Episode 224: Mike is a DAD!

0:00:12.3 Mike Vacanti: Hello, Jordan.

0:00:12.8 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, dad? [laughter]

0:00:16.1 Mike Vacanti: How’re you doing?

0:00:17.1 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, dad?

0:00:18.8 Mike Vacanti: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Apologies about missing last week’s episode. That’s on me. We were in the hospital and yeah.

0:00:27.8 Jordan Syatt: All three of us. You, me, and your wife. [laughter] We were all there.

0:00:32.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. That was on me, but yeah, man, things are good. We’re back. We’re podding.

0:00:37.7 Jordan Syatt: Bro, we’re back. How’s dad life?

0:00:41.0 Mike Vacanti: All right. Let’s just get right into it. [laughter] this is gonna be a, this might be a bit of a monologue. And I’m gonna preface this by saying I’m hesitant to talk about this in depth or to whatever level I’m going to. And I’ve thought about it a lot. Like, I’ve thought about this episode a lot over the last week, week and a half, because I’m very sensitive to people who want to have kids and can’t have kids. And so I’m weighing that with what I’m feeling and wanting to share what I’m feeling. Man, I’m gonna cry.

[laughter]

0:01:22.0 Jordan Syatt: Oh, it’s a real dad life [laughter]

0:01:27.9 Mike Vacanti: I can’t even get it out. I was not expecting this. Especially with you. ’cause I don’t cry with you.

[laughter]

0:01:38.6 Jordan Syatt: “Especially with you, bro.”

0:01:40.9 Mike Vacanti: Well, you know, we’re like, you know, it’s like crying in a locker room or something. Bro, it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.

0:01:50.1 Jordan Syatt: Fuck yeah, dude.

0:01:51.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. There’s not gonna be a monologue actually, I can’t do a monologue right now. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but it’s really, really amazing. Yeah. Baby girl born, she’s 11 day old, days old now. And yeah, man, things are really good.

0:02:09.4 Jordan Syatt: What’s so great? Can you put it into words? Like, what’s so great about it?

0:02:14.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I was trying, but then I was losing it, so I then I just had to like, halt the whole thing. I would argue I’m gonna approach this from a very me-like way in the way I go about this right now. I would argue that from 2018 until May 2nd of this year, I was having a real crisis of meaning in my life. And I didn’t even know it. Like, I kind of did, but not really. Like in the years prior, I was unbelievably passionate about building my business. So, that occupied my attention and focus and it felt like a mission, and there was excitement and adventure. And since 2018, I would argue I’ve been on like autopilot with my business, which is great. I enjoy it. I like helping people. I have a full client roster. I love it more than any other job I could imagine. But it didn’t have the same level of meaning as it did from 2012 to 2018. And in the absence of meaning in life, we look for that feeling in other places that are more hedonic, leaning into vice, leaning into over consumption, leaning into sin to a degree, leaning into these things that are almost in a temporary antidote to a lack of meaning in life. And I remember a vlog, I don’t know if it was 2016 or 2017, one of those years, I think I was wandering around Manhattan like late at night, you know, just camera talking. And I remember saying like, struggling to find meaning in life. And I remember saying, you could always just have kids.

0:04:10.4 Mike Vacanti: It felt like an automatic way, logically. I didn’t know the feeling, but logically it felt like I see all my friends doing it. I see how they’re acting. Like we’ve done it for all of human history, like logically to find meaning in life you could procreate and then you have automatic meaning there. I didn’t really know what it meant, but I remember saying it, and I remember it making sense in my brain. Nine years or whatever since I said that, I still didn’t know what that would feel like. When my wife was pregnant, I didn’t have that sense of feeling. When she was getting bigger, I didn’t have that sense of feeling. When we saw baby on the ultrasound, the heartbeat, the growth scan, like all of these steps along the way, four months, five months, six months, seven months, eight months pregnant, like due date’s coming, I still didn’t have that feeling. Maybe slightly during the labor process, but not really, honestly. It was more just fear on my part like, hoping everything would be okay until the moment I saw my daughter, like, everything changed.

0:05:12.7 Mike Vacanti: And I actually can’t put it into words, well, at least, other than to say it’s completely shifted my perspective on every decision, on every moment. I think I had a fear over the last year of like, I’m selfish. What if I’m a bad dad? What if I like, don’t care about her? There were like these weird thoughts that I had that just like, were automatically washed away when I saw her. Like everything changed. How I drive changed, like how I think about, I don’t have a fear of death like I did before. I have a fear of something happening to her. I don’t wanna get too into this beyond what I’m saying. And again, I’m trying to balance this with being sensitive to other people. And the fact that if I would’ve heard myself on this monologue like five years ago, I probably would’ve been like, I wouldn’t have been able to relate, because I don’t know that you can fully until you experience it. And that almost sounds douchey too. It’s like, oh…

0:06:22.7 Jordan Syatt: You can’t. It’s just, you can’t.

0:06:23.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I don’t want to be like, oh, you can’t know what this feels like, but I do. But all I can say is the moment I saw her, everything in my life changed. And, you know, I’m the king of sleep, right? I’m nine hours a night. I’m the six pillow solution. I’m thee sleep guy. I went two weeks averaging maybe three hours a night and just running on pure adrenaline. And it felt great. You know, there’s times where you’re tired, you’re dozing off, but everything in my life changed for the better. And yeah, I’m just super, super grateful. And I guess sharing this one because it happened and I’m talking to you about it, but two, as a slight encouragement to the next generation around a potential life path to consider, even if it’s not as in vogue as it may have been 50 or 75 years ago.

0:07:24.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It’s funny you brought up that you’re not scared of death anymore. I was going to ask, I was like, has your fear changed? And it’s shifted from yourself to her.

0:07:35.4 Mike Vacanti: I have nightmares about something bad happening to her and like wake up and make sure she’s okay.

