Episode #209: 5 Minute Hack to Maintain Muscle Mass Through The Holiday

In this festive episode of The Berman Method Podcast, Jake and Jenni kick things off with Christmas chaos, family traditions, and a hilarious debate over Santa logistics. From childhood memories of cross-country road trips and extravagant bows to “eleventy billion” Santa figurines and Alexa-powered holiday villages, the Bermans paint a nostalgic (and very relatable) picture of what the season looks like in their world.

But woven into the holiday cheer is a powerful reminder: the body doesn’t pause just because the calendar says December. Jake and Jenni break down what really happens when routines slip—how quickly muscle mass can be lost, why “if you don’t use it, you lose it” is more than just a saying, and how small, consistent efforts can prevent months of regression.

They dive into:

• Why the holidays are the easiest time to fall off track
• How much muscle you can lose in just two weeks
• Simple, no-excuse habits like 50 squats and 100 push-ups a day
• Why maintaining protein is crucial when life gets chaotic
• How to hit January feeling strong instead of starting over

This episode blends feel-good storytelling with practical, no-nonsense advice—perfect for anyone wanting to enjoy the holiday season and protect their long-term health. Enjoy the dopamine boost, the laughter, and the reminders that small actions add up.

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Transcript

Treating Problems, Not Symptoms

SPEAKER_01 0:01

We're rolling baby with the Berman Method Podcast, treating problems and not symptoms. David going against Goliath. Goliath being the corporate medical system, big pharma, health insurance companies. They do not have your best interests in mind. They will choose profits over patient outcomes every single time. Dr. Jake Berman here with my beautiful co-host.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Jenny Bourbin, physician assistant.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

And it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Oh my gosh, what is the countdown? Like only two weeks?

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Jeez the wheeze.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Oh wait, less than two weeks. Next week. Why? Oh why? How did it get here so fast?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Next week.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

It's here.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

I should know. Sell is how to count down. I think we have seven countdown signs in our house for Christmas. That she changes every single day.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

It started at 39 days.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Yes. Started when we had 39 days left till Christmas. I think we have four downstairs and probably three upstairs of our house. That she changes every day. So we should know exactly how many days.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

We should. Why don't you?

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Well, you know, when you've been counting down since 39 days. But anyway, it's next week. It's nuts.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Kids are out of school for like three weeks, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

A month. This is great.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

But yeah. I love the holiday season. I love Christmas.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

It's the best. Why do you love it so much?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Uh mostly because of how I was raised around the holiday. It was always such a happy, cheerful family time. So growing up, my whole entire family lived in Kansas City, Missouri, except for us. We lived in Jacksonville, Florida. Um, and it's all my mom's side of the family lives in Kansas City, but that's the family that we're closest to. And we have tons and tons of cousins and now second cousins. But every year, my parents, every other year, we would drive to Kansas City for Christmas. And then every other year we would stay home and have Christmas in Jacksonville. And my parents would pack up all of our gifts, all of our things, Santa included, into the van and drive us to Kansas City. We would have full-on Christmas for several days week in Kansas City, and then we would drive home.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yeah, and that's kind of sabotaging me in a way, that tradition that you're so used to, and it's really your dad that's sabotaging me. Because one of the gifts that is so fondly remembered that you guys reminisce about is this massive 110 billion piece set doll house Barbie house that Santa miraculously delivered to Kansas City.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Which your dad put together.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Yes. Carried all the things that wait a minute.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Santa put together put together.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:19

And so this whole very detailed dollhouse, Barbie house, was put together for Christmas morning.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

And then he took it back apart.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

And took all the pieces back down, boxed it back up.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

And then put it back together again when he got back to Jacksonville.

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

And now that's where the bar has been set. And for me, I'm going, that's dumb. Like, that is really dumb. Like, call me the Grinch if you want. That is just so much work. And I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

It is. It's magical.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Look at the memories.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

My sisters and I are still talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

40 years later, we're still talking about how dumb that was.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Stop using that word. It wasn't dumb. So yeah, every year Jake's trying to get me to leave our Santa presents in Naples when we spend Christmas in Jacksonville, and I'm like, that's not how Santa works. Santa doesn't come three days later.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Oh my gosh. So here I am, the quote unquote logical one. And I'm going, oh man, I gotta balance this tightrope of what am I gonna do here?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Anyway, that wasn't the point. The point wasn't for us to get in this debate, which, if you guys want to comment and send us your thoughts on this debate, feel free as long as you're taking my side. But the what you asked me was why is this why is Christmas my favorite? And it's just magical. When the sky is pink, Santa's making candy canes, we get to watch Christmas movies, we get to wrap presents, we get to give. I like giving.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

The amount of effort that you, your sister, and your mother put into the bows of your presents. I'm just going, why in the world would you create this masterpiece of a bow that's just gonna be demolished 12 hours later?

