EFR 822: The Minimum Method for Building and Keeping Muscle and the Top 3 Things to Eliminate NOW for Lifelong Fat-Loss with Joey Thurman

00:00 - Chase (Host) The following is an operation podcast production, the minimum method. Let's talk about this concept of you don't have to have all of the tools, all of the protocols, all the time in the world to get the body of your dreams.

00:13 - Joey (Guest) So I mean one what is your dream body? What does that look like? It might be looking like me. It might be looking like Arnold. It might be just be like you know being able to look down and see your feet because your belly got smaller. Just be like you know being able to look down and see your feet because your belly got smaller. How do you set your path to get to the Y? And it's like, oh, I want to hit this goal, I want to hit this, but like we need to set these steps in place to get there.

00:32 What do I do for nutrition? Can we add more good things? What do I need to take out? Let's add more fruits and vegetables. You've got to study at University of Michigan people that added more fruits and vegetables ate 500 less calories a day. It took you how long to gain that 30 pounds? 10 years, and it's gonna come off in 10 days. Well, just juice going, just whatever like you can do that and the food weight is gonna be down. You're going to lose the weight on the scale. But how we talk about losing fat and maintaining muscle tissue Like we should change the language of I need to lose weight too. Change the language of I need to lose weight to. I need to lose fat and maintain as much muscle as possible, but most people are just trying to level up and not trying to max out what's up. This is Joey Thurman. Health, fitness, nutrition experts. This is Ever Forward Radio. Stay right here and keep moving forward.

01:15 - Chase (Host) Hey, what's up? Listeners? Are you more than just that? Are you more than a podcast listener? Maybe you have your own podcast, or maybe you're looking to level up production or find a kick-ass studio to shoot your next episode or sit down with your next amazing guest.

01:29 Well, if you don't know, besides ever forward radio, I also own a podcast production company called operation podcast, and while we do offer a myriad of all editing services, we are a full suite editing and production company. We specialize in launching new shows. We can help you craft your trailer, craft your message, generate templates for social media, youtube, audio editing, video editing, show notes, writing you name it from start to finish. We can help you. We can offer as much or as little as you're looking for in consulting and editing needs. But also, if you're local to Los Angeles, angeles, or maybe coming through the area sometime soon, I would invite you to check out one of our three amazing studios here in the city. Every booking comes with a studio operator to manage all audio and video equipment. Speaking of, you're going to have microphones for up to four people total. We offer in-person recording or even a remote session. Every session also includes three Sony 4K cameras capturing every moment from every angle. If you'd like to learn more about our editing, consulting or in-studio services, check the show notes today under episode resources or head to operationpodcastcom. And if you'd like to book studio time, go ahead and use code EVERFORWARD and you're gonna get 15% off of your next studio booking. Again, code ever forward for 15 off your next studio session from operationpodcastcom. Hey everybody, welcome back to ever forward radio i'ma Schooning.

03:03 This is episode 822 with fitness and nutrition expert celebrity trainer, the one and only Mr Joey Thurman, and in this episode we are diving into the least yeah, you heard me right the least that you can do to be a stronger, healthier, happier you. He has it all boiled down into what he calls the minimum method, because, when it comes to looking and feeling your best, he believes that less really can be more. In this conversation, you are going to discover how to maximize your sleeping, eating, exercising, even thinking and breathing with minimum effort. I think it's safe to say we all wouldn't mind being stronger, healthier and happier, and with the least amount of effort required. Sign me up. Joy believes that most people don't actually need grueling, extreme workouts or aggressively limited diets to lose weight. More importantly, to feel proud. In our conversation today, you're gonna be discovering how honesty and self-awareness can transform your personal development and relationships beyond just your body, your fitness, your nutrition, your personal wellness goals.

04:14 If this episode brings value to your life and your lifestyle, it would mean the world to me. If you did one or both of these two things, if you share this with one other person, if there's one other person in your life a coworker, a friend, a family member that you think would benefit from hearing Joey's approach, I'm sure they would appreciate you sharing the wealth to subscribe to the show One to two seconds, tapping that follow button, that subscribe button on your podcast platform of choice. Make sure that you're never going to miss another amazing episode and it truly really does support the show and it's going to push it out to other people and help them live a life ever forward. With that, please join me in welcoming Joey Thurman to the show. Everything we talk about, including his book the Minimum Method, can be found in the show notes, as well as everything else we talk about, including today's sponsors under episode resources. Joey, for somebody who just tuned in right now, they've never heard of me, the show or you before. Give them one reason to stick around.

05:12 - Joey (Guest) You know, we're going to live life ever forward by looking back and appreciating where we're at, but being honest with ourselves that it's okay to want more in life and it's okay to say, man, I did great, I'm proud of myself. I think too often now that we get lost or embarrassed that we just can't say, man, I crushed. Today, you look great, you know, I feel great, thank you. Like let's go, let's absorb it. Look good, feel good. Man, look good, feel good.

05:39 - Chase (Host) Like I said, where the mind goes, the body will follow.

05:41 - Joey (Guest) Yes, yes, yes, it's a good reminder man.

05:42 - Chase (Host) Yes, so also for somebody who doesn't know who you are, can you walk us through a little bit of your professional background, your expertise, like, who is this guy, yeah, sitting here talking to me about all?

05:53 - Joey (Guest) the fitness things. You know that that's a loaded question. It's like when my wife's like I don't even know what to say, what you do for a living. I don't really know. My resume is three and a half pages long, but, um, I'd say my wheelhouse was fitness and then it became nutrition, nutrition, metabolism specialist, celebrity trainer if you will TV host a couple times author, now executive producer, consultants I do a lot of different things.

06:20 I you know, vomit a little bit when I say influencer, you know, like for me, like who am I influencing in my personal life? And then now I started taking a whole different look at like how can I actually influence those people who follow me online and how am I going to live that life that's pushing them forward right, Forever forward? So I'll, I'll, I'll, pun that all day long.

06:40 - Chase (Host) I see my my man knows the message I got you, but like that, that's just it.

06:44 - Joey (Guest) You know, I did a whole Ted talk called um, like me, follow me, unbrand me about. You know, like everybody's like, you gotta have a be a brand, you gotta do this I'm like. But what about myself? Who am I? And then trying to hit these expectations that somebody else was setting for me and not me setting for myself, uh, diagnosed with clinical depression at 14, which you know, our fellow friend Tamron Hall, I went, I went on her show talking about that and I do. I do a lot and it's I'm always. I'm always changing, I'm always adapting and sometimes I'm regressing and that's okay.

07:18 And it took a long time for me to realize that I've got these demons. But to love them, to love that I have hate for myself, to love that I have love for myself, right To love that I have joy for myself. And that has changed my life. From having that concept, oh, you shouldn't feel bad, you shouldn't feel nervous. You know I should be nervous. You know nerves mean I care, and just realizing that myself and my language and reframing, rewiring, repurposing, that really helps out. So hopefully that was a little elevator pitch on you know what I do, if you will. But you know I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm a multiple godfather. You know I'm a son, sometimes shitty. You know I'm a brother, often shitty, you know like, but you know that's it, that's me, and I shitty, you know I'm a brother, often shitty, you know like, but you know that's it, that's me, and I try to be honest. I'm an open book with some closed chapters.

08:10 - Chase (Host) Go back to what you said about you love that you have hate for yourself. Did I say that correctly? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you mean by?

08:17 - Joey (Guest) that. So I've done a lot of work on myself and, as I said, clinical depression at 14. I don't know whether that's multiple concussions and parents divorced to each other twice.

08:29 - Chase (Host) Yeah it didn't work. The first time Didn't work. Yeah, married to each other, divorced. Married again, divorced again.

08:33 - Joey (Guest) Yeah, you heard that right. Wow, I mean nobody can say they didn't try. Well, they got married twice. The triangle is completely there. Mom and dad love you. But yeah, like it's one of those things where I always had this point where, like things could be going spectacular for me. I could be coming on your show, I could be, you know, producing this massive, you know production. I could be meeting all these people and all of a sudden I get back to the hotel and I'm like why am I?

09:01 here. What's my life about? Like why should I even be here, why should I wake up tomorrow? And I started. It was freaky. It freaks me out every time that happens, don't get me wrong. But then I realized that I needed to start embracing these emotions and embracing this hatred, the self-loathing that I have and always like the victim mentality or looking at somebody else and like I need that, and not just stopping and just being grateful and gracious for where I'm at in my.