0:07:39.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah, dude. Makes total sense. And then what was the other thing? It was the fear and then, oh yeah, and you were like, yeah, averaging like three hours a night and you feel great. It’s because before it wasn’t worth it to not get that sleep. Now not getting that sleep is it’s the most worth it thing in the world. And it’s like you get to take care of that most incredible worth it thing in the world and you get to spend time with her and you get to hold her and you get to, you feel great because you’re doing that thing. Like you’re doing it. It’s awesome, dude. I understand it also, it sounds douchey. Like I get it, but also it’s just, it’s a fact. It’s sort of like if someone does a psychedelic drug and they’re like, oh, you just can’t understand it unless you do it. It’s like fair. Like I totally understand that there’s no way I could understand it unless I did that. Yep. It’s just a fact.

0:08:42.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:08:43.1 Jordan Syatt: Well, let’s go dad.

0:08:45.9 Mike Vacanti: And obviously mom is good. She’s doing great. Mom’s an absolute champ. Mom really, mom carried the load last night with a podcast today. I got more sleep than I have been getting. Mom was a MVP of last night. Yeah. And everyone’s healthy and things are good. Things are good.

0:09:05.6 Jordan Syatt: Is there anything else on dad topic you wanted to hit on?

0:09:10.2 Mike Vacanti: Bro, we could do a whole podcast on dad topic and intertwine it with fitness dad topic because somehow running on minimal sleep, I think I’ve trained three times in the last…

0:09:25.4 Jordan Syatt: Five days or something? Six days.

0:09:27.2 Mike Vacanti: No, like, no. Well, because I had time off when we were in the hospital, actually I did one set of, you know they have the pregnancy ball?

0:09:36.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:09:37.3 Mike Vacanti: Like the physio ball in there. I did one set of body weight, hamstring curls to failure at one point.

0:09:41.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, nice.

0:09:42.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Nurses are like, what’s wrong with this guy? Had the foam roller in there too. In the last eight or nine days, I guess I’ve trained three times and I was telling you I’m shifting to a twice a week strength training program and we can get into that too, ’cause I have some things to say on that. I’ve had the three best lifts that I’ve had in five years.

0:10:11.1 Jordan Syatt: In terms of like weight lifted or like how it feels or…

0:10:14.3 Mike Vacanti: Probably not in terms of like setting PRS on everyone, but in terms of energy, in terms of how it feels in terms of being completely exhausted, but then doing it anyway. But before that first workout that I was running on two hours of sleep that night, I had told myself this was the day I’m going to get back into the gym. I didn’t want to train at all. It’s like, this is going to feel awful. And I remember sitting on the couch thinking, I don’t want to work out. However, I might always be feeling like this, or at least for a number of months, this is how I’m going to be feeling. And so if I don’t work out right now, I legitimately thought I might take three months off of training. It’s like, I’m not doing that. Got up, grabbed the pre-workout, went to the gym, had the best lift I’ve had in years. Yeah, which I, which I am attributing to dad strength. I think that is a real thing.

0:11:07.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s also, I’m wondering, has your purpose in lifting shifted already? Like, have you been like, wow, dude, this is like not striving for Olympia anymore. Like where are you at?

0:11:23.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s a wild pinpoint. Accurate statement by you or prediction because the one thing that has really changed is how much I care about maximizing muscle growth. I want to feel better. I switched gyms as well, because my one gym was like a 15 or 16 minute commute, so I switched to one that’s a six or seven minute commute, just saving me like 20 plus minutes on a round trip times however many workouts. And efficiency is something that I’m prioritizing more in my training. A twice a week schedule for 60, maybe like 60 to 70 minutes of lifting, so they’re hard workouts, but only twice a week for 60 to 70 minutes. And yeah, kind of pre, this I guess is specific to having a kid, although it probably blends in, but maybe we can throw this on the screen. A few weeks back, I texted you a picture that I stumbled across of myself in 2014. And I looked jacked.

0:12:42.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, huge.

0:12:43.9 Mike Vacanti: I looked big. I looked juicy. Like I looked non-natural in that picture. I forgot that I ever looked like that, basically. And it was an insane pump and I was lean at the time and say whatever, but it was, you know, I’m not trying to blow myself up. It was a great picture. And then very recently, I saw a picture of someone who I have a ton of respect for, someone who is brilliant, someone who is one of the great minds in the fitness space, and I still have massive amounts of respect for. But he had taken like a month off of training and was posting kind of a vulnerability picture and didn’t, like he was fat or he didn’t look great. Intentionally. That was the point of the picture was, hey, I’m not looking great, but I’m going to in a matter of time was kind of where he was going with it and had just been through some things, whatever. But what I realized was in the last several years, I have, for some reason, lended too much credit to the newest “science” over my own personal experience when it comes to training, right?

0:14:05.1 Mike Vacanti: If this person who’s brilliant and has millions of followers and can analyze research better than me says that 52 sets a week is a good thing for optimizing muscle growth, I don’t know why I have felt the need to like bend the knee to that person’s point of view over my own perspective. Because when I compare what I was doing at the time, and by the way, I was 26 in this picture that I saw and I’m 38 now. So there’s clear differences, although not really to be honest. A natural dude from 26 to 38, like, if anything, you should see improvements in physique, you shouldn’t see fall off depending on lifestyle. Like there are a lot of factors here. But basically, at the time I was following a low volume, high intensity, taking lots of sets to failure, training three days a week max approach. And over the last several years, I’ve dabbled in much higher volume training. And it all came to a head of like, where has this gotten me? Like, where has this approach gotten me other than I don’t necessarily love the higher volume workouts. It’s more time in the gym. And am I really getting better results than I was with a Martin Berkhan’s style reverse pyramid training, lower frequency, taking more sets within one rep of complete failure?

