Mind Pump Host (likely Sal, Adam or Justin)
Appearances
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
We also have a sale this month. MAPS 15 performance and the RGB bundle are both half off. If you're interested, go to mapsfitnessproducts.com and then use the code MAY50 for the discount. All right, here comes the show. Mike, welcome to the show, man.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Mike, where are you at in, you know, this is so since we're here and I've heard you kind of tongue in cheek, talk about your drivers and your, you know, body dysmorphia and stuff like that.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
where are you personally at in your own journey with all your wisdom your experience obviously your level you've reached already like what are what are the demons you're trying to fight or sort out or like where are you at with your own personal journey you see my uncle he got in the same bathroom as me when i was four and what happens i actually enjoyed it believe it or not and that's the fucked up thing i liked it and people told me it was wrong but he was really good
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Yeah, no problem. In fact, we just off-air learned that you just had some surgery. You have to take six weeks off of training, which you're probably going to lose all your gains.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Of course. That's how it works. That's the fear.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
So that was about as honest as somebody could answer that question. Do you guys want me to lie?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
You know, this actually leads me to a good question or a good topic because you're obviously heavily muscled. You've been training for a long time. I think you said off-air was the longest you'd ever really taken off of training was like a week and a half. So you're very consistent. Six weeks off doing nothing because of surgery.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
I appreciate it. I appreciate it. So, okay. I love that answer. You, what does that balance look like with your, your personal relationships, your business? Like, is there anything like that, that you see yourself like, okay, I'm going to reach a point where it's like, eh, I'm good. I've, I've presented that physique and then maybe I'm going to cruise or like, how does that all work?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Like, how's the balance of relationships, family, business work with this obsessive? I'm going to go become a monster still.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Of course, you're going to lose some muscle, but you got muscle memory. Talk about that. How powerful of an effect is muscle memory? What does the data show on how quickly you can gain back muscle once you've built it and then you lose it?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
I can't tell. What drugs are you talking about? Are these myostatin inhibiting drugs? Correct.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
The motivation behind this has got to be the GLP-1s because those are blockbusters. They're changing. They're shifting culture. Yeah, the motivation before was for things like muscular dystrophy and muscle wasting disease, which is a big deal, but it's not that big of a deal from a market perspective like the obesity.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
So we're basically going to reach the exercise in a pill mythology that people will bring up with those combinations. Are there any –
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
downsides to myostatin inhibiting drugs and because you're not working out you're not getting fit you're just building a bunch of muscle do you still get a lot of the same effects uh insulin sensitizing the yes okay but but are there any downsides why is myostatin exists in the first place like you know one of those like it's natural therefore it's good type of deal are they seeing any negatives
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Okay, so I want to circle back. I'll circle back to GLP-1s in just a second. But you brought something up that I'd like to touch on because there's a bit of a debate in the fitness space around reverse dieting or strength training for fat loss. We can see a metabolic boost type of deal. Now, we trained people for decades. I've reverse dieted people. I've used strength training.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
For me, it's always been the most effective way to get fat loss for the average person for multiple reasons. But what are your thoughts on reverse dieting? What are your thoughts on being able to impact your metabolism in a positive way through building muscle or the strength training process? What's your opinion on all that? I mean, it has –
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
What about the metabolic boost and what the research – I'm familiar with what the research says. And when they compare a pound of muscle to a pound of fat and calories per day, it's very minimal in the research. But in my experience – And tons and tons of times I've had a client. She came in. She reports eating 1,400 calories. I reverse diet her. I build only probably five, six pounds of muscle.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
But for that size of a girl, that's a decent amount of muscle. And now she's eating 2,600 calories and not putting on any body fat and staying lean or getting leaner. And it doesn't math. It doesn't add up to what the studies say. So do you think there's something more going on? What's the answer to that?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
There's got to be something to be said, too, though, about, okay, now that they're exercising, they built muscle. Okay, what it takes to maintain that muscle is more activity, more movement, more volume. You know this. When you're feeling good, you're healthier, you're just more active throughout the day. So there's probably a kind of three different things happening there.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