09:33 I call her therapist. She tells me life coach. Um, you know, she had me. She's like here's what I want you to do. I want you to write down on a piece of paper or you know digitally now everything you've done in your career. She's like because you're, you don't think you're successful. I'm like no, I don't. It was like four pages long. I wrote down all of this and she goes now I want you to have your wife look at it and I want her to add things. And your mom and your dad, so I just spoke to them about it. I didn't have them write it down and I was like wow, so me, my success was dictated on looking at a bank account, as opposed to all these other people like wow, I wish I was on these shows, I wish I did this.

10:11 - Chase (Host) I wish I, you know, did all these different things Because they probably weren't contributing the same successes as you were writing down Exactly Right, so they were drastically different, right. Were there any overlaps?

10:20 - Joey (Guest) Yeah, I mean there was, you know, there was some overlaps, for sure. And I was like, oh, did you realize this? You had your own Facebook watch series. I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot about that. Did you remember that you were training Terrence Howard for Empire? I'm like, oh God, I didn't write that down, like all this sort of stuff.

10:38 You know where people see this success and I didn't see it as a success because I did okay monetarily, but because my bank account hadn't set a certain amount that we had to take help from my in-laws when COVID hit and I had to go on unemployment. And that was crazy because I was traveling the country doing mixed fitness, which was bought by Beachbody, hosting High Rocks, world Series, fitness, like all this sort of stuff. And then everything just stopped. And then for months during COVID, I'm like why me, whatever, like just whole victim thing. And then I realized, like you know what, let me really get deep into myself and then appreciate, seeing my son grow up now, where I'd be traveling, I wouldn't get to see him running down the hallway. He would run down the hallway and say babasum, babasum, greek for dad, and normally I wasn't home at that time Like, wow, I didn't get to experience this. So once I started appreciating that, then all this stuff during COVID, I get a call from Beachbody.

11:34 I signed this book deal and all these things started happening. So then you know, moving forward here, then I, then I get all these opportunities and all of a sudden, like I'm in New York actually getting ready to go on Tamron the second time. Yeah, and I was supposed to meet up with one of my buddies was a big like CNN producer at the time and I just texted my dude. I don't know what's going on with him. I'm on the 13th floor right now and I'm trying to open the window. I was like holy shit and he just texted me back. He's like I love, I love you. It's okay that you're not going to meet me tonight. Take care of yourself.

12:06 I'm like wow, as opposed to where I used to lie about it. I'm like hey, man, I'm busy, I can't meet up tonight, my flight's delayed, but somebody who truly cares about you is going to have that response and be like love you, I miss you. I wish we could Not tonight, but I get it. You need time to yourself. And like being honest with my friends and being honest with my family and being honest when I hit those times, like you know, if I didn't feel great today, I'd walk in and be like Chase, how are you doing? I'm like my man, what up Great.

12:33 I'm like, you know, not a great day, but I'm here and, being honest with myself, first because that's number one, and then everybody else around me has really just helped me. Just keep moving along and embrace my success that I've had, even though my bank account isn't showing it, it's getting there. We've got some things in the works, so I'm happy about that. But at the same time, success is what you define it as, and I'm not looking at the definitions of success, of having how many zeros in my bank account Now. It's everything else I wrote down on a piece of paper. It's what everybody else thinks about me. It's about like the tiny little town in columbia, illinois, by st louis I grew up at. I get messages on facebook all the time. We're so proud of you, like you're our local hero. I'm like I don't even talk to you, you know, like you never talked to me like oh, we always looked up to you and we said you, you left, you got out, type thing.

13:20 Like I don't like when people say that, right, it's not a prison. But then I started like just taking all of these accomplishments that I didn't see for myself and embracing them like wow, yes, I hate myself, but that's okay, that's, that's going to, that's going to surpass in the next hour, next day, and it may last for a few days, but then embrace the love and embrace, embrace the joy, embrace these little things and you these little things, and you can have a bad moment during a good day as opposed to that bad moment making that good day bad.

13:51 - Chase (Host) The minimum method. Let's talk about this concept of you don't have to have all of the tools, all of the protocols all the time in the world to get the body of your dreams. If people even want the dream body anymore, I think a lot of people now just want I just don't want my back to hurt when I get out of bed, I just want to have some biomarkers in my labs go down, because I got diabetics in my family, cardiovascular disease in my family, Well, I mean one.

14:16 - Joey (Guest) What is your dream body? What does that look like? It might be looking like me. It might be looking like me. It might be looking like Arnold. It might be just being able to look down and see your feet because your belly got smaller. And that's what's the definition.

14:30 Everybody's talking about my why, my why, my why, and knowing your why is great, but how do you get to your why? What do you mean by that? How do you set your path to get to the why? It's like oh, I want to hit this goal, I want to hit this goal, I want to hit this, but like we need it, we need to set these steps in place to get there. So when I was coming up with the concept of the book, I was really like okay, so I've got all these general questions that people always ask me. It's like I'm getting elderly. What protein supplement you take, bro? What's your workout? Like? You want me to answer that in 10 seconds for you, but most People are struggling to get off the couch to the starting line.

15:03 They're not already in the race hitting the finish line? So in the book there's three archetypes. Let's go. That's your person on the couch. Where do we start right Nutrition, fitness, mental health, supplementation where do you start? Level up? That's the person kind of like in the starting line in the race and then max out. That might be you and me like, okay, let's take our ketone ketone shot before this. Let's optimize our sleep, let's wear this tracker, let's, let's do the ketamine therapy like that's the person like that. There is this in the book and at the end of every chapter is basically cliff notes and you can look and see like are you, let's go level up, whatever your archetype is, or max out and you can pick the things from there and kind of like do a little checklist, like you don't need. Most people don't read a book anyways. I'm like let me put some you know clip notes at the end of each chapter. Smart offer.

15:47 - Chase (Host) Yeah, so you check that off right.

15:50 - Joey (Guest) So I'm writing that for that person who's trying to get off the couch. Okay, so what's, what's the least you can do for your sleep? Oh, I can't week, not five days a week. Yeah, I can do that, but I need eight, like optimally. Sure, seven and a half, eight, nine, depends on the person. Yes, okay, but I can do six. So just regulating your circadian rhythm. What do I do for nutrition? Can we add more good things? What do I need to take out? Let's add more fruits and vegetables.

16:23 You've got a study at university of michigan people that added more fruits and vegetables ate 500 less calories a day, and they all had options to process food and everything. Why? Because they had more fiber, more micronutrients, like you know. The more satiate, right, we had more satiate, so they just naturally ate 500 less calories. And we feel the simplest math and obviously it doesn't always work like this, I know, even though 3,500 calorie deficit right, that's 3,500 in a week, 500 less. So you should be losing around a pound per week just from adding that in. But how much protein, like that? Sure, that matters. But right now, let's what can you add, and then we'll look at what can take away for nutrition, all these different things and these ketone shots and whatever, like sure, at a minimum, like maybe a multivitamin and a fish oil, maybe some creatine? Okay, cool, vitamin d, like simple, right, like a multi, probably take care of most people, but what about this person? Whether it's podcast, like, what about these biomarkers? Let's just do this one thing, this is one thing. You add a hundred different supplements and you feel great, which out of those hundred worked? I need I can't work out like good, you don't need to work out like me, like you know how much I need to work out to like add this much muscle tissue, that's great. Well, who wants to work out that much? That is a lot, but I like doing it Right.

17:32 Can you start with three 10 minute walks a day after your meals? Wait, I don't have 30 minutes. I said this day, well, after a meal. Yeah, digestion, nutrient absorption. What if it's cold outside? Well, great, use that. That's going to be good, right, that'll bring out the metabolic rate now. Now do it backwards outside. Be the looney tune in the neighborhood walking around backwards. Like good for knee health, what like do that? Okay, if it's raining, walk up and down your stairs in 10 minutes. I don't have stairs, walk back and forth. 10 minutes three times a day, that's 30 minutes of movement a day like minimum, and that there those simplistic things add up over time. So it's not intensity over consistency. Have the consistency and then add the intensity. Because look at January every year what happens? Same thing.

18:17 People are like oh, high school, 30 years ago, I used to squat this and whatever. And they go in and they crush it two, three times a day and and they're wrecked and they think they need to be sore and they can't sit down and take a shit and they've got to run a board meeting and they've got a red-eye flight. And all of a sudden they're stressed completely. Like you could have just started like lifting one day a week. It becomes so counterproductive. You could have done one set part and if you're within one to three reps, you're still going to grow off that.

