Episode 209: TRT, Steroids, Naturally Increasing Testosterone, Intuitive Eating, and More…

0:00:12.5 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

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

0:00:13.1 Mike Vacanti: How are you?

0:00:14.2 Jordan Syatt: Bro, I was… I’ve been doing this mindfulness meditation that you’ve been having me do.

0:00:18.4 Mike Vacanti: Wow. Have you? Really?

0:00:20.1 Jordan Syatt: Well, for 60 seconds. It’s just a 60 second… I do 60 seconds every day.

0:00:25.6 Mike Vacanti: Great. Great.

0:00:26.1 Jordan Syatt: And today…

0:00:27.0 Mike Vacanti: One is better than zero.

0:00:28.2 Jordan Syatt: I put on a YouTube video, and it’s just like a 60-second mindfulness thing. And I don’t watch it, but I listen to this, there’s this nice music in the background. And it’s nice because it’s a minute and four seconds. And so I hit play. And I know when it’s over it’s been a minute and I’m good. And today I was doing it, and I get like 10 seconds in, and all of a sudden the music pauses. And I, like, opened my eyes and it was buffering and I was just like, “What the fuck?” [laughter] And then I started laughing. I was like, this is the most anti-mindfulness meditation response ever. Like, “What the fuck?” I’m trying to rewind it, go back.

0:01:06.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s hilarious.

0:01:07.4 Jordan Syatt: And then I start trying to actually meditate. I’m like, okay. And I… Then I had to pause it because I was laughing. I was like, “That was so not the point of this.”

0:01:14.7 Mike Vacanti: Or it is the point of it.

0:01:15.4 Jordan Syatt: Or it is, it’s the exact point of it.

0:01:17.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Giving you repetitions.

0:01:20.6 Jordan Syatt: Mm-hmm.

0:01:22.4 Mike Vacanti: That’s really funny.

0:01:23.0 Jordan Syatt: Trying to get that gray matter.

0:01:25.2 Mike Vacanti: Dude, building that gray matter. I need to build that gray matter.

0:01:28.1 Jordan Syatt: Have you been doing mindfulness meditation? You should try it.

0:01:31.6 Mike Vacanti: No. [laughter] At some point… Today’s January 16th. At some point during this new year, I don’t remember exactly when it was. I was like, “All right, I’m going to do 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the evening.” Not the TM stuff, but just…

0:01:48.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, 15 minutes.

0:01:50.4 Mike Vacanti: But just breath work. So just focusing on my breath and like the five sensations. So sitting in a place, eyes closed, and then just not a guided meditation but, What am I hearing right now? And thinking, like, trying to only pay attention to all the sounds you can hear, whether it’s like the heat in the house or like a car driving by outside. And then what am I seeing? And it’s like, you know, darkness. There’s little spots. There’s little light here and there.

0:02:13.5 Jordan Syatt: Oh, your eyes are open.

0:02:14.7 Mike Vacanti: Closed, but you can still see something with your… It’s a mindfulness meditation tactic. Anyway, it lasted for, I think, a day and a half. I think I did three sessions and…

0:02:27.8 Jordan Syatt: Bro, 15 minutes is a lot.

0:02:30.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s a long time. And the thing that I disliked the most, which I found interesting was the physical, not the mental discomfort, but the physical discomfort of just sitting for 15 minutes.

0:02:44.9 Jordan Syatt: I believe that.

0:02:45.3 Mike Vacanti: And it could be the position. Sitting against a wall just didn’t feel great. Maybe I need to go for a different position. But yeah.

0:02:54.3 Jordan Syatt: Dude, my consistency is 100% with a minute a day.

0:02:56.5 Mike Vacanti: You’re doing it daily?

0:02:57.7 Jordan Syatt: Every day.

0:02:58.4 Mike Vacanti: Wow. For how long?

0:03:00.2 Jordan Syatt: Until I die.

[laughter]

0:03:01.7 Mike Vacanti: Until I die.

[laughter]

0:03:05.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Since we started.

0:03:07.8 Mike Vacanti: Wow. So a few weeks.

0:03:08.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, 16 days. I guess from January 1.

0:03:11.8 Mike Vacanti: Oh, you started on the, on Jan 1?

0:03:14.9 Jordan Syatt: I had done it a few times since you and I started talking about it, but then I started like every day since Jan 1.

0:03:21.4 Mike Vacanti: Good for you, man. Good for you. You’re building your gray matter.

0:03:24.0 Jordan Syatt: I mean, it’s a minute. I don’t know how much… It might be like doing a minute of cardio. Like, “Great, dude. You’re 100% consistent with a minute of cardio a day.” It might be like that.

0:03:34.5 Mike Vacanti: Better than zero. Better than zero.

0:03:36.0 Jordan Syatt: Better than zero, that’s for sure.

0:03:37.0 Mike Vacanti: Pretty soon you’re going to get into it. There’s going to be a progressive overload component. You’re gonna be like, not only… Yeah.

0:03:41.9 Jordan Syatt: That’s what I’m hoping. I’m hoping one day I’ll be like, let’s bump it up to two minutes.

0:03:46.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Watch it twice. Listen to it twice. Or maybe you find a 90-second video. Anyone listening might…

0:03:51.1 Jordan Syatt: They have literally all the times. Honestly, I like it with the background music. It’s like this nice…

[vocalization]

0:04:01.7 Mike Vacanti: Wait till I get my money right. Like that? Was that…

0:04:07.7 Jordan Syatt: Can you imagine, like their head bobbing like, this is my mindfulness meditation.

[laughter]

0:04:13.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:04:19.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, man.

0:04:19.7 Mike Vacanti: Speaking of, I saw that hilarious, actually, it was a different hilarious Kanye clip. You know the one I’m thinking of, right?

0:04:30.5 Jordan Syatt: Which, I mean, there are some really hilarious Kanye… Where, like, “I’m not gonna say it. I’m not going to say the name.” Yeah.

0:04:36.0 Mike Vacanti: So there’s that one.

0:04:36.6 Jordan Syatt: “I’m not gonna say who, he was Jewish.” [laughter] “I’m not going to say what religion he was. I’m not going to say what people he’s belonged to. He was Jewish.”

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

0:04:48.9 Kanye West: I’m not going to say what race, what people, doctor, and what hospital and what media went to. We know I can’t say that. It was a Jewish doctor.

0:05:02.5 Mike Vacanti: There was another one where he’s getting interviewed by the, I think he’s the TMZ guy. And the guy’s basically like, “We’re gonna go to break… ” Maybe David can edit this in because it’ll be way funnier. But the guy’s like, “We’ll go to break, we’ll go to break.” And Kanye’s basically like, “No, we’re not gonna go to break. We’re not gonna go to break. We’re gonna stay right here.”

0:05:20.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, I’ve seen that. “Let me think… “

0:05:22.8 Mike Vacanti: “I’m gonna take a minute.” Yeah.

0:05:22.9 Jordan Syatt: “We’re gonna let me think and think about what I’m gonna say. Now, repeat the question.”

[laughter]

0:05:27.2 Mike Vacanti: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Hilarious.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

0:05:33.3 Kanye West: The…

0:05:36.4 Harvey Levin: You want me to repeat?

0:05:37.5 Kanye West: No.

0:05:37.9 Harvey Levin: Why don’t we do this? Let’s take a quick break. When we come back, we’re going to hear Kanye’s answer.

0:05:40.6 Kanye West: No, no, no, no. We’re not gonna Jimmy Kimmel the situation.

0:05:43.2 Harvey Levin: No, we’re gonna come right back.

0:05:44.2 Kanye West: No, no, we’re not gonna come right back.

0:05:45.2 Harvey Levin: Okay.

0:05:45.6 Kanye West: We’re not gonna Jimmy Kimmel the situation.

0:05:47.4 Harvey Levin: Fair enough.

0:05:47.8 Kanye West: We’re gonna give me time to think.

0:05:50.2 Harvey Levin: Okay, fair enough.

0:05:51.5 Kanye West: You asked me a serious question and I’m gonna take some time to think about my answer. I’m going to use time to my advantage.

0:06:00.1 Jordan Syatt: What made you think of that?

0:06:01.5 Mike Vacanti: I literally watched it this morning when I was scrolling YouTube shorts instead of meditating and it just popped up.

0:06:06.8 Jordan Syatt: Wait, you… The one where it’s like, “Let me think. I’m going to think about it for a second.” Yeah, it’s so good.

