8 Mike Vacanti: Good for you, bro.

0:52:09.5 Jordan Syatt: Good for you.

0:52:11.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:52:11.7 Jordan Syatt: Good for you.

0:52:11.9 Mike Vacanti: Sincerely. [laughter]

0:52:12.6 Jordan Syatt: Congrats. Nice job, buddy. [laughter]

0:52:18.8 Mike Vacanti: Everybody loves Jordan.

[laughter]

0:52:21.1 Mike Vacanti: Good episode.

0:52:22.8 Jordan Syatt: Welcome back, 2025.

0:52:25.1 Mike Vacanti: Let’s get it.

0:52:26.1 Jordan Syatt: Thank you all. We appreciate it. We hope you’re enjoying the podcast. If you are, please leave a five-star review. Thank you to everyone in the mentorship. We love you. Everyone who’s not in the mentorship, hopefully we’ll see you in there at some point this year and especially when that new Instagram growth guide launches, volume two. But that’s it.

0:52:41.9 Mike Vacanti: I love it. If you are the type of person who feels good about public proclamations and declarations, jump in the YouTube comments of this video, let’s hear your New Year’s resolution.

0:52:55.1 Jordan Syatt: Shout out to Becky, who comments all the time.

0:52:56.3 Mike Vacanti: Shout out Becky and the mentorship. Becky’s awesome. And Becky does give us great engagement.

0:53:02.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, she’s the best.

0:53:04.4 Mike Vacanti: She is the best. We could even, if we remember, or if anyone wants to remind us at the end of the year, go back and review some of the resolutions that get listed in this comment section, so you’ll get a little bit of accountability from the Syatt Fitness and myself. That could be fun. You know what? I’m going to put that on my to-do list for December of 2025. So leave a comment on the YouTube video with your New Year’s resolution.

0:53:34.1 Jordan Syatt: Love that. Let’s go.

0:53:34.2 Mike Vacanti: See you next week.

0:53:37.3 Jordan Syatt: See ya.