18:44 But in high school like if you're not in high school, bro, it's 30 years ago like you can literally that at a minimum you can do that. You tell me you don't have time, you get that done in 20 minutes and then next week maybe add an extra set, add an extra five pounds. That's overload. Whoa. Like, literally, people don't look at it that way. They don't back off, they think about just going exponentially as hard as they can. It took you how long to gain that 30 pounds? 10 years, and it's going to come off in 10 days. Just juice going, just whatever. Like, yeah, you can shit your brains out for two weeks, you can do that, and the food weight is going to be down. You're going to lose the weight on the scale, but how do we going to be down? You're going to lose the weight on the scale, but how we talk about losing fat and maintaining muscle tissue, like we change, we should change the language of I need to lose weight to I need to lose fat and maintain as much muscle as possible.

19:33 absolutely what's the most protective thing that we can do is just have that muscle tissue, and picking up a weight or walking is like literally the easiest thing that we can do and just stress your body just a little bit. You don't have to go too much, because when you go too much, you know people just feel like they're too sore and they feel like it's too much and they can't maintain it. The little nominal things and eventually you know you have that awareness and then you have that, that consistency, like I say, acl, awareness, consistency and love, and that's a self-love for yourself. So have the self-love and, like I don't have to work on it, get to work out, I get to take this 10 minutes.

20:08 If you're always a person that's like always taking care of everybody else but you're not taking care of yourself, how can you be there to take care of everybody else if yourself isn't? If you don't have that self-love? Yeah, and it's literally that simplistic but also that complex for people to like. I saw this on on social media, I saw that. Or these biomarkers, these testing and whatever. It's all great Love, that Love, you know you, and I love that. But most people are just trying to level up and not trying to max out.

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22:15 This concept of adding things to your life adding more fruits and vegetables, adding walks, adding little things that ultimately take away from, I think, what a lot of people's goals are and that's lose weight, lose body fat, lose medication, things that they don't want in their life. But still, for a lot of people that concept is hard to grasp and it just doesn't click, and I think for most people it will eventually. But walk us through right now, if you could give us. I don't believe right now adding anything to my life is going to help my goals. What are one, two, three things you think the general public might be doing, might be consuming, that they could take away, if that's the mentality right now?

22:58 - Joey (Guest) Yeah Well, yeah, well one. I think they're consuming too much of social media or any any like netflix not what I was expecting to be the first thing right like because I? What role does that play into our health and fitness? So, because one you're, you're taking up time and mental capacity of like sitting, like we all do this right like we sit on the toilet, we, whatever, watching social media and all of a sudden like 30-minute shit. Like most people didn't need that right.

23:24 - Chase (Host) Honey, did you die?

23:25 - Joey (Guest) in there. Oh no, I got to finish this episode. Like you know, man, the boys just released episode five. Love that show but also grow at the same time. But, like you know, like you sit there for an extra 10 or 20 minutes, yeah, you know. Like you sit there for an extra 10 or 20 minutes, yeah, yeah.

23:39 And I say like, look at your day like a movie trailer, look back at it and think of what were the highlights of your day and where did you spend the time. Did you have an extra 20 minutes when you were taking a shit and watching a video? What could you have done? Could you still watch the video and walk down a treadmill? Walk down a treadmill, can you? Can you?

24:03 Can you have that awareness in your day where you say you don't have time? But I guarantee there were little moments to have that time. Right, and I know like nobody has the same 24 hours a day, like the single mom with multiple jobs and stuff. Her 24 hours is different than the 23 year old college girl or dude or whatever, right, and I I'm aware of that. But there are times when you can fit that in your day, whether it's five minutes, or like some working in instead of working out, work in on yourself instead of working out. So sometimes it might be enough for you just to put that phone down for five minutes and just like sit there and just be you. Guess what you just did. You just meditated oh yeah, right, and you think meditation is.

24:39 Um, yeah, right, and you think that you think meditation is um and whatever, and on the top of a mountain with monks and no, literally, meditation is just the art of doing nothing. Do nothing with yourself like, yeah, you want to turn on ever for podcast? Amazing plug, right, that's great. But sometimes turn it off. Unplug for five minutes in your day and just breathe yeah, even doing nothing.

25:01 - Chase (Host) Yeah, this day and age for most people means still consuming something. Yes, if I'm oh, I'm just chilling, I'm doing errands or I'm cleaning up around the house, look, I would love you to have ever forward radio in your ears.

25:14 That's where a lot of people do podcasts but, like you know, if you're sitting on the couch, you're scrolling on the phone. If you're watching, you're scrolling on the phone. If you're watching TV, you're scrolling on the phone. You're looking at something else. You're very rarely just doing nothing. You're not present with yourself. Yeah, I say this all the time. It's a pet peeve of mine when I'm out in public and everyone's head down doing this.

25:34 I'm just like no one is here. No, no one is here. No one in the line of the coffee shop walking errands. I can't tell you how many times I'm walking my dog and owners and their dogs will run into me and my dog because they're. Yeah, this. I'm like you can't even take your dog out for a three minute walk around the block to take a shit yep, and they look at you like you're the asshole.

25:54 - Joey (Guest) Yeah, they're like. Oh, like bro, you just ran into me yeah like you know that's the thing. Like just give five minutes to yourself a day, literally do nothing. Or just go and walk outside Wow, two birds right. Like yes, you need to take your phone. Like if there's an emergency I get it, but like don't be on the phone, like put it in your pocket and just walk outside and enjoy the sun and don sign and don't run into chase while you're walking your dog.

26:17 - Chase (Host) Like literally do that and look like you're that four guy right um, I have a couple neighbors that listen to the show actually like oddly enough you brought up ketones earlier. They're like hey, are you the, the ketone guy?

26:28 - Joey (Guest) like the running is like targeted ads shout out ketone iq I'm like, yeah, that's what I mean, it is kicking in, it's good, yeah, but I mean, look like that. I think, right, there is a lot, just like have that awareness to replay your day and where can you pick up those moments to work in on yourself, to work out right, um, to be present with yourself. I think that is spectacular. And then program. And I think number two would be program your day, your life. Whether that's basically everybody like sets up a business plan, right, you know, like you don't. Generally people just don't like I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do podcasts, use whatever, like you have a plan, you know where you're gonna go, like you're gonna go nashville and then you're gonna move on, assuming it works right, so you've got a plan. Why don't we plan on our days that you plan your work life, you plan your meetings? Why aren't you planning in your time for your walks or you're working out, or the time for yourself, like I'm gone all the time, often now when it's, yes, I want more quantity time with my son, but the quality, if I have quantity and quality, spectacular. So what I do now is I started looking at myself and looking at my day. If, like, when I land in Chicago tomorrow. I've got a call. Almost immediately once I land and I've got notes, I'm going to go. I'll drive for 20 minutes. I'll find a Starbucks or a parking lot. Then I want to be present with that call. It's a very important call. I'm going to take notes there. Then I've got another call an hour afterwards with our mutual friend Justin. I'll park somewhere. I'll take notes there, as opposed to just like on the driving around. You're getting ticked off at somebody, you, another phone, whatever. Right, how present can you fully be? Yeah, so I'll park. So I'll do that. And I know this is good. And there's a point to this, because otherwise I'd keep driving, driving, driving and then once I'd pull in in five minutes, like oh, I got a call with Justin, I'd walk in the door. My son hasn't seen me for five minutes. Dada, dada, dada I. But he's upstairs. But so now I'll park in the cul-de-sac, whatever, I'll finish that call. I will get everything I possibly can get done before I see him. So from the moment I walk in the door, I'm present with my child. You can give yourself fully. Yeah, with my wife.

28:32 Every now and then things come up like yes, something will come up, somebody will call. I might have to take that, but at least I got those two very important calls done for the day. And I used to like go straight to the gym and I still train some clients and I just stepped down as a director of this gym because it was too much for me, right, I'd land, I'd take two phone calls, I'd go to the gym, I'd train people at 5, 6, 7 pm I live an hour away then drive there and then maybe see my son before he goes to bed and wake up at four in the morning and do it all over again. So now I'm like here, I've got the presence of mind to focus on that quality of time with him. So me taking the extra time and parking in the cul-de-sac and getting the calls done allows me more quality time with him. So I had that presence there. Um, I think that's good and also I think that people number three for going back to it. I'll see how fully answered.

29:20 This is a podcast. He is present.