0:06:12.9 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm. I had never seen it.

0:06:14.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, really? Yeah. That’s such a good one.

0:06:16.4 Mike Vacanti: Jordan.

0:06:17.1 Jordan Syatt: Michael.

0:06:18.4 Mike Vacanti: What’s your favorite rep number? What’s your favorite number of reps when strength training? If you had to pick. Not like if you had to pick one for the rest of your life, but just what number of reps in a set is your favorite?

0:06:31.0 Jordan Syatt: Eight. What’s yours?

0:06:36.1 Mike Vacanti: Six.

0:06:38.5 Jordan Syatt: It really does depend on… Like, if it’s…

0:06:41.4 Mike Vacanti: Exercise.

0:06:42.1 Jordan Syatt: Bulgarian split squats, it’s definitely six. If it’s rows and curls and presses, I’m probably leaning towards eight. But like, if it’s a squat, six.

0:06:57.9 Mike Vacanti: Or fewer.

0:06:58.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. So it’s that six to eight range is definitely my favorite range.

0:07:01.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah, I’m with you. Six is a little heavy on curls, even though I like to do some of that. Six is definitely heavy on like a skull crusher cable push down, any kind of tricep isolation work. I like six on a bench press. Yeah. I like a little higher rep on an overhead press. Yeah. Six. Lower body… It might be more lower body, actually because almost every lower body move…

0:07:29.3 Jordan Syatt: The only time I like a little bit higher rep for lower body is the isolation, like hamstring curls, extension, things like that.

0:07:33.7 Mike Vacanti: Literally just like… Machines. Good girl, bad girl. Yeah. Leg extension. Any leg machine. Or non-machine isolation work for the lower body. Yeah.

0:07:46.9 Jordan Syatt: But deadlifts, I mean, six for deadlifts is high.

0:07:49.5 Mike Vacanti: It’s a lot. Yeah.

0:07:50.6 Jordan Syatt: But like RDLs, that six to eight is nice. But if it’s a single leg RDL, closer to six, but the bilateral maybe eight.

0:08:00.7 Mike Vacanti: Do you remember in 2012 when high rep deadlifts for cardio was peaking? Maybe 2013?

0:08:06.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it was… It really annoyed me. I remember Adam Pine and I… Adam, for everyone listening, Adam almost deadlifted 800 pounds. Just a freak. We were so mad at like…

0:08:19.5 Mike Vacanti: The industry.

0:08:19.9 Jordan Syatt: All of these, all the industry. Like. There was like, I remember there was a guy who wrote like a deadlift every day workout type thing and I was just like, “What is… What the hell is going on?” It was, that was… Just yeah, I hated that stuff. That was very stupid.

0:08:33.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Glad those days are over.

0:08:35.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, same. They’ll come back. One day it’ll come back.

0:08:38.4 Mike Vacanti: It all just cycles.

0:08:40.6 Jordan Syatt: What’s up with you, man?

0:08:41.9 Mike Vacanti: All good, man. Just training lower body.

0:08:43.8 Jordan Syatt: How’s your personal life? I know you like to talk about your personal life.

[laughter]

0:08:49.0 Mike Vacanti: What’s wrong with you?

[laughter]

0:08:54.2 Jordan Syatt: Literally, if there’s one thing that Mike doesn’t want to talk about ever publicly, it’s personal life. So I was like, let’s just push that button. [laughter]

0:09:01.8 Mike Vacanti: You know what, I’m okay with it. You know why? I have grown more and more uncomfortable with… I mean, obviously I essentially don’t make content. I’ve grown more and more uncomfortable with parasocial relationships for many reasons. Yeah, look, if I… I would absolutely be willing to go back to 2015, 2016 days of vlogging everything I’m doing all the time, like document, like I was… I remember I saw DJ Khaled when he was like the peak of Snapchat in 2015.

0:09:47.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:09:48.6 Mike Vacanti: Go in the shower with his Snapchat. And I was in the shower with my Snapchat. Like, you know, you’re not showing anything, but it’s like, all kinds of personal details, family, all of that being shared. And over time, I don’t know, I would have to think for a while on the real core seven to eight reasons. But I’m a huge fan of anonymity. If I was smart enough, I would have a business where I wasn’t public facing on the internet at all.

0:10:21.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:10:23.8 Mike Vacanti: But it’s a sacrifice you make. And there’s an upside to that sacrifice. The more of yourself you’re willing to share, the more you can connect with your audience, the stronger a personal brand you can build. The more good you can do with that is like the, is one way to look at it and it’s true, but also the more you can monetize it. So it’s really good for business. And I’m in a place, thankfully, where I’ve worked 80, 100-hour weeks for many years and gotten in a comfortable spot where I don’t have to do that anymore.

0:11:00.0 Jordan Syatt: I like that.

0:11:00.5 Mike Vacanti: But yeah, man, personal life’s good.

0:11:01.0 Jordan Syatt: Do you use moisturizer?

0:11:02.0 Mike Vacanti: Never. Who’s outside your house, Jordan?

0:11:02.6 Jordan Syatt: There’s a cat outside my window. There’s a cat outside my window. I just saw…

0:11:04.5 Mike Vacanti: But you thought maybe it was a burglar?

0:11:06.1 Jordan Syatt: I thought maybe it was someone trying to crawl in. Like, do an army crawl around the back of the house. I was about to…

0:11:11.5 Mike Vacanti: That’s a bad idea. Jordan would have had you in a “Kimura” so fast.

0:11:14.1 Jordan Syatt: Dude, it’s a bad idea trying to sneak into my house. [laughter]

0:11:17.2 Mike Vacanti: Imanari roll straight to the window, heel hook. Just start kicking him in the face. Oh, bro, did you see what… Wait, what did you just ask? Moisturizer. We’ll come back to this. Did you see what Daniel Yores posted on Instagram? Daniel Yores…

0:11:35.5 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think so.

0:11:35.7 Mike Vacanti: Absolute beast in the fitness business mentorship.

0:11:37.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, he’s amazing.

0:11:39.4 Mike Vacanti: Killing it. He posted a swipe post where the first slide in huge letters was, “You are what you eat.” And then…

0:11:50.7 Jordan Syatt: Stop.

0:11:51.5 Mike Vacanti: Dead serious.

0:11:52.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, that’s so funny.

0:11:53.7 Mike Vacanti: And then in the caption was like, “I have a bet with a friend on how people will react to this, and… “

0:11:58.8 Jordan Syatt: No way.

0:12:00.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. And he did a good job with sharing a degree of nuance. Like, it was a really well-written post. Yeah.

0:12:10.2 Jordan Syatt: Wow. Yeah, I’m looking at it right now. For anyone who wants, Daniel Yores, it’s D-A-N-I-E-L Y-O-R-E-S (@danielyores). Great coach. Great human.

0:12:22.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:12:22.4 Jordan Syatt: Go give him a follow on Instagram. That’s so I… Wow. It was from two days ago. This is great. Amazing, amazing, amazing, Great podcast. Yeah. Love that guy.

0:12:32.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:12:33.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It looks like he put a lot of nuance into this.

0:12:34.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And not like an uncomfortable amount. Like, I can see that post being written where someone’s playing massive amounts of defense. He went pretty much straight at it. And then in one of the later…

0:12:44.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, he did.

0:12:45.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, clearly. But then he didn’t even back… He didn’t backtrack at all. He mentioned, like, obviously your character is not defined. Like, if you eat good, that doesn’t make you a good person. If you eat like crap, it doesn’t make you a bad person. Which…

0:13:02.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I like that.

0:13:03.9 Mike Vacanti: No, I don’t use moisturizer. I don’t even… I honestly don’t know what moisturizer is.

0:13:08.2 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know what it is either, but I think I have to use it because my skin is just, like, getting drier the older I get. It’s just getting drier. Like, right around the, under, like, the side of my nose area. And my wife is just like… My wife knows skin really well. Like, she’s like, you know, she’s really good with that stuff. She’s like, “You need to use moisturizer.” So I think I’m gonna start having to use it. And I’ve literally never used it my entire life.

0:13:33.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s all good, bro. You can offset it with all the, like, jiu jitsu you’ve done over the years. Like, you got a tattoo sleeve. You’re good.

[laughter]

0:13:41.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s like, “You have a car, you have a pass. You can use moisturizer. You fight. Do you fight?”

0:13:51.2 Mike Vacanti: Did you have any alcohol last night?