And there's also, you know, if they become healthier, hormones can oftentimes change. Hormones can affect fat storage, muscle gain. And I do think the human metabolism is super complex. You know this, Mike. And the data does show that your metabolism or energy expenditure with the same lean body mass, there's a range there. Your body can decide to become more or less –
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
efficient which i think that explains the people who because you get competitors or people who chronically train chronically track like orthorexics and they're just over dieted over trained and those people i've seen some radical transformations in their metabolism but those are pretty extreme examples and i think the metabolism is a little bit more mysterious uh in those particular cases but i think it has to do with those those three things um
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
By the way, what I appreciate about you, Mike, is that you're speaking from a combination of education and experience. I can tell you've trained people. I can also tell you've competed as a bodybuilder.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
And I can also tell you you're educated because sometimes what happens in the social media space with the science crowd that has never trained anybody, has never competed, is they just stick to the data and the science, which doesn't explain a lot of the experience, which I think will eventually.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
I think that eventually the science will catch up to what bodybuilders have been expressing and what coaches and trainers have seen with their clients. I don't think the data supports... reverse dieting, uh, in speeding up quote unquote, the metabolism as much as what bodybuilders and coaches have seen.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
I think that that's why you get the pushback as we see on one end with the data doesn't yet support, but I think the data will eventually catch up.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Yeah, like behavioral psychology. I mean, talk about, I mean, I'd love to hear because you have a PhD, right? So were you at one point? Were you the pencil neck nerd who was like that all science, all study? Or did you have a nice blend of experience and hands-on while also going through your PhD?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Tell me a little bit about your personal journey of coming kind of full circle as a coach, of kind of knowing how to meld all the science with the psychology, with everything. What's that been like for you?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Every meal he'll weigh and he'll track too. Right.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Let's go there. You just reminded me of like, I talk about this on our show a lot. One of the clients that I remember, the type of a client I remember helping a lot was exactly that. Maybe not Wall Street, but they were busy moms, under eating, loved the Orange Theory boot camp classes six days a week.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
couldn't you know couldn't lose weight whatsoever so that what i used to call cortisol junkies you know saying i swear that that this is the workout they needed and many times getting them to eat a little more scale back their training like half the days long rest periods and boom all of a sudden this this client who was training six days a week eating so little pushing their body all of a sudden starts responding what's going on there so much
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Agreed. I 100% agreed. And I think a big part of that also is just people are kind of redlining with stress anyway. And so adding a ton of exercise, your body not only is not going to adapt, it's going to try to survive and hold on to what it can and makes fat loss very difficult. You're not sleeping well. You got kids. You're stressed out.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
You're going to add a bunch of extra stress on your body with six days a week of exercise and you're not going to eat properly. Good luck. It's not going to work.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
You just found the most downloaded fitness, health, and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump. All right. This episode is one of my favorites ever. We finally got Dr. Mike Israel on the podcast. You know who he is. By the way, warning, this episode has lots of colorful language and topics. We haven't laughed this hard in a long time, but also good stuff.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Hey, you know, Mike, can you think of a piece of advice? that you've 180'd on in your journey. I'll give you a big one for me. I started personal training when I was 20 years old. I'm 43 now. And I remember doing intake forms and asking the client, you know, what do you do for exercise right now? And they'd say things like, oh, I walk with my husband for an hour every day.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
And I would scoff at that. That's not fucking exercise because I'm doing the math of you're only burning this many calories and we got this far to go. That doesn't mean, and I would laugh at it. Yet I look at myself in my forties. That's typically the very first piece of advice I now give to somebody. Well, what are we doing? Let's try and take a couple of 10 minute walks a day.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
And so that's something that I used to scoff at as a 20 year old, as somebody who's been training for two decades. It's one of the first things that I advise. Do you have some things like that, that you remember saying one thing when you were first getting into the industry to now you've completely 180. Yeah.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