0:15:28.0 Mike Vacanti: And so, given that I want to be spending less time in the gym over the next three, six, nine months, I’m going to play with less time in gym, more intense, harder sets while I’m there. And less of a focus on doing everything I can to optimize muscle, whether that means being in a surplus all the time, whether that means getting at least a gram of protein per pound of body weight all the time, caring less about that, being okay with having lower calorie days, being okay if my protein’s not optimized, and being okay if I’m not doing 100 sets per body part per week, like some of the recent science is saying is a good idea. Because I have overweighted the most recent science relative to my own personal experience recently. And I’m going to shift that more to like 80/20 experience rather than 80/20 science.

0:16:19.5 Jordan Syatt: What do you think like goal-wise, if muscle mass isn’t it, what do you think you’re focused on?

0:16:24.2 Mike Vacanti: Dude, I’m literally going to put myself in a 2014 mindset when it comes to strength training. I guess with the exception of, here are the modifications I’m making from that time period. At that time I was more dogmatic about exercise selection. I thought there were certain movements that everyone had to do or that were better for you. I’m now of the belief that pick the exercises that feel best for you for like a chest-supported dumbbell row, for example. There are so many examples of horizontal pulling motions. You can do a seated row, you can do a bent row, you can do a chest-supported row on a machine, which oftentimes doesn’t feel good because the chest-supported row on the machine has a narrower bench, which for some reason like hits my sternum more differently than a wider bench where you have dumbbells. So, personal preference on exercise selection is something I’m going to be prioritizing. Goal-wise you asked now. Get stronger, get leaner, get a little bit more aesthetic without the focus on maximizing muscle growth, partly because there’s always been part of me that thought max muscle was aesthetic, but there’s also part of me that’s like, all right, it’s not worth the amount of additional effort, sets, focus, optimized nutrition, optimized sleep, et cetera, to squeeze out those results.

0:18:00.0 Mike Vacanti: So, yeah, get leaner, get stronger, and obviously feel good is an important component too, which means continuing to do a relatively extensive warm-up, doing some stretching, doing some mobility work, supersetting mobility work with some of that training I’m doing with the strength training, and leaning into what feels good for me whether or not science backs it or not. It’s like, okay, all the geniuses say don’t use a lacrosse ball between sets because it doesn’t do anything. Feels amazing when I use a lacrosse ball between sets. So, I’m going to do some soft tissue work even though it’s “dumb”. Yeah, and we’ll see. Maybe I’ll look like trash a year from now. I took some before pictures so I’m excited about it.

0:18:46.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh, did you?

0:18:49.1 Mike Vacanti: And I don’t look good and also wasn’t even performing at that high level. I’m excited to have better performance, be stronger, feel good, be leaner, look better, not be banged up, and spend half the time in the gym a year from now. It’s also going to allow me to prioritize things like cardio, outdoor walks with the stroller, getting more steps in. That can take up some of the training time and just more time at home, more time with the family. Two days a week training. Maybe it’ll go up to three eventually. I’m good with two for a while rather than being in there three to four times a week. I haven’t been a five plus guy for several years now, but I’m excited.

0:19:32.4 Jordan Syatt: Do you still think you’ll go to the gym or does any part of you think you’ll get more of a home gym set up?

0:19:38.0 Mike Vacanti: This new gym is legit.

0:19:39.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, you love it?

0:19:40.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I love it. I love it. So yeah, in the future, I love the idea of a home gym specifically to set an example for a kid. I think we’ve talked about that.

0:19:48.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:19:49.0 Mike Vacanti: But just around it. See it. I think it’s wonderful. I don’t feel like taking that project on right now of building a home gym. Yeah.

0:20:00.9 Jordan Syatt: I was talking with John Delony the other day, and he told me every year. I forget if he said it was on his son’s birthday or there’s one time a year. For the sake of the story, we’ll say it’s on his son’s birthday, but every year since his son was really young, they would do a mile race.

0:20:20.2 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:20:20.4 Jordan Syatt: Which I was like, damn, a mile is no joke. A mile, it’s not like a sprint. He was like, yeah, a mile is interesting because you can’t fake it. He’s like, you could fake a sprint, but a mile is long enough where it’s like you’ve really got to fucking, you got to have it in you. And this was the first year, I think his son is 15, his son beat him for the first time.

0:20:43.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s awesome.

0:20:44.0 Jordan Syatt: And he was super excited about it. But I thought that was, it’s cool because especially as my oldest has gotten older, she’s almost 3, she’s starting to do some pretty crazy shit. She was doing, she did 10 hanging leg raises the other day.

0:21:01.2 Mike Vacanti: What?

0:21:02.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, dude. She had 10 hanging leg raises hanging from the monkey bars.

0:21:06.9 Mike Vacanti: That’s amazing.

0:21:08.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. It was funny because I’ll always do stuff in front of her deliberately. So when we go in the monkey bars, I’ll do pull-ups. And so I was like, do you want to try it? She’s like, yeah, I want to try it. So her, you know how when a kid sees someone doing push-ups, they’ll try and replicate it, but it never looks like push-ups. Basically she tried to do pull-ups, but instead of pulling herself up, she just brought her legs up. So it turned into hanging leg raises, but she did 10 legit hanging leg raises, hang there. When I wake up in the morning, I get up, the first thing she’ll say when she sees me is she’s like, Abba, I want to fly, which means like she wants me to throw her as high as I possibly can into the sky immediately, as soon as I wake up. There’s no warmup, there’s no coffee. It’s like, doesn’t matter how my back is feeling, I’ve just got to throw her as high as I can immediately.