0:13:53.0 Jordan Syatt: No, dude, I haven’t drank… I’ve barely drank for a while. I mean, I…

0:14:00.5 Mike Vacanti: God, I remember when it was, when you would get it bad the mornings after drinking.

0:14:03.5 Jordan Syatt: When I drank, yeah. Especially wine. Wine really would dry me out.

0:14:09.1 Mike Vacanti: What’s your water intake like these days?

0:14:11.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s high, dude. I’m super hydrated. I’m super hydrated. I think it’s, lately, I think it’s just, it’s been relatively cold in Dallas.

0:14:20.0 Mike Vacanti: And drier. Yeah.

0:14:21.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m sure that’s not helping, but I think it’s also age. Like, I think just age does shit to your skin. And genetics, obviously.

0:14:31.4 Mike Vacanti: I definitely get drier skin in the winter. That’s a fact. It’s drier here. It’s freezing here.

0:14:38.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. For you, you get it on your lip… You get chapped lips. I’ve literally never used chapstick in my whole… I’ve never had to use chapstick, but my, my up here next to my nose gets dry. So, like, when I see people use chapstick, I’m like, I’ve never had that issue, but I’ve seen people with cracked lips. I’m like, that looks so unbelievably painful. I can’t even imagine. But then I get dryness right up on my inner cheek.

0:15:00.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s fascinating you said that because in my mind, I was like, “I don’t get dry lips.” But that’s because I’ve… Like, if you look at my desk, I have three chapsticks on my desk right now.

0:15:14.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You just put it on right before we started recording. I think it’s just a habit for you.

0:15:17.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. That is interesting… But even my forehead or if I take a very hot shower… You take hot showers, right?

0:15:27.3 Jordan Syatt: I take super hot showers. Yeah.

0:15:29.9 Mike Vacanti: That’ll do it, too. Hot shower plus dry air.

0:15:32.4 Jordan Syatt: Man, I want a sauna so bad.

0:15:34.0 Mike Vacanti: I thought you were gonna get one.

0:15:35.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I am. But I want it. You know what I mean? Like I’m saying it, but I’m going to eventually. But I want it. We’re in these last six weeks before we move houses and I really just want to get the sauna, move in and like set that sauna up.

0:15:51.2 Mike Vacanti: You love the heat.

0:15:52.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:15:53.4 Mike Vacanti: When we were Lifetime Fitness members in New York City.

0:15:57.5 Jordan Syatt: 2019.

0:16:00.3 Mike Vacanti: 2019, 2020.

0:16:01.1 Jordan Syatt: Oh yeah, early 2020.

0:16:02.3 Mike Vacanti: Oh no. It was, it was, it was pre-COVID. Yeah, because…

0:16:05.4 Jordan Syatt: It was like January, February, early March.

0:16:08.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, because they shut it down, but they didn’t shut it down immediate… Oh yeah, they did.

0:16:13.3 Jordan Syatt: They did.

0:16:13.8 Mike Vacanti: They shut it down immediately. Because I remembered… Yeah, it was January, February.

0:16:18.2 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:16:18.7 Mike Vacanti: They had that amazing downstairs area where there’s cold plunge, steam room, sauna. And you could just sit in that sauna for a half hour and stretch. And I lasted like 10 minutes.

0:16:32.2 Jordan Syatt: You know what the most awkward part of all that for me was? It was coed. And I had never been in like that coed steam room sauna area before. It was, you know, I’ve never done that before. And it was, when it’s not coed, the old dudes are naked.

0:16:52.8 Mike Vacanti: Naked. Yeah, even…

0:16:54.0 Jordan Syatt: The old dudes… And they’re not just naked. They are, they… It’s not just naked. It’s like they are…

0:17:01.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s like blatant.

0:17:01.6 Jordan Syatt: Putting their legs in positions deliberately so you can see, like, they’re swinging, and it’s like they’ll put the leg up on the bench and full frontal talk to you. Like, “Hey, how’s it going, buddy?”

0:17:14.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s like an… That’s a 70-year-old locker room move right there.

0:17:18.3 Jordan Syatt: Yes. Yeah.

0:17:19.4 Mike Vacanti: Not even just sauna, but locker room in general.

0:17:22.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:17:25.2 Mike Vacanti: In Scandinavia, I’m pretty sure they’re, you know, split up by sex and everyone goes…

0:17:30.8 Jordan Syatt: I think so. Yeah.

0:17:31.4 Mike Vacanti: All the guys go naked in there. I’ve never been. I just remember like hearing stories.

0:17:38.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:17:40.6 Mike Vacanti: The Russian bath down on 10th street in First Avenue, Turkish Russian bath? That place is coed. And so that had always… I’ve been there a handful of times.

0:17:52.4 Jordan Syatt: The whole thing is coed? They’re all… It’s all 100% coed?

0:17:54.0 Mike Vacanti: Well, there’s locker rooms, right? So there’s a men’s and a women’s locker room. But then once you’re down there, yeah, it’s all coed.

0:18:01.0 Jordan Syatt: But there’s no nudity… Like people are just wearing swimsuits and stuff? You’re not naked in there.

0:18:06.7 Mike Vacanti: I feel like… That place is pretty authentic. Now, dudes aren’t. But I think some girls…

0:18:13.8 Jordan Syatt: Really?

0:18:14.5 Mike Vacanti: Couple times. Yeah. Maybe like topless. There was definitely some of that.

0:18:20.5 Jordan Syatt: Interesting.

0:18:22.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:18:22.9 Jordan Syatt: I didn’t know that was legal.

0:18:23.0 Mike Vacanti: But that place was crazy with… They had the Russian room where it’s 200 plus degrees.

0:18:27.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:18:30.2 Mike Vacanti: Their cold plunge was freezing and huge, which is really cool. So going back and forth between those.

0:18:38.8 Jordan Syatt: Mm.

0:18:39.7 Mike Vacanti: And then they had a bunch of different steam rooms and saunas.

0:18:42.3 Jordan Syatt: Are you gonna get a sauna or a cold plunge at your house?

0:18:46.6 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know. It’s not on my list. It’s very far down on my list.

0:18:52.3 Jordan Syatt: Got it. The gym. Home gym is high up though.

0:18:55.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it oscillates. It oscillates.

0:19:00.0 Jordan Syatt: What else, bro?

0:19:00.9 Mike Vacanti: Oh, I got something. Just, this is like a good reminder. The minute… So for anyone who hasn’t been tracking their food for a while, and you can apply this to new clients, current clients, yourself. The minute you start tracking again, you immediately realize that you are under-consuming protein, overconsuming carbs and fats, and overconsuming calories every single time. I literally tracked for the first day in, I don’t even know, months, yesterday, and just set some random rest day targets in a moderate deficit. And the food choices that I had to hit and the number of snacks that I wanted to go for, where I was like, Is that going to fit? Nah, not really,” was wild.

0:19:53.2 Jordan Syatt: I haven’t heard a better argument against intuitive eating than that. [chuckle] Or like, I guess I should refer to it like a better argument against permanent intuitive eating, like having these intermittent periods where, “Hey, I’m gonna go back and start tracking, get myself back in a educated, aware mindset.” Man. Dude, a hundred percent. If you’re not tracking, it’s so easy to overconsume carbs and fats and underconsume protein and overconsume calories.

0:20:27.3 Mike Vacanti: You make a great point about intuitive eating because intuitive eating almost only could work in a food environment that doesn’t have the level of ultra processed, delicious foods that we have.

0:20:41.6 Jordan Syatt: Correct, correct.

0:20:43.4 Mike Vacanti: If we were in a world of only single ingredient foods: Apple, banana, chicken breast, egg, etcetera…

0:20:54.2 Jordan Syatt: Yep, yep.

0:20:55.7 Mike Vacanti: Intuitive eating I think would work fine for almost everybody. But in a food environment with as much delicious crap as we have that’s very carb and fat dense and not satiating and delicious, and just tickles those neurotransmitters, it’s basically impossible to… It’s not basically impossible. It’s not a good strategy for almost anyone, especially if losing body fat is part of their goal.

0:21:27.3 Jordan Syatt: I think we could even take it further. Like, this is a really interesting slope to go down where let’s just remove all processed foods and just go like to all the single ingredient, all the fruits, vegetables, proteins, all that. Right? We’ve just got that. But let’s say we’ve still got TV commercials and movies with those foods in them. Okay?