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Because it looks good under the Christmas tree. My mom would not put a Christmas present under the Christmas tree if it didn't have a bow on it. Sometimes she was putting bows on presents until 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve, just so that on Christmas morning every present had a bow on it underneath the tree. But they really do look pretty once you if you get them wrapped ahead of time and they sit under a tree, they look beautiful. It looks like a Hallmark movie.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

It does.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Yeah, your house brings more cheer.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Your parents' house regularly reminds me of a Hallmark movie.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

It does. Yeah, they go all out for Christmas. That was um, we always have gone all out for Christmas, and I'm very grateful for that.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

How many Santa figurines does your mom have?

SPEAKER_00 6:18

I don't know, we did count at one point. I don't even remember now. That was growing up, that was the gift that my dad and I would always go to Hallmark, the store, Hallmark, or Ace Hardware and pick out my mom a new Santa. That was like me and my dad's thing, and I would wrap it, and that's what I gave my mom for Christmas every year as like a young kid. Of course, I didn't have my own money, so I didn't buy it. My dad bought it, but still I gave it to her.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

So that's why she has 110 billion.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Well, she starts she's the one that started collecting them, and then I just contributed because that was something my dad was gonna get her anyway, so then we would just go pick it out together.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

And that's how you accumulated all of them.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

How many of them are there now?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

I really don't know. We'll have to ask her. I don't know, 20 something, probably.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

At least 20 something, and they they got their own little scenes.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Scenes all around the house, and they've got the fake snow sprinkled in there, which is phenomenal for big dogs because they're because it's usually about tail height.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Yes, of the tail scope. And this year with Walker, it's gonna be really fun because he's crazy and pulls everything off with tail. I never had to baby proof my house for the girls. Like we have this little shelf under our TV that has had glass mason jars and picture frames on the shelf since before the girls were born. Never had to clear that shelf off. And here comes Walker pulling everything off of it.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Everything.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

So, yes, he's gonna be really fun with the snow. She calls it her villages. She has villages all around the house with like the fake snow and these little houses that light up and little people and trees. And Alexa controls everything.

SPEAKER_01 8:02

Yes, your dad has a has been a magician with Alexa controlling all the lights, all of the things.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

There'll be like Christmas light. Alexa, turn the Christmas lights on, and she'll turn all the Christmas lights on in the house, or they can just tell her, like, one room, she's nuts. He's nuts. I don't know which one. Alexa or my dad. But okay, anyways, are we just talking about Christmas this episode? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

I mean, just keep going.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

It is good. It's a good dopamine hit for a lot of people. Yeah. Hearing positive things. It doesn't have to be Christmas, it could be Hanukkah or whatever. Holiday you want to celebrate. Just make it happy.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Grinch miss.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah, that's you.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

That's me? Uh-huh. The Grinch?

SPEAKER_00 8:42

I used to call you the Grinch all the time, didn't I?

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Used to? You don't anymore?

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Not not as much. You're better. You'll at least entertain me at Christmas time. Anyway.

From Hallmark Houses To Hunting Mornings

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Oh my goodness. It's funny because it's just completely opposite. My family growing up versus your family growing up. It's just completely different. And I believe that that's true for a lot of people. There's a very a bunch of very unique family traditions where my family tradition for Christmas was let's wake up at six in the morning and open the presents as fast as we possibly can and try to be to the woods by 30 minutes after sunrise so that we could either hunt andor play with the toys that we got. Because it was usually a go-kart or something, a gun that we could shoot or something that needed to be in the woods. So it was like, okay, let's get through this Christmas thing as fast as possible and get to the woods. Versus your family, it's a whole month-long ordeal.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

It's not a month, but it is the whole dang day.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Well, Christmas really starts Christmas Eve the night before with a giant family tradition meal. And then Christmas Day itself, it is the whole day.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

It is the whole day, yes. I mean, it growing up, it definitely was the whole day. It's not as much the whole day now that we all have families, and like my middle sister has to go to her in-laws, and then my oldest sister has to go to her in-laws all on the same day. So, I mean, I we're just there because we're out of town. So we're just there with and hang with my parents. We now go to sushi to eat dinner Christmas night because my other sisters leave and go to their in-laws' houses, but it is an all-day affair. And yes, Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve is a huge thing for our family too. We play the twas the night before Christmas.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

I don't know that we have enough time to talk about that right now.

