Episode 239: The Great Lock-In of 2025, Stupid Pranks, The Right Way to Eat Oreos, and More

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

0:00:12.3 Jordan Syatt: What’s up, Michael?

0:00:13.1 Mike Vacanti: We got a note from David.

0:00:15.2 Jordan Syatt: Uh-oh. 

0:00:15.3 Mike Vacanti: We’ve been fumbling around with objects on the table and banging the table and doing things both… 

0:00:19.3 Jordan Syatt: Oh, Fuck. I’m sorry, David. 

0:00:20.7 Mike Vacanti: Both of us. I know. Me too.

0:00:22.1 Jordan Syatt: I’m sorry, David. For everyone who doesn’t know, David is the genius behind the editing on this podcast, so thank you, David. And I apologize for all the nonsense on my end.

0:00:31.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. There was more on your end than my end, but it was on both of our ends.

0:00:35.5 Jordan Syatt: Is that what he said?

0:00:36.4 Mike Vacanti: That is what he said, yeah.

0:00:37.7 Jordan Syatt: Oh, shit. Okay.

0:00:39.0 Mike Vacanti: But he’s been covering for us, but just to make his job easier, we’re not going to fidget and fumble. We’re going to be locked in on the conversation. 

0:00:45.7 Jordan Syatt: As I’m fidgeting and fumbling, by the way. But yeah.

0:00:48.3 Mike Vacanti: Hey. Hey.

0:00:49.0 Jordan Syatt: I feel like my chair is a little squeaky. Can you hear that?

0:00:52.4 Mike Vacanti: It’s not the chair. I think it’s the desk, the table, the mic, the phone, any objects.

0:00:57.3 Jordan Syatt: Okay. 

0:00:57.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s both of us. It’s both of us.

0:01:00.1 Jordan Syatt: But more me.

0:01:02.0 Mike Vacanti: I’m going by the metrics, right? I’m going by the metrics.

0:01:05.3 Jordan Syatt: Yes.

0:01:06.4 Mike Vacanti: I got another something. I saw a podcast of ours from a few weeks back, and I was like, man, my face looks fat, was my initial thought when I saw it. And I didn’t think much of it because I wasn’t… I’m pumped with where I’m at body comp-wise right now. And then in the gym this morning, and I have been looking how I look, I look up at myself about 20 minutes into my workout. I’m like, I got this fat face again. What’s going on? And I realized I started taking this pump product, and I never take pump products, which really works, like really increases blood flow and gives some sick pumps. But it pumps your face too.

0:01:56.2 Jordan Syatt: Does it?

0:01:57.3 Mike Vacanti: Mm-hmm. Like, right… If you compare my face right now to last week, this is very vain. But it’s just. It’s interesting to me more than anything. There’s a clear difference. Like, less cheekbone, more cheek. Like just kind of… So I found that fascinating that that…

0:02:12.4 Jordan Syatt: For whatever it’s worth, I haven’t noticed that at all. Like, when I look at your face, I don’t see any difference. So if you’re worried about the fat face, look…

0:02:20.0 Mike Vacanti: I’m not worried. I was more…

0:02:21.0 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think anyone else is noticing it.

0:02:22.1 Mike Vacanti: I was more curious. It was more…

0:02:24.5 Jordan Syatt: It is interesting. Did you AI that?

0:02:27.2 Mike Vacanti: I am AI, Jordan. I am AI… Speaking of, another flawless transition, AI… I cannot get AI to admit that the Bad Girl machine has some degree of external hip rotation. Like it’s called the hip abduction machine. It’s primarily abduction. I understand the leg moving away from the midpoint of the body. I’m not an idiot. But like Grok ChatGPT, give me something. Give me like 95% abduction, 5% external rotation, or 92 and 8. Like just admit that there’s a little bit of external rotation on the Bad Girl and it won’t. And Reddit won’t admit it. No one on the Internet will admit it. And it’s been really bothering me.

0:03:13.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I don’t really understand that. Maybe it’s saying that… Because since you and I spoke about this, I’ve been trying to think about why it would say there’s no external rotation. But there is. It’s…

0:03:27.0 Mike Vacanti: There is. 

0:03:28.1 Jordan Syatt: There is. I don’t see how that’s a debate. It’s a very… Yeah.

0:03:31.6 Mike Vacanti: Your foot is at like a 45 degree angle, at least depending on your range of motion. Right? At… In the… The most flexed position of the movement. I don’t understand it.

0:03:45.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, just looking at the action of the hip, it’s impossible to do that without external rotation. So I don’t get it.

0:03:50.3 Mike Vacanti: Even with… Even though you’re in flexion relative to like standing straight up and down. So what this led me to was I want to do some, some pure 100%, closer to 100% abduction. And I told you about this. But I basically… For my whole career, the entire fitness industry has said you don’t need to isolate the glute mead. You get enough of it on single leg hinging and yada yada yada. I’ve never trained just straight abduction strength, like leg going out to the side. And I wanted to do it on a cable, but my gym doesn’t have the cuffs. I didn’t realize it and I wasn’t… It just… That felt like the best setup to me. 

0:04:35.4 Mike Vacanti: So I did some body weight sideline leg raises, like Jane Fonda style. I was like, oh, this feels kind of nice. And I was trying to figure out a way to load it and I was telling you I jammed a kettlebell onto my sneaker and like it fit on my sneaker and was able to load it that way. The soreness I felt for the next few days was unlike anything I’ve felt in quite some time. And my hips and low back just felt very like nice and open. I don’t really know how else to describe it. It felt really good.

0:05:09.2 Jordan Syatt: Dude. I love that. I love that, man. Listen, like, I feel you. And you… I think you were telling me before that you tried to finagle a way to get extra range out of it too on the way down. So it wasn’t just like to the floor. Like you were getting extra range in the adduction part of it?

0:05:23.6 Mike Vacanti: Didn’t really work. Yeah, I wanted a bigger stretch, so I basically wanted my foot to come across side of my body in the stretch position by elevating myself. And I tried on a bench and it was just kind of awkward. I’m going to try on an aerobic step.

0:05:40.8 Jordan Syatt: Were you bringing the foot in front of your body or behind your body?

0:05:44.5 Mike Vacanti: I tried both. I tried like straight on the side, kind of like bending my lower leg and having it hanging off the end of the bench. Honestly, I didn’t even need the extra range. It felt insane.

0:05:59.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, I like that stuff. That’s good.

0:06:01.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I know you’re… I know you’re an adductor strength guy. You like laying on the ground and going the other direction.

0:06:08.9 Jordan Syatt: Dude, I like abduction strength too. You need that for the side splits. You do. You need that for the side splits. You gotta pull your legs apart. I do that all the time.

0:06:18.8 Mike Vacanti: Prior to your… I’ve never heard you mention it. And prior to your side split journey, I don’t think you were a big abduction guy.

0:06:24.7 Jordan Syatt: There’s a lot of things that I’ll mention that you don’t know about me.

0:06:27.8 Mike Vacanti: You should mention them then. You should quit playing it so close to the vest. You know, we got a weekly podcast…

0:06:31.3 Jordan Syatt: That’s the side split.

0:06:32.6 Mike Vacanti: For 239 episodes in…

0:06:35.5 Jordan Syatt: You gotta rip that…

0:06:36.2 Mike Vacanti: Don’t say it’s the side split. I’m literally about to quit doing it if it’s the side split.

0:06:41.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s the… I bet you could do a full side split. B to F. 

0:06:44.3 Mike Vacanti: Never in my life will I or would I. All right, do you have some things for this week?

0:06:48.8 Jordan Syatt: That just pissed you off.

0:06:50.6 Mike Vacanti: So much like you wouldn’t believe.

0:06:52.5 Jordan Syatt: That just got you angry? Yeah. One, two or three? 

0:06:59.2 Mike Vacanti: One.

0:07:00.3 Jordan Syatt: Smith machine, Close stance, ATG, ass to grass, squats… Bro, I love this. So… Man…

0:07:14.2 Mike Vacanti: Dude, Jordan Smith machines stink. You’re on a fixed bar path and so they’re just completely worthless.