29:22 I can hit those key tones. We should be aware of your fatigue and where are you fatiguing yourself? And I kind of answer this in question number two, or answer number two is we are so stressed, we're wired and tired all the time. We don't look at the points where we're adding too much stress to our lives and where can I pull that back? So for me I used to be like, oh, I'm gonna land, I'm gonna go train people and do this because I'm gonna miss out on like I charge three, four hundred dollars a session. I'm gonna miss out on six hundred dollars and this, whatever. Right, I'm not really missing out on that.

29:54 If I get more time with my son and I can always put those clients in another day, I can figure that if I miss a few hundred bucks here and there, it's completely fine I realized I was adding so much more stress to myself. So when I got here on Thursday normally I would train Thursday all day long take the latest flight to LA, get here and the next day run a 10, 12 hour shoot with a crew of 30. And they're all looking at me as the executive producer because I packed it in I realized you know what? Now I'm going to get to the location where I'm at as early as possible, maybe grab a workout, sit by the pool, walk around whatever city I'm in and just de-stress, because I know the next day is going to be stressful, because I know I'm not going to sleep as well the night before, no matter how much melatonin and different, different, different, like you know things. I look at my own book for my own chapter, like how to sleep better. Like sometimes, when your brain is going, you're just not going to sleep that well. So I know, like, let me take some of that stress, some of that fatigue management off of myself the day before, because these next two and three days are going to be packed, right.

30:55 So, being aware of that, where can you pull back the fatigue and those stress responses, mechanisms, whatever you want to say? Because, like, working out is stressful, that's a good stress, right. But then if I'm stressing myself working out, I'm stressing myself afterwards and then I'm constantly in this sympathetic state, right. So that's where I pull it back. So number one is just like, have having that full on awareness of yourself and where can you find that time for yourself? Um, and number two is the kind of time management, sort of similar thing. And number three is just where can you pull the fatigue away?

31:31 And if people started doing this and really just like, and then you're not going to do it every day, right, and just be aware of that, like aware of my self hate, if you, right and just be aware of that, like aware of my self-hate, if you're aware of that, like, hey, the majority of the day of the week. So I'm going to try to do this like I used to, like do the night walks and the morning things and whatever. Like I'm going to do them most days, I'm going to do that, but if I don't do that, I'm not going to stress out about not okay, right, it's okay.

31:53 - Chase (Host) I'm not going to stress out, but it's okay not to be okay, it's okay not to hit all these things I feel like nowadays, because of access to information, to smartphones, to podcasts, to, you know, books and influencers and all the things there's so much access and information also misinformation out there it becomes a lot for most people, especially if you're new in your journey to trying to just put one foot in front of the other. Is our quest to being more healthy causing more harm than good right now?

32:26 - Joey (Guest) In a nutshell, yes, it is Because, like, if, if you look at everybody, they they are, they are just trying to consume all of these things and like, have the, the sleep pad and the infrared and the cold therapy and whatever. And like, can I do a cold plunge and record that and views and blah, blah, blah. Right, but we're stressing ourselves, trying to do everything to be completely optimized and I have all this blood work and have everything else and I've got I do consulting work for longevity companies. So do your longevity stuff. Um, once I have a company that I'll give a shameless plug, but those for most people, they don't need that. Those are for, like your one percenters and everything else. And people think, like I need to spend all this money, I need to have this bougie gym that has this $3,000 a month longevity program to do whatever it is, or or whatever I heard on ever forward podcasts or or huberman or anything else, right, and those are all great. But what can you like? Just look back at, like, what, what is this little nominal, minimal thing that I can do right now and not break the bank and do all this sort of stuff? Like I?

33:35 I told you on our pre-call the other day this lovely individual she was talking about, joey, my trainer, said I should come and talk to you about my GI distress. I go to the bathroom every like four or five days, and whatever she's like, what should I take? Or should I go to the doctor, or whatever? And I said what are you eating? Well, I don't know how much fiber you're having. You're having too much fiber, too little fiber? Sugar, alcohol, I don't know. Start there, just give me a few days. I don't know. Yeah, like right, I don't know.

34:04 - Chase (Host) That's huge your answer is.

34:07 - Joey (Guest) You just answered it Like people don't look at that. They think I need to go straight to the doctor and spend money on that or take a laxative and whatever right as opposed to just like literally, just you know, like chronometer, one of my favorite apps they're not, they don't pay me, but it's great. So it's micronutrients, all sort of stuff, whatever. Like track it down, write it down and look at it like how much fiber am I having? Am I having a bunch of things that have like that could have digestive distress, like sugar, alcohols or anything like that?

34:32 - Chase (Host) um, how can you formulate any kind of hypothesis if you have zero data points?

34:36 - Joey (Guest) yeah, you write down, like you take a piece of paper, that paper still works. People write it down like oh, I had oatmeal and whatever from the morning. How did you feel an hour after? I felt great, okay. And then here I had bread, pasta and cheese. Actually was pretty, you know. I didn't feel great after that and then I had pizza and whatever. Okay, wait, wait a minute, let's look at that. So after cheese and lots of this, like maybe with the cheese, maybe that, then the next day look at it and start going that way, and then you can look at your day and just have that assessment, like, okay, maybe I need to pull this back.

35:03 - Chase (Host) You have an idea of what to evaluate and play with, rather than just grasping for straws, kind of thing Exactly.

35:08 - Joey (Guest) And that just overcomplication, as opposed to just simplifying things, will go a long way and save you a lot of money. And then, after months and months, and because it will take a long time, like you know, behavior change takes a long time. Same thing with your gut microbiome, with GI distress, with going to the bathroom, with adding muscle tissue, losing fat. It takes a while, it's not going to happen overnight. Even if you look at like a SSRI or you know any of these medications, it takes months and weeks to be effective. But people think like, oh, my god, I cut gluten, I cut dairy, I became vegan. I should feel better in a day.

35:44 Going vegan for the first two weeks, man, you're gonna be ripping ass like crazy because you have so much more fiber you're not used to it. So maybe add 10 grams of fiber per thousand calories. You know something like that. Well, I don't have any fat. How many calories I have? Okay? Well, how many servings of fruit and vegetables you have a day? One? Okay, let's have two this week and then have three.

36:01 Right, like so simple, yet so hard for people to grasp. But then go simple and then, after months of that behavior change and if you can legitimately sit down with yourself. I've actually done everything that Chase told me, everford told me right, joey told me anything like that and then like, okay, I've done everything I could and nothing is changing. Then maybe you get the biomarkers, maybe you go to you know a specialist, a longevity doctor or gi specialist, anything like that. That's the point after months of that behavior change. Um, so one of my certifications is functional nutrition metabolism specialist. Shout out to sam miller and his team great I know sam yeah, sam's great right, yeah, we launched this podcast years ago.

36:39 Spectacular, so so smart yeah, so they have yeah they have something called shreds, sleep, hunger, recovery, energy digestion, stress. If you look at those things, is your sleep good? How's your hunger? How's? We'll take care of 80, 90% of all of your issues. If you start dying those in and then you're like, oh, maybe I do a dry urinary test for comprehensive hormones. You know, like that sort of stuff, people go right to that first and spend the $600 or $1,000 or they hire a me or a you or a Sam, which they're all like great Sam, like another level, right, but at the same time, like you can literally just break it down that simplistically and you will be so much better for it.

37:22 So yes is my short answer to it? That that all of this optimization, everything else and this polarization of health is making us at least more unhealthy in a stressful manner, and probably ruining our bank accounts, because there's a lot of snake oil salesmen too.

37:44 - Chase (Host) You know, I think optimization is the key word and all that. And I feel like an argument probably could be made of why, with all the advancements in technology and the learning curves and mistakes that a lot of people have made, why wouldn't I just go straight to optimize? Why wouldn't I just go to the protocol, to the test, to the lab, to the wearable, to the thing, the process, the product, the service that can just be like, hey, here's exactly all the things going on and then now do this execute. Why wouldn't we want to optimize? Why? I'm kind of hearing maybe we should be focusing on getting healthy first, optimization later. Yeah, but why?

38:25 - Joey (Guest) you got to get healthy to lose weight first. But what if weight loss isn't my goal? Okay, you gotta get healthy to gain weight. You gotta get healthy to feel better. You gotta mentally anything. So people and a good health coach will look at those first things and not be like, oh, testosterone's low, let's get on trt. You know what I mean? That a lot of the ones that are trying to make money will do that. They won't. They'll sell you the supplements they'll be with whatever, like you know they have.

38:51 - Chase (Host) One biomarker is low, go straight to supplement or right the good ones.

