How Strength Training Can Improve Your Physical & Mental Health (with Dr. Joey Muñoz)

Have you ever wondered WHY strength training is so important? Is it superior to other types of exercise? Dr. Joey Muñoz, a leading fitness coach and educator, is explaining the science, benefits and potential risks of strength training.

Lifting heavy weights might seem a little intimidating, especially if you're more used to cardio. But today, I wanted to bring Dr. Joey on to show you why strength training can positively impact how you feel and doesn't have to be so daunting.

Tune in to hear Dr. Joey debunk common strength training myths, from whether you need to eat protein within that 30-minute window to fasting before your workout. Get ready to transform your body and your mindset.

TOPICS COVERED 👇
Benefits of muscle mass (05:30)
Building muscle as you age (06:08)
Bone Density and Resistance Training (08:03)
Reducing the risk of chronic diseases (09:54)
Short-term benefits (14:29)
Psychological benefits (18:00)
Risks of strength training (19:44)
Powerlifting vs. Bodybuilding (23:35)
Aesthetic goals in fitness (26:30)
Fitness as a gateway to healthy behaviors (27:47)
Stress management through exercise (30:13)
Nutrition to support muscle growth (32:18)
Pre-workout nutrition myths (37:12)

RESOURCES MENTIONED
Instagram @dr.joeymunoz
Dr. Joey's website
Free blueprint to be Fit4Life

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Transcript

Michelle Yates 00:00:00  Welcome back to the Nourished and Free podcast. If you're here, it's because you probably love learning more about nutrition and general wellness. If you aren't already subscribed to this particular show, be sure you stick around for more episodes around the topics of not only nutrition and health, but specifically how we can foster a healthy relationship with those things as well as with our bodies. My name is Michelle Yates. I'm a registered dietitian with my Masters in Health Psychology. I'm a certified health mindset coach. I really love talking about how to do those things. How do we create a healthy relationship with food and with our bodies and with exercise? And to support that? Today's episode is going to be all about muscles, meaning the key things to consider when it comes to your mindset around approaching muscle growth, when you should care about it, why you should care about it, how to go about doing it, and how to prioritize it without slipping into disordered eating tendencies. Is obsession or becoming an obnoxious bro body lifter. To bring insights into this conversation, we've got my friend Doctor Joey Munoz on this show with us today.

Michelle Yates 00:01:10  Doctor Joey is a nutrition science PhD and the founder of fit for Life Academy, with a passion for evidence based fitness and nutrition, which we love. Here, he helps individuals transform their health and achieve their dream bodies through sustainable science backed methods. Doctor Joey is dedicated to debunking common fitness myths and providing clear, practical advice that leads to lasting results. And I always appreciate his balanced perspective with things, because you always brings a balanced approach to conversations around health and wellness and body composition, and especially in today's episode, I think you're going to see evidence of that, where it's this perspective of like, hey, we don't need to like, kill ourselves over achieving the dream body, especially if it's just because you want to look a certain way like that can be really fleeting and not really bring you true joy or health or happiness, but at the same time, like, we don't need to just completely forget pursuing health either and and just be like, lazy and be like, well, whatever. I'm just not even going to try.

Michelle Yates 00:02:13  So I really love the way that he brings compassion and balanced perspective into really all things health and wellness, but particularly on this topic as well. I have always agreed with his perspective and his approach on things, so I'm excited for you to hear more from him. He's more of a specialist on fitness than I am. I'm kind of just like, I like fitness because I like fitness, but I wouldn't call myself a specialist. Like it's not what I dedicate my time to understanding more. So I always refer out for conversations like that, and I know this is going to be a really valuable episode for anybody interested in the topic. I'll put all of Joey's links into the show notes so that you know how to learn more from him, and where to work with him. To learn more about working with me and my team, which you may want to consider if you find yourself stuck in a restrict binge roller coaster. Maybe you've been struggling with bingeing or closet eating for years or decades and have tried every single diet under the sun, and you're feeling really sick of it.

Michelle Yates 00:03:10  You just want out, and you want to find a way to find peace with food and with your body and kind of like, find the gray area instead of the all or nothing mentality when it comes to health and wellness. Then you'll find more about what our program also called Nourished and Free. Just like the name of this podcast, you'll find more about what that looks like in the show. Notes. Well, welcome to the show, Joey. I'm so glad to have you on my show officially.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:03:32  Of course. Thank you for having me.

Michelle Yates 00:03:33  Yes, it's so good to see. It was a while ago since I was on yours a few months, right?

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:03:38  At least. Yeah.

Michelle Yates 00:03:40  I feel like you have grown so much on social media since then. I was like, trying to find your profile today to message you the link. And I was like, oh my gosh, she's growing so much. Like, that is so awesome because I love seeing evidence based accounts, getting their information out and being seen by more eyes because as you know, there's a lot of accounts that have millions of followers and they are giving the worst information out there and advice.

Michelle Yates 00:04:03  So anyway, excited for you. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. So today we I want to talk about the topic of building muscle lean mass. I think it's something that we especially when we're going through the process of healing our relationship with food and with our body and trying not to be so perfectionistic and all or nothing. And, you know, as we're getting into more of the anti diet world, I guess we get kind of afraid to want to pursue building muscle because we're afraid. So that's what I see a lot of times with clients, like there's this fear of, well, is that diet culture again, is that slipping back into my old mentality where it's disordered and I want to have like a balanced conversation about muscle mass today, where we can talk about the benefits of it and do that in a way where it's like, we're still taking care of your relationship with food, though, and your relationship with your body. Like this is all in the name of caring for you, not to meet somebody who's like, expectations for you.