0:07:20.0 Jordan Syatt: You’ve been spending time on Instagram. You saw that post come up.

0:07:23.1 Mike Vacanti: What do you mean?

0:07:23.6 Jordan Syatt: You saw my post on Smith Machines come up? That’s… Yeah. No, but dude, the ATG. Here’s what I like about it. And it would work also on the Straight Smith machine. Like straight up and down. But I explicitly like the angled Smith machine because it’s actually very similar to a hack squat. It’s that like angled position where you bring your feet slightly in front of you and you get as deep as you possibly can and holy shit, dude. It’s the… The quads are just insane. But then the range of motion, it feels so smooth. It’s like… It’s a… For me, it feels better than the hack squad, actually, because with the hack squat, you’re back up against the pad. You can’t adjust your back at all. You can’t adjust your hips. Like you’re locked in place on the hack squat, which is good for some things and not for others. With the Smith machine here, you can actually still adjust. I don’t know, I move side to side. You can. You can adjust your hip position and torso position a little bit as you descend and man, fucking love Smith machine ATG. Close stance. Really, really close… Really narrow stance squats.

0:08:47.0 Mike Vacanti: Beautiful. MSMGA. Make that Smith machine…

0:08:52.7 Jordan Syatt: Great again. 

0:08:53.8 Mike Vacanti: Or just great. I don’t think it ever was. I think it’s just make Smith machines great.

0:08:58.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Do you know who invented it? Obviously someone named Smith.

0:09:01.8 Mike Vacanti: I don’t.

0:09:02.5 Jordan Syatt: Gotta give them a shout out.

0:09:03.6 Mike Vacanti: Good looking out. Underrated piece of equipment.

0:09:06.0 Jordan Syatt: Two or three.

0:09:07.0 Mike Vacanti: You pick a number or what? Are they fast or are they…

0:09:10.5 Jordan Syatt: Well, I thought we were gonna spend more time on that, so if you had told me if I thought that was gonna be fast, I would have said that would have been a long. But you clearly didn’t want to spend time on it, so who knows?

0:09:22.3 Mike Vacanti: I think you covered it effectively.

0:09:24.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, but I thought there was going to be more yin, more yang. I thought like I’d say that and you’d say, oh, yeah, this, and I’d be like, oh, yeah, that. And then there’d be this and that, but there was just this.

0:09:34.7 Mike Vacanti: I think I’ve mentally moved past the point in my life of hating on the Smith machine. It’s been many years.

0:09:41.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. No, but I thought you were going to go on to loving the Smith machine.

0:09:44.3 Mike Vacanti: I just have such a long list. 

0:09:46.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, oh. 

0:09:46.9 Mike Vacanti: And we have another episode in two days.

0:09:49.4 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:09:50.0 Mike Vacanti: So we might have to leave a little in the tank.

0:09:51.7 Jordan Syatt: Little slow burn. All right, how about four for you?

0:09:54.0 Mike Vacanti: Now I feel bad now I’m trying to think of things to say about the Smith machine.

0:09:57.1 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no, no, I get it. Listen, you’re past that phase.

0:09:59.9 Mike Vacanti: You’re past that phase. Four’s not even good. My four is my worst one.

0:10:07.5 Jordan Syatt: Four is the one I choose every time. Four is my number. That’s always been… That’s my number one.

0:10:11.0 Mike Vacanti: Four is the… Four is the one I wrote down because I was afraid we weren’t gonna have anything to talk about, and so I just wrote this one down.

0:10:19.4 Jordan Syatt: Okay, we’ll go with two. This one’s gonna be super fast. Watch this one take the entire fucking episode. My juicer, the juice machine I got. It has a sorbet attachment. You gotta pay an extra, like, 55 bucks plus shipping or something.

0:10:33.4 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:10:33.9 Jordan Syatt: But it’s… It… Did you see this on my stories?

0:10:36.3 Mike Vacanti: No, I’m not really on Instagram. I just deleted X, so I, like, saw four things on Instagram.

0:10:42.2 Jordan Syatt: Dude, all you need is frozen fruit. And if you want, you can add, like, frozen Greek yogurt or something to it, which we did just to make it higher protein a little bit creamier. But all you need is frozen fruit. You take the frozen fruit, you put it in sorbet attachment. Boom. Instant sorbet, instant. And it’s… And the cool part is, so the juicer. The common rhetoric against juicing, which I agree with, by the way, is it removes the pulp and it removes all that stuff. You still get, like, the… A lot of the nutrients. Like, I get beet juice and carrot juice, and there are many great nutrients that come from it. But you remove the fiber. With the sorbet…

0:11:22.3 Mike Vacanti: You get all the micronutrients, essentially, by the way.

0:11:24.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you get all the micronutrients. You just don’t get the fiber and the fullness from it. But with the sorbet, you keep everything. It’s like you’re not losing anything. You get the entire… So I put raspberries, blackberries, banana, put blueberries in there, and you get all the fiber, all the benefit. You get everything in it. And it’s just straight up real fruit sorbet, frozen. It’s just… It’s amazing.

0:11:50.0 Mike Vacanti: Cool. So you can’t put everything in the sorbet that you would put in the juicer.

0:11:56.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, you can put anything in it you want.

0:11:57.9 Mike Vacanti: You can? Like, because with beets, for example, you can put…

0:12:04.0 Jordan Syatt: It’d have to be frozen.

0:12:05.2 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:12:05.8 Jordan Syatt: But I wouldn’t make probably beet sorbet. Who knows.

0:12:08.4 Mike Vacanti: Right. I’m just thinking of… Yeah, you never know. You might be onto something new there. Okay. So you can put anything in and it spits it out like a smoothie. Like smoothie versus juice is…

0:12:18.6 Jordan Syatt: No, no, no, no. Let me show you a video.

0:12:20.7 Mike Vacanti: No, no, no. Smoothie. I’m just saying, in a smoothie, the entire food is in the end result. Whereas in the juice… I know what sorbet is.

0:12:36.1 Jordan Syatt: No, but I’m showing you how fucking good it looks. Dude, look at that. BlackBerry, raspberry, banana, Greek yogurt. Look at that. Are you kidding me?

0:12:46.6 Mike Vacanti: Do you add anything to sweeten it?

0:12:47.9 Jordan Syatt: No, I don’t add anything. It’s just fruit. And we added Greek yogurt.

0:12:51.0 Mike Vacanti: Vanilla Greek yogurt. Or is it plain Greek yogurt?

0:12:53.4 Jordan Syatt: I just added plain. But we could add whatever you want. Like, we just… We only had plain at that point, but we could add whatever. My wife said she wants to add some lemon to it. Because she thinks, like, that would add a little tartness, which she felt like that was missing in this batch.

0:13:08.6 Mike Vacanti: Oh, it was too sweet.

0:13:10.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. But, you know, sorbet has some tartness to it. I feel like there’s a little bit of tartness sometimes to sorbet. Like a mild… Just a little infusion of tart. So we’re gonna add some lemon next time.

0:13:21.8 Mike Vacanti: I like it. Give me your three.

0:13:24.2 Jordan Syatt: Oh, this one. You know what pisses me off?

0:13:28.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, I do.

0:13:30.6 Jordan Syatt: You’re gonna guess?

0:13:31.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. When people…

0:13:33.4 Jordan Syatt: You’re gonna get it wrong. There’s no way you’re gonna get this one.

0:13:37.2 Mike Vacanti: Tell me.

0:13:37.9 Jordan Syatt: When people say, don’t do X, Y, or Z with your really young kids, because they won’t even remember it.

0:13:45.7 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:13:46.4 Jordan Syatt: That like… Like, when they’re like, hey, don’t do this. Like, don’t go… Listen. And vacations. I understand, because that’s devastating in and of itself. But people are like, it’s not worth taking them here. It’s not worth doing this because they’re not even gonna remember it. I’m like… 

0:14:01.4 Mike Vacanti: Who says those things? 

0:14:02.4 Jordan Syatt: Dude. All the people. Everybody.