0:21:57.0 Jordan Syatt: And this is consistent throughout the day. And so that for me has been a big shaper of how I approach my fitness in terms of what is my child demanding of me physically, right? And it’s like, you know, I’m young, but I see other dudes around my age with kids around the same age who, bro, they can’t run. They can’t pick their kid up. Like they can’t bend over and put their kid in the crib because it’s going to hurt, their back hurts when they round over and put them in the crib. It’s, yeah, it’s the demands that your child, the demands that like, I want to be, I don’t want there to be limits, right? I don’t, like no limits, it doesn’t matter. If you want to run, we’ll run. You want to do something strength-wise, we’ll do strength-wise. Like, I want zero physical limitations ever.

0:22:50.4 Jordan Syatt: And I want my children to look at me and just be like superhero, like absolute superhero. Never hears me say I’m tired, never hears me say like, oh, this hurts. Like if I have a cut, my daughter’s like, oh, you have a boo-boo. I’m like, yeah, but it’s okay. It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine. I’m okay. It’s like my daughter’s recently, I don’t know where she got it from, but she’s been like, are there monsters in here? Are there monsters in here? And I’ll be like, there are no monsters in this house. Do you know why? And she’s like, why? I’m like, because they’re scared of abba. They’re scared of me. Monsters are never coming in this and she’s like, Okay, like it’s just want like ultimate, ultimate superhero vibes and like same for my wife. Like it’s one of the cool parts as you said about having the gym in the house. Like she sees both of us working out all the time. It’s super cool.

0:23:37.5 Mike Vacanti: I almost think that what you described, I don’t want to say is automatic or like because I can’t speak to others’ experiences and clearly there are people who maybe get overwhelmed when parenting and things become harder and maybe their fitness falls off for certain periods of time. But there is an intrinsic motivation to be able to perform at the daily tasks necessary to be a great dad. And you just described a great one. Like, you know, wake up maybe on minimal sleep, no coffee, no warmup. I’m just going to chuck this kid up as high as I can a whole bunch of times in a row.

0:24:25.4 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:24:26.8 Mike Vacanti: I’m doing a project out on the deck, getting some like privacy stuff and got these giant planters and a bunch of Home Depot runs. But loading these like 60, 70 pound bags of rocks into a cart and then into my trunk and then carrying from the trunk to the deck, like even that, I’m like, this is pretty exhausting. But imagine if I didn’t train, like would I even be able to do this/ if I did, how much higher is my risk of hurting my low back, pulling these awkward bags out of my trunk, into my house, picking them up, setting them down, et cetera. And so, yeah, optimizing your training or incorporating the goal of being able to do the things necessary for your family is a massive motivator. And just not be like, I’m 38 and just had my first kid. I don’t want to be, I don’t want to be like an old soft dad. I don’t want to like, you know, like where like the soccer game, I don’t want, I don’t want to be like the grandpa dad. Fine, you’re 13 years younger than me. Cool. Like I’ll fucking still take you. Exactly. Exactly. In anything. Yeah. In anything.

0:25:39.6 Jordan Syatt: Let’s go right now. I don’t need a warm up. Let’s go.

0:25:42.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah.

0:25:43.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Dude, 100%. It’s something, it’s really cool for a kid to look at their parents and be like, yeah, my parents are fucking badass. And like they can do whatever. Like that’s, yeah, that’s the ultimate.

0:25:57.4 Mike Vacanti: The only note under the fitness changes dad mode that I had was just not caring about how I feel. And that’s channeling some 2014 too. It’s like, oh, you’re tired.

0:26:08.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, it doesn’t matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:26:10.7 Mike Vacanti: It doesn’t matter. Nothing’s changing because I’m tired, because I’m achy, because I didn’t sleep good, because something’s weird. Too bad. Like go train. You don’t have time to not feel good. That’s not a thing anymore. And that’s, it’s almost coincided with the lack of sleep is put me in a state where, I don’t know, there’s less perfectionism. There’s less like everything needs to be right. There’s less, oh, I need like this energy drink to like just stupid stuff. It’s like, whatever. Oh, I have an hour now. I have an hour and a half now. Great. I’m getting my workout in. I’m going to make it awesome.

0:26:49.3 Jordan Syatt: I mean, even something you said before, you were like, you felt like, oh my God, I might end up taking three months off training. And you said, not doing that. It’s like, yeah, it’s just, it’s not an option. It’s just, it’s literally not an option to not work out. Whatever.

0:27:10.7 Mike Vacanti: That’s the mindset you have to adopt.

0:27:12.3 Jordan Syatt: It’s just not an option. If I have to work out at midnight, I’ll work out at midnight. If I have to work out when I’m fucking exhausted, I’ll do that. Like it’s just not an option.

0:27:19.9 Mike Vacanti: And this can be applied to, you know, you’re in grad school and you’re working full time and you’re super busy, not an option. I’m not missing my workouts for a whole semester just because I had a busy course load. Modify your training as you need to, get it in at whatever time you need to, but there is no skipping. And I think a lot of people…

0:27:40.5 Jordan Syatt: You’re busy? Good, workout.

0:27:43.5 Mike Vacanti: Good. You broke your leg? Good. Train your arms. [laughter] There’s something else about the not training for optimal muscle growth where workouts feel more enjoyable when I’m not doing that, which obviously increases adherence, increases performance over time.

0:28:06.5 Jordan Syatt: You’re preaching. You’re talking my language now.

0:28:11.3 Mike Vacanti: But also nutrition, when you’re not worried about optimizing muscle growth, is so much easier to follow.

0:28:21.1 Jordan Syatt: Like, bro, I’ve never agreed with you more on anything else except for these two things.