0:21:58.0 Mike Vacanti: With healthy foods in them?

0:22:00.3 Jordan Syatt: No, no, with like the processed foods.

0:22:01.0 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:22:01.3 Jordan Syatt: So like you’re, you see them and they still create that desire for them, and they can literally still create hunger, they can create salivation. You’re going to be more likely to go eat the foods that you have available just because that was stimulated through seeing it. And then just because you have it available to you even without the commercials, even without seeing it, if you’ve got a pantry full or a fridge full of all, even like nuts and seeds and berries and all that stuff, these natural single ingredient foods, not processed, but nuts and seeds and berries, like nature’s candy, if you will, things that are super calorically dense, that are very easy to overeat and you could just put salt on them, like very easy to overeat that way…

0:22:46.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:22:51.7 Jordan Syatt: Never… The amount of time in history that a huge percentage of people have had a readily available abundance of food is absolutely miniscule.

0:23:03.8 Mike Vacanti: It rounds to zero.

0:23:05.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. The only people who would have had an abundance of food are like the wealthiest of the wealthiest of the wealthiest, the emperors, the kings, the queens, the… And even then they didn’t always have it, which is… But like they did have more.

0:23:18.4 Mike Vacanti: And even then, you’re looking at, depending on how long you think humans have existed, you’re still looking at a small percentage of history.

0:23:24.1 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah, that’s exactly right. So that’s a great point. So let’s just take all the processed foods out, even take the commercials out, all of that, and only have the single ingredient, unprocessed foods readily available. I still think intuitive eating would be really difficult because you have it readily available to you. It’s all there. Whereas before… Like it… For vast majority of human history, the only way you got food is if you went out and got it. You killed it, you prepared it, you gathered it, like it was… It wasn’t just in your home that you’re comfortably sitting in all the time. Like, even if you could have… Even if it was like you still had Uber Eats, but they were Uber eating, delivering you nuts and seeds and lentils, and… And by the way, lentils not cooked in outrageously in huge amounts of butter or it’s just like just the lentils, and it’s just the nuts, and seeds or just the berries, even if you remove your movement from the equation, I still think that people would overeat simply because it’s there and they have the ability to access it. And they want the crunch, they want the taste. They’re just like, “What do I do? I’m just gonna go eat.” Intuitive eating is, it’s very difficult.

0:24:42.8 Mike Vacanti: Obviously, to a lesser degree than we overeat now.

0:24:45.0 Jordan Syatt: Yes. A hundred…

0:24:47.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:24:47.8 Jordan Syatt: By a factor of a hundred. Yeah. But massive.

0:24:51.1 Mike Vacanti: But you’re saying it’s not only food choice, but it’s…

0:24:54.6 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:24:54.8 Mike Vacanti: But it’s food choice and abundance…

0:25:00.7 Jordan Syatt: Accessibility.

0:25:00.8 Mike Vacanti: Abundance of calories that exist in our systems, that we don’t have to go kill the antelope.

0:25:06.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:25:07.1 Mike Vacanti: We go to the grocery store, we order it from the grocery store, have it delivered, have it stocked in our home. Yeah.

0:25:13.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Yeah.

0:25:14.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:25:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yep, that’s exactly right. People are like, “Yeah, we were made to eat intuitively.” It’s like, we were made to go hunt and kill our food. And by the way, you were just eating it after cooking it on a fire and after you’d gutted it, and after you’d picked berries and nuts… And by the way, all the nuts, they weren’t shelled for you, you had to fucking shell these nuts yourself.

0:25:36.7 Mike Vacanti: You had to work for it. Yeah.

0:25:39.4 Jordan Syatt: So like, the amount of work you had to do to eat was insane. So the idea that intuitive eating comes naturally to us is the greatest fallacy. I’m all for intuitive eating, from especially from a improving relationship with food perspective, and there’s definitely a way to do it, but in this… I’ve never been more against intuitive eating than I have been in this single moment. It’s just outrageous to tell people that this is what we’re made to do. You want to do what we’re made to do? Okay, go kill your food. That’s what we’re made to do.

0:26:16.0 Mike Vacanti: This is a slight subject change, but I don’t know why I group intuitive eating with Health at Every Size in my mind, or at least overlap…

0:26:24.6 Jordan Syatt: There’s a lot of crossover. There’s a lot of crossover.

0:26:27.4 Mike Vacanti: Overlap those Venn diagrams a lot. Do you think that GLP1s have killed, and if not have killed, will kill the health at every size movement?

0:26:37.8 Jordan Syatt: I think they have… I think that balloon has been popped by the GLP1 needle. And it is rapidly deflating.

0:26:45.1 Mike Vacanti: The air is just seeping out.

0:26:47.5 Jordan Syatt: It is just like… And like, a huge percentage of the people who are in that world are now people who are like, “Oh, I feel so much better that I lost all this weight, and my numbers are better. And I’m getting off my medications, and I’m so much more confident, my mental health is better.” It’s like, yeah, 100%. Yes.

0:27:07.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s wild. Almost like we are going to reflect back on 2015-2025 with this weird political, like, wokeism… Not even political, cultural climate that we were in.

0:27:22.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:27:25.2 Mike Vacanti: And there’s overlap and Venn diagram there, too. But I think we’ll reflect back on the Health at Every Size movement similarly.

0:27:32.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah.

0:27:34.4 Mike Vacanti: Like, what were people thinking during that period of time?

0:27:37.6 Jordan Syatt: I’m so… What’s really funny is if I ever scroll back in my Instagram content when that was, like, I don’t know, 2018, 2019, 2020, when that was, like, really big, and I see my videos about it, if I made… If I publish that video now, people would be like, “What are… What are you talking about? This isn’t really a thing anymore.” Like, very few people talk about it ever. It was such a very brief period of time where it was so massively, massively propped up and a huge topic of discussion that, like, even now, just a few years later, it’s like, there would be a lot of people who’ve never heard of it. It’s not a thing anymore. It’s very interesting.

0:28:15.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Should we dive into your Q&A?

0:28:20.3 Jordan Syatt: All right, well, I have to give a shout out right now because when I opened up my Instagram… I’m not going to go on my Instagram without looking at my DMs before I go into the questions. And I see Margaret Maxwell, who’s in the mentorship.

0:28:33.1 Mike Vacanti: Margot.

0:28:35.7 Jordan Syatt: Just gave us a huge shout on her story.

0:28:37.8 Mike Vacanti: Let’s go, Margot. Thank you.

0:28:40.3 Jordan Syatt: She’s actually shouting out the Personal Trainer podcast and just had to give Margot (@maxwellfitness__) a huge shout out.

0:28:44.5 Mike Vacanti: Nice.

0:28:46.7 Jordan Syatt: I’m literally going to text her or DM her right now, say, “Thank you so much, I’m on the podcast, and just gave you a huge shout out.

0:28:51.2 Mike Vacanti: Margot’s awesome. Margot’s been in the mentorship for a while. Been crushing content. Thank you very much, Margot.

0:28:58.2 Jordan Syatt: “How tough was going from one kids to two kids?”

0:29:01.9 Mike Vacanti: How tough, Jordan?

0:29:03.0 Jordan Syatt: Unbelievably difficult. But to be honest, I think the hardest part was my dog.

0:29:09.6 Mike Vacanti: Really?

0:29:10.2 Jordan Syatt: I think that was the hardest because, to be fair, like, puppies are really, really hard. And he also had horrible diarrhea for the first, like, three months. And that was… That made it so much, so much more challenging. And he had… He was having some digestive issues, which we finally figured out. Once we figured that out, it got much, much, much easier. But one to two kids was really, really hard. Really, really difficult. Especially when the oldest one is two and she’s just, you know, she’s nuts. You have a nephew who’s about the same age…

0:29:49.0 Mike Vacanti: The two-year old. Yeah.

0:29:49.9 Jordan Syatt: Like, they’re nuts, dude. They don’t stop. It’s limitless energy. There’s no amount of caffeine that could give you that energy.

0:29:57.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, you go from two on one to two on two.

0:30:01.6 Jordan Syatt: Two on two with like a, with a berserk, drunk baby…

0:30:12.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

0:30:13.9 Jordan Syatt: That could do the craziest shit. Put its tongue in light fixtures or like in the electrical outlets. Jumping off of outrageously hard… Jumping like off of a very high surface onto something really hard, head first. Just like testing the limits of everything without realizing the dangers associated with it. And it’s just, it’s nonstop.