Michelle Yates 00:05:14  I guess. Like this is truly a good thing for your health overall and your well-being. So yeah, with that being said, do you want to kind of dig into what the benefits of having muscle mass are and building muscle resistance, training all of that? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:05:30  Yeah, totally. And just to start off like to set the tone. I think everything can be done in a, in a positive way or in a harmful way. Right? Like and I know this is something you talk about often like dieting is not good nor bad. It depends on how you approach it. It depends on your psychological relationship with how you're doing it as well. Same goes with any sort of fitness endeavor trying to build muscle, whatever it is. And the same can be said for anything outside of like nutrition and fitness as well. Right. Like, yeah, some people have a poor relationship with their work and need to be able to manage that better. So everything I don't think I'm not really a big believer of like good and bad, right? I think it all depends on how you approach it.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:06:08  Right, absolutely. And what we try to do with a lot of our clients for life is also help them improve their health and body composition in a healthy and sustainable way. And a big part of that for us is helping them optimize, muscle mass. Right? A lot of the people that come to us want to build muscle, but we really do it from a health focused perspective. And I think it's probably a great place to start the conversation, because I feel like one of the biggest misconceptions is that building muscle is just for looks. Yeah, and I'm not a bro or I don't care about bodybuilding, so why should I care about muscle mass? And that just couldn't be further from the truth right. And to to also clear this up when I'm talking about building muscle, I'm not talking about being a bodybuilder. Yeah I'm just talking about having adequate muscle for health. Right. Yeah. Being strong, being physically capable. So some of the obvious benefits of building muscle are improvements in physical function and quality of life as you age, right? What most people don't realize is that after the age of about 50, muscle mass tends to decline pretty quickly.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:07:13  Now you can build muscle in your 50s, in your 60s, but in reality we we achieve peak muscle mass in like our mid 30s. It's so important to prioritize muscle mass as we age. And by the way, guys, if you're listening, if you're in your 40s or 50 or even your 60s and you haven't started, it's not too late. You can always build muscle mass. You just build it at a slower rate when you're older. But, you know, as we age, I'm sure we all have family members or family friends who have had to go into assisted living facilities because they couldn't take care of themselves anymore. A big part of that is due to low muscle mass, low strength, low physical function, right? And so muscle mass becomes incredibly important as we age. For those reasons. For me. Like, I don't want to be in my 70s or 80s and need help getting out of bed or bringing my groceries into the house, or just doing activities of daily living.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:08:03  Right? So that's one really important aspect of having muscle mass as we age. Beyond that, this goes hand in hand with bone mass as well, specifically in women. And I feel like a big, big part of your audience are women, right? It's like after menopause, women lose a ton of bone mass, and it's mainly due to the loss of estrogen. But we can combat that with resistance training, because the same way that lifting weights makes your muscles bigger, because you need bigger muscles to lift the weight, your bones become more dense as well, because you need a denser bone to be able to resist that weight as well. Right? Like if you put a bar on your back and you're doing squats and you slowly, gradually add weight to that, your bones become denser. And the reason why bone density is so important is because osteoporosis is a debilitating disease, and it's unfortunately more prevalent in women than it is men. But a large percentage of individuals over the age of 70 who fall and break a hip die within a year.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:08:54  And that's highly preventable, right? It's sad to see happen because it's something that can actually be prevented. So I would say those are some of the most obvious benefits of resistance training and focusing on building muscle. But beyond that, what people don't understand is that higher amounts of muscle mass. And again, when I say higher amounts of muscle, I'm talking about within a natural limit, right? We're not again, talking about being a bodybuilder, but higher amounts of muscle mass is associated with a reduced risk of pretty much every chronic disease. Most people think that you have to do cardio for cardiovascular benefits, and cardio is great for cardiovascular benefits, but resistance training also has a great cardiovascular benefit. there's a reduced risk of all sorts of cardiovascular diseases, reduced risk of diabetes, reduced risk of age related cognitive decline, reduced risk of specific cancers. So we know that exercise in general is great. But I really do think that more people need to focus on optimizing muscle mass, because most people know that you should run, you should be active, you should get your heart rate up, you should sweat.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:09:54  But very few people understand that building muscle like beyond exercise, like actually focusing on building muscle, is incredibly important for these health related outcomes as well.

Michelle Yates 00:10:04  I feel like too, there's like this mentality of if you don't sweat or you don't get your heart rate up to a certain amount, then the workout was pointless or it didn't do anything. And sometimes when you're resistance training, it can be more, I mean, it's going to be a little bit lower with your heart rate, probably, unless you're trying to do like a max or something, you might not sweat. So sometimes I like do an hour long workout and I don't really break a sweat. But it's like, was that pointless though, because I was lifting heavy stuff, you know, like and that's a mentality I totally used to have was like, if I'm not sweating that, it was pointless. I didn't do enough. And I think that's where people kind of a part of the reason people neglect it sometimes, or they feel like it's not worth their time is because they just have this mentality of it's not working me hard enough, you know? Yeah.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:10:58  Yeah. And I wanted to follow up there and say like, yeah, it's funny because that ties. First off, I was going to say if you're not sweating in an hour of lifting, you're not pushing hard.