38:56 - Joey (Guest) Fnms, people, you, me, those people like will, right away. They will look at your shreds right. They will look at the sleep, hunger, recovery, energy digestion, stress I know I said that fast. They'll look at that first and, like you know what, let's come back in six weeks. Let's see what changes, let's see how your stress is, let's see how your sleep is Okay. So, for what I did, I got on TRT at 40. I knew my testosterone was low for years and years, like 299, which is like a seven-year-old man. That's super low, right. And I knew I would get on testosterone to the point where, one, when I tried everything I could to get my testosterone up naturally, and two, we were done having kids.

39:33 - Chase (Host) Hey friends, quick break from my conversation with Joey to kind of invite you into a little status update of my personal wellness journey.

39:45 What I strive to do here on the podcast, not only with conversations with guests in terms of the topics and types of guests that I bring on, but absolutely with the partners and brands and products and services that I talk about, just that I'm using, that I'm loving, but, especially like today, when it comes to partnering, I'm my due diligence, I'm sharing honestly what I'm liking, what I'm using, what I'm loving.

40:02 More importantly, what's getting me results, and one of those is from today's partner at momentous, particularly their male hormone support bundle. This is a powerful combination of two natural ingredients designed to support hormone production, enhance energy and mood and help the body adapt to stress, stress being the key word. The last five, six months, 2024, really year to date for me has been the most stressful, honestly, I believe, of my life, or at least in a long long time. Life is so much more demanding of me. Business is so much more demanding of me. I am so much more demanding of me and while I am definitely prioritizing training, sleeping, recovery, downtime, I know that all of these added stressors are taking a toll on my body, particularly my hormones even my endocrine system.

40:50 I know that I am just running high cortisol, high stress, more often than I would like. So until things really quiet down or I can take a month off, honestly, I'm making sure that I'm watching my diet, really prioritizing sleep even more and adding in a few key supplements, like I'm finding in the male hormone support bundle, like zinc and Tongkat Ali, to give me that support, to really help give me that insurance, and I'm monitoring it through getting quarterly labs and I'll definitely keep you posted as I get my labs updated and seeing these improved biomarkers. But Tungkai Ali and zinc these are two powerhouses that harmoniously elevate male vitality, enhance stamina and stabilize hormone levels. When you take them together, they actually form a really robust pair that offers this synergistic approach, basically enhancing each other's effects and ensuring optimal hormone levels for peak male performance. These ingredients have long been studied and proven to help build muscle mass, support energy levels, just enhance mood and well-being all things that I'm personally after.

41:54 So if this sounds up your alley and you would like to try it, or maybe refer to a guy in your life, check out the male hormone support bundle. There's no code, but there is a link. You got to use this special link in order to get these deals, because right now you can get this bundle for a one-time purchase for around 50 bucks. It's incredible. Make sure to check the link today in the show notes under episode resources. Check out the male hormone support bundle, including zinc and tonkat ali. See if this doesn't help the way that you feel the way that you look.

42:25 More specifically, maybe get some before and after labs, like me. Of course, results may vary depending on individual factors like your age, your lifestyle and, of course, baseline hormone levels. But with consistent use and a healthy lifestyle, you may begin to notice improvements in energy, strength and vitality in really just a few weeks. And you can count on Momentus to be safe and effective, pure and potent, because they have one of the most rigorous testing policies I've ever seen. Again, we got an exclusive deal for you from Momentus, but you got to click the link in the show notes under today's episode resources. Thank you, All right, let's jump back into the conversation with Joey.

42:59 - Joey (Guest) Microwaving and plastics and doing all this sort of crap and living by power plants, whatever possible. So there's all these things, but regardless, I got my sleep on point. I was sleeping eight, nine hours a night. I was doing all this. I was having multiple services, fruit and vegetables a day. I was having a bunch of processed crap for months. I checked it over and over and over again. It was like 270, 305. It kept being there and I'm like, okay, I've done everything I could I've. I took the ashwagandha, I did. You know, I mean, I did everything all the dim, I did. I did all that, right, yeah, so I did all the adaptions. I'd all that, yes, and it wasn't going up.

43:32 - Chase (Host) So I, I knew okay, which doesn't mean those things don't work. It just means that they weren't working for you?

43:38 - Joey (Guest) Yes, because if your brain is not telling to produce more like yes, elevated cortisol levels chronically will hinder testosterone production and vitamin D levels will hinder that testosterone.

43:50 - Chase (Host) That's only if you're deficient in those Saturated fat in the diet. Exactly right If you're in cholesterol.

43:58 - Joey (Guest) Yeah, if testosterone, but that's only if you're deficient not saturated fat in the diet, exactly right. If you're in cholesterol, yeah, if you're deficient in vitamin d and you add vitamin d, that could help your testosterone levels. But if I'm already fine with vitamin d, taking vitamin d won't increase testosterone levels. So I was doing all of that. I was having like the vitamin testing, all this sort of stuff, like, okay, I'm gonna get on tier t now and that's what I did and I feel so much better once. I kind of regulated that because I felt like shit for a while because my numbers were too high and then you know, so messing with that.

44:16 So that to answer your question is, yes, you've got to get healthy first, whether it's to lose weight, to add muscle to, to optimize your brain. Um, so those ketone IQs work better when you take them for a podcast. Um, in my podcast voice. But yeah, that that's where people really fail and I see it all the time. Like these TRT clinics, you walk in the revolving door. What are your symptoms? They will do the blood work. No joke, subscribe the testosterone before the blood work comes back.

44:45 - Chase (Host) Prescribe, not subscribe, yeah just based on what the symptoms right. Yeah, yeah.

44:50 - Joey (Guest) But I've consulted and spoken to these companies before. I'm like but do you program nutrition? Do you exercise? Do you do anything? It's like no, their testosterone is low. We just give them that. Yeah, so you're getting $400 a month for them. You have 5,000, 10,000 patients. Wow, yeah, that's a good business. It's a really good business. It's recurring, it's spectacular right now and then, like the GLP ones and all that sort of stuff, like, but nobody is looking at that first. So we need to make sure we're at least, at a minimum, hitting the protein numbers and we're hitting the goal numbers for you on your calories, your micronutrients, your macronutrients. So if you need to do three smoothies a day, which is much easier to digest than to chew, and, like you know, wait for that food to break down, especially on something that's going to limit, you know, gastric emptying, and it's easy for a lot of people, super easy, like, wait three smoothies a day. So I want, yeah, I want three cups of spinach I want blueberries.

45:38 - Chase (Host) I want a banana grocery shop.

45:38 - Joey (Guest) Yeah, like two scoops of whey protein powder.

45:40 You do that three times a day. You got your 1500 calories and you hit your protein boom easy, right and saves you money, so that the only two people like I need to see your numbers. Okay, and then I will get. Then that's what I did. So I first, and as I knew that they've tried all these different things, they just need that little extra edge. Whatever, if you will, I said, and hopefully we taper you off of that, and that has worked wonders. Because of the other people that would want that and I know that they wouldn't follow my advice, I don't give them this person's name.

46:08 - Chase (Host) And that those are all telltale signs to me of a good coach and somebody that knows and is paying attention to the whole person instead of just symptoms, just labs, just what's trending right now? Right, it takes me back to my coaching days. It's like you have a lot of tools in your toolbox to help somebody with, but ultimately comes down to how are you going to be adherent and the right tool exactly. Yeah, so you got to know these things and so it all matters. It all matters, you know.

46:41 Another thing I wanted to talk about is that I feel like right now, because optimization and information and biomarkers and wearables and look, I talk about a lot of those things on the show Hell, I'm wearing a whoop, I'm wearing an Apple watch, I got a chili pad at home on my bed. You know I get quarterly labs now this year. I'm doing all the things, but I'm 20 years into my health, fitness, wellness journey. I do it all for my reasons right now, and right now I think another barrier to entry for a lot of people, not even to get optimized, but just to get healthy, is we look at all these things and we see price tag and there is a lot of money to be made right now we're talking about. You know a lot of TRT companies, a lot of GLP-1 companies, a lot of you know cold plunge infrared. You know all of these wellness facilities, even things you can get and do and take at home. Dollars, dollars, dollars, dollars, dollars.

47:27 - Joey (Guest) Dollar bills, y'all Exactly.

47:28 - Chase (Host) You know, even to the point of you know, Dana White, the UFC MMA founder. You, randall White, the UFC MMA founder you know we were talking about on the phone. The other day I did a deeper dive into this because I see him popping up all over the place now. He has a $120,000 health protocol. I can't afford $120,000. I don't think the vast majority of Americans can even fathom what $120,000 health protocol is, and I bet that's low by the way, that's probably.