0:14:05.8 Mike Vacanti: You communicate with too many strangers.

0:14:06.8 Jordan Syatt: Everybody’s saying it. 

0:14:08.3 Mike Vacanti: That’s your problem. You communicate with too many strangers.

0:14:11.0 Jordan Syatt: I do. That is my problem.

0:14:13.1 Mike Vacanti: But keep going because, yeah, this would infuriate me, too. I just block them. I used to… Honestly, I used to end, like, friendships… Not friendships, but acquaintances in the fitness industry over, like… I can think of multiple fitness influencers who are Chicago Bears fans or Green Bay packers fans who would, like, say something after a Vikings, Bears game. And I’d just be like, “All right. I’m never replying to this person again.” Like, you’re pissing me off so much. There’s too much. Anyway, continue. But yes. I can’t even imagine communicating with the number of people you communicate with. And not, like, rage typing at them on a regular basis.

0:14:51.8 Jordan Syatt: For me, it was… It’s more just thinking about… It’s more just thinking about what a stupid way to live life is only thinking about how is the memory of this going to be? It’s just not… It’s the opposite of living in the moment. It’s the opposite of… Even if they don’t remember it, even if you don’t remember it, are you enjoying it in this moment?

0:15:17.6 Mike Vacanti: Give me an example.

0:15:19.3 Jordan Syatt: Like, I mean, the common one is, like, don’t go on vacation. They’re not gonna… Like, they’re not… Don’t take them to Disney World at 2, they’re not gonna remember it. Don’t take them on vacation or don’t… Europe or wherever it is. Like, don’t do that. It’s just… It’s not worth it. They’re not gonna remember it. And I’m thinking, man, if I’m thinking back on a lot of my vacations, a lot of things that I’ve… Dude, you know, I can’t remember all of my life. I can’t remember… I can barely remember anything. There are entire years where I’m just like, I have, like, a couple memories from the whole fucking year. You know what I mean? It’s like doing it for the memories I think it’s just a bad strategy. Do it for enjoying that moment with whoever you’re with, your family, friends, by yourself, whatever. I don’t know. The idea of… It’s sort of like the phrase which I do. Like, do it for the story. Yeah. But also just do it because it’s a great thing to do right now and enjoy this moment. You know what I mean?

0:16:16.2 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I mean, under their logic, like, up until the age of four, kids should just sit in a room by themselves and not ever do anything.

0:16:24.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:16:24.8 Mike Vacanti: And Alzheimer’s patients should never do it. Like, people who have memory issues should never do anything if you’re not gonna remember it.

0:16:33.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Nate Bargatze, or Bergatzy, however you pronounce it, He’s a standup comedian, super funny. He has a whole bit on this where he… He was talking about how it upsets him as well. And he was like, “What do you want me to do? Like, lock my kid in a closet and open it up every morning and just say, like, do you remember yesterday yet? No. All right, close the door again.” Yeah. I think just too many people are focused on, is this gonna be a good memory? I don’t know. Is it gonna be… Is it gonna be fun while you do it, or is it a good idea now, in general?

0:17:03.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. There’s a major cost. There’s so many pros to putting yourself out there on the Internet, but a major cost is having to interact with all of these idiots who say things like this to you. Or even, like, I’m sure you get parenting feedback. I’m sure you get all kinds of unsolicited advice from strangers with, you know, a cat as their profile picture and a private profile. Like, it’s just… Yeah, I know exactly what you’re thinking of right now.

0:17:30.7 Jordan Syatt: I don’t think you… I don’t know if I’ve told you this.

0:17:32.9 Mike Vacanti: Okay, go.

0:17:34.0 Jordan Syatt: I… No because sometimes we let my oldest, we’ll sometimes let her watch the iPad while we’re eating, because sometimes, like, she just won’t… Either she won’t eat or, like, there’s just a fucking… It’s just insane. And so sometimes I’ll have taken a video when we’re at the table, and people be like, I can’t believe you’re letting… Letting her watch the iPad while you’re eating. I’m like, shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up.

0:18:01.6 Mike Vacanti: Again…

0:18:02.0 Jordan Syatt: Shut the fuck up.

0:18:03.4 Mike Vacanti: There are pros to putting yourself and your family on the Internet.

0:18:06.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, of course.

0:18:07.0 Mike Vacanti: And that is a con, that’s for sure.

0:18:11.6 Jordan Syatt: Is that what you thought I was thinking?

0:18:12.9 Mike Vacanti: No. No, not even remotely. I thought I saw a twinkle in your eye. I didn’t. I just saw a flash of anger. I think.

0:18:23.8 Jordan Syatt: It was funny. My mom, I love her. It’s great. My youngest, she’s been obsessed with this ball. There’s just this, like, one soft, squishy ball that she will hold all day, every day, for the time being. Like, she’s just obsessed with it. And if you take it from her. Holy shit. The shrieking that will ensue is unlike anything. It’s like a pterodactyl on a microphone. Just imagine a pterodactyl into a loudspeaker. It’s incredible. I didn’t know a little body that’s like 12 pounds could make this noise at that distance. 

0:19:05.2 Mike Vacanti: 12 pounds?

0:19:05.8 Jordan Syatt: No, obviously, she’s bigger. She’s like 20 pounds or something.

0:19:08.6 Mike Vacanti: Okay.

0:19:11.3 Jordan Syatt: You’re like, your baby’s underweight, bro.

0:19:14.0 Mike Vacanti: I got concerned.

0:19:16.7 Jordan Syatt: But we FaceTime my mom basically every day, and she’s eating this… Our baby’s eating. She’s over one now. She just turned one. She’s eating, and it’s messy. She’s got, like, applesauce and avocado, and this ball gets filthy. So literally my wife will wash this ball every day, sometimes multiple times a day, depending on what happens. And my mom is watching her eat and watching this ball just get filthy. And my mom goes just, like, clearly, like, a look on her face being like, this is… That’s gross. She goes, “You might want to take the ball away from her.” And my wife, she goes, “You want to see what happens? “And my mom was like, “Yeah, sure.” And my wife grabs the ball and immediate just going nuts. And my mom’s like, “All right, all right, never mind. Give it back.”

0:20:12.8 Mike Vacanti: She likes the ball.

0:20:13.5 Jordan Syatt: Just like, all these little things that people just don’t… Yeah, dude, she loves the ball. She loves that ball. But yeah.

0:20:20.8 Mike Vacanti: That’s kind of cute.

0:20:21.1 Jordan Syatt: What? The fact that she loves the ball? Not the fact… Not the screaming.

0:20:24.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, the fact that she loves the ball and I always say it’s very wholesome. It’s very like, you know, buy a kid a $50 present and they just want to play with a shoelace instead. That kind of vibe.

0:20:33.9 Jordan Syatt: I might just take the ball away because she won’t remember it.

0:20:39.9 Mike Vacanti: Just to spite those commenters. Okay, start picking numbers, Jordan.

0:20:46.7 Jordan Syatt: All right, three.

0:20:47.4 Mike Vacanti: Pick a different one. That one’s deep. That one’s deep. We’ll circle back.

0:20:51.5 Jordan Syatt: Not three or four. Two.

0:20:53.5 Mike Vacanti: We’re going to go in order from the top. Number one.

0:20:55.6 Jordan Syatt: How about you pick a number, Michael? Dear Lord.

0:20:58.7 Mike Vacanti: Number one. Number one. Just a heads up, Jordan has a little announcement for you, and I do, too. 

0:21:06.8 Jordan Syatt: Oh.

0:21:07.4 Mike Vacanti: Black Friday mentorship sale will be happening. Just putting it on your radar. We do one to two sales per year, and we are going to be doing a Black Friday sale this year. We have officially decided as of three days ago.

0:21:22.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, it’s gonna be huge. Huge. Put on your calendar. Make sure you’re listening every week. It’s gonna be a huge sale. And yep, that’s it.