Michelle Yates 00:11:09  Well, easy sometimes. Not every time.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:11:12  No. But all jokes aside, it's funny because sweat is influenced by like, your temperature as well, right? Like, if you're in the cold, you're probably not going to sweat much, even if you're doing cardio. So it's like it's. And you could walk in the heat and that's not really hard exercise and you're going to sweat. So like sweat is just an indicator of your body regulating its core temperature. It has nothing to do with the effectiveness of a workout. But I think that comes from this misconception of or the idea that the purpose of exercise is to burn calories. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And if you're sweating, you're getting hot, you're burning calories, which also isn't true. Like you could sweat and not burn many calories.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:11:50  But anyways, what I try to tell my clients and try to get everyone to understand is that the purpose of exercise is not to burn calories, and it's not to lose weight. Although exercise can aid in that, that's not the main purpose for exercise in my opinion. The main purpose for exercise is to improve health related outcomes and improve your physical capacities. Right? Physical capacities being strength, athleticism, cardiovascular endurance, right. All different types of physical capacities and the exercise modalities that you do should be aimed at improving those with a focus on doing that. Right. So if you're just like jogging for the sake of sweating or like putting on, what do people do? Like put on garbage bags and stuff like go run in the sun so they sweat more.

Michelle Yates 00:12:40  Or like.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:12:40  Sweating or doesn't mean anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I think it's difficult for people, you know, because most people start the relationship with exercise from the perspective of I'm going to exercise so I can lose weight.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:12:55  And right off the bat, that's just, in my opinion, not not the purpose of exercise whatsoever.

Michelle Yates 00:13:00  No, I think that's so good. So good to highlight. And that's like when I when my clients make that shift from exercise being about losing weight, which is inherently about them, almost like punishing themselves, at least a lot of the times in the cases of the women I work with, they want to lose weight because they feel like they aren't good enough with the body that they have. And again, like there's a time and place like it can be done in a healthy way, but when it's coming from this place of like punishment and self-hatred, then that's not sustainable. You know, like it's so hard to continue on with something that you're doing out of a place of negativity rather than out of this place of like, I genuinely desire to be able to bring in my own groceries when I'm 75, or to not fall and break a hip, you know, and I think that it's hard to put yourself in that long term state of mind, you know, like we're as a culture so focused on the short term and the right now and the instant satisfaction that that can be a hard motivating factor for people to get behind because they're just like, I don't need to worry about that yet.

Michelle Yates 00:14:08  But yeah, I mean, it's it's something we should think about. What do you think are some more of those like immediate, not immediate, but more of the short term like benefits that we can get from resistance training, even like mental health, like endorphins or anything like that that you think would be good to know.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:14:29  Yeah. And this is a really important topic because I think it's important to have like motivators to get people into the gym. Right. And so some of the things that I get feedback from, from clients and like even the first 2 or 3 months, is one feeling stronger, like it's really cool to feel stronger, right? I work with a lot of individuals who are between, like 40 and 60 years old on average, and I work with a lot of women who are like in their mid 50s. And I'm thinking of one client in particular. We actually just had a check in earlier today, and she was telling me, first off, she worked out in a sports bra for the first time ever and she's like, wow, my back muscles look really cool.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:15:11  I've never seen that. She comes from a background of like literally doing hours of cardio and running. She always wanted to lose weight and we've been working on that. And so she sent me these pictures to like, look at my back. It looks awesome. And then she's like, but besides that, I was just at a baseball game with my granddaughter because her grandson plays baseball and her granddaughter is like £35 now. And she was like, man, this lady is like in her definitely above 55. she's somewhere between 55 and 60. And she was telling me she was grabbing her £35 granddaughter and just like, tossing her in the air up and down. And she wasn't thinking anything of it. But then she came to the realization she's like, I wasn't really able to do that. This is easily even like a year ago. And a year ago, the baby weighed even less. Right? And she was like, this is literally from lifting weights. So seeing yourself become physically stronger is super cool.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:16:02  I have another client, in our group coaching program, who has just started lifting weights about four months ago, and she's still learning a ton, but she's feeling herself getting stronger. Right. And she was saying before she would be winded just from going up the stairs. And what people often don't think of when they like get winded doing something really easily, like going upstairs and they feel like it's their cardiovascular health. Oftentimes it's just that they're really weak, muscular, early and improving strength a little bit and like reduces your exertion on those movements substantially. Right. Because if you have low muscle strength, going up the stairs might feel like a really hard set of resistance training. Essentially it is resistance training, right? You're just using your body weight. And so if you simply improve your muscular strength, that becomes substantially easier. Again, the grocery stuff. This was one that I hear all the time. Just like carrying groceries becomes easier. So like your physical capacities start to improve, you feel stronger.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:16:59  Things that felt difficult feel easier. That's really cool too. Your body starts to respond pretty quickly as well. I think it's really cool to see some muscle definition, right? Like it's powering. It's like, man, I'm doing this thing and I'm seeing immediate results. That's I think a pretty immediate benefit. And this one goes hand in hand with the first one. And I think it's it's one of the things that I want to talk about in terms of like how to do this in a healthy way, but it's really celebrating like performance in the gym, right? I feel like so many people, again, when it comes to exercise or nutrition, do it for the way they look. Yeah. Versus focusing on what their body can do. And it's like if you're following a structured resistance training plan and you're doing certain exercises and you see yourself getting stronger week after week after week. That's really empowering. I would say some those are some of the the main, major benefits that I see people experience at the beginning.