47:54 Yeah, that's probably, just like you know. Let me downplay it. You know, here are the sexy things, but is wellness becoming only for the elite? I?

48:02 - Joey (Guest) think when you put it into those terms. Yes, because people think that wellness is now only for the elite. It's back with the like, organic conversation.

48:10 Right, yeah, because like like, oh my god, I have to be organic to be healthy. No, no, no, no. You look at like the same vitamins, nutrients to be healthy you have to be rich, right, exactly. And that's the thing. Like, yeah, maybe wash your fruits a little bit more, you know, especially the ones without a thick skin. Like see the dirty doesn't like all that sort of stuff. Like it'll still be okay, you still, you can still have the strawberry wash a little bit. Like you know, if it's like having the strawberry, having the chips, but it's got the pesticide filled strawberry, like I'd rather you have that strawberry. But, yes, it is to the point where we are polarizing all this sort of stuff. And like dana white or was it the, I don't know, the founder of twitter or paypal or whatever, there's like a million dollar protocol. Actually, sam miller did an episode on it.

48:46 - Chase (Host) It's like a million or two million or even the uh, the brian johnson guy. Yeah, aging in reverse exactly yeah, so like cycling his son's blood and some shit, Even just wild stuff right, I'm drinking my own urine, I'm doing what I'm saying.

48:56 - Joey (Guest) I'll say the adrenal pee, but I've seen that online too.

48:57 - Chase (Host) Yeah, that's a thing, that's a gross thing.

49:00 - Joey (Guest) Sunning my balls, cool my butthole. It's the juice I ate beforehand, jesus Christ. So, anyways, that's like tangent, because these are all things you're not just like talking out of your, you know, sunshine?

49:14 - Chase (Host) no, these are all things. And bleached yeah, I can pick up my phone, I can go to google and I can like I can find these things. I'm I'm a legitimate, concerned person trying to lead a healthier life and these are the things I'm finding yeah, it is.

49:29 - Joey (Guest) It is terrifying seeing that because, yeah, it has gotten to the point where you've got all these people thinking they need to do all this sort of stuff and I love like I wish I had the money to spend 120 grand on that. I would, because I love doing that you and me yeah, they're cool, but that's like toys. A lot of these are not even proven whatsoever, and then eventually these prices will go down.

49:47 - Chase (Host) Now we look at a really good point.

49:48 - Joey (Guest) Yeah, we look at cryotherapy like cold plunge. You do, you want to do that after strength training? No, you're going to shut down that hypertrophic response like full-on now. But also, context is king there. Now, if you're a professional athlete, you want to shut down the response as fast as possible. If you're in season, because you want to recover, maximize the next game, right. So, like context completely matters.

50:06 Back to programming your life and your day. It's like, yeah, the cryotherapy. And like, well, man, I'm gonna, if I do that after my workout, it's not, that can be beneficial. But do you have a board meeting with 100 people the next day and you're on a red eye flight and you need to be standing and you're not worried about, you know, collapsing with your legs? Yeah, take the cold plunge, but you know, huberman said four hours afterwards, you know. But you know that context in your life matters. So that's what we really. We really need to take a step back and just look at the context of what we're doing. Does this make sense for us and is this going to help me, is this going to hinder me? Or can I just not spend the 50 bucks on the cryo and wait a few hours and take a cold shower or contrast shower One of my favorites too, by the way Like, think about a contrast shower.

50:49 Here's what you do if you've never heard of a contrast shower. You start on a lukewarm because it's just nice to do that. You sew people, you know, you know. Wash your nice sun to balls, um, soap it up, lather it up and then you, 20 seconds of cold, 10 seconds of hot, do several rounds of that. 10 rounds is great, three rounds is spectacular. You know, joy said 10 rounds of 10, three rounds not effective. No, it's good, right, yeah, if you live with anybody I'll say this give them a heads up.

51:14 - Chase (Host) When I started to do this in the shower before I got my cold blunch, I'll plunge. Thank you very much. Um, I was like making some weird noises in the shower and my wife would run in. She's like what the hell's going on? And she would get pissed because I would wake her up and she would think something's going on. I'm like no, I'm just like doing hot cold, hot cold. She's like let me know next time.

51:32 - Joey (Guest) Yeah, she's like, because either it's it's one or the other, either you're dying or you're taking care of yourself to relax in the evening. Because you heard that optimization and masturbation right before bed is probably a good thing. There's another thing now. I just started trying to feel people like I gotta beat off right before bed, like I don't know, like if that helps you sleep. Dude, what's your?

51:50 - Chase (Host) what's your self-pleasure?

51:51 - Joey (Guest) contrast therapy protocol yeah, don't do cold while you're self-pleasure, because as a man that's not going to work out too well. Protocol.

51:59 - Chase (Host) Everything has to be a protocol, jesus Christ, it's. You know, hey, what's your workout protocol? What's your morning routine protocol? What's your this one sends me I joked about this with you on the phone too. Of the look I love Huberman, I'm a fan. Yeah, phone too. Of the look I love huberman, I'm a fan. Yeah, love what he's up to. Absolutely. He's done so much for the industry. Um, love him or hate him. But he came out with this thing. I don't know if he coined the term or whatever, but it's popular because of him.

52:23 Nsdr, non-sleep deep rest I'm like bro, you're taking a break. Yeah, why does everything have to be a protocol right now to get people's attention?

52:35 - Joey (Guest) Yes, Well, so, yeah, I mean, that's it. You're taking a break, You're laying down for 10 minutes Yoga, Nidra, whatever Like. Okay, just listening to waves.

52:43 You're listening to somebody talk, right, because creatures, we want to be a part of a community. We want to be in a box. Are you the keto guy? Are you the keto guy? Are you the vegan guy? Are you the carnivore guy? And anybody doesn't fit and that becomes your religion, or in the in crowd, exactly so, your religion. Let's just put it that way, right? You Catholic, you Buddhist, you, whatever, right, atheist, anything that becomes. Then you have the right to shit on anybody else who doesn't fit your opinion and they're like oh, then you belong to this community. We all want to belong, right, really, do you see somebody that's a true just like introvert, like doesn't care what anybody else says? We want to belong, we want to feel loved, we want to feel a part of a community.

53:24 So if you look at people's pages and look at, like mark bell's kind of entertaining to me, but like you look at his pages, a bunch of assholes who follow him, I'm sorry, mark, you can bring me on the podcast. You guys can shit on me. You can tell me I don't work out or I'm too big, I'm too small, like, whatever, my hair, what's this wave thing going on? You're like I bought your slingshot, by the way. So, thank you, you're welcome for the $30. Slingshot, yeah, slingshot, right, god, I'm not saying you're an asshole, but it gives them the right, right, liver King, and we can go down this route. And you notice a lot of these people that follow that, that follow certain pages. That gives them the right they belong in this community so they can be part of the people that are bringing you up, bringing you ever forward or pulling you down and always regressing. And that's what drives me crazy, because, like you're the keto guy, you're the kettlebell guy. Why don't you hire a coach?

54:18 And they're always like just this type of person or the fasting guy, like one. That person probably doesn't know what they're talking about. They're only focusing on this one thing and they've got confirmation bias on only the things that they want. Like, oh well, this study says this on keto, this study On keto, this study says this. But then another one comes out like well, you know what? That one who is that funded by? You know what?

54:36 My buddy, alan Aragon, says this all the time Like people have to be funded by somebody, right, like they have to be funded. So it doesn't mean that they're necessarily going to like the researchers not everybody's out to like change, like oh, dairy is funded by dairy, so they say that the whey is good or the dairy is good, like. You know what I mean. Like there's different types of funding and different studies on how everyone wants to shit on everything else. But then they cherry pick all these different little studies right like paul saladino I had him on the podcast years ago like he does this all the time. Like this one woman had celery and got a sunburn from it or whatever don't have celery. And then you're the asshole like picking up celery, making people feel bad about eating celery look how hardcore he was on carnivore and now not anymore yeah, right, like wow, you're missing.

55:19 Like yes, because it's a good elimination diet and context right for a little bit of time. So, yeah, carnivore can do well for a certain amount of time to eliminate these potential things, the fodmaps, the different type of carbohydrates that could cause some digestive distress, but then using that to start implementing slowly, adding right once you took it away, to see what causes those issues. Because people, they just want to be in a community, they want to belong. So I think that, to answer the question is really why we're seeing so much of this. And then social media yeah, dude, it's just we want to belong, we want to be in these silos, right, these information silos.