0:21:33.1 Mike Vacanti: Fitness business mentorship. Heavily, heavily discounted for Black Friday. I know that’s a ways away, but just mark it on your calendar. We’re not gonna bother you every single week about it yet, but on the calendar. Okay. Number two, I’ve gotten an advanced fat loss strategy.

0:21:53.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, wow. Okay. Can’t wait to hear this one.

0:21:56.6 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think I’ve heard this before. It’s for people who have a lot of experience dieting who don’t really have a ton of body fat to lose and are taking a more casual approach and don’t really care if they succeed or fail.

0:22:13.4 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:22:14.1 Mike Vacanti: Only tracking protein.

0:22:15.9 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:22:16.7 Mike Vacanti: So my goal… You couldn’t do this right now, but my goal is be hungry…

0:22:22.3 Jordan Syatt: I can do it.

0:22:23.4 Mike Vacanti: Physiologically.

0:22:24.3 Jordan Syatt: If you say I could do it, you have to be hungry. Never mind.

0:22:28.4 Mike Vacanti: Not on the Big Gulp. Not on the Big Gulp. You can’t. Not the 7-Eleven Big Gulp. The GLP. Track protein to make sure I’m getting enough protein and be hungry. I just… I don’t feel like tracking really. But I want to make sure I’m getting sufficient protein and wanted to lose a few pounds. Haven’t really tried to lose fat in quite some time. Try to be hungry, especially like, go to bed. I want to go to bed hungry every night. I know I’m in a deficit, If I’m going to bed reasonably hungry every night, make sure I’m getting enough protein. That’s it. That’s the strategy.

0:23:06.7 Jordan Syatt: It’s funny that you marketed this as an advanced fat loss formula. I feel like this is the most beginner fat loss formula that ever existed.

0:23:16.6 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:23:17.2 Jordan Syatt: Why is that?

0:23:20.5 Mike Vacanti: I think it’s very easy for a beginner doing this to put themselves in way too large of a deficit. 

0:23:27.7 Jordan Syatt: Okay.

0:23:28.7 Mike Vacanti: Like, go to bed hungry. Okay, I’ll be hungry. Like, end up eating 150 grams of protein and like 680 total calories in a day. And like, all right, I just ate chicken breast and Greek yogurt.

0:23:38.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:23:39.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And like, I’m hungry. Which is going to lead to a yo-yo. You got to walk before you can run. Like, you got to track the carbs and the fats and the calories and like have a solid understanding of what you’re doing before you can start playing with the system.

0:23:57.0 Jordan Syatt: So your thoughts are that you give this to a complete beginner, they’re only going to eat protein?

0:24:02.7 Mike Vacanti: They’re gonna screw it up in some way. They’re gonna say… No. Really? Like, they’re gonna… They’re not gonna make any progress for a month. They’re gonna gain two pounds in a month and they’re gonna be like, look, I’m eating my protein and I’m hungry all the time. It’s like, well, we don’t know how… It’s impossible for me to coach that person. I don’t know how many calories you’re eating. So I can’t like… That’s why I called it advanced and casual. Like, this isn’t a… This isn’t a high percentage way to see progress. It’s a lazy man’s way or lazy woman’s way to see progress, which is where I’m at with fat loss right now. But also just wanting to ensure I’m maintaining muscle or potentially recomping a little bit in the process.

0:24:38.8 Jordan Syatt: Okay. I like that I’m thinking the… I don’t know why my brain keeps going to the beginner. Like if I was going to modify this for the… And I know, like, hey, the beginner needs to track calories per… Like, need to do everything. But I’m thinking like….

0:24:51.6 Mike Vacanti: Calorie range. Give them a giant range if you want.

0:24:54.3 Jordan Syatt: Let’s say, like you have someone who’s like, I just don’t want to count calories. You could say, hey, protein at every meal and be moderately hungry.

0:25:02.7 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think a beginner knows what moderately hungry is. I think… I also think there’s an important distinction here between needing to lose fat for health and just wanting to lose a little bit of fat for vanity.

0:25:18.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s a good distinction.

0:25:19.3 Mike Vacanti: If you need to lose fat for health, like we’re going to do what is going to be a higher percentage chance of you succeeding because the stakes matter. Whereas if you want to lose seven pounds for vanity and you just don’t really feel like tracking, if you need to lose 100 pounds and you don’t feel like tracking.

0:25:37.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that’s a problem.

0:25:38.3 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:25:39.1 Jordan Syatt: It’s like someone being like, I need to save money, I need to save money, but I’m not willing to make a budget.

0:25:43.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, exactly. I need to save money. But I need these three Gucci bags that are on sale for 10% off, 1,000 marked down to 900.

0:25:53.3 Jordan Syatt: I need them.

0:25:56.3 Mike Vacanti: Need, need. I’ve seen some wild content around that..

0:26:00.7 Jordan Syatt: Needing?

0:26:03.1 Mike Vacanti: Around spending a lot of money on unnecessary things even though you don’t have the money to spend. Like, Gary made a post on the subject and got a lot of pushback of like, hey, I don’t have any money, but I need to look good. Like if I don’t look good, then people won’t take me seriously and I need to look good to make more money. So I am gonna spend all of my money on like high end brands and a nice car and all these things because that helps me make more money. It’s very bizarre thinking.

0:26:33.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that doesn’t really make sense. It feels like it’s just justifying whatever you want to do.

0:26:39.0 Mike Vacanti: Mmh. Mm-hmm. Okay. Number three, Mind Pump Sal has a new series on YouTube. Have you seen this?

0:26:49.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, actually Adam sent it to me and I’ve seen a couple clips pop up. Yeah, it’s very cool.

0:26:54.9 Mike Vacanti: It’s very cool and I’m a big fan of those guys. You are as well. To sum it up, and explain how I relate to it. If you think of your God as the thing that you value most, as the thing on your hierarchy of values that you are paying the most attention to, that is all consuming to you. Money is something that consumes people. Drugs and alcohol is something that consumes people. Food is something that consumes people. Sal is talking about how fitness and aesthetics and like working out had become a false God for him. And he’s basically walking through in real time trying to put his actual God at the top of his value hierarchy and not let fitness be this, like, false God. Which I can relate to in being a hyper obsessive around fitness stuff in the past for certain periods of time. I can also relate to, like… Money is one for me that for brief stints in my life, that has been something that I cared about more than I should have.

0:28:23.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You know what’s interesting about this is… So I actually, I brought this up to Alan Aragon when he was on my podcast because he’s gotten flack in the past about how, you know, he’s one of the most science based people in the world that you could ever be. And just so a published researcher, just like incredibly science based. But he’s been open that he’s also a Christian. And so I asked him on the podcast, I said, you know, “How do you reconcile being a Christian with also believing with also being science based?” And I thought it was a really wonderful discussion talking about, you know, how you can believe in God and also believe in science and they’re not mutually exclusive. And the overall response to that podcast was amazing. But one comment stood out to me. Someone said, “It was great until you brought up God. And then I turned it off.” And then I was just thinking, I was like, man, what an opportunity to potentially learn another way of thinking that was just squandered because it brought up something that made you feel uncomfortable or maybe didn’t make you feel uncomfortable.

0:29:33.0 Jordan Syatt: Maybe it’s just like you’ve personally written that off in your head for whatever reason, which is… That’s fine, you don’t have to believe it. But to not listen to a conversation around it just because… Especially a conversation that up to that point you’ve been really interested in. I don’t know. That’s some… That’s something that is… It just doesn’t make sense to me. It doesn’t compute. It’s like, I like this, I like this, I like this. Oh, I don’t like that. I’m done. Yeah, I think it is a very interesting conversation and I was really fortunate. I got to spend a fair amount of time with Sal and his family and hear about sort of his journey into this. And it’s been really cool to watch. He’s really passionate about it, as is his wife, and it’s really wonderful.

0:30:17.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I think we’ve polarized enough on this podcast that I don’t think that commenter is here, or if they are, it’s their third episode listening.

0:30:30.7 Jordan Syatt: No, no, I’m not worried about it. I just think it’s… That’s what my brain went to first. And I was like, it’s just… Because that comment just came in yesterday or the day before, or within the last couple days. And so that was just like what I was thinking about.