I love that you said that. So one of the big waves that we made 10 years ago when we started this podcast, we actually made these shirts that were, was Dunkin' Donuts? Is it Dunkin'?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Krispy Kreme logo. And it said our brand in the middle of it. And then it said, I-I-F-Y-M sucks. And we, and it was right in the, it was in the height of that being asked for trouble. Oh yeah, totally. But then this was what we tried to articulate.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
And this is again, through years of experience, I realized what you just said is I could tell a client, if you ate whole foods, I said, we don't even get to track calories. Go eat. I'd tell clients, go eat as much as you want. So long as it's these foods from this group. And I give them a whole list of meats and veggies and starches that you can eat and just be like, eat from that list.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
When you're hungry, eat. And all I want you to do is eat your protein first. And that's the only thing we're going to track is that. And everybody lost weight. Everybody got in shape. As soon as I start to allow them to introduce processed foods, snacks and quick things, and this is even sometimes the negative part of even like protein bars because they're basically glorified Snickers bars.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
You know, a little bit of extra protein. They were engineered.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
to hijack that satiate that feeling that our body tells us to stop wanting any more food and it just made it 10 times harder so i love that you come out and you say that because of course uh if you've been a bodybuilder uh ifym is something that you've definitely you know understand follow you've found a way to get your treats here and there or have your cheat day and make it work but for the average person never never it's a terrible strategy for most people it really is i
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
I wanted to circle back to the GLP-1 for a second, Mike. What are you seeing on the other effects of the GLP-1s? There's lots of reports of people who stopped smoking or not drinking anymore or interesting effects on maybe the hedonistic aspects of certain activities. Are you hearing about any of this?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
So let's play out, because I think we're totally aligned on GLP-1s. Now, let's say we get literally fitness and a pill in the next five years, and everybody can be fit by taking this pill, and it does happen. What are some of the downstream effects negative that you see? It's obvious what's positive.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
I mean, the amount of obesity that will go down and health markers that will go up and maybe we'll see even longevity. But what what do you what do you think? What else is fitness and training working out the discipline around it, the routine of it? What else is it benefiting us that we're going to potentially lose out on because we can now just get it in a pill? What do you what do you see?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Yeah, it is. And it's so incredibly powerful that when you experience it, people have experienced it when they have a broken limb and they'll wear a cast and then they take the cast off and like, oh my God, I can see my bones. And then without even training, the muscle comes back. I think it points to the protective effects that strength training provides that are unique.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
To other forms of exercise. That's why we sell it so hard. Are you familiar with like the Colorado experiment? You know, the familiar, the popular experiment that Casey Viator was a part of with Dr. Arthur Jones?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Yeah, I think a lot of those questions have been pondered and asked by ancient spiritual practices, by religions, because we're going to get to a place here, maybe in our lifetime, where we can get everything we want. We're going to get everything we want, and then we're going to be sad, and we're not going to know why. Why am I sad? I have everything. I mean, look what we did with money.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
We now have shelter and food, but people are worse off than ever. So I think it's just going to force us to really look at what gives us purpose and meaning in life. So I don't think it's going to – it's going to answer some questions and solve some things, but it's not going to solve the big things. And I think it will pose other questions. So it will be interesting.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
It will be interesting to see.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Have you seen the Twilight Zone episode where the bank robber gets shot? Have you seen that episode before? No, I'm not 55 years old. Fuck off. Fuck off, fatty.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
yeah well i haven't what's the other way he gets shot and then he a guy approaches him and is like hey man you can have anything you want and he's like what what are you talking about and he can have everything and he's he's gambling and he's winning every hand and he's got beautiful women he's got food and and then it fast forwards like nine months later and he's like he hasn't shaved and he's pissed off because every time he rolls a dice he wins and everybody agrees with him
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
He got to the Nautilus. Now, it was witnessed. I don't know if it was 89. It was a ridiculous amount of muscle. I think it was 60. A big part of the story was Casey Viator was sick and had lost a lot. Before that, he was a highly competitive body, but lost so much muscle going into it. And then started training and maybe using gear. So you had the additive effect plus the genetics.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