0:30:41.1 Mike Vacanti: How old’s your younger one now?

0:30:42.8 Jordan Syatt: She’s five months now.

0:30:44.1 Mike Vacanti: Okay. Compared to something that doesn’t move, essentially.

0:30:47.5 Jordan Syatt: Just sits there. Just sits there and yeah, yeah. And we’ve been really blessed because they’ve both slept really well. Like from six weeks, they’ve both slept through the night. I couldn’t imagine… Like, some people DM me. They’re like, “My kids are like two, four and six and they still don’t sleep through the night.” And I’m like, I don’t know how you do that. That’s crazy.

0:31:09.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Some people are just built different on operating without optimal sleep. Or I guess you just don’t know what you’re capable of until you’re forced into that situation.

0:31:20.7 Jordan Syatt: Probably that. When you just have to.

0:31:23.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:31:23.6 Jordan Syatt: “I know alcohol isn’t bad, but does drinking the night before a workout affect the quality of a lift?” This is from @ohsojoe008.

0:31:32.1 Mike Vacanti: You know, this is one where I would probably… This is an area where I probably wouldn’t be that excited to rely on a study or a group of studies or any kind of science. This is just knowing yourself and have… Go out for a night of drinking and then go train the next day and compare that to a night where you don’t drink anything, get a great night’s sleep and train that same workout the next day. Where did you feel better? I think it’s largely personal preference. I would imagine for almost everyone, drinking substantial amounts of alcohol leads to decreased workout quality, strength, endurance, perception of pain, like in every factor. But there are probably freaks out there who can drink, have 10 beers and then get up at 6:00 AM and go bench and knock it out of the park.

0:32:36.4 Jordan Syatt: You know, it’s funny. I think this is the perfect example of the difference between acute versus chronic exposure. There have been times, especially when I was younger, I think age probably affects it as well, obviously as well as personal as like, individual factors. But there’d be times where… And even now if I get a terrible night of sleep, nothing to do with alcohol, but horrible night of sleep, just a couple hours, and I’ll have an absolutely killer workout. Like, an amazing workout.

0:33:03.0 Mike Vacanti: Wait, wait, wait. Are we talking about drinking or are we talking about not getting great sleep?

0:33:07.9 Jordan Syatt: Well, I’m using sleep first and then I’ll go back to drinking.

0:33:10.5 Mike Vacanti: Okay. I agree with you. I think getting a bad night of sleep is definitely… But okay, keep going.

0:33:15.5 Jordan Syatt: So, but sometimes I’ll get a horrible night of sleep and I’ll have an amazing workout.

0:33:20.2 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:33:20.7 Jordan Syatt: Like, it’ll be like a truly like personal record, like, I don’t know where that came from, I was exhausted going into it, I didn’t feel good, but somehow I had an amazing workout. But I know that if I continued to get that level of shit sleep over a week, a month, a year, my workouts would suffer. Like it wouldn’t… It’s not like bad sleep gives you good workouts. It’s just occasionally if I get bad sleep, I somehow end up having an amazing workout.

0:33:45.3 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:33:45.7 Jordan Syatt: Same thing with alcohol, where…

0:33:47.1 Mike Vacanti: That’s backed in the literature, by the way.

0:33:49.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s actually super interesting. I didn’t know that. There have been significant number of times, not in recent years because I don’t really drink heavily. I drink… Not in the recent months, but in years, like I drink frequently but with far less volume. So I don’t drink as much total, but I will drink a little bit on a more regular basis. But either way, when I was younger and I would drink heavily… Tere were times when I would drink very heavily and the next day I would hit an all-time personal record, deadlift all-time personal record, bench or squat or crazy workout, have really good performance. I never did it from an endurance perspective, that I have a feeling wouldn’t have gone anywhere near as well. But who knows. But I also know that if I continued to drink that heavily over a longer period of time, my workouts would suffer as a result of it. So I think it’s not as much a question of an acute exposure to alcohol or an acute exposure to poor sleep, as much as it is what are you consistently doing over the long term?

0:34:58.4 Jordan Syatt: And if you are consistently drinking on a regular basis. And this is not… I’m not going to say health-wise, I’m purely talking about performance in the gym here. If you’re consistently drinking especially larger amounts on a regular basis, overall, it will hurt your performance in the gym. Like, there’s… I don’t care who you are, eventually it’s going to catch up to you.

0:35:17.4 Mike Vacanti: For sure. For sure. This is an interesting conversation because we’re both kind of going, N equals one here. And we’re polar opposites. Like, you probably can’t even remember your last hangover. And if I have four drinks, I’m in trouble the next day.

0:35:34.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:35:34.7 Mike Vacanti: Headache the entire day. Just feel absolutely atrocious.

0:35:39.7 Jordan Syatt: Which is crazy because I feel like your ancestors drank a lot. Like these Norse, they had a lot of beer. I feel like that… Like you’ve evolved. You should be good with that.

0:35:51.1 Mike Vacanti: Did we evolve? Were we tadpole, minnow fish, snakes at one point that became monkeys that became humans?

0:35:56.8 Jordan Syatt: No. I’m saying you have adapted over time to… I don’t know. But what I am saying, I think that you’re, in your genetic line, you should be able to drink. Maybe you should try beer. I wonder if that’s more in your…

0:36:11.3 Mike Vacanti: Brother, brother. Remember when you were… Remember when you were at Delaware not going out and building your business, and you had your website and you were home writing, I was in Madison, Wisconsin for five years, three nights per week on the town. I’ve done all of my going out for multiple lifetimes. I’m good, I’m good.

0:36:38.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s fair.

0:36:39.0 Mike Vacanti: I’ve consumed enough Natty Lights and Natty Ice and Busch. Like, beer? Try beer? I’ve consumed more beer playing flip cup alone than you have in three lifetimes.

0:36:52.0 Jordan Syatt: That’s fair. That’s probably true. That’s probably true.

0:36:55.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I’m a… And I don’t even know how I survived that era of my life, because even back then…

0:37:05.8 Jordan Syatt: Were you good at beer pong?

0:37:07.7 Mike Vacanti: Yes. Very, very. We’d bust out like basketball jers… It was… Oh, to be young. Yeah. I think this one’s… It’s cool to ask the question and get a little expert opinion from Syatt Fitness in the DMs here, but I think, drink, if you can train, great the next day? Cool. If you realize you perform better when you don’t drink, that’s probably your answer.

0:37:37.9 Jordan Syatt: Someone goes, “Anavar, dangerous or okay?” I’m not gonna say their Instagram handle. [laughter]

0:37:44.8 Mike Vacanti: Anavar is a steroid.

0:37:46.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Anavar is a steroid. What do you think?

0:37:50.1 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know. I wish I knew. You know what’s funny? On my question, on my thoughts list for today, I actually had a bullet point that said, “Jealous of TRT?” And I debated whether or not to bring it up. I don’t know if…

0:38:04.9 Jordan Syatt: You wanna talk about it?

0:38:07.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, I don’t… It’s because this is somewhat relevant. I don’t know if Anavar is, compared to all the steroids, if it’s dangerous or not dangerous or where it ranks. I don’t really know what it is, to be honest, other than that it’s a steroid. What I do know is that when I see a fake natty who I know is on 200 mgs of test, part of me gets jealous. I got my 38th birthday coming up in April. I go through cycles of like, “Yeah, my test could be higher. I could feel… Do I? How do I feel? I’d probably feel better at 1400 total test.”

0:38:44.2 Jordan Syatt: Dude, that’d be wild.

0:38:45.4 Mike Vacanti: It wouldn’t be that wild. If you took someone like me who’s probably at 800 right now and put me on 150, I’d easily be in the…

0:38:56.1 Jordan Syatt: No, no, I’m not saying that’d be wild… That I’m saying, it would feel…

0:38:58.9 Mike Vacanti: Oh, it would be wild to hit that number.

0:39:01.3 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no, I’m saying, like, that’d be incredible. You’d be like, “I feel like I’m 18.” [laughter]

0:39:07.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

0:39:08.5 Jordan Syatt: Better than when I was 18. Yeah, 100%.

0:39:10.1 Mike Vacanti: “There’s no free lunches in biology” is something I keep in mind. Hidden costs. Plus there’s…

0:39:19.7 Jordan Syatt: Cardiac issues.