0:30:43.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I mean, and that person, maybe the word God makes them uncomfortable. And if they’re extraordinarily science based, then what they would… You could substitute in, like, the two cells that just always existed, that rubbed together billions of years ago, that accidentally and randomly exploded and have ever since been expanding into what is now the universe. Like, if that’s that person’s belief system. And I’m like, I’m being slightly mocking… I am being slightly mocking, I think. But I’m also trying to be accurate in my description of the Big Bang, which is, in my estimation, the most popular theory on how the world started amongst people who proclaim to be extraordinarily science based.

0:31:39.2 Jordan Syatt: Which is funny because I can’t really explain it.

0:31:43.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. I mean, who said it? Even scientists ask for one miracle.

0:31:48.3 Jordan Syatt: Give me one miracle and I’ll explain how everything else… I think that’s the quote.

0:31:53.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. As Terence McKenna observed, Modern science is based on the principle, give us one free miracle and we’ll explain the rest.

0:32:01.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:32:01.8 Mike Vacanti: The one free miracle is the appearance of all the mass and energy in the universe and all the laws that govern it in a single instant from nothing. But really, I just could… I can personally relate to having things that are not the best for me or others at the top of my value hierarchy for periods of life and justifying it and how difficult it is to lower those and put God above them. And I’m trying to even make this palpable and beneficial for people who are more secular and put like, being grateful for my existence and trying to help others and be a better person at the top of the hierarchy. Rather than accumulating stuff or feeling good, like pleasure as the highest thing on someone’s hierarchy, whether it’s again, drugs, alcohol addiction, whether it’s food, like any of these things that can really grip our attention and our flesh and our bodies and our daily actions.

0:33:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. You’ve… Too much focus on any one of them can be good or… Too much or too little on anyone can be…. Can be… Lead down a negative path. Yeah. And rather than having like your one guiding light.

0:33:27.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think too little focus… I don’t think there’s a downside to too little focus on pleasure. Impulsive, like short term pleasure. There’s definitely a downside to too much focus on it.

0:33:43.7 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. 100%. Too little… Well, I mean, are we… I guess… Man, that’s an interesting conversation. That would probably…

0:33:53.8 Mike Vacanti: I mean… And let me put some more things in there just to… So it’s not just food. Right? Because food’s kind of a weird one. Especially in fitness. Pornography, casual unprotected sex with paid prostitutes, video games. Like all of these things that like is too little of any of those bad?

0:34:14.6 Jordan Syatt: Of any of those? No. But I don’t think we can just swipe everything, every impulsive pleasure into those. Like that’s like just… Those are very extreme ones. For example, I mean we could take an impulsive pleasure that for… Like, for example, I would say one like here’s an impulse of pleasure that you would probably agree that is really good. But it’s on a very different scale than those. And like an impulsive pleasure being like I’m going to impulsively right now… It brings me a great deal of pleasure to go give to charity. Right? Or to go volunteer…

0:34:53.9 Mike Vacanti: Joy and pleasure. Different categories.

0:34:57.6 Jordan Syatt: Yep. Yeah.

0:34:58.8 Mike Vacanti: I agree with you that what you just described is a good thing. I would put that in a different category. Benefits other people. Like… 

0:35:05.8 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then we go down the route of porn benefits people because they get paid, careers for it. But then I’m not making that argument. I’m just thinking of an argument someone else would make. 

0:35:19.3 Mike Vacanti: You can make the argument.

0:35:20.4 Jordan Syatt: It’s just a mental gymnastics people would play.

0:35:22.4 Mike Vacanti: I don’t think porn is beneficial for the people getting paid to do porn. I think it’s a net negative.

0:35:28.1 Jordan Syatt: I completely agree with you, by the way. Let the record show. But…

0:35:31.7 Mike Vacanti: You don’t have to. 

0:35:32.3 Jordan Syatt: I’m just… I do though.

0:35:34.3 Mike Vacanti: I know you do. You’ve stated that case on this podcast.

0:35:37.4 Jordan Syatt: I’m just trying to think of… My brain is playing Jewish lawyer. What case would other people be making in order to try and sort of fit themselves into this category? You know what I mean?

0:35:49.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Play Jewish personal trainer.

0:35:53.2 Jordan Syatt: It’s hard to separate them I was brought up with a Jewish lawyer mother, so it’s sort of like it’s just all meshed into one.

0:36:01.3 Mike Vacanti: That makes sense. It’s good to steal man on the other side.

0:36:04.5 Jordan Syatt: No, but I very much agree. So have you been watching Sal’s series? Like, do you like it?

0:36:08.9 Mike Vacanti: There’ve been a couple episodes, yeah, I’ve watched them. I think they’re really good. I think it’s… When you can tell someone is uncomfortable on camera and saying things they genuinely believe to be true. Even if I disagree with him or someone else who is saying things, I respect it and enjoy. It’s very refreshing content. In a day and age where everything is crafted for consumption and virality, etcetera. That like a little bit of rawness and authenticity and actual… Because even authenticity became a hack in the last many years. Like someone who I actually believe is saying what they believe to be true is… It’s like an 8 ounce glass of water in a desert, days and days and days and then you just stumble across this ice cold water.

0:36:59.5 Jordan Syatt: That’s a great…

0:37:00.3 Mike Vacanti: Even warm water would hit the spot at that point, you know. All right, number four, I don’t even like… I saw a piece of content called the great lock in of 2025 from August to December. Basically this guy said New Year, new me, like isn’t just going to happen if you keep doing what you’re doing until January 1st and then you try to change. But if you lock in right now, then come January 1st, there actually will be a new year new you. There will be a new you. Not just in fitness, but this can be applied to business. This can be applied to whatever you’re doing. And I don’t even want to interpret it as the get started on your New Year’s goals five months early. Even that’s slightly played out over the years. But for some reason the great lock in of 2025, August to December, really hit me as a title. I don’t know why.

0:37:57.6 Jordan Syatt: That makes sense. I mean you had the year of the micros, the year of the robot. I don’t know, I feel like that’s very on brand for you. Like the great lock in of 2025.

0:38:05.8 Mike Vacanti: The Great lock in.

0:38:07.4 Jordan Syatt: We’re locked in.

0:38:07.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. And even if someone is casually posting two reels a week, they’re training a few in person clients. They are struggling to get their online fitness business off the ground. They are consuming a ton and not creating much. They want to have an online fitness business that supports their family and them and they have a steady, reliable stream of income and people applying for their online fitness business, lock in. like now until the end of the year, set yourself a deadline, make some process based, like action oriented goals that you do on a weekly basis and do them for the next however many weeks are left in the year. 13, 14, 15, something like that.

0:38:50.4 Jordan Syatt: Lock in, get locked in and pick one or two things. Don’t pick like 57 things to lock in on. Just one or two things. Especially you know… We were talking about on the mentorship call last week, I believe it was, and there were a number of things that were brought up, but Jesse, who’s been in the mentorship for years, shout out Jesse.

0:39:10.3 Mike Vacanti: Beast. Beast.

0:39:10.8 Jordan Syatt: An absolute savage. He was talking about how… He asked the question, he was like, hey, should I… Like LinkedIn seems to be doing pretty well for me relative to Instagram, etcetera. And was like, what do you think I should do? And we basically just gave the advice. If you see something popping off a little bit, you go hard on that. You go hard on it. Like regardless of what anyone else is saying about any other platform, like if you see a platform starting to hit for you, you go, go hard. And it’s sort of nice because it gives you more freedom to like take the foot off the gas on the other things and just go as hard as you can on that one. Which is usually where I think we see the best results. When people just go… Especially early on, they go hard on like one thing to build up a platform on that one thing. And I think that plays into the great lock in of 2025 where it’s, you pick one thing, whether that one thing is you go all in on all your in person clients, just get locked in. Make sure you’re communicating with them, writing their programs ahead of time.