0:28:27.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. It’s not to mention, what are you going to, do you see three? Okay. Let’s say you’re an intermediate or advanced lifter, never done, never doing steroids, or at least not in the immediate future. How much muscle are you really going to gain in a year? Let’s call it even five pounds, which is way on the high end. Are you going to see it? How much are you going to see it? Are other people going to see it? Who is going to see it and who is going to care? Let’s say you’re doing this for a living. And as we know, what you can do in the gym and how you look as a result of it is part of the marketing of a personal trainer, like it or not. It’s just how the world works. Does your ideal client want to train with someone who looks like Chris Bumstead? Sure, a lot of people do, but a lot of people don’t. And so it’s unnecessary and unbelievably taxing. A year from now, I might be right back into it. I might be like, all right, I want to train more. I miss that feeling of being completely exhausted, doing more volume, having something to hyper-focus on. So that could happen. But right now, I’m very excited about this.

0:29:44.4 Jordan Syatt: But also that extra five pounds. And again, this is for intermediate to advanced lifter, not someone who’s new and needs to add that extra muscle. This is someone who already has a substantial amount, plenty for health. It’s like, okay, so let’s say you add that five. Never mind how it looks. Never mind whether other people see it or not. Now it becomes, what are you missing out on in order to add those five pounds? The time you could have spent getting some Zone 2 cardio in, the time you could have spent maybe doing a little bit of plyometric work for bone density and for reactive ability and athleticism and tendons and ligaments. Or what about that time you could have been spending to help your cranky shoulder or your lower back or your knees? There’s a cost to everything. And for a brand new individual who’s never lifted and needs to add muscle, yeah, let’s fucking do it. But for that intermediate to advanced lifter who you want to add those five pounds because either right now it’s just building muscle is the thing to do in Instagram fitness where it’s like, you need more, you need more, you need more. It’s like, I mean, at what point are you getting diminishing returns where you could be focusing on other shit?

0:30:55.6 Mike Vacanti: That’s a wonderful point. The opportunity cost of the extra time in the gym and all the amazing things you could be doing with that time. Not to mention, I said five because it’s generous. It’s really more like three per year, two to three per year. And that’s if you’re doing everything right.

0:31:11.6 Jordan Syatt: Yep.

0:31:12.2 Mike Vacanti: Like, not getting hurt too often, getting enough rest. Like, it’s hard to continue to add muscle after. As a guy, you’ve gained 30 to 40 maybe over your training career or as a woman, 15, 18, 20 plus pounds of muscle you put on. Like squeezing out more muscle is not easy. And you’re missing out on all of those amazing things that you just mentioned. And even if you weren’t missing out on those things, the cost benefit of the effort to build that muscle to the benefit gained from having it. Like, is there health benefit from gaining 45 pounds of muscle versus 55 pounds of muscle over a training career? I don’t know. I can’t imagine it’s big if there is one. And the health benefits of the other things you could be doing with your time are massive.

0:32:09.5 Jordan Syatt: All I need to do is look at the longest living populations in the world. The people who have like the longest life and the highest quality of life. And it’s not the people who are the most jacked. It’s the people who have been the most active. Right? Which is, an activity will build muscle to a certain point. And oftentimes whether it’s hiking or whatever and people who take care of their health and they do strength training. But it’s not the people who maximize their genetic muscular potential with muscle growth. They did enough. Their bone density is enough. Their strength is enough. Their muscles enough. Their cardio is enough. Like that’s just we’ve been the fitness industry right now is so hyper focused on, We need more muscle, more muscle, more muscle that I think actually it’s encouraging people to be like let’s start taking steroids so you get more muscle, more muscle, more muscle. It’s like hold on bro. Let’s chill. If your goal is to be Bumstead, if your goal is to get on stage and win, yeah for sure. But if your goal is just to live longer and healthier and happier, give yourself the best chance to do that and also be a fucking superhero and like not just look a certain way but be able to perform a certain way. I mean that’s just not where all your time should be spent.

0:33:28.7 Mike Vacanti: Yep. That’s right.

0:33:30.8 Jordan Syatt: I think the best comment I’ve ever gotten on YouTube was within the last couple weeks someone commented they were like I think my favorite thing about Jordan is he’s got such a sleeper build. She was like he doesn’t look jacked at all but the shit that he can do in the gym is wild. I was like that’s it. Like that’s literally it. He’s like yeah. And the amount of effort that it would take me to have a body that would be like holy shit look at this. No.

0:33:56.7 Mike Vacanti: Not worth it.

0:33:58.1 Jordan Syatt: Not worth it.

0:33:58.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:33:58.2 Jordan Syatt: Not worth it at all. Doable. If I put in the effort and I put in the time and I really fucking I could do it. But I’m like, no.

0:34:06.8 Mike Vacanti: You also like are underselling yourself. Like you do have a really good physique. It’s just compared to people on social media, millions of followers whose following is built on an incredible physique, lots of steroids, but still tons of effort and years or decades of medication. Yeah, of course. It’s unbelievably impressive, but when that’s the metric for comparison in a society, in a community, in a group of people, it’s like, okay, well, yeah, Jordan doesn’t look like that, but you still look great.

0:34:45.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, true. That’s fair.

0:34:48.4 Mike Vacanti: All right. What else should we talk about? Or are we doing a full dad episode?

0:34:53.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I could dad talk all day. I mean, I can’t believe you cried.

[laughter]

0:35:00.6 Mike Vacanti: I told you like two or three months ago on the pod or maybe off the pod. I think it was on the pod though. I was like, I cry a lot. You’re like, what do you mean you cry a lot? I was like, I cry a lot, like in life. You’re like, no, you don’t. I was like, yeah, I actually do. You didn’t believe me. I think maybe you still don’t believe me.

0:35:17.1 Jordan Syatt: I still don’t believe you.

0:35:18.3 Mike Vacanti: Okay, I do. I cry a lot.

0:35:23.3 Jordan Syatt: Your estrogen is so high, bro.

0:35:25.2 Mike Vacanti: No, it’s not. I promise. One, I’ve always cried. All right, put it this way, the same way that you have this outrageous level of fear and anger, and you can’t relate to sadness at all, I can’t relate to your, I mean, maybe a little, like put the kidnap, but your level of fear and anger is something that I could be like, you’re lying. You don’t have that level of fear and anger. There’s no way.