and the guy comes back and he's like man this sucks he goes I didn't think heaven would be like this and the guy looks at him and says what makes you think this is heaven
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Well, here's my pushback on that because you have, uh, you have people who have dedicated their lives to doing what you're talking about. Um, and, They're tired. They're physiologically depressed because they're so exhausted, but they're joyful. And so you hear the spiritual leaders, Mother Teresa, they find joy, which is different than happy, than the chemical happy that we feel.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
So I personally think, my opinion, Mike, is what you're explaining is is going to reveal hell to a lot of people. They're going to be chemically happy. In fact, I think they wrote a book about it, right? 1984 might have been one of them. I'm not sure. It's one of those books where everybody's fed happy pills all the time. They can never feel sad, but they feel like something's missing.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
I think that's a much bigger question. I think it'll be an interesting experiment, but I think people are going to be... If we do get to that place, I think there's going to be a lot of people are going to be like... something's missing. I don't know what it is, but something's missing. That's my opinion.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
All right, then. Forget it. I was going to ask you a question.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
It's been great talking to you, man. You're absolutely hilarious. Very, very smart. Lots of experience. Stop. We appreciate a lot of what you communicate on social media and other outlets because... Again, you communicate like someone who knows the science, but also has the experience. And oftentimes you get one or the other and you don't get the combination.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
And so you're quite, your answers are nuanced. And we think you're pointing people oftentimes the right direction besides being absolutely hilarious and entertaining. So yeah, we appreciate it.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
You guys are fucking awesome. Thank you so much. Yeah. We'll have to come out here next time for sure.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
We're not in San Francisco.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
So I think it might have happened.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Well, I just went through the 22 pounds in four weeks. I mean, that was an example. Obviously, not as crazy as that example. But of course, everybody thought I was lying and all this bullshit. But what I knew was I was a competitor. I was a men's physique pro for years and walked around at 240, 5% body fat for an extended period of time.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Since then, I've completely fallen off keeping that kind of muscle. And so over the course of the last three, four years, I've lost 50 pounds of muscle off my body. Still have a decent amount, but nowhere near what I had before. And then I had just coming off of not training for like a month or two. And I documented the process of building back. And I told the audience, watch what I go do.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
I'm going to go build 25 pounds of muscles fast. Again, I did it in four weeks. I put on like 22 pounds and nobody believed it. And the crazy part, Mike, is that I was doing two lifts a day. That's it. So not only does the period of time is so short, but even the volume and level of intensity that I had to do to get it back, it blew me away. I actually was really shocked.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
I mean, I went about it my best I could and was a little surprised at how easy it was to get it back.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
That's another good direction I'd like to ask you, Mike, because one of the reasons why we have you on the show, besides the fact that you have a... very colorful personality, very entertaining to watch. It's a nice way to say it. As you communicate accurately, because we all have two decades of training clients. We worked with everyday people for years and years and years.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
When I hear really smart people communicating how much strength training you need for the average person to get some strength, some gains, whatever. You communicate it the most accurately based off of what we've experienced. How much strength training does the average person really need to reap the kind of benefits that they're looking for?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Talk about fitness and muscle building, the science behind it. So it's a very entertaining but also educational episode. Again, this is not parental advice here. This is a colorful, colorful episode. But we know you're going to love this episode, especially if you're a fan of his. By the way, you can find him on Instagram at Dr. Mike Israel. It's I-S-R-A-E-T-E-L.
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
Not to be a pro bodybuilder, to get crazy, but just to get the strength, mobility, some of the health effects. What does that look like for the average person?
Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
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Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth
2595: Mike Israetel Unplugged (Explicit Content)
to the limits of our ability to recover. And we think that's what's necessary to look the way we do when oftentimes you scale back even with that person and they get better gains. They get better gains from doing less.