0:40:12.0 Jordan Syatt: Like whatever that is, whatever you’re locked in with, those clients are. Maybe it’s your online content, maybe it’s your online clients, maybe it’s just your Instagram, maybe it’s just your LinkedIn, whatever it is, maybe it’s just your YouTube. Pick one thing and just go so insanely hard on it. Just non stop. Don’t half ass it. Don’t treat it like another thing to just check off. Don’t like, okay, I got it done today. It’s not another thing to get done. It’s a thing that like should be done unbelievably well with insanely high quality every single day. Pick one thing. And if you don’t know which one to pick, pick one thing, just pick one, it doesn’t matter, just pick one.

0:40:55.1 Mike Vacanti: Clips Nation. Do what Jordan is saying right now. If you are someone who’s in the category that he’s speaking to, do that. The great lock in of 2025. You’ve got four months, year of the lock in. Finish strong. Hit 2026 with some momentum. Let’s go.

0:41:12.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

0:41:12.6 Mike Vacanti: All right. Five was abduction. Six was the pump product that pumps everything, including your face. 7. What’s up with these weighted vests, brother?

0:41:23.1 Jordan Syatt: Did you see my content on this?

0:41:24.7 Mike Vacanti: No. No.

0:41:25.6 Jordan Syatt: Oh, okay. You don’t like them?

0:41:29.0 Mike Vacanti: No, I do. I like weighted vests for certain things. The thing that I like weighted vests the most for are in addition… For certain bodyweight exercises to make them more difficult. I think they can be effective for that. Walking lunges, I prefer, like a belt chain for pull ups and chin ups, but, like, a weighted vest can work there. 

0:41:50.5 Jordan Syatt: Push ups. 

0:41:51.6 Mike Vacanti: Push ups. They’re really solid. Yep. I also like them if you are trying to walk and get yourself into zone two. If you’re trying to do zone two cardio and you want to do it walking and you don’t have the ability to incline a treadmill. So let’s say you’re doing it outside on flat ground and you’re getting to a point where your fitness is improving, your cardiovascular health is improving. And to be in zone two walking, you got to walk at a pace that you’re such a maniac that, hey, why don’t I load this so I can walk a little bit slower and get my heart rate elevated? Because I care about my heart health. I think that’s sweet. I’m a huge fan of that. What I came to the conclusion recently on, and by the way, I had multiple people in my life ask me about weighted vests within the last week.

0:42:35.9 Mike Vacanti: And then I got some funny content around weighted vests. And then I started noticing this like… The weighted vests that I think of are like a bulletproof vest. That was the weighted vest of 15 years ago. These weighted vests are much more sleek looking, and I see them on tons of people in my neighborhood walking around. And when I came to the conclusion based on the questions I was getting that a disproportionate number of these people are wearing them because they want additional calorie burn on their cardio sessions.

0:43:08.8 Jordan Syatt: Mm-hmm.

0:43:09.1 Mike Vacanti: It’s like the quote that came to my mind was, remember, remember in Gary’s, like, 2013, 2014 era where he said, if you… If you live for the weekends, your shit is broken. If your…

0:43:21.5 Jordan Syatt: Mm-hmm. Great quote.

0:43:23.9 Mike Vacanti: If your cardio session is to burn a few extra calories. Your shit is broken. It’s snapped in half.

0:43:29.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Completely agree. Completely agree.

0:43:32.2 Mike Vacanti: Spinal. Snapped. Dunzo. I broke my back.

0:43:36.3 Jordan Syatt: I love that quote.

0:43:37.7 Mike Vacanti: Mike Tyson.

0:43:38.3 Jordan Syatt: What do you mean you broke your back? My back is broken. Spinal. If you don’t know that quote, look up the Mike Tyson interview after one of his fights.

0:43:48.3 Jim Gray: Mike, were you really sick this week? What was the problem? 

0:43:51.9 Mike Tyson: I broke my back.

0:43:54.8 Jim Gray: What do you mean by that? 

0:43:55.9 Mike Tyson: My back is broken.

0:43:57.1 Jim Gray: What part? A vertebrae or what portion?

0:44:00.7 Mike Tyson: Spinal.

0:44:02.5 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, we… I completely agree. 100%.

0:44:05.6 Mike Vacanti: Did I say anything that goes against the post you made on it?

0:44:08.6 Jordan Syatt: No. No. So, so it’s a huge topic right now and it’s interesting that you’re getting questions about it from people because it’s arguably the most common question on my Q&As for the last three to six months and I’ve made numerous posts about it there. There are different trains of thought that I’m currently seeing. And so basically I’ll start with one of the main proponents of weighted vests. One of the people leading the charge on pro weighted vests has been talking about them for the menopause space for women who are basically saying that it’s great for strength and it’s great for bone density. 

0:44:49.9 Jordan Syatt: And I’ve seen a number of people in the more science based world get furious and then essentially become anti-weighted vest because they’re saying it’s not great for strength, it’s not great for bone density, don’t wear a weighted vest. And I think both of these extremes are wrong. And I’ve actually dug up a fair amount of the research on this. And so the weighted vests saying they’re good for strength training just from walking is fucking stupid. You’re not… It’s… You’re not strength training because you’re wearing a weighted vest. That’s stupid. In terms of the bone density discussion, the research on this is quite frankly, it’s just inconclusive. To say that it does build bone density, we don’t know as of right now. And to say that it doesn’t build bone density, we don’t know based on the research right now because a lot of the studies are incredibly flawed by design, very small number of participants. It’s just they’re not very good studies to be. And there aren’t that many.

0:45:52.2 Mike Vacanti: What’s your guess there?

0:45:53.5 Jordan Syatt: I think that they would help with bone density. I don’t think that it’s going to be huge. But I also could be wrong. I think that they do help with bone density and I think we’ll see that play out over time. Very simply, we look at individuals with a higher BMI, higher body mass index, they have significantly higher bone mineral density than people who are, don’t have a higher BMI. People who are traditionally healthier body weight. So it stands to reason that you fucking make a habit out of walking with a weighted vest several times a week, it’s going to have a positive impact on your bone density. That makes all the sense in the world to me. I think, and I said this, the best use of a weighted vest is for people who, number one, are not overweight. If you’re overweight, you’re already wearing a weighted vest. You don’t need one. For people who are a healthy weight and want to get into a higher zone, for cardio, it’s the best use by far. It’s the most efficient, the best use. And then also for strength training, chin ups, pull ups, push ups, walking lunges, all these things, it’s great. But from a cardio perspective, I think it’s the best.

0:47:02.4 Jordan Syatt: If we’re looking at a specific population, I also think firefighters, cops, whatever, anyone who has to carry things or have to carry like… Or military, whatever. If you have to have a heavy pack, I think it’s stupid to not do training with a weighted vest. I think it would make sense to literally do your entire sessions wearing weighted vests because it’s just like, I don’t care what you’re doing, you should be doing everything with the vest on because it’s gonna, I think it’s positive carryover to your day to day. 

0:47:34.0 Jordan Syatt: So I completely agree with everything you said and I think that they’re an amazing tool done properly. And it’s funny because you’ve been in my neighborhood, almost all of the women in my neighborhood wear weighted vests, almost all of them. And when they go on walks, when they go on walks around the neighborhood, and I fucking love it, it’s amazing to see. And also I think it’s important for them to be strength training separately, which they do. But I made a post almost like biting at the people who are saying you don’t need to wear weighted vests, you shouldn’t wear weighted vests.

0:48:07.8 Jordan Syatt: Basically my intro was, just because you don’t need it doesn’t mean that it’s not beneficial. And like there are absolutely beneficial components to it, but you don’t need it. And I was like, listen, you don’t need air conditioning, but you fucking use air conditioning. You don’t… You know, I mean? So I think there are… I think it’s very beneficial, but it’s a huge, huge, huge. I think it’s fair to say. I think it’s fair to call it a fad. It’s a huge fad right now. But it’s one of the fads that I’m fully on board with.

0:48:32.4 Mike Vacanti: When I hear questions like, how many extra calories am I burning if I wear a weighted vest?

0:48:40.9 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yep.

0:48:42.1 Mike Vacanti: That’s where I’m saying the same for you.