Michelle Yates 00:17:53  Yes. It's so much more fun to just feel like, wow, I didn't that.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:18:00  Yeah. And I was going to say it's a great stress reliever as well. But I think the stress relief and more of the the psychological benefits come with years of lifting, because at the beginning, I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty uncomfortable. It's hard. Right? Like you have to really focus because you don't know how to do these exercises. And you mentioned earlier, like when you do cardio, you sweat a ton. Lifting is hard in a completely different way, right? It's like your lungs are on fire, but your muscles are on fire and everything's shaking and you, it's really hard. So I wouldn't say at the beginning, like lifting is a great stress reliever simply because it's stressful, right? That's the honest truth. But over time it becomes way more therapeutic. It just it takes time to get there.

Michelle Yates 00:18:43  Yeah. And even like so in the midst of that lifting session or workout, it can be very hard.

Michelle Yates 00:18:51  And when you're done with it though, like, I feel like you got to where there's that sense of accomplishment, there's that sense of like, I'm done. Like I get to be done with this today or for the week or whatever it is. And that was hard, but I did it. And there's that sense of, okay, I can do hard things. And I think that's always good for us to remember, because sometimes we forget and we get hard on ourselves. Yeah, yeah. Love that. So many benefits, so many just put putting it out there for anybody. That's not strength training yet or lifting yet. Just just do it for a little bit and see how you feel. Please. For me and Joey, do you feel like there's any risks that we should talk about or mention when it comes to strength training or trying to build muscle? Yeah.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:19:44  So under the umbrella of strength training, you could strength train in many different ways. Right. And this is maybe a little bit nuanced and people don't know the differences, but you could do like bodybuilding style training or you could do powerlifting or you could do CrossFit, or you could do there's a bunch of different ways to strength train, right.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:20:03  Strength train would just talk about exercising, using weights, surprisingly bodybuilding style training. And when I say bodybuilding style training, it's just training in a way that is optimal for muscle growth specifically has the lowest risk of injury. Okay. So there's actual research on this in terms of like number of hours spent training, how many injuries occur. Bodybuilding has the lowest number of injuries not just amongst strength sports but general sports overall. it's funny because things like soccer, basketball, football have much higher injury risk. So overall injury risk with lifting weights is relatively low. But the risk, I mean, there's always a risk if you don't really know what you're doing. Right? So I think it's important at first to definitely invest in a, in a qualified professional to teach you how to do things. Because, yeah, if you're doing something and you're doing it incorrectly and you twist some sort of way that you shouldn't be twisting, you might get hurt if you, go into the gym and maybe you try to use weights that are a little bit too heavy, you might get hurt.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:21:09  Some of the biggest, you know, mistakes that I see people make are doing things like not training through a full range of motion, or not controlling the weight, or not training with the appropriate tempo. And like these are small little details that can significantly influence injury risk. Right. So when I talk about training with a full range of motion, I mean doing an exercise through the entire range through which that joint can move, right. And I'm going to try to think of an example here. Let's say a push up. Everybody knows what a push up is, right. A full range of motion for a pushup would be starting with your chest literally, completely laying on the floor and then pushing all the way up to where you're fully extended, right? That's difficult for a lot of people. So what do people do? They start up top and become halfway down and they go back up, and they never go all the way down until their chest touches the floor. Right. Well, when you're doing that, you're essentially training an exercise with more weight than you can actually handle, because you can't do it through a full range of motion with the weight that you're using.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:22:12  And in this case, with a pushup, it's your bodyweight. It's much better to probably start with just doing those push ups on your knees and training them through a full range of motion, so you're not putting excess tension on your joints through a partial range of motion. And you're never strengthening those joints in different ranges of motion. So it's little things like that that I think can quote unquote, increase the risk of injury. But if done correctly, the injury risk is pretty low.

Michelle Yates 00:22:38  Yeah, that's really interesting about like the bodybuilding side of strength training being the low. But it makes sense because I feel like that style of strength training is it's a lot slower, and bodybuilding.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:22:49  Style training is not focused on lifting as much weight as possible, even though that's what people think. It's really about control. Putting tension on the muscles, doing movements correctly. Like the more focusing control you have on movements that in theory better it's going to be to stimulate muscle growth versus just throwing weight around. So in general, I'm a huge fan of bodybuilding style training because it's safe.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:23:09  It's extremely effective for muscle growth. And I think in a lot of the people that we work with in biased population, it's, finds it very enjoyable overall.

Michelle Yates 00:23:20  Yeah. Yeah, that's always been my favorite kind of strength training too. Is it just I feel like it's more relaxed and in a way, you know, whereas something more like a CrossFit classes, it can be kind of stressful, like, oh my God, I gotta get everything done in a certain amount of time. And yeah, well, I.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:23:35  Come from a, I come from like a powerlifting background where I did powerlifting for a couple of years. Yeah. And powerlifting. The focus of powerlifting is opposite to bodybuilding, where bodybuilding you're trying to put as much tension as possible on the muscle. And the way you do that is by making exercises as difficult as possible. So you use lighter weight because you do it in a way that's mechanically disadvantageous. And I know I'm getting into the weeds here, but something like powerlifting, you are trying to lift as much weight as possible.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:24:00  So you put yourself in a way, essentially you're trying to do it in the most efficient way so you can lift the heaviest load possible. So you move quicker, you limit range of motion. You essentially are trying to cheat, quote unquote, as much as possible within the rules. Right. And when I used to do that, I would literally get injured all the time because I'm just trying to throw the heaviest weight I possibly can around. And that's just a recipe for disaster.