0:39:22.3 Mike Vacanti: Well, I don’t know if there are in the 1200-1400 range, to be honest. Monitor blood pressure and blood work. I don’t… I mean, there’s definitely the higher doses you go. But I don’t know. What I do know is that there’s hedonic adaptation, there’s psychological dependency. People get addicted to steroids and want more and more progress. I haven’t been taking my training the most serious that I ever could. And so I can make natural progress. I feel good enough. I’m not that old, but, yeah, it’s almost like an… I don’t even know why I put it down as a bullet point, but it definitely exists in me. So that’s a terrible… That’s a terrible answer to, Is Anavar dangerous, but that’s my answer.

0:40:04.4 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s actually, it’s a great topic because I think a lot… Most people don’t realize how common TRT and drugs are in the fitness industry. Not just in men, but in women as well. And I think basically everybody who sees these bodies on social media is jealous, whether they realize it or not, of people who are using. And they don’t… It makes it even worse because they think, “Well, that person… ” t doesn’t even cross their mind that person might be taking something extra. They don’t… Because if you’re not that level of aware, then you definitely don’t understand how much these things help. So, like, then you see this insane body and you see someone being like, “I eat this many calories, and I barely do any cardio and I look like this.” And it’s like, “Are you… Like, what? Like, why can’t I do that?” And it’s like, and they’re jealous, but they’re jealous of the person who’s using these drugs that’s not disclosing it. It’s like, okay, I think we would all be jealous of them. And once you realize it, maybe it makes it easier to… An easier pill to swallow.

0:41:16.1 Jordan Syatt: “Oh, okay, well, that’s fine. I’m not going to inject myself with that shit. I would still love to look like that, but I’m not… I’m not… It’s not worth the cost for me.” Whereas, like, if you think that it’s natural, I think that’s probably worse.

0:41:26.0 Mike Vacanti: It’s, if you think it’s natural, it’s definitely discouraging. Where I don’t get discouraged by it because I know what’s going into it.

0:41:32.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:41:33.3 Mike Vacanti: For someone who’s like, “Man, what am I doing wrong with my nutrition or my training or my recovery that I can’t make that kind of progress?” It’s like, no, no, no, no, no. This guy’s on a not even well-designed training program, just throwing some weight around and sticking 200 mgs in his butt.

[laughter]

0:41:54.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I mean, listen, I’m not a steroid expert and I know I’m going to get flack for this from the people who’ve gotten all their steroid education from YouTube and stuff. But like, I would say no steroid is inherently safe. And I would… Here’s what I’ll say. Anything that you’re injecting in you is not inherently… It’s in… There’s an inherent risk to it. Anything that you inject in you. Anything. Which, by the way, some people, “Well, what about insulin”? It’s like, yeah, if someone takes insulin, they don’t need insulin, that’s really fucking dangerous. People die from that. That’s why you have to be very careful with who’s getting insulin and how much they’re taking and all that. So I think anything you inject in yourself can… It comes with a risk. With Anavar, it is generally a more mild steroid. There are generally fewer risks associated with it. It’s generally less… It’s generally seen to current research as like less dangerous. But less dangerous is still dangerous. And potentially not even for physiological reasons, but also the psychological reasons. Like, what does it lead to? You take that and then what do you do next? And then, okay, what happens when you come off of it? What happens to your mental health when you come off of it? When you come off of it, this was Louie’s whole thing in Bigger, Faster, Stronger is like, “once you go on, you’re not coming off.”

0:43:23.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s like, once you see what you look like, once you see how you perform, like, oh, you’re just supposed to stop now? You’re supposed to go from being a superhero to a regular human? That’s what it’s like. You’re just supposed to stop being a superhero?

0:43:37.3 Mike Vacanti: Yes.

0:43:37.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s pretty crazy.

0:43:39.2 Mike Vacanti: You really need to find another thing to get passionate about that you can progress in. Right? Because that’s like, you’re never gonna make that kind of… You’re never gonna reach that peak again not taking anything.

0:43:55.0 Jordan Syatt: Never. Never.

0:43:56.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:43:57.0 Jordan Syatt: You will never be as good as you were when you were on. Which is a hard pill to swallow because with age you can say, “Okay, well this is normal,” but with steroids it’s like, “Well, I could just start taking ’em again.” You can’t stop aging. You can start steroids again. Like, it’s very different. The option is always there.

0:44:21.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah, great points.

0:44:23.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s a dangerous game to play.

0:44:24.4 Mike Vacanti: Great points. The hormone replacement therapy for people who are of legitimate age, doing everything correct naturally and still on the low end of normal, below the normal range, having lots of symptoms, not feeling good, have talked with multiple doctors and want to go on a safe protocol to get their numbers a bit higher within the normal range? Amazing. That sounds like something… Not that sounds like. That is something that is almost certainly good for your health. But those aren’t the people in the fitness industry and even the influencers outside of the fitness industry who have like physiques have blown up.

0:45:04.9 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Especially the, like, the financial, the business gurus.

0:45:09.9 Mike Vacanti: Finance, business, the podcast bros.

0:45:11.2 Jordan Syatt: They’re all jacked out of their minds.

0:45:12.9 Mike Vacanti: There’s some jacked podcast guys who are like pumping out two, three-hour episodes five to seven days a week and sleeping four hours. And it’s like, wait, how’d you gain 30 pounds of lean mass and your head shape change?

0:45:26.5 Jordan Syatt: Your shoulders are huge, your hands are huge.

0:45:28.3 Mike Vacanti: Massive shoulders, vascular.

0:45:30.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. And they’re like, “Yeah, I can do this.” It’s like, okay, all right. “If I can do it, you can.” It’s like, yeah. I mean, but you’re… Then, of course, it comes out that they’re spending $15,000 a month on fucking steroids. [laughter]

0:45:41.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:45:42.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yep.

0:45:42.8 Mike Vacanti: And by the way, and some are open and transparent about that, and some aren’t.

0:45:49.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, man. You know what is really good for men, specifically, and their testosterone? Not having too high body fat.

0:46:01.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. You want to talk about this?

0:46:03.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, let’s do it.

0:46:05.5 Mike Vacanti: Dude. All right. So Jordan did the… Before you did your blood sugar spiking challenge, what year was this?

0:46:15.3 Jordan Syatt: This was not this past summer, but the summer before. So this past summer was August ’24. I did it in August, September of ’23.

0:46:25.9 Mike Vacanti: And you were what weight when you started that challenge?

0:46:29.9 Jordan Syatt: I was 155, I think.

0:46:33.1 Mike Vacanti: And this is all documented, by the way, so you can go back on our YouTube Premium.

0:46:35.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s all on YouTube. I was around 155 somewhere. 154, 155 or something.

0:46:40.2 Mike Vacanti: And you got blood work before you started the challenge?

0:46:43.4 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:46:44.0 Mike Vacanti: And your total test was?

0:46:46.1 Jordan Syatt: Low to mid fives, like 520, 530, something like that.

0:46:50.6 Mike Vacanti: And which you hadn’t gotten your test checked in a while, I don’t think. And so we didn’t think a ton of it at the time. But then…

0:47:00.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. But it was the lowest I’d ever seen it. It was, I was like, “Oh, wow.” I mean, but, you know, I had a kid. I wasn’t sleeping as much. Like, business, like, it was… I was like, cool, it’s getting older. I wasn’t worried about it.

0:47:11.5 Mike Vacanti: Getting older. You weren’t training as hard.

0:47:14.3 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:47:15.0 Mike Vacanti: You weren’t… You were on, like, the slightly upper end of your normal range of body fat.

0:47:20.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yep.

0:47:22.1 Mike Vacanti: And basically you did the 30-day challenge. You lost 8 pounds? 10 pounds?

0:47:29.7 Jordan Syatt: 14 pounds.

0:47:30.8 Mike Vacanti: Wow.

0:47:31.0 Jordan Syatt: 12 or 14. It’s all documented. It was either 12 or 14 pounds. Yeah.

0:47:33.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. But at least 8, 9, 10. We’ll call it minimum 8 pounds of fat.

0:47:39.3 Jordan Syatt: 10. No, minimum… Yeah, yeah, yeah. Minimum 8 pounds of fat. Minimum 8 pounds of fat.

0:47:43.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And you got your blood work done at the end of the challenge, and it was 900?

0:47:52.4 Jordan Syatt: It was over 900, was my test. Yeah.