55:58 Lane Norton talks about this all the time and he's actually good at responding to me, so shout out to Lane. But like it's really one of those things where it just we want to belong. And I get that, we do. I want to belong, I want to feel loved. But feel loved, yeah, but like I don't want to feel loved by people that bring others down. Yeah, I don't want to. Like we can have conversations with people you can, you can have you're. We're always naturally gonna have some sort of bias, totally because we feel like they're back to. You know, originally me not posting my child. Somebody can be offended that I'm not posting because they're posting too much, like joey, like no, I don't care, I love that right. But we we were so quick to be offended. But we also don't know how to speak to each other and just have a natural conversation well said you know, and just to realize like okay, where are these people coming from?

56:40 like yeah, I was kind of probably an asshole a little bit in the elevator, totally with with the bros. I wanted to know. But like I, it just came to that point where I got these questions so much like they were the ones it wasn't about them.

56:50 - Chase (Host) It wasn't about them at all. A bajillion times, bajillion times before you got that question.

56:53 - Joey (Guest) But I wanted hopefully I got it across to them enough like hey, it doesn't just start going, like start somewhere, type thing. But I hope they had the understanding realized. Like man, maybe this guy gets this like think about it, like where was I at? So if I'm those bros and they stop and think like okay, they didn't know my name, it's like Joey, let's say, meathead in the elevator. Right, I'm Meathead in the elevator and they're whatever the bros. Okay, maybe he gets asked this question all the time, maybe we caught him at a bad moment. And if we have a little bit more of that understanding for one another, then I think we'll be less likely to jump on each other or to like post about how much of an asshole he was or whatever. Think post about how much of an asshole he was or whatever. Think like you know what? We're all going to have bad days.

57:35 It's like the celebrity. Like you know, I, I, I met Matthew McConaughey. So when I was doing today show, a bunch Matthew McConaughey and Matthew were listening to this Like I don't, I don't wrong you for anything. It was he. We were on the and you've been in the green rooms on these TV shows. So today's show is one big green room and if you're just a regular guest, you're kind of getting your makeup done. If you're Blake Shelton and Matthew McConaughey, they have their own separate green room. Within the green room area, blake Shelton comes walking out hey y'all, how y'all doing, how you doing Whatever Shake hands, I'm like, because you're either on the show or you're a producer, so you're part of it. It's not like I'm some fanboy, right, like yeah, yeah yeah.

58:14 I'm like exactly how I would think Blake was. Maybe he had some whiskey beforehand, I don't know. Whiskey or bourbon, whatever. His thing is right. And it was like exactly how I think it would be Like. Now I'm talking a story Like mom. Blake came out and my first thought was like wow, what an asshole, right. I don't know what he experienced earlier in the day. I don't know if he was hounded by the paparazzi or something else came out, or he didn't get any sleep, or his wife I don't know if he's married with a wife or a kid or whatever. He had an argument or he's doing something or got like some movie fell through. I don't know, but that was my first thought. In like 30 seconds later I'm like you know what. He can have a bad day too. It doesn't matter that I'm on the show with this guy now if I said hi or something like completely rude to me, like I think it's been a different story.

58:59 But I see these other people that were like I was helping some you know viewers out, like losing weight and whatever. Um, they're going. He didn't even talk or whatever you know like maybe had a bad day or he's got something to do. If we just had a little bit more of that compassion for one another, realizing like, yes, he's getting walked up to all the time. When I was training terrence howard yeah, it was his beautiful penthouse in chicago um, fox was fitting my bill, which thanks fox for paying that. It was pretty, it was pretty good for a few months and we'd go and work out in the common area of his you know swanky apartment building and I said here's the deal, terrence, let me be the asshole when people want to come up to you Cause, even though you're living in the same building with his people, right, you know what I mean. So and I said, people are people come to you a lot.

59:52 He's like he was I watched that people sent me so much stuff and I'm like man yeah, like so much stuff, terrence, like bro, like he is, yeah, smart dude is super, super smart.

01:00:01 I had to rewatch those clips like five times yeah, I'm like bro. So I'm like here's the let me be the asshole. He kind of looks at me. I'm like because I know people. I want to come up to you during our workouts, but let me shut them down so they'd be like, hey, terrence howard's trainer is an asshole, as opposed to you trying to do, because then people would come up and they'd be like, hey, there's hands. Or they'd like have their phone up, trying to pretend to be on the phone and taking a picture, like hey guys, like when we're done, if we're still here, you know whatever.

01:00:27 Some guy came up who has a trainer who, ironically, years later I ended up hiring as a trainer and he said I met him and I cussed him out. This is funny, no shit, super funny. Yeah, uh, saeed, if you listen to this. So he came. He's like I met you years ago, like what he's like. He used to live in terrence howard's building. He's like I came up, I was talking to terrence right when you guys were about to work out and he kept like I'm like, okay, we're about to work out, man, like cool, whatever. And he kept sitting there. I'm dude, we're about to fucking work out. This is his time you got to go. And he kind of like, and Terrence is like oh man, I'm sorry, I'm like my trainer, you know he wants to get going.

01:00:58 So I was he gets to say, yeah, he gets to say as opposed to him being the asshole, cause then forever that guy's going to have that story about how Terrence was an asshole. But now he's like you know, I actually met you or whatever. He's like man, you were such an asshole, I said. Then I told him the story he's like. That makes so much sense because otherwise I would have thought like terrence, like whatever it was, was being a jerk, I said but people keep coming up to him all the time and he's so. He was so nice, especially in his own building. He didn't want to like be rude. If you ran into him and have a conversation, like sometimes he just wants to go in and his wife is pregnant, go like see his wife and not spend 20 minutes talking about empire in the elevator or whatever. Right, so I was the asshole. So people listening, just allow grace for yourself and allow grace for anybody else when you think of me like what a dick first impression, anything like that.

01:01:46 - Chase (Host) Cause everybody has a bad day, and especially if in the public eye and public eye, and I say this all the time Sometimes those people that have the most light shined on them have the most darkness. The brighter the light, the bigger the shadow. Right, yeah, darker the shadow, at least. Yeah. I want to ask another question, while I have the minimum method expert here on the show, before we kind of begin to wrap up.

01:02:09 Sure, sure, once we kind of cross that threshold of I've reached my goals, I've achieved my dream body, and realize it's nowhere near what I wanted it to be or thought it had to be it will never be, by the way, absolutely Um, I feel like once you kind of lay those bricks and you have those foundational habits I'm talking years later um, maintenance becomes, in my opinion, pretty damn easy. And I think a lot of people overthink maintenance of oh I missed my protein today, I'm going to lose all my gains, or I I'm off my program, I'm going to lose all my strength, I'm traveling this week, I'm not hitting my frequency like I used to, or want to talk to us about maintenance and, in your opinion, is there still the minimum method able to be applied to maintenance?

01:02:56 - Joey (Guest) Yes, absolutely, and you're right, maintenance is easier to maintain as opposed to getting to that point, because often, yeah, you do need to push a little bit more and add a little bit more sets or volume or cardio or cut calories. Here you know, wherever you can.

01:03:12 - Chase (Host) And by maintenance sorry maintenance I mean like preserving your current body composition.

01:03:17 - Joey (Guest) Yes, and thank you for clarifying that. So, yes, absolutely. Now, if you get down to 5% body fat, are you going to be able to maintain that? No, it's not going to happen. But what I say is allow yourself kind of a range. So for me, I got all the way up to 245 when I was doing nationals with bodybuilding or for physique. What do?

01:03:33 - Chase (Host) you know, I'm like 218.

01:03:34 - Joey (Guest) Right, that's a big difference. Yeah, and I'm six three, so I'm a big boy. And chase saw me. He's like man, you're jacked, you're the most attractive man I've ever seen in my life.

01:03:41 - Chase (Host) Like thanks bro, exact quote exactly, that's exactly what happened somehow.

01:03:44 - Joey (Guest) It didn't make it on the air, though it's so weird. Yeah, uh, but yes, because you're not gonna like. And one single digit body fat numbers is very, very temporary and nor is that healthy. Guys should be around like maybe lowest 10. You can fluctuate it all it's. You know, it's context, right. Um, some people you know optimally, you know, operate six, seven percent. They're fine and they feel great. But when I was single-digit body fats I felt terrible. You know, I could not even get an erection if I wanted to.