Michelle Yates 00:24:25  Yeah, yeah. I think another risk, too, that I kind of want to highlight just from my perspective, is the risk of like your environment and, you know, the people that you might be around when you're Pursuing a building muscle. And, you know, some people can make it hard to have a healthy relationship with exercise or with food because there is like, to your point, that mentality of it being all about how you look instead of performance or functionality. And and then too, if that's your mindset, if that's your intention going into it, then I think your your risks like in a way they increase because there's this different mentality.

Michelle Yates 00:25:08  It's more easily it's more vulnerable to trying things that maybe aren't as safe and pushing yourself really hard to an unsafe degree. You know, like I used to do two days on a thousand calories a day, like just insane stuff like that, because my mentality was aesthetic focused instead of what's the best thing for my body? What's the most like? How can I improve my performance and function? It was not about that at all, and I was pushing myself too much, you know? Yeah. So I want to highlight that too, because if you find yourself experiencing that, that's a very real thing. Like, that's where the intention is so important. Back to what we were saying at the beginning. It's not like good or bad, it's just what is your mindset going into this? What is your intention and your motivation? Are you in a healthy spot mentally to do something like this physically?

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:25:57  Yeah, and I think from what you mentioned, some of those risks can be mitigated based off the community you expose yourself to, right? Yeah.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:26:05  Is there a lot of gyms that are gyms with just weights? But it's not like a bodybuilding gym, right? Like a, like a you fit or a Planet Fitness or something like that. That's usually a little bit of an older crowd. People who are just there to be healthy, lift some weights. And by the way, I also want to emphasize I'm I don't know about your take on this. Like I'm not against people having aesthetic goals either, right?

Michelle Yates 00:26:28  Like I think it can be done.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:26:30  Well. Yeah, exactly. If done in a healthy fashion. And I bring this up because my background, like when I started doing this stuff, was same as you, literally just for aesthetic goals. And I've never had an eating disorder or anything like that. But like, I definitely have had a poor relationship with food and it used to impact the things that I would do and it would impact, like if I ate something and I thought I ate too much, I would feel bad about it and necessarily I would do X amounts of exercise next day.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:26:54  So I've been there, right? I was young, but I've gone through that, and I always say that fitness was the thing that really helped me. And what I mean by fitness is like changing my mindset from nutrition, exercise, simply being to look a certain way, to like performing a certain way. Right? So and I know everybody's different, but I'm very competitive and I like even competing just against myself. So yeah, I track my workouts and if I see myself getting a little bit stronger, that to me is addictive, right? And then I chase the things that make me stronger and perform better. And inherently, the things that make me perform better are relatively healthy behaviors, right? It's not starving myself, because if I'm not eating enough, I'm not going to perform well in the gym, so it's eating enough, right? It's making sure I have a pretty well balanced and healthy diet, because if I don't and my digestion is shitty and my stomach hurts, I'm not going to perform well.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:27:47  It means not drinking alcohol on the weekends because I need to get sleep and I need to recover. It means prioritizing my sleep. And so for me, like fitness was almost like the gateway to then prioritizing all these healthy behaviors. And I think after like 15 years of doing this stuff, now I'm in a much different place where some of the stuff that we were sharing earlier with, like, I personally think fitness is the reason why I have so much success in different areas of my life, and not that I'm ridiculously successful or anything like that, but I think it's taught me a lot of lessons that are hard for people to understand. Unless you've been doing this for a really, really long time. Yeah. And what do I mean by that? For example, like with business or with relationships, learning the importance of delayed gratification is really important, right? Like there are things that you're going to put a ton of effort in and barely see any results, and it's going to take time to see the fruit of your labor.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:28:42  That is what lifting teaches you, in my opinion, 100% at the beginning. You make really fast results. After 15 years, I barely see any progress in the gym, but I still keep doing it because I love it. But you learn that skill. You learn the skill of doing hard things, as you mentioned earlier. Yeah, like lifting and pushing your limits and learning how to do that consistently is really is really hard. Like a lot of times. And now I go to the gym because I truly want to go. But for years it's like a mental battle to go to the gym because you know how hard that workout is going to be, especially when you're really pushing your limits. And I think those skills have translated for me over to business and relationships. It makes me a more calm person, like, yeah, maybe this is just me, but when I see people that are really like, I don't know, this is going to be controversial with people who are like, not calm and maybe very antsy and stuff.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:29:27  I'm like, man, you need to go workout and push your body really hard because I feel like some of those things help change. the way you are a bit. Anyways, that's just been my experience so far.

Michelle Yates 00:29:38  Well, it's like your your ability to cope with stress and kind of changes because when you're exercising and lifting really hard, you're putting yourself through stress willingly. Yeah. And yeah, it's I love that you brought that up because I think it's so true. It's just like that ability to teach you how to be resilient and to persevere through things that, like, they're not always fun, they're not always satisfying in the moment. But again, like we're thinking about the long term. We're not thinking about what's going to make me feel good right now. Yeah. Even though it might make you feel good.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:30:13  But and I think there's just a benefit and you don't have to do this through lifting, but lifting can offer this. I think there's just a massive benefit to intentionally doing hard things on a regular basis.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:30:25  Things that you don't want to do. Yeah. Right. Like I say I love lifting, I love the benefits I get from lifting. But when I have to do a hard set I'm not saying I love this.

Michelle Yates 00:30:34  Yeah. It's really interesting, right?