0:48:44.0 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, that makes sense. You’re doing it for the wrong reasons. And it… Technically it does burn more calories…

0:48:50.3 Mike Vacanti: Of course. Of course.

0:48:51.4 Jordan Syatt: But not much. 

0:48:52.8 Mike Vacanti: Not much?

0:48:53.0 Jordan Syatt: And also the intent behind it is the issue.

0:48:55.1 Mike Vacanti: Broken is snapped in half. Spinal. One Oreo has 70 calories. Let me repeat that. One Oreo cookie, double stuffed has 70 calories. Serving size is two, by the way. Completely insane. Completely off the rails. Don’t eat that Oreo. Wear the weighted vest for all the reasons that we mentioned for why it’s beneficial. But if you are punishing yourself with cardio because you want to burn extra calories, don’t put the weighted vest on. In fact, don’t do the cardio for that reason.

0:49:30.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, agreed. Completely.

0:49:32.1 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:49:32.7 Jordan Syatt: An apple, about 80 calories.

0:49:35.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. But you get satiety from an apple. Like apples take longer to eat. An Oreo you can eat without chewing in like literally a microsecond. You can just swallow that Oreo. 

0:49:44.7 Jordan Syatt: Now you are making me hungry.

0:49:46.6 Mike Vacanti: No, I’m not.

0:49:46.8 Jordan Syatt: That’s crazy.

0:49:47.4 Mike Vacanti: No, I’m not. Don’t.

0:49:50.1 Jordan Syatt: I haven’t had an Oreo in so long. Oh, man.

0:49:52.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it must be nice. I had some Oreos yesterday, more than I wanted to.

0:49:56.0 Jordan Syatt: Did you? That’s why you’re thinking about them.

0:50:00.2 Mike Vacanti: That’s right.

0:50:00.7 Jordan Syatt: How many did you have?

0:50:02.9 Mike Vacanti: So my wife’s actually really smart on this and me being, you know, math you, you know, this is like the potential autism side of like… This is like… I was making the argument at a family function that the single serving baggies of things are the worst purchase you can make because they’re so cost ineffective. The cost per calorie on the 10 pack of single of Oreo, little mini Oreo baggies that are 140 calories per baggie and have like 12 or 15 little mini Oreos in them compared to just buying a regular thing of Oreos where the cost per calorie is much lower. Well, turns out those mini Oreo baggies really portion them out nicely for you. And so you just take one baggie and you can kind of chew on it. And you left the rest of them in the cupboard and, and you’re fine and you know how much you’re eating. Whereas whether it’s a bag of chips or a thing of Oreos, you bring the whole thing with you, sit on the couch, throw a little Netflix on, and that can get really dangerous.

0:51:07.3 Jordan Syatt: Real dangerous real fast.

0:51:09.7 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, real, real dangerous real fast. We have both. And I went with the mini Oreos because I was like, that’s dangerous. I don’t want to bring those out with me. And then I was like, you know what, this is actually a really good idea.

0:51:20.4 Jordan Syatt: Do you undo them and then make them like mini double stuffed?

0:51:24.2 Mike Vacanti: Not with the minis. Like that just feels like I’m disordered at that point.

0:51:30.3 Jordan Syatt: I’ve never had a mini. But like…

0:51:33.0 Mike Vacanti: They’re tiny. They’re tiny.

0:51:34.6 Jordan Syatt: That sounds so unenjoyable to me.

0:51:37.3 Mike Vacanti: It’s incredible. It’s incredible. I came to the conclusion the big Oreos, here’s where you run into a problem. If you bite one in half, you make a huge mess.

0:51:46.7 Jordan Syatt: Yes, big mess.

0:51:47.8 Mike Vacanti: If you eat the whole thing, it’s a solid amount of cookie for one bite. And I’d rather break that enjoyment up into multiple bites. You can always do the twist off, which is a reasonable thing to do. But then you have one like not that enjoyable bite and then one like, like cocaine bite, essentially just spiking dopamine. The minis, you get a lot more mouth feel, you get a lot more frequency. You can eat them one at a time and the whole thing kind of hits the spot. The minis are the play, even though they’re more expensive. 2013, Mike would roll over in his grave. He’d be like, what are you doing with your personal finance? But… 

0:52:28.4 Jordan Syatt: Idiot, you could get so many more for so much less.

0:52:31.8 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah.

0:52:33.0 Jordan Syatt: But it’s the portion control that’s worth it.

0:52:35.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:52:35.7 Jordan Syatt: Are they double stuffed minis or no?

0:52:37.9 Mike Vacanti: No.

0:52:38.5 Jordan Syatt: No. 

0:52:39.4 Mike Vacanti: They hit the spot though.

0:52:40.3 Jordan Syatt: I just refuse to eat a non double stuffed Oreo. You know what I mean?

0:52:43.5 Mike Vacanti: Minis are on another level. Don’t write them off until you try them.

0:52:46.7 Jordan Syatt: That’s fair. I have to try it. I can’t write them off before I try it. That’s fair. But like, have you ever tried to eat…

0:52:51.5 Mike Vacanti: You’re not gonna try it. Jordan’s over there… Jordan’s over there eating sorbet with Greek yogurt and fruit that tastes heavenly that doesn’t even need a… Doesn’t even need sweetener in it.

0:53:00.9 Jordan Syatt: It’s true. I’ve been dialed of my nutrition. I’ve been super dialed.

0:53:04.3 Mike Vacanti: Good job, man. Good job. Way to go. I’ve been dialed. I’m not hungry, but I’ve been dialed. Did we ever tell the story of your friends on Yom Kippur?

0:53:26.4 Jordan Syatt: Oh wait, maybe we did. But we could do a little retell. It’s just such a good story.

0:53:30.7 Mike Vacanti: It’s such a good story.

0:53:32.3 Jordan Syatt: So we have these amazing friends. We actually just saw them this past weekend. They’re great. And this must have been two years ago now at Yom Kippur. So if you don’t know, Yom Kippur is one of the fasting days in Judaism. So you fast from sundown one night until sundown the next night. It’s about 24, 25-hour fast. And usually you get together in a group when you do this… When you break the fast, right. You spend the day at synagogue and then you get together and you have a big break fast. And it’s a big, big thing. And so my wife and I, we get to the house where we’re all going to be going to have… To break the fast. And keep in mind, like, if you’re religious, like, then you do it. But a lot of like more reform and conservative Jews, they don’t really fast. So we get there and at this point there are three people full on fasting. Me, my buddy and his wife. Full on fasting. And my buddy is furious. He’s just, he’s got dark circles under his eyes. He’s not happy. He’s in a terrible mood.

0:54:44.1 Jordan Syatt: We’ve got about 30 minutes left and in the other room everyone’s eating. They’ve already started eating. They’re not taking it as seriously. Which makes my buddy even a little bit more angry. He’s just like, he’s… He can’t be in there because people are eating anyway. I’m a little bit not feeling good either. This is before…. This is a year… A couple years ago, so long before I started Tirzepatide. And his wife, we’re all talking sort of in the doorway and my buddies asked me, he’s like, “How do you feel?” I’m like, “I’m pretty hungry, dude. I’m not feeling that good.” And he was just like, “Yeah, I’m fucking… I’m pissed. I just can’t wait to eat.” He just wasn’t in a good mood. And his wife says, “Actually this has been the easiest fast of my life. This one wasn’t that bad.” And she’s got energy and she’s in a good mood. And. And he angrily turns and he goes, “Yeah, because you’re on those fucking shots.” [laughter] And we hadn’t known that she was taking a GLP-1. And she turns to us with the biggest smile on her face. She’s like, “Yeah, I started taking them. These things are amazing.”

0:55:51.5 Mike Vacanti: She was on Ozempic at the time, right?

0:55:53.4 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, she was on… And she actually just started up again recently because she just had their second child and so she started up again. She’s like, “I fucking love these things.” You’re on those effing shots.

0:56:05.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah, yeah, it was one of the funniest experiences that we’ve had. You’re on those… He was just so mad. “You’re on those fucking shots.”