0:35:51.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s fair. That’s fair.

0:35:53.3 Mike Vacanti: We’re different. And yeah, I get emotional. And my T is, by the way, the second that baby came out, my T, because we’ve talked in past episodes, Mike’s estrogen is high, and we talked about the evolutionary reasons for maybe the male in a domestic situation having lower T when the woman’s pregnant. Makes sense. Woman gave birth. T’s right back up.

0:36:20.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:36:20.8 Mike Vacanti: Workouts off the charts. T’s right back up. T’s in the four digits probably. Probably three. Probably 750 if I had to guess. When you kept saying to me, I’m so excited for you to be a dad, I’m so excited for you to be a dad, I didn’t get it, and I thought you were just Dale-ing me or I didn’t really understand.

0:36:45.3 Jordan Syatt: You thought I was Dale-ing you on that one?

0:36:47.1 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know. I couldn’t relate to why you would be excited for me. I didn’t, now I get it, because now I know the feeling, so now I will have that excitement for anyone else.

0:37:00.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:37:00.6 Mike Vacanti: But previously, I just thought it was something that you said to say something, or something anyone said. I didn’t…

0:37:06.5 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know what to say, so I’m just going to say, I remember before I watched Game of Thrones, and before, oh no, it was before I watched Breaking Bad. You told me, you were like, I’m so jealous, and I’m so excited for you that you get to watch this the first time again, because you never get it that first watch over again. I think it’s similar where it’s like, I’m so excited for you to go through this, because it is such a… It’s a transformative experience, both Breaking Bad and having a child, obviously in different levels, but it’s an experience that you can’t explain until you go through it.

0:37:47.4 Mike Vacanti: But I didn’t, when you were saying that, I didn’t understand it other than on paper. I was like, you sleep less, you change a lot of dirty diapers, you can’t watch as many shows, you lose these comforts, and I didn’t know what was replacing them. And even though I maybe, from an academic or a knowledge perspective, knew what was replacing it, I didn’t really know what was replacing those things until you feel it.

0:38:20.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s also a real mindfuck when, you know, your parents are amazing. I know not everyone has incredible parents, but it’s a mindfuck when you realize, oh shit, that’s how your parents feel about you. It’s a real mindfuck when you’re like, oh, oh, and you told me that I couldn’t possibly understand how much you love me, like, oh, got it, now I get it.

0:38:45.1 Mike Vacanti: Or it’s, yes, that, and it’s the inverse of it if you were abandoned by a parent, if you have a deadbeat parent, it’s almost like, how could you?

0:38:57.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. How in the world could you? How in the world could you do that? Is there anything that you’re, listen, she’s 11 days old, is there anything that you’re looking forward to specifically over the next six months, 12 months, like in a brief time period in the coming year or so?

0:39:18.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s more like I don’t want time to pass because I just want to relish every day and every moment. It’s like go four hours without seeing her and it’s like, oh my gosh, you’re looking different. I don’t know if she is, but it feels that way. No, I’m very in the moment in terms of, I don’t know that I’m looking forward to anything right now other than the rest of today.

0:39:46.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I like that. I think the thing that surprised me the most about this specific age is, I remember there was a day when both my daughters were sleeping on my chest like in between bottle feeds. And then one day they weren’t and they were squirming. They didn’t want me to, they weren’t going to sleep on my chest anymore. They’re like, they’re ready to just move, move, move, move, move. And so I was openly, I said, don’t give me any advice. If there was any advice that I wish someone could have given me and that is every nap on your chest just is the greatest thing ever. When she’s just lying on your chest sleeping, that moment, there’s no greater moment than that moment. ’cause it’s one day soon, she’s going to be like, I’m out, I’m crawling, I’m moving, I’m done. It’s in, yeah.

0:40:45.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s what you have said and others have said is the newborn stage goes by really fast. So I know it’s hard, but enjoy it. Like enjoy every moment. And I think that I don’t know that I’m necessarily good at taking advice, but that makes sense to me and has landed. And so every, yeah. So thank you.

0:41:07.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, man.

0:41:08.0 Mike Vacanti: Dude, I think I have been doing a lot of boredom eating over the last six months without even knowing it.

0:41:19.4 Jordan Syatt: Why? Is this like looking at your progress pictures? You’re like, oh man.

0:41:24.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. The combination of that with like where I’m at with it. No, not necessarily because I know what I look like. More looking at food choice over the last many months compared to how I felt when we were living out of the hospital for a week. Historically, I’ve always thought I was a really good intuitive eater. And I think that’s true for periods of time, but I always rein it back in with a month or two or three of tracking and having a goal. And I haven’t reined it back in with tracking or having a goal in a while. And so the combination of a crisis of meaning in life and food being a comfort, just led to me not being as in touch with physiological hunger, me gaining excess body fat, and me eating like stuff that I didn’t have to for the wrong reasons many times over the last several months. And I realized in the hospital when I didn’t really have access to those foods how much better I felt. I was like, okay, five days into it, I’m like, all right, I would love to have a scale here because I’ve definitely lost some weight just from eating one or two full meals a day, not really snacking, and knowing my calories are like 1,000 lower per day than they have been on average brought that perspective, which was cool.

0:43:02.3 Jordan Syatt: What were you eating for? Just like I want that taste?

0:43:06.1 Mike Vacanti: I think it’s even further than that. I think it’s I want to feel better.

0:43:08.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh, like a dopamine…

0:43:10.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:43:11.6 Jordan Syatt: Got it, got it, got it. Okay.