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:30:36  And I think that allows me to sit on my computer at seven in the morning when I don't want to, and look at my to do list and just start. Right. I think that allows me to be more present with family when I'm exhausted and I don't want to do certain things. And yeah, I don't know. I think that crosses over into a little bit more of the philosophical stuff that takes time to to realize all.

Michelle Yates 00:30:56  About that, though. And I think that's so true and it's so good to I'm talking about benefits of this. Like, here's a really awesome one, you know, is that it builds character and perseverance and resilience.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:31:10  It's funny, Michel, because you mentioned earlier, you know, like people who are super into bodybuilding and all this stuff, but at least from my experience at any gym or any person that I've talked to who is obviously really advanced in their fitness journey, who's like in great shape, really strong, has a ton of muscle, with few exceptions.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:31:28  Those tend to be some of the nicest people like. And it's funny because sometimes those people look scary.

Michelle Yates 00:31:34  Okay.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:31:35  So because they're intense, but they're just like so nice, so helpful. They tend to have great personalities overall. Obviously there are exceptions, but I do think part of that is developed through just doing something hard on a regular basis and dedicating yourself to committing to doing something difficult.

Michelle Yates 00:31:52  Yeah, that's so true. They are intimidating to look at, but some of the nicest people. so let's kind of dip into the nutrition side of things. Sure. What are some takeaway things that people can focus on nutrition wise? That's not going to drive them crazy or make them feel like super stressed out to help them support the resistance training, strength training and build muscle.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:32:18  Yeah. So the first and most important thing overall, which goes in line with, live, nourished and free, is to nourish your body like you need. First and foremost, you need to eat enough. Yes. You don't eat enough.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:32:32  You're not going to see improvements in body composition in terms of building muscle. Why the the analogy I like to use is like people think that lifting weights builds muscle and it doesn't. Lifting weights is just the signal or the stimulus to tell your body, hey, build muscle. Right. It's like it's like building a house and having the blueprint, like the blueprint doesn't build the house. It just tells you what to do. Right? And then you need the building blocks, the cement, the bricks, whatever. I don't know how to build a house, but you need the adequate nutrition. And adequate nutrition is not the only factor. Sleep's really important as well. Stress management, all those things. But those are essentially the building blocks, right? Because straight up like your food turns into muscle, right? And if you aren't consuming sufficient food, there's no excess food for your body to prioritize muscle growth. So the most important thing is just eating enough. So that would be first and foremost.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:33:26  Then I would say focusing on protein consumption. And if we talk about how much protein you should be eating, there's so much debate around this, and it's so silly because it doesn't need to be an exact number. But in general, if you can aim for at least 0.7 to 0.8 grams per pound of body weight or pound of ideal body weight, that's going to be sufficient, right? Like I weigh around £215. I aim for around 190 to 200g of protein per day, and I just do that consistently. And an easy way to do that this is those comes down to changing eating behaviours, but it's really just focusing your meals around protein as much as possible. I think people take this a little bit overboard when they just like only put protein on their plate, but just make sure you have an adequate amount of protein on your plate, right? Yeah, I would say for most people, if you have three solid meals, having a four ounce portion of protein on your plate is probably a very reasonable start.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:34:22  And then maybe if you have a snack or something, trying to get another 20g or something like that of protein with a snack. Obviously these are very generic recommendations. It depends on everybody's like what your weight is, what your size is, and what your fitness level is. But in general, that's probably a good start. Yeah. And then Beyond Protein, if we're talking about just body composition specifically, I do think if we take it a little bit beyond that, focusing on consuming mainly whole foods is really important simply from like digestion in general health perspective as well. Like, yeah, I've noticed I'm not, you know, my content, but maybe the people listening don't like I don't demonize any foods. I think it's fine to have whatever you want, as long as you're eating things within moderation and you're focusing on healthy behaviors and you have an overall healthy diet, it's not that big of a deal, right? But I have realized that when I tend to be a little bit more laxed with my diet and I eat out more, and I think and I eat things that are a little bit more processed and a little bit more, a little bit higher in fats in general.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:35:19  My digestion just feels off. Yeah, like I feel a little bit more bloated. I feel a little bit more uncomfortable. And that plays a role because it impacts my ability to perform well in the gym. And in order to build muscle, you need to perform. All because you need to progress, right? You need to slowly add more weight and get stronger. And if you're not performing well because your stomach doesn't feel great, and that happens frequently, that could, in theory, impact your ability to progress. I wouldn't say that's a direct variable, but that's one that, anecdotally I've experienced myself, does play a small role.

Michelle Yates 00:35:52  It can affect energy levels, too, like the quality of your diet, which obviously makes it harder to go do the hard workout.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:35:59  Yeah. In general, when I focus on things like having more consistency with my diet in terms of like meal timing and making sure I'm eating mostly minimally processed foods and including at least a serving or two veggies with most of my meals.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:36:12  I just feel good, right? I just feel good. And then that translates into being able to perform well in the gym. So again, that's I wouldn't say is like a direct effect, but definitely an indirect effect.