0:47:54.9 Mike Vacanti: And based on everything that I knew and understood, because you were still in a… I mean, bro, you lost 14 pounds…

0:48:02.9 Jordan Syatt: Huge calorie deficit.

0:48:03.5 Mike Vacanti: 14 pounds in 30 days.

0:48:03.8 Jordan Syatt: Huge calorie deficit, yeah.

0:48:05.4 Mike Vacanti: At 5 foot 4. Like, you were in a massive deficit.

0:48:08.5 Jordan Syatt: Yep. It didn’t make sense.

0:48:10.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s impossible. Everything we hear is one of the things that suppresses total test levels the most is being in a large caloric deficit, which you were. And your test almost doubled. And so in my mind, first of all, I was like, “Jordan, you doing something?”

0:48:25.0 Jordan Syatt: Are you taking something, bro?

0:48:26.0 Mike Vacanti: “Are you up to no good, Jordan? Hey, don’t you lie to me.” You’re like, “I’m not… Hey, I swear I’m not… “

0:48:30.7 Jordan Syatt: I swear to God.

0:48:35.1 Mike Vacanti: And then I was like, How is this possible? And I was like, you never really struck me as a… 500 felt low to me early on, like, at the beginning for you. So I was like, did you… How much wine did you have the night before? And you were like, “Oh, I drank the night before.”

0:48:53.1 Jordan Syatt: I did drink.

0:48:54.4 Mike Vacanti: Like, I drank a bunch the night before. And I was like, that has to be it. That has to be what happened.

0:49:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, and I was traveling. I was traveling and drinking.

0:49:01.7 Mike Vacanti: You were stressed? Yeah.

0:49:02.7 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:49:03.1 Mike Vacanti: Yep. I was like, stress, alcohol, like, slept three hours.

0:49:07.4 Jordan Syatt: I was at my wife’s family’s house. Yeah, it was stressful. And yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:49:12.4 Mike Vacanti: I was like, okay, so you weren’t actually 500. You were probably 800, 900. Test levels were suppressed from, like, in an acute sense. And you just… Those are your testosterone levels. That’s how we, like, both kind of saw it, even though…

0:49:28.4 Jordan Syatt: And I even brought Spencer on my… I asked Spencer Nadolsky, and I did a whole YouTube video with him where he analyzed it, and he said, “No, this is pretty common.” And I didn’t believe him.

0:49:39.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:49:40.3 Jordan Syatt: He was like, this is common when people lose fat, I guess, we’ll see an increase in testosterone.

0:49:44.2 Mike Vacanti: He said, yeah, he said he’d seen… But dude, you weren’t fat. That’s the thing.

0:49:49.8 Jordan Syatt: Correct. Correct.

0:49:50.5 Mike Vacanti: Like, you were on the high end of your normal range, but you weren’t 35% body fat going down to 15% body fat.

0:49:55.1 Jordan Syatt: No. Correct.

0:49:57.7 Mike Vacanti: And you didn’t lose that much… It was 30 days. Like, you didn’t lose that much body… Okay. And even then, I remember being like, I wonder if Spencer… I think we even talked about this. I was like, “Do you think Spencer thinks, too, that you took something and is like, being nice and saying this?” Like, what’s going on here?

0:50:14.8 Jordan Syatt: And this is because the industry is full of people who lie about this. Like, this is like, it wouldn’t be weird to have someone lie about taking steroids. Like, it’s like, you know?

0:50:27.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes.

0:50:29.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s like, in the industry as a whole, it’s like, “Okay. Okay, well, Jordan must be taking it then.” Like, it wouldn’t be weird to hear that.

0:50:35.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yes. Oh, it would be… Yeah. In general, yes, absolutely.

0:50:40.7 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:50:44.9 Mike Vacanti: And so, and by the way, and you had… And I can’t prove this, “but”, in there, that you didn’t even tell me about at the time. Do you want to share that right now?

0:50:51.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. In my mind, I was thinking I had this real bro science moment where I was like, maybe the key to spiking your testosterone is the blood sugar spikes. Because I spiked my blood sugar every day, like, considerably. I was… Whether it was with a donut or some type of candy or whatever, I was spiking my blood sugar every… I was like, “Maybe by doing that, I somehow was able to keep, like, to get my test up high.”

0:51:18.7 Mike Vacanti: Because you’re like, that’s the only thing that makes sense here. Right? “I lost… “

0:51:21.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, correct.

0:51:21.8 Mike Vacanti: “I was in a huge deficit. Like, what else was I doing differently during this challenge that I wasn’t doing prior to or in my life?” It’s like, “Well, I was spiking my blood sugar every day for 30 days. Maybe there’s a correlation there.”

[laughter]

0:51:35.8 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:51:37.3 Mike Vacanti: Which is a fun thought experiment, but okay, so that’s that. What happened in 2023. Fast forward to your last several months. You had blood work done in the early fall and were, basically you had blood work done there, and your test was in a similar level. Right? In the 500s.

0:52:01.7 Jordan Syatt: It was back down to again, 520ish, 530ish range. Yep.

0:52:06.6 Mike Vacanti: Similar to the before on the… Yeah. That’s what I meant.

0:52:08.9 Jordan Syatt: And my weight was back up to about where it was a little bit heavier. It was like 160ish, 159.

0:52:14.1 Mike Vacanti: Yep, yep.

0:52:14.5 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:52:16.1 Mike Vacanti: And then over the course, over several months, you lost a bunch of body fat again.

0:52:21.1 Jordan Syatt: Yep. Yep.

0:52:22.1 Mike Vacanti: And just within the last week, you got another round of blood work.

0:52:26.2 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:52:26.9 Mike Vacanti: And your testosterone levels are back in the nine hundreds.

0:52:29.1 Jordan Syatt: Went up again. Back in the nine hundreds. Dude, crazy. Crazy.

0:52:35.4 Mike Vacanti: And now here, and really cool and really, like… What’s the word? Like, exciting and encouraging. Right? That getting leaner leads to such a substantial… I mean, N equals 1, but leads to such a substantial increase in test levels. Fascinating. One big takeaway for me is that maybe all of the hoopla around dieting down hurts… The hoopla around the thought that dieting down hurts men’s testosterone levels really only applies to getting unbelievably lean. Right?

0:53:20.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:53:21.8 Mike Vacanti: Like, we’re talking bodybuilders, we’re talking getting on stage, like, having to be in the mid single digits in terms of body fat percentage for it to have a negative effect on testosterone levels. Could be, but…

0:53:36.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:53:37.5 Mike Vacanti: How cool that they basically doubled again.

0:53:42.5 Jordan Syatt: Dude, it was shocking. And not only did it double again, but it doubled… My daughter had just been born, my second daughter, so sleep wasn’t great. Stress was high with Curtis and my two daughters, building the house. A lot going on with businesses. Like, stress super high.

0:54:03.7 Mike Vacanti: Battling in the DMs.

0:54:05.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude, battling in the DMs. Just battling in the DMs. Three times a week strength training and the rest is mobility work, and like, dude. Yeah. Test went up 920s or above, like, crazy. And my free test got like… This, this was even more in depth, it wasn’t just like total, like, my free test was significantly higher. Like an actual usable test got just way better. Really, really, really interesting.

0:54:39.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:54:41.7 Jordan Syatt: And encouraging for people who want to improve their hormonal profile. And they’re like, “Should I take a drug?” or… It’s like, I don’t know, maybe just go into a calorie deficit.

0:54:54.6 Mike Vacanti: Can you…

0:54:55.3 Jordan Syatt: Maybe lose… You got an extra 20 pounds? Like, maybe just lose some of that and see. Your hormonal profile… It’s funny, people are like, “What about hormones? What about hormones?” Well, if you lose the extra body fat, your hormonal profile is probably gonna improve. So like…

0:55:08.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Uh-huh.

0:55:09.7 Jordan Syatt: Did you look at the blood work that I sent you or no?

0:55:11.8 Mike Vacanti: But I’ve skimmed over it. It’s a lot of pages, dude.

0:55:15.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Super comprehensive, super comprehensive.

0:55:19.2 Mike Vacanti: How do you feel then? Like, do you feel a difference? Oh, I know what I was gonna ask you. Can you give estimated body fat percentages on the before and after for both the 2023 timeframe and then this one?

0:55:32.9 Jordan Syatt: Oh, that’s gonna be tough. I would say the starting body fat percentage was probably close to, close… Between 18 and 20.

0:55:40.9 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:55:41.6 Jordan Syatt: And then the finished body fat, probably closer to 14, 15.