0:43:12.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. The same reason I think, the same reason anyone goes after any cheap dopamine. A video game, a scrolling. Oh, it wouldn’t be a I’m a dad episode without talking about scrolling. Dude, I have the apps on my phone and I haven’t scrolled in over two weeks. It’s like this replacement of excess time and needing to fill it and doing it with cheap comforts with now I don’t have that excess time. When I’m bottle feeding, I got the kid in one hand, I got the bottle in the other, and that’s it. There’s no phone. I can’t be doing something else. And I don’t even really want to be. It really makes you present. So that’s been an interesting observation too. It’s like my unconscious impulse over the last many months or even years during downtime, which I have a life that I built where I have a lot of it, has been for cheap dopamine. And this has removed that downtime. Having a kid has removed the downtime, which has in turn led to not having time or desire or as much desire for the cheap dopamine.

0:44:41.1 Jordan Syatt: There’s also along those exact same lines, you’re focusing on what’s directly in front of you. That’s it. You’ve got your daughter. You’ve got your wife. This is it. This is all that matters right now. This is all I’m focusing on. When you’ve got extra time and very few meaningful problems, you go on social media, you scroll, you see what someone is saying that you disagree with, and you get all mad at them for daring to say something you disagree with. That’s just like when you know your life is really good, when you have the free time to go on social media and get pissed at someone that you’ve never met, that you don’t know, you know nothing about them, but they said something that you think is offensive, and then you’re commenting on it. That’s life is super good, and you’ve got a lot of free time. What you’re doing is what we’re built and made to do, which is focus on ourselves, focus what’s immediately in front of us, providing for your family, keeping them safe, keeping them healthy, keeping them alive. That’s what you’re doing, and you don’t have time to focus on the nonsense.

0:45:49.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yep, well said. It’s like, if you don’t have enough problems in your life, if your life is that easy like mine was or has been, you go create drama through consumption. There’s also an element of I think if you’re not necessarily happy with how everything is going for yourself, you’re more likely to experience emotions like anger or envy or outrage about someone on the other side of the world doing something that doesn’t even pertain to you. And then part of it is definitely algorithms and the technology and the medium, that also plays a role in it but, yeah, man. Because I could, I remember when you said, I was like, how many reels do you think you consume a day? And you said a number that I thought was low. You said maybe like 150 or 200, and I was like, what? Because my guess was more like 500 to 1,000. I could scroll with the best of them. I could really doom scroll and haven’t been.

0:47:03.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. I don’t doom scroll that much. I mean, when you don’t have much time, it’s usually the majority of my time on social media is answering DMs and comments and creating. I do scroll, but it’s usually not. I don’t think it’s as the average consumer scrolls.

0:47:22.2 Mike Vacanti: You “doom scroll” like the fitness fanatic who has like 300 extra calories of rice cakes and calls it a binge, like they binged.

0:47:31.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:47:32.3 Mike Vacanti: Your “I doom scroll” is their, “oh my gosh, I binged.”

0:47:35.2 Jordan Syatt: Correct, yeah, that’s exactly right.

0:47:37.2 Mike Vacanti: By the way, there were flavored rice cakes at this hospital.

0:47:43.5 Jordan Syatt: You liked them?

0:47:45.8 Mike Vacanti: They are delicious.

0:47:47.3 Jordan Syatt: All right. That’s ridiculous. They’re not delicious.

0:47:50.1 Mike Vacanti: They’re delicious.

0:47:51.6 Jordan Syatt: No.

0:47:51.8 Mike Vacanti: They’re delicious. The texture, the…

0:47:55.3 Jordan Syatt: Which flavor?

0:47:56.4 Mike Vacanti: Apple cinnamon and caramel.

0:47:57.9 Jordan Syatt: Of course you like the sweetest one.

0:48:01.9 Mike Vacanti: Oh, does that make more sense? Or I just ’cause I have a sweet tooth?

0:48:05.6 Jordan Syatt: No, ’cause you’re a sweet tooth, like you like sweet stuff.

0:48:09.0 Mike Vacanti: I liked the buttermilk ranch too. And the macros are insane. I like things that aren’t super fat-heavy. And there’s no gluten in them. I think there’s if you have any intolerances to gluten, not to set you off, Jordan. I know rice cakes aren’t your favorite, but.

0:48:29.8 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s actually really funny because I’ll show you. There’s a woman who listens to the podcast who tagged me in her story today. Let me see if I can find it. Lulu Fitness. Shout out Lulu Fitness.

0:48:44.0 Mike Vacanti: Shout out Lulu.

0:48:44.6 Jordan Syatt: She literally posted this story today. I don’t know if you can read it. She said, Syattfitness repeatedly telling us how this is his favorite snack. And she held up the rice cake. And I sent her a message. And I said, Hi, you’re amazing. And then she sent me a voicemail back, which I haven’t replied to just being like, I love the podcast with you and Mike. And so it’s funny that today of all days, you bring that up. Listen, here’s what I’ll say. The plain rice cakes are gross. Like they suck. Just straight up. The flavored ones are, they have good flavor. They have good flavor. They still make an absolute mess. And they get all over you.

0:49:30.1 Mike Vacanti: Dude, these are bite size though.

0:49:31.7 Jordan Syatt: Okay. Those are actually better. The bite size ones are better because they don’t make as much of a mess. They’re crispier. They’re not as flaky. So I agree. Like the bite size chip ones are significantly better. I’ll give you that. But when I say delicious, like the word delicious, that…

0:49:50.4 Mike Vacanti: I might’ve just been trying to set you off a little bit.

0:49:51.8 Jordan Syatt: You are 100%. Delicious is like, Hey bro, we’re going to go to Gordon Ramsay Steakhouse and get like this unbelievable world-class steak. Or we’re going to get like this. I would be okay if you said Talenti is delicious. That ice cream that you love. That’s fine. Not a rice. I don’t care. Rice cakes, bro. I’m trying to think of, that’d be like if I was like, bro, Bran Buds are delicious.

0:50:20.7 Mike Vacanti: You said that recently.