Michelle Yates 00:36:21  Yeah, yeah. And I love that. And like key focus on like this being most of the time like again we don't need to be a perfectionist here and never have a processed food again. You only eat stuff that you grow out of your own garden in the backyard. Good luck with that. Awesome. If you do that. Teach me your ways. But that's not like the requirement here. In order to build muscle or in order to be healthy. Like, there's ways that you can do this and you can work it into your life, that it shouldn't feel like it's consuming all your time and energy to make this work into your life.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:36:58  Yeah. And if I could add one more thing, because it's sometimes easy to forget the things that people think of when they're first starting off, because that was so long ago for me and for you.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:37:12  Right. Like, and what I was going to bring up is because when so many people start like looking up things about lifting or nutrition for lifting, they'll immediately start seeing things about like pre-workout nutrition and what you should be eating through your workout and what you need to drink a protein shake immediately after your workout. And you have to do this at this exact time. Guys, none of that matters. None of it. like eating around your workout may have, like, a 0.05% benefit. And it only matters when you're more advanced. It really does not matter. The only thing I would because, for example, like post-workout nutrition, you must have 30g of protein within an hour of your workout because of the anabolic window. It's just it's not true at all. And if you're getting total adequate protein throughout the day, it doesn't matter whether or not you have protein immediately after your workout. There's research on this. It literally doesn't matter. The only thing I would encourage people not to do if they want to focus on building muscle optimally, is to not train fasted.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:38:08  because we do know that consuming food prior to training does improve performance. And as I mentioned earlier, the number one driver of helping you build muscle is going to be progression in the gym. Right. And the most important thing for progression is performance. You need to be performing well. And what I mean by performing well, it doesn't mean like how strong are you compared to somebody else? It's just how well are you performing compared to your best, right?

Michelle Yates 00:38:33  Are you.

Michelle Yates 00:38:33  Improving? Exactly.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:38:34  And if you're not feeling your best, you're not going to perform that well that day. And even though it might feel difficult that day, it's not stimulating progress as much as it could compared to, if you like, better. So that was like the digestion thing that we were talking about energy levels, but also consuming food prior to training. This doesn't mean having a massive meal right before you work out, but like if you like working out in the morning, even having something as small as like a banana, just you have some carbohydrates to help fuel training, it's going to be extremely beneficial.

Michelle Yates 00:39:01  It is such a game changer. I used to buy into that where I thought that, like, I would be in the fat, quote unquote fat burning zone if I lifted or exercised fasted, you know, so I do it first thing in the morning because it's like miserable to wait until 3:00 in the afternoon to eat. But yeah, like I you're exhausted. It's so hard. And I accidentally did this a couple of weeks ago where I did a morning workout and for whatever reason, I hadn't eaten yet. And I was like, this is so hard today. Why is this so hard? And then I had an interruption because of my tiny children and was able to get some breakfast in. And then I went back to finish my workout and it was like night and day difference. I was like, wow, this is like, I feel good.

Michelle Yates 00:39:49  Yeah, it's just like.

Michelle Yates 00:39:51  Don't force yourself to train fasted based on these arbitrary rules, because it might actually be inhibiting your progress. Yeah.

Michelle Yates 00:39:58  but yeah, the eating protein within 30 minutes of working out was definitely something that I thought was legit for a long time, and I had to correct myself. It sounds very.

Michelle Yates 00:40:09  Legit.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:40:10  I used to go to the gym. This was back when I was like 16 or 17 years old. I used to go to the gym and it wasn't just about the post-workout protein. It was also about consuming simple carbs so you can shuttle that protein into your muscles. Like that's what it was all about. So I would go to the gym with my little shaker cup and a scoop of protein powder in there, and I put some Gatorade powder in there as well. And Michel, at the moment I finished my last set of the of the workout, I would run to the water fountain, fill it up and just like chug it. I'm like, it needs to be immediate. It's like thinking back on it now. It's so silly. But I was I was committed.

Michelle Yates 00:40:43  Oh yeah, you were. You were just chasing after those goals, man.

Michelle Yates 00:40:48  So one thing I want to circle back to you is that you mentioned the ideal protein limit is or range is about 0.7 to 0.8 grams per pound. Now, keep in mind when we see protein recommendations, sometimes it's listed as grams per kilogram, sometimes it's listed as grams per pound. So you're going to see a huge variation in the numbers if you're not paying attention to that unit there. But one thing I wanted to highlight is that it is a range. And I think a lot of times we get very set on this goal number that we have to hit every single day. You know, maybe we pick the upper limit. We do a 0.8 per grams per pound. And there can be this sense of like, if I don't hit that number, then I'm a failure. Yeah. You know, this is what I see all the time. Like, well, I didn't reach my goal, so I just like said effort and ate all the food that wasn't supposed to eat. You know, it's that all or nothing mentality.

Michelle Yates 00:41:49  So from your experience and your knowledge, is there a need to be perfect every day with hitting these protein goals or is there is there leeway? Are you still able to build muscle? If there's a day where you maybe don't get as much in as you did or as you were trying to, you know, like, or you end up missing a workout.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:42:14  Yeah. Of course. Right. Like I would say like do your best to consistently adequate protein. because if you're consistently like if every other day you're not eating any protein, like, that's definitely going to have an impact on your ability to progress and build muscle. But it's not like all or nothing, right? It's not like if you if you didn't hit 0.8 and you hit 0.79, you didn't build any muscle at that day or anything like that. It's a continuum, right? Like, yeah. Yes. In theory, if we're being objective, if you're eating less protein, maybe your ability to stimulate muscle isn't as great and you might build slightly less muscle.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:42:49  And I emphasize the word slightly because it's not a big difference, guys. But you know, like one day here, there is obviously not going to make a difference at all. Like I'm I'm all with you. Like you don't have to be perfect with it. What I'm a big fan of is like being consistent in doing your best. Yeah, right. Like if you're truly doing your best and you're actually staying consistent, it's not a big deal if you miss a day here, there every once in a while. But what I do like to talk to clients about is like the importance of prioritization, right? Because I think something that also puts people in this state of limbo and unhappiness is like being in cognitive dissonance of like wanting to achieve something but not doing the things to do to. To get there. And it's like, why? Right? And sometimes obviously there are a number of different reasons, but sometimes people are just like aren't truly putting their best foot forward, right? And that's another conversation for another day.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:43:40  But if you're doing your best, eating sufficient protein most days, falling short every once in a while is not a big deal at all. And you literally won't tell the difference in terms of your results.