01:04:09 Your hormones are all over the place. You're not sleeping well. There's all sorts of crap happening there. Females stop menstruating, um, relative energy deficient syndrome, where they're working out too much, they're losing their period, all sorts of stuff happening there. So getting to that physiological aesthetic level, no, you're not going to be able to maintain that. But to maintain like, hey, I look healthy, I've got muscle, I can see my abs, whatever your goal is, yes, you can maintain that much better.

01:04:31 But I say, give yourself a little breathing room. So say I was 245, um, let's call it 218 today. I'm gonna get down to about 210 roughly and then I've got a fluctuation where I can be like 210 to 215, where I feel okay about that, where, yes, I'm gonna, you know, go probably. You know I've got a photo shoot tonight. I'll probably grab sushi, something like that. If I was to weigh myself the next day, if I'm got to 210, I might be 215, 216. Most of that's going to be carbohydrates, sodium, whatever. I'm not going to feel bad about that. And then I go back to a few days of eating my normal style and I might be 213, 214. But I've got that range and I know that right now my maintenance is I don't do any cardio, traditional forms of cardio, except for maybe I'll go for a run to get a nice tan because it's shirtless, santa Monica.

01:05:15 While in LA, right around LA, but I hit 10,000 steps a day, Regardless, even in the hotel room. If I'm at 9,700, no joke, I was at 19,000, 1,700. Last night I went to the Dodgers game, Otani home run. That was cool, One of those like check it off the bucket list things. Oh, Dodgers, can you guys fix the parking? It's terrible. Oh yeah, Anyways. So I walked 300 steps back and forth to my hotel because I had 19,700.

01:05:40 - Chase (Host) 9,000. No, wow, your goal was 20,000.

01:05:42 - Joey (Guest) Well, yesterday I would hit because I walked around.

01:05:44 - Chase (Host) Oh, okay.

01:05:44 - Joey (Guest) So let's say my goal was 9,700. Okay, I would have that in that day, right? So I'm just maintaining that number. That has helped me out tremendously. I can back, found that I can back off of sets. I don't have to go as hard. So I go like one to three reps short of failure. Why? Because yes, if you look at optimization, like maybe taking like one rep short of failure or pushing that last set to failure, maybe you can get that little bit more muscle tissue. But if we're looking at research, one to three reps even cutting the three reps, you're still going to be like 90 ish percent there. So we're still gonna have gains. You're still gonna maintain that one hard set working set can maintain your muscle tissue per body part every few days, like, and I've.

01:06:25 So I backed off on my sets to maintain and actually I found myself progressing in other areas of life because I feel better. So some days I may only work out three days a week instead of six or seven, and one time I worked out 110 days in a row without a day off. Multiple times a day. Don't do that, it's not good. A third of the year yeah, it's crazy, right, I just attract it like multiple times. I even threw my back out during it. I still, like, did arms and whatever, right, but that was too much so I was to get to that point. So now three, four days a week when I'm out of town often like my boys want to work out or whatever, like I'll go do that, and sometimes it'll be twice a day.

01:07:00 Tomorrow, when I'm on the plane, I'm not working out at all. I'll hit my 10 000 steps. I'm going to spend the time with my, my son, and I'll back off the calories a little bit back to maintenance, right, and then tomorrow I'll probably even have less because I'm going to be moving a little bit less. So I don't need to have that many calories. I don't need to hit my protein numbers tomorrow because it's just going to be a four-hour flight. I'm fortunate enough to be able to fly first class. I'll take a nap, whatever. I probably won't get as much sleep tonight. I'll sleep on the plane, no-transcript. And that maintenance, literally you can back off depending on what you're at, but I say you can back off 50 of what you're doing and then that allows so much more time in your day and often your body will start looking better because you have less stress. So, true, it is crazy, it's happening all the time with clients of mine.

01:07:58 I tell them, like when they I'm like here's the deal. You got a 50th birthday party or birthday coming up. We're going to hate it hard for three months and I'll give them goals for the month, not the week. I want you to work out with me 12 times this month. Month you go on a business trip for a week. We're doubling up the next week, as opposed to like if they say, if I say three days a week, they're like oh, I missed a week. I can do three days next week. No, now you're doing five days and then five days that catch up to that volume. I want them in the in the month. So that's a good thing, a good little change right there. Yeah, it's a great idea. Um, so you do. That's a good sales tag too, by the way, for selling training keep those uh minimum sessions coming in Right exactly.

01:08:33 So you do that. And then I find I said now when you go on your trip, I don't want you to work out at all, Use this as your deload week, your de-stress week. Quite, obviously, still walk around, do whatever, but don't worry about working out. I said two, three days afterwards or into your trip you will probably look better. Inflammation goes down, the carbohydrates will load nice, your muscles will be nice and full.

01:08:54 What happens when the bodybuilders get on stage? Often they back off. That last week they back off on lots of things. They back off on things they're taking, they back off on working out, they back off on that stress response because they want to look as dry and as hard as possible, because that inflammation around the joints and tissue will almost create a blunting effect on the body and seeing the muscle fibers on stage. So a lot of them will back off the volume because they're so stressed anyways from lack of sleep and everything else that they're taking. So I see that a lot in clients when I have them back off on volume and that shows you care too right.

01:09:28 - Chase (Host) Right, yeah, considering the human, the whole experience. Yes, exactly, chase, I want you to work out less.

01:09:32 - Joey (Guest) We've been hitting it hard for three months, yeah. So I want you to take off this week or you come in. You just want to get an arm pump cool. Do two, three sets of arms Just to feel like mentally, if that makes you feel good, cool. But that main is like once you get to that point, so have that goal right.

01:09:50 - Chase (Host) So now back to when we New drinking game. Every time Joey says that one You're wasted Taking shots of muscle milk or ketones, right.

01:09:58 - Joey (Guest) You'd be the smartest person ever. So you have that like okay, you've got your, why? Yeah, Now we have our how, your purpose, your plan and your path.

01:10:12 - Chase (Host) You have your purpose, you have your plan and that path can always change, but stay on it Um so. Joey, bring us home. Man, I feel like you know you. You definitely woven it into your story and your insights and your expertise in this conversation. So far, but ever forward. What does that mean to you? How do you live a life ever forward?

01:10:28 - Joey (Guest) Ever forward is being self-aware. Ever forward is realizing that you're going to take steps back. Ever forward is realizing that you are going to fail. You're going to fall on your face, but can you scrape yourself off of that concrete, wipe off the blood, have that scab on your face and say I am moving forward because I've falling down and that's how you move. Ever forward.

01:10:59 - Chase (Host) It. Um, this is going to seem really random, but it reminds me of I'm a big weekend fan and, uh, I forget this song, but I think it's off of his like old trilogy album and it's this line that sticks with me to this day and it's like I'm not I'm going to butcher it, I'm not afraid, not afraid to fall, because I've felt the ground before, you know. So you're basically the weekend what I'm trying to say.

01:11:22 - Joey (Guest) I am the weekend. I can't pull off the ponytail that you had and whatever that show that got canceled was. But yeah, I appreciate it, I'll be the weekend. Yeah, yeah.

01:11:29 - Chase (Host) Yeah, advice, man. Well, we got the minimum method here the least you can do to be a stronger, healthier, happy you. I'm going to have this link for everybody down in the show notes video notes. Check it out. And so I love your message and how you go about helping people and the example you set by living your own life, and I think it's a good reminder that we need to come back to that our dream body, our dream life, our dream. Whatever it takes less than we think it is going to. It takes work and it takes consistency, but we don't need $120,000 protocol in order to make it happen. If you get to that point and you can have all the toys, good for you. You figure out how to work and have that. But it really it doesn't take a lot, it's simple. It's simple.

01:12:15 - Joey (Guest) Complexity and the simplicity. Yeah, man, yeah.

01:12:17 - Chase (Host) Well, where can my audience go to connect more with you?

01:12:20 - Joey (Guest) Yeah, I mean Joey Thurman fit on all socials, joey Thurman fitness on YouTube. But yeah, joey Thurman fit totally. What kind of gets you everywhere if minimum methods available in stores? Amazon is, you know, easiest place. I even ordered Amazon too.

01:12:36 - Chase (Host) My man ordered his own book.

01:12:37 - Joey (Guest) I ordered my own book. That's how I get sales high. I ordered my own book even though I've got hundreds of copies from Ben Bella Publisher sitting at my house, but that's okay, thank you, thank you.

01:12:48 - Chase (Host) For more information on everything you just heard, make sure to check this episode's show notes or head to EverForwardRadio.com