0:56:11.5 Mike Vacanti: I would be too. And honestly, for like, this is easy. Like, [REDACTED] I’m on your side here, man.

0:56:19.9 Jordan Syatt: No, don’t say his name. We’re not saying his name.

0:56:21.9 Mike Vacanti: Bleep that out. Bleep that out. Sorry, Jordan, I’m not… I’m not like you. I’m not out there, like, on the Internet, you know, not saying names and being…

0:56:27.8 Jordan Syatt: I don’t want to give their name out to the public, you know?

0:56:30.1 Mike Vacanti: I know  bleep…. That’s why we got David. That’s why we got David.

0:56:33.0 Jordan Syatt: David will bleep his name out.

0:56:34.8 Mike Vacanti: Goodness, Jordan gets so worked up.

0:56:36.7 Jordan Syatt: But my. My nutrition has been really good. Just like the food quality…

0:56:41.6 Mike Vacanti: Good job.

0:56:42.1 Jordan Syatt: Has been great. Thanks, dude. Food quality has been premier.

0:56:47.0 Mike Vacanti: Good for you. 

0:56:47.9 Jordan Syatt: Thank you. You can’t discount everything. Just because I’m taking the zepatide .

0:56:53.0 Mike Vacanti: Your food quality was always very good.

0:56:56.3 Jordan Syatt: But… Yeah, but super, super good. I’ve been feeling really good about it.

0:57:01.8 Mike Vacanti: Good job.

0:57:02.6 Jordan Syatt: So you get really mad.

0:57:04.1 Mike Vacanti: Well, I think you’re… I think you’re doing it to get the reaction.

0:57:07.5 Jordan Syatt: There’s a little, a little push, a little nudge, a little button pushing.

0:57:10.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

0:57:11.5 Jordan Syatt: I don’t know if you’re… If you see any of these pranks. I see pranks gone bad, where people, like, do the dumbest shit to people as a prank video. And then they get the shit kicked out of them and they get mad because it’s like, dude, you shouldn’t have been doing that to people. It’s unbelievable. I saw one of the craziest videos I’ve ever seen in my life. This guy… Not a guy. I’m gonna call him a kid. This boy. He’s probably in his young 20s, but I’m calling him boy. Just… He went into. I don’t know, I think it might have been Baltimore, but a really, really bad area of Baltimore, like what you would consider to be the ghetto, just a very, very bad area. 

0:57:56.5 Jordan Syatt: And he’s essentially do… I don’t know why he thought this would be funny, but he’s standing there with his hand inside of his, like, shirt, like slash pants to make it look like he’s reaching for a gun. And he’s just standing there. And the… In his mind, the prank was, I’m just going to stand there and look at people and not say anything while his hand is concealed inside to make it look like he’s holding a gun. And he’s doing this to people who look very dangerous and just got the absolute… He’s lucky he didn’t get killed, number one. He’s lucky he didn’t get shot, but he got absolutely walloped in. It’s just unbelievable the shit that people will do for social media. And so if that’s happening on the extreme end, you know, people are doing it in fitness just for their reaction, just for the engagement.

0:58:56.4 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, it’s… You almost wouldn’t have been able to predict that the attention economy of this little rectangle thing that we hold in front of our faces all the time exists. Like, go back to the ’90s and average screen time will be this in 25 years. And people will do the craziest stuff just to get people to pay attention to them so that they can sell something or run ads or monetize in some way and that’ll be like a profession or they’ll seek fame to… There’s another false God, by the way. Back to number three, like, that I wrestled with at a point as well. Yeah, man. Yeah. And that’s why it said that the fresh water in the desert is because most of the content on the Internet is double stuffed Oreos. And when you come across like an apple or a carrot or like something that’s good for you, it’s just… It’s amazing.

1:00:03.1 Jordan Syatt: Yeah.

1:00:03.7 Mike Vacanti: Don’t go to the hood and pretend you have a gun and do a prank to try, like…

1:00:07.7 Jordan Syatt: Just the dumbest shit.

1:00:09.0 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, yeah. But. But then at the same time, I have a degree of understanding that, like, men care about status at a high level. And for a kid who’s trying to, like, get a lot of attention on him, it’s very beneficial if he can increase… Like, I can understand why he’s doing this, but not smart.

1:00:28.7 Jordan Syatt: Thank God I’m not a kid.

1:00:30.7 Mike Vacanti: He’s alive.

1:00:31.7 Jordan Syatt: No, thank God he’s alive.

1:00:32.9 Mike Vacanti: Yeah.

1:00:33.6 Jordan Syatt: But also, it’s like, I couldn’t imagine being a teenager now in this, like, social media attention economy. Like, you know, you say something now, number one, it’s on the Internet forever. And also, just the pranks and the stuff that kids are doing also… And this is a completely separate topic. But drugs. Drugs are more dangerous now. I mean. Yeah, it’s just… I was speaking with an Inner Circle member the other day on the phone, and her son passed away from fentanyl. And it’s not like he was a drug addict. He wasn’t a drug addict. He just, like one time, and it was cut with fentanyl. And we were talking about, you know, there are, like. I think every… It’s like high two hundreds high three hundreds of people every day are killed by fentanyl in the United States every day. High two hundreds or high… It’s like a full plane full of people every day from fentanyl. It’s, like, not discussed that much. It’s just not a huge topic that we hear nearly as much as, like, stupid shit that the media wants us to hear about and politicians want us to fight over.

1:01:39.4 Jordan Syatt: It’s like we have a plane full of people every single day dying from this stuff, and it’s not a huge topic of conversation. I mean, she was telling me because she’s gotten super into activism and awareness to help people to hopefully they don’t have their kids go through this and kids and all that. And she was saying that there was a classroom of kids who… One of the kids in the classroom bought either Skittles or gummies, gummy bears or something from another kid, and they were laced with fentanyl, and the entire class had to go to the hospital. 

1:02:23.0 Jordan Syatt: And, like, thank God, from what she said, no one was killed, but an entire class of, like, elementary school kids got candy laced with fentanyl. Things that just, like, we never… I never thought about as a kid. And if. If my mom had said, don’t take candy from one of your friends, I would have been like, all right, all right, relax, relax. It’s just things that… It’s just… Yeah. I don’t even know how I got on that, but… Oh. Being a kid nowadays, I think is just so much more difficult because there’s so many… Way more things from so many different directions going on than… Whereas before, it was pretty simple, relatively straightforward.

1:03:02.5 Mike Vacanti: Yeah. Yep. I’m with you. And that’s very, very, very sad.

1:03:07.2 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:08.8 Mike Vacanti: Okay. So you know how over, like, the last five to eight years, there’s been a lot of fear around… From both sides, I’d say around totalitarian government and like Orwell’s 1984 coming true and surveillance state and combined AI. So from Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death, he says what Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared, Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read. Orwell feared those who would deprive us from information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. Like things from his book, essentially that the 1984 fear of Big Brother taking over is not as big a threat in reality as Aldous Huxley’s prediction of a flood of information and hyper pleasure. Like just reducing us to passivity.

1:04:43.2 Jordan Syatt: That’s really interesting. And especially considering like the. It can almost be simultaneous. Both. It’s not like necessarily one or the other. Like our degradation into passivity and just this blob of an individual happening at the same time as totality. Like it could also like… It could sort of be one in the same at the same time and help… And almost be symbiotic.

1:05:12.6 Mike Vacanti: Yeah, they work together. Right? It’s easier to control a population is fine with laying in their bed eating Oreos and scrolling through prank videos of some kid pretending to have a gun. Because that’s like really hitting our amygdala in a weird way.

1:05:28.3 Jordan Syatt: Yeah. Good episode.

1:05:31.6 Mike Vacanti: Black Friday sale on the horizon. May or may not pop up just on the horizon. Thank you for listening. We’ll be back next week with episode 240. Please leave us a review. If you’ve enjoyed our episode even remotely, we would love a 5 star review. Helps massively, help us reach more people in this sea of drivel and endless information on the Internet.

1:05:54.2 Jordan Syatt: See you.