0:50:22.4 Jordan Syatt: I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about Raisin Bran, which are actually a really great cereal.

0:50:29.0 Mike Vacanti: But is Raisin Bran the same as Gordon Ramsay’s?

0:50:32.2 Jordan Syatt: No, it’s not. It’s not.

0:50:33.9 Mike Vacanti: So, not quite delicious, but you have super good. All right. That’s good.

0:50:39.6 Jordan Syatt: You can say those chip size rice cakes are super good. I’m fine with that.

0:50:44.9 Mike Vacanti: And do you know when they’re even more super good?

0:50:47.9 Jordan Syatt: When you use them as a vehicle to bring something else in your mouth at the same time?

0:50:52.5 Mike Vacanti: No. No, no, no, no. Sure. But they’re super good when you are in a calorie deficit and you’re genuinely hungry. And you physiologically like want glucose in your muscle cells and your bloodstream and you’re like, actually, you’re not just looking for something to satisfy your taste buds or your mouth feel or whatever, but you genuinely have only consumed 900 calories and it’s like 6:00 or 7:00 PM and you’ve eaten a bunch of protein and you’re craving something sweet. They’re super good.

0:51:26.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Agreed. I can agree with that. I like adding them for texture. So like if I’m on a, I don’t know, sometimes if I have it with cottage cheese or something just gives a nice little crunch to it. So yeah, if I’m going to have it, I’ll probably add it for texture.

0:51:43.6 Mike Vacanti: Cool. You know what, you know what we had at Mother’s Day as a little appetizer on Sunday? Hummus.

0:51:55.1 Jordan Syatt: Wow. Was it good?

0:51:57.0 Mike Vacanti: It was really good actually.

0:51:58.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, let’s go.

0:52:00.0 Mike Vacanti: I don’t know where it came from, but, my sister.

0:52:02.6 Jordan Syatt: Your sister’s house?

0:52:03.6 Mike Vacanti: My sister’s house. Yeah. She sourced well. I don’t know where she got it.

0:52:05.4 Jordan Syatt: Good for her. She got it from a Middle Eastern Place?

0:52:08.2 Mike Vacanti: I have no idea, maybe.

0:52:09.9 Jordan Syatt: Did you have it with some pita?

0:52:10.3 Mike Vacanti: No, no pita. We had, there were like crackers and vegetables and all kinds of different vegetables. Yeah.

0:52:18.0 Jordan Syatt: You have any olive oil?

0:52:19.6 Mike Vacanti: No, no olive oil.

0:52:20.7 Jordan Syatt: You’re going to be on that olive oil train within a couple of years.

0:52:23.9 Mike Vacanti: So, I went on Twitter the other day on my desktop and I think I got through like seven tweets before I was like, all right, I don’t need to be on here. But one of them was like a right-wing bro-y influencer. You know, like the subtype basically, like…

0:52:44.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:52:45.9 Mike Vacanti: And by the way no hate whatsoever but eats off the cutting board and you know, only eats certain…

0:52:54.7 Jordan Syatt: Liver King as…

0:52:56.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but not to that extreme. But just has the vibe and, yeah. Was drinking olive oil out of the bottle [laughter], and I was like, this is amazing because I like when, you know, you’ve had your seed oil thing with RFK, I just like seeing you get aligned. I like you being aligned with both sides and…

0:53:16.3 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’ve got opinions on both sides. A hundred percent. Yeah.

0:53:20.6 Mike Vacanti: Well, most people do, actually.

0:53:21.6 Jordan Syatt: But I feel like both sides agree that olive oil is amazing.

0:53:24.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, but it’s the clickbaity, attention-grabby nature of a tan, shirtless man, cheugy jacked tan, shirtless man chugging it out of the bottle that’s yeah, like sensationalistic and for content.

0:53:41.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

0:53:41.5 Mike Vacanti: But it made me think of you and I chuckled. Then I X’d out. I was like, get off this app.

0:53:46.9 Jordan Syatt: Smart.

0:53:48.1 Mike Vacanti: I guess this is a PSA. If anyone else finds themselves in what I was describing, where maybe you’re a seasoned nutrition tracker and you know what you’re doing, but you find yourself in a period of life where you’re eating more than you want to, and maybe you are emotionally eating a little bit and just kind of veering aimlessly, a 30-day challenge of having some type of goal and then tracking your food for 30 days is really enough to get you back on the straight and narrow. It’s a strategy we talk about in the mentorship when coaches in the group ask about specific client situations they have during our weekly Q&As. We talk about it a lot, but that 30-day challenge, whether you’re a coach, whether you’re a fitness enthusiast, no matter who you are, can be really effective for a little bit of a reset, a little bit of a surge in motivation, and just getting you back on track during a period of stagnation or struggle.

0:54:43.0 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I’m a big 30-day challenge guy. You can’t do it for 30 days, are you really that committed? Like with anything. If you can’t do anything for 30 days, you’ve got to have a real honest, objective conversation with yourself.

0:54:58.0 Mike Vacanti: That’s right.

0:54:58.6 Jordan Syatt: That’s it.

0:55:00.3 Mike Vacanti: All right. We’ll wrap here.

0:55:00.9 Jordan Syatt: Good podcast, dad.

0:55:02.1 Mike Vacanti: Great podcast, dad. Jordan, dad. Fitness Business Mentorship Sale very, very soon. Get ready. Keep listening to episodes for the official drop, but the $500 discount for the mentorship is going to come into play very soon.

0:55:23.7 Jordan Syatt: Get on the email list. If you want, link is in the show notes. Send you a free PDF as well. But if you want to make sure you hear when the sale goes live, obviously on the podcast, we’ll announce it. But if you want to make sure you can definitely see it and don’t miss it, get on the email list so we can alert you about that. But that’s it. Thank you for listening. Please leave a five-star review. Talk to you soon.