0:55:51.3 Mike Vacanti: Similar for both of them.

0:55:53.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. The only, the main difference is and with the sugar spike one, I did that in a month. This one has been sustained over three and a half months or so. Like it’s been a slower, more sustained… And it’s still a fast rate, still like relatively fast compared to the average of what I would recommend for especially people doing this that are early on in their fitness journey. So, still fast, but relatively way slower than the sugar spike experiment.

0:56:25.0 Mike Vacanti: You know what’s interesting about that is I feel like over the last handful of years, the industry has developed this… Like, the majority of the industry has developed this obsession with slow and steady being the best and only way of fat loss. And slow and steady does work extremely well for, I would actually say most people and is probably the preferred method for most people. But the fear mongering and like boogeyman of a rapid fat loss approach and all of the downsides, it’s like, that 30 days was… I mean, it wasn’t like a traditional FL where you’re doing a…

0:57:11.5 Jordan Syatt: Correct, correct.

0:57:11.7 Mike Vacanti: Protein-sparing modified fast, like only eating protein essentially. However, you lost a ton of weight in 30 days and your hormonal profile looked really good at the end of it.

0:57:22.0 Jordan Syatt: What’s really interesting as well is people… Like, I agree, I think slower and steadier is better for most people. What would you say? 80%?

0:57:31.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah, and let’s… RFL is interesting because there’s unique places to use it, right? Like as a…

0:57:38.6 Jordan Syatt: Yes, correct.

0:57:39.5 Mike Vacanti: Jump start for someone who’s… But yeah, if we’re just going to slap a number on, I would say 80 is a good starting point. I, I’m with you.

0:57:47.1 Jordan Syatt: So let’s just say 80% then that means like one in five people would do better with a faster approach, right?

0:57:54.4 Mike Vacanti: It’s a lot.

0:57:54.7 Jordan Syatt: Which is like, it’s a lot of people. It’s a lot of people. And then we have to break it down, “Okay, well, who really needs to… ” That’s just population averages. But now let’s look at the people who really need to lose weight. The people who really benefit from faster weight loss are people who have a lot of weight to lose. And now, I would venture to say someone who’s 40, 50% body fat, like maybe 80% of them would do better with a faster approach. And then as they get leaner, then it go, okay, now we transition into a slower and steadier approach. But if we’re looking at just the population of people who need to lose a lot of weight, there’s a real argument to be made that if someone who’s 40, 50% body fat, like, they’ve got to lose fat quickly in these first few months, like, we’ve got to go. Like that… I think for them the slower and steadier approach is such… I’ve had people in their situation who are like, “Yeah, someone’s telling me that my calorie should be at like 4,500 a day.”

0:58:54.3 Jordan Syatt: I’m like, “That’s insane.” “Because like, well, I want, they want me to lose half a pound a week.” I’m like, you’re 400 pounds. Like, that’s crazy.

0:59:03.1 Mike Vacanti: That’s a coach whose, like, heart is in the right place. And they’ve heard if you put someone in too big of a deficit that like, this will happen and this will happen and you want it to be slow and steady so it’s sustainable. But they don’t realize this person needs to lose 150 pounds. Half a pound a week is six years. You don’t want to be dieting for six years. It’s a big chunk of someone’s life. You’re going to get demotivated very quickly.

0:59:25.9 Jordan Syatt: Correct.

0:59:26.3 Mike Vacanti: Oh, you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. You’re five weeks in, you’re like, “Okay, I just got the rest of this year and then five more years.”

0:59:34.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:59:34.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s a cool data point comparing the two, the 2023 vs 2024 fat loss for you in speed of fat loss and still having the same outcome, at least in terms of total test levels.

0:59:49.2 Jordan Syatt: Very cool. Very cool. Might still be the blood sugar spike, but we’ll see. Can’t prove it, but…

0:59:53.3 Mike Vacanti: It could. Dude, when you told me that because I, like… It’s fun. I can’t prove this but is fun. And my mind immediately went to when I was calorie cycling aggressively, like 350 carb on training day, 120 carb on rest day, alternating training and rest day. And it’s like, “I was in very good shape when I was doing that. Maybe there’s something to the blood sugar spike.” But also, my…

1:00:19.1 Jordan Syatt: Is that why you texted me after and you were like, “Bro, blood sugar spikes are the play.” Because you texted me after the conversation?

1:00:24.5 Mike Vacanti: I texted you? No, no, I think I just ate a donut. And I was like, this is… It’s like, this is great.

[laughter]

1:00:32.6 Jordan Syatt: “Yeah, this is what we gotta do.”

1:00:35.0 Mike Vacanti: It was enjoyment. But a post workout like protein shake and donut is quite enjoyable from time to time at least.

1:00:42.1 Jordan Syatt: Where do you get the donut? You go to 7-Eleven?

1:00:45.9 Mike Vacanti: Where do I get the donut? When I’m, I think I was in the city and I just get a glazed donut from 7-Eleven. That might have been a pre-workout donut, actually.

1:00:53.6 Jordan Syatt: Do you ever get, you’d go to like a donut shop. Not like a Dunkin Donuts, but do you ever go to like a donut shop where like they specialize in donuts?

1:01:02.4 Mike Vacanti: I’ll go to a grocery store’s bakery where they are, they make fresh donuts. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a donut shop.

1:01:09.8 Jordan Syatt: I just, I pass them all the time now that I’m in the suburbs, when I’m driving.

1:01:12.2 Mike Vacanti: Oh, really?

1:01:13.4 Jordan Syatt: I just see donut shops all over the place. Like literally they’re big sign “Donuts”. It’s like a donut shop. And I’m always like, “I want to go, I want to go.” And then in my mind when I’m at home, I was like, “I’m going to go,” and then I’m passing it and I’m like, “What, am I just go get a fucking donut by myself right now?” Like, you know what I mean? [laughter]

1:01:33.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, well, protein…

1:01:34.4 Jordan Syatt: One day I’m sure I will, but like, I don’t know. I’m at… Maybe I feel like that’s something that I should do when I’m like 60. You know, kids are out of the house, every morning I’ve got this… Or I do that… What I would really love to do is like with my daughters, like, we make like a Sunday ritual, we’re going to go get donuts. But like…

1:01:50.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

1:01:51.7 Jordan Syatt: That would be fun. That, you know, that’s what I’ll do. Like once they get a little bit older, we’re gonna go to the donut shop every Sunday, bring them back home. That’d be fun.

1:02:00.3 Mike Vacanti: I used to love, my dad and I would get mini donuts at the Minnesota Gopher hockey games. They had these delicious…

1:02:05.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, really?

1:02:06.4 Mike Vacanti: Mini donuts with cinnamon. Yeah. Or the Minnesota State Fair has incredible mini donuts. Donut shops…

1:02:12.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, I believe at State Fair.

1:02:14.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

1:02:16.2 Jordan Syatt: Donut shops what?

1:02:18.0 Mike Vacanti: They just sound dangerous to me. Right?

1:02:20.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, really? You mean like…

1:02:21.6 Mike Vacanti: I drive, if I drive by it every day, like, that could become a real habit, just pull into the donut shop.

1:02:27.1 Jordan Syatt: I thought you meant like, that’s where bad people hung out. [laughter]

1:02:30.5 Mike Vacanti: That too. That too. It’s double meaning.

1:02:34.2 Jordan Syatt: I thought you meant like crime. A lot of crime in the donut shop world. [laughter]

1:02:37.7 Mike Vacanti: No, I would argue the donut shop world is probably on the low end for crime. Unless it was just a shell company for a drug dealing organization.

1:02:46.1 Jordan Syatt: That’s, yeah, that’s true. Money laundering.

1:02:48.2 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know if they would go to a donut shop, but because… Maybe, maybe they will. Anyway, this was a fun episode. Feel like a lot of good education here. Jordan, sign us off.

1:02:57.9 Jordan Syatt: Hey, we really hope you enjoyed the episode on that. [laughter] If you, if you liked it, please leave a five-star review. All of them really help. Thank you to everyone who’s done that already. I wish Apple would come up with a way to reply to the reviews because we go and we read all of them and we sincerely appreciate everyone who’s done it. So, thank you. If you haven’t done it, please go leave a five star written review and that’s it. We appreciate you. Have a wonderful week. We’ll talk to you soon.

1:03:28.7 Mike Vacanti: See you next week.