Michelle Yates 00:43:50  Yeah, I love that because I think it can we can put a lot of pressure on ourselves to do the absolute best every single day. Even if you're on vacation or you have a death in the family or.

Michelle Yates 00:44:00  Yeah, that's.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:44:00  Something. You know, Michelle, because you and I have talked about this too. I think we talked about this on my podcast where it's like, we don't want people to go through these things and these experiences because we've been through them and they're they suck, right? Like, they they take joy away from the thing that should be most important. Like if you're on vacation with family and you're worried about the fact that you couldn't get enough protein like that's that sucks, right? Like, just enjoy the vacation. Yeah, but I wonder how much of, like, how much of that is almost necessary to get to a better place as well.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:44:32  Like, it's it is a journey, right. And having guidance do that because anybody who starts on a particular like fitness related journey, they learn that they should eat enough protein. Well, that's going to be on their mind. And if they go on vacation, they can't get protein like, oh, but I should be eating enough protein. And slowly those things improve over time, I think.

Michelle Yates 00:44:48  Yeah, that's an interesting point. There can be this like, sticking point, I guess, where it's very uncomfortable. You're like, oh gosh. Like I'm trying to prioritize this goal, but I'm not finding it easy to meet this goal right now. But at the same time, that can help you problem solve and figure it out for the future and problem solve your own emotions around it too. Yeah. And yeah, it's like as much as we try to prevent all of those negative things from happening, sometimes they are really helpful lessons to learn to get you to the other side where it's not negative.

Michelle Yates 00:45:21  It's something that's just like a part of your life.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:45:24  Yeah, yeah. And I don't think it's necessarily preventing those things, but having the right guidance to do those things is really helpful. Yeah. Because they have something to tell you like, hey, it's not that big deal, don't worry about it. And that's probably the that's probably it for that person. Right. But if you have somebody else tell you the complete opposite like, nah bro, you have to get your protein or like that's that's not going to be helpful either.

Michelle Yates 00:45:43  Yeah.

Michelle Yates 00:45:43  Yeah. You can have guidance that is either so harmful or so helpful and you gotta you gotta be picky about who you work with. Speaking of, how can people find you and work with you if they want to focus more on building muscle and getting swole?

Michelle Yates 00:45:59  Yeah, sure. So Joey, if.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:46:01  You guys want to follow me on social media, just add Doctor Joey Munoz pretty much everywhere. My podcast is the Doctor Joey Munoz Show because I'm not original and I couldn't think of a better name.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:46:12  And if people want to learn a little bit more about what we do, we'll links just be down in the description. Michelle. Yep.

Michelle Yates 00:46:17  Absolutely. Yeah.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:46:18  Don't worry about going on my website and inquiring about anything. I give out a free e-book that will teach you a little bit more about these things. And if you download my e-book, I'll also send you some emails that teach you a little bit more about these things, specifically with like optimizing nutrition and training for muscle growth. And I'll just say the link, but I'm sure they'll just go down below. It's just fit for life. Academy dot health slash blueprint. and that's it.

Michelle Yates 00:46:43  Love it, love it. And be sure that you guys do follow him on social media, because a lot of what we talked about today was very focused on like the strength training and all of that. But Joey's content is so great at just like your classic myth busting of nutrition and like there's so many great reaction videos, you're going to love it. It's like the best.

Michelle Yates 00:47:01  And I also feel like you're you're very calm and chill when it comes to this stuff. And a lot of the reaction videos are like almost annoying because people get hysterical and they get defensive and triggered and you're always just like, very chill and balanced, like even just like laughing at them like, no, this is ridiculous. Like, I just.

Michelle Yates 00:47:19  Love your approach. It's funny because.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:47:20  I try and like, I don't think I'm being show, but it's so funny. That's a feedback I get from everybody. I'm like, sometimes I record videos. I'm like, I'm trying to like, invoke an emotion. It's just, I guess somebody, somebody commented the other day, they were like, I didn't know you could be screaming at somebody so relaxed or.

Michelle Yates 00:47:37  Something like that, or like, know that you can scream while whispering or something.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:47:40  Like that. I'm like.

Michelle Yates 00:47:41  No, that is.

Michelle Yates 00:47:42  So you like that? And I think.

Michelle Yates 00:47:43  Loki roasting.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:47:44  Me in the comments. Yeah.

Michelle Yates 00:47:47  But that's why your content is, I think.

Michelle Yates 00:47:49  So, it can be a breath of fresh air, because you do have that calmer disposition. And honestly, like, people are tired of being screamed at on the internet. So yeah. Well, anyway, you're a great follow and also just a professional I respect. And so if you want to work with Joey, I highly recommend it. At least get on his email list and learn from him because he's a smart guy and and one of the good ones. So thanks for being on the show. I appreciate you and your time.

Dr. Joey Muñoz 00:48:17  Awesome, Michelle, thank you so much. We'll chat soon. Chat soon.