Pivot To Pain And Performance Basics

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Yeah, it doesn't matter. And none of this actually matters to what our podcast pertains to, although we hope that this put a smile on some of your faces and that your dopamine is just flowing right now. But, anyways, what we really wanted to talk about today.

Use It Or Lose It Explained

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Was some physical components. We haven't talked black and white about things like back pain, knee pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, and coming back to some basic fundamentals to get you through these next two weeks that most people are slacking. Most people are uh slowing down on their gym routines or putting them on pause completely. Most people are traveling, most people are sitting more than they would normally be sitting through the holidays, most people are socializing more at parties or whatever it is, and things are just different for these next two weeks than they typically are. And most people, how many times can I say most in two minutes? Most people are waiting for January 2nd, that magical day after New Year's Day, to quote unquote get back into things and get back on the bandwagon. So a couple of things that you can do right out of the gate to help minimize your regression, because if you don't keep progressing, you will regress. The extent of the regression is what you have control of. So think about that for a minute. There's nothing in life, there's nothing living on planet Earth that maintains a status quo. Anything living on planet Earth is either growing or it's dying. It's either getting better or it's getting worse. Nothing alive stays the same. Now we could go and we could debate this for hours. But just for the purposes of this podcast, let's just go ahead and agree that nothing stays the same. Nothing alive stays the same. It's either getting better or it's getting worse or it's growing or it's dying.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Right, because even those of you that say, Oh, I'm just the same as I was last year. Well, not really, because you're a year older. So you're one day, one year older than you were last time. You're one day, one year closer to this is morbid, but death. And if you're not improving something, you're not getting stronger, you're not getting better, you're not staying the same, you're actually worse.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Yeah. And here's the reality is the body is the most efficient machine on the planet. We've talked about this many times over the past four or five years. The body is the most explicit example of if you don't use it, you lose it. Muscle is the classic point where there's a reason why bodybuilders require 5,000 calories a day. Right. There's a reason why. Because in order to maintain all of that excessive muscle mass, you have to feed it.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Right, which muscle is requires more energy, it burns more at rest. So when you have more muscle mass than fat mass, your body actually burns more calories sitting still than it does if you have more fat mass.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah, I think we could even get more blunt. Fat mass doesn't burn calories.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

No, it doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Fat is fat.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

And it doesn't do anything except weigh you down.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Yep. So if you go back to the basic fundamentals, the human body, if you go back to caveman days, the human body was a very basic form where a normal, typical body is not going to have more than 15% body fat, and it's not going to be excessively bulky in muscle. And the reason why was because meals were not predictable.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:49

You didn't know when the next time you were going to kill a deer was. You didn't know when the next time you were going to randomly come across an apple tree. You didn't know any of these things. So the human body was very lean and very efficient. So now we fast forward, or I'm sorry, I'm not ready to fast forward yet. That is what led to the evolution of you don't use it, you lose it. So there's no reason to maintain excessive muscle on your body if you weren't using it on a regular basis, and you were not able to feed it on a regular basis.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Right.

Holiday Habits And Body Composition

SPEAKER_01 15:25

So two things must be true. If you're gonna maintain muscle mass, you have to use the muscle mass, you have to use that muscle you have, and you have to feed it. Right? Right. The problem is through the holidays, we tend to just feed it and we tend to feed it shit.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

Yeah, yeah, you're not feeding it the right type of calories for muscle, yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Yeah, and we don't use it.

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

So it's like, okay, we're gonna take two weeks off, but you don't see explicitly black and white, you don't see how much muscle mass you're actually losing. So one of the things that you get to do for years now is you have your bat body mass index, your scale. Right. And you can see exactly the percentage of fat mass to muscle mass to water weight, you can see all of these things.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Right, on the body composition scale.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

On the body composition scale. And the amount of change that occurs in two weeks is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

If you're not doing the right things. So if you're just a teeny bit mindful, you can usually maintain.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

We're gonna talk about the teeny bit mindful here in a minute, because it's one of the things that I try to do, because I'm not religious. You and your sister are insane. Usually. Usually insane. 99.9% of the time, you and your sister are insane. You you guys don't slow down, you don't miss a beat. Me, I miss quite a few beats.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Not all the beats, but most. No, I would shouldn't say most.

SPEAKER_01 16:56

Not most.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Some.

Two Weeks Off: What You Lose

SPEAKER_01 16:57

Yeah. I miss beats. Uh-huh. So I have to figure out a way to get around it. Right? But before we get into all that, being able to see what you see just in two weeks. In two weeks, what is how much muscle mass can you lose in two weeks if you don't do any um appropriate exercise or feed yourself the right way?

SPEAKER_00 17:20

That's a really hard question because of course it's going to depend on the individual and their body composition type, but it could be anywhere from one to three pounds in two weeks of muscle mass lost.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Let's just say one. You could lose one pound of muscle mass mass in two weeks.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Which often can take a month to gain back.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

If you do it the right way. Right. How long does it take somebody to gain a month a pound of muscle mass on average?

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Two to four weeks.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

If you're doing it the right way.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

If you do 100% correct.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Exactly. So now come on. How long does it take?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

A month is probably average to gain a pound of muscle.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

So it takes two weeks to lose it and a month to gain it back. Now, what if you've taken most of December kind of lighter?

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Oh, then you're looking at two pounds of muscle loss in the month.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

So if you lose two pounds of muscle, how long would it take to get two pounds back?

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Two months back.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

If you do it all the right way. Now let's be realistic here. Most people are not going to do it the right way.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Most people are not going to hit the ground run in January and not miss a beat.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Because usually the excitement peters off around Valentine's Day.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Right?

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

So the reality is you lost two pounds of muscle mass, and you might get it back by Memorial Day.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

You might.

SPEAKER_00 18:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

So now we're in this ebb and flow of you took a step forward, you took two steps back, you took a step forward, so now you're back at even, and now you have to take a quarter step forward again, a quarter step forward again. Now you're barely back to where you were back in November a year ago. And it's this vicious cycle, and that's what leads to the aging process.

Minimalist Plan: Squats And Push-Ups

SPEAKER_00 19:11

Right. And naturally, because of our hormones and the way they're changing, even if you're taking hormone replacement or not, your body is naturally losing muscle mass every single day. Naturally, plus feeding it garbage and not doing your normal exercise routine, that just compounds it.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yeah. So here's one thing that I do behind the scenes, and I don't do this a whole lot because despite the joking around that we were saying five minutes ago, I do try to be pretty disciplined through the holidays as far as getting actual workouts in. But if I'm in Missouri or Kansas and I'm hunting, chances are I'm not going to leave the tree stand and go spend two to three hours driving to the gym, working out, driving back from the gym, showering, and getting back into hunting. Hunting mode. So one of the things that I will do is the motto that I've been living by and preaching by for years now, which is 50 squats a day keeps Jake Berman away because it literally takes me 60 seconds to do 50 squats. And if I do 50 squats, my lower body, lower half of my body, is taken care of in my eyes. I just did 50 squats. So it's going to atrophy slower than if I did zero squats. Right. And it took me an entire 60 seconds. And then another thing that I'll do is I'll try to do 100 push-ups. Most of the time I can get pretty close to 50 push-ups before taking a break. I'll rest and I'll do another 25 and then another 25. So the whole thing takes me less than five minutes. I'll do a hundred squats or a hundred, I'll do 50 squats and a hundred push-ups. And that's good enough for me to justify going and sitting on my ass in a freezing cold tree stand for six to eight hours.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Right. Your thermogenic effect of freezing in the tree stands also helping, you know.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Shivering. Yeah.

Protein, Progression, And Starting Now

SPEAKER_00 21:07

But and it it's not just about the activity, of course. Like in doing 50 squats and 100 push-ups every single day for 365 days is not going to maintain you, right? We've talked about that on needing progressive overload and needing to increase intensity reps or weights of some kind to continue to progress. But during a one to two week period where we're in the holiday mode, we're traveling, we're hunting, we're going to more activities where we can't get actually to the gym for an hour, hour and a half, then yes, that type of activity will at least maintain you through the holiday season. And that goes along with the diet, the meal plan, of course. You can't just have a free-for-all of food and no protein in your diet and expect that the 50 squats, 100 push-ups is going to maintain you.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yes. So if we had to get really black and white, 50 squats a day keeps Jake Berman away. Throw in the push-ups, try to get to 100 if you can and maintain protein.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah, that would be the key factor for sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

If you did those three things over the next two weeks, you're going to hit the ground much faster, January, than the people that are not.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Right. And this year, because January 1st is like a Thursday, I think. So January 2nd is a Friday. So many people are going to be like, I'll just start Monday the 5th. Like, that's already five more days that you just wasted. Don't start on Monday. Start now. Don't wait even until January 2nd, but please don't wait till Monday, January 5th.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

Ideally, you don't have to start because you never stop.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

That's true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

We just need to speed up.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

And refocus 100%.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

Yeah.

Wrap-Up And Holiday Sendoff

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Yeah. All right. Awesome. Yes. Merry Christmas Eve week to everybody. Yay. It's next week. Okay. Ciao for now.