Speaker: Hey guys.
Welcome.
Welcome to the Lifting Lindsay podcast.
I am so excited to be here.
I feel like it's been forever because it has been, it's been like two months
since we've chatted, so I'm excited.
a lot has happened.
Uh, it's 2026 now.
I've turned 41.
I hit a two 60 deadlift.
That's double my weight.
So I was really excited about that.
A lot of you were awesome and joined me for the live where I did that.
And then this year I have a goal of hitting a 300 pound deadlift.
So.
I've never really, really focused on strength training.
You know, a lot of you are gonna be like, wait, but all you do is strength training.
What I mean by that is kind of more of like power lifting, like pure strength,
trying to move as much weight as possible.
Right.
A lot of my stuff is hypertrophy work.
So we are looking at building muscle.
Size and strength, but it's not pure, uh, strength or neurological
or power lifting type training.
So those are a little different.
And in my next podcast episode, I'm actually gonna go over my goals
hitting the 300 pound, uh, deadlift.
How I'm programming now that deadlift.
My once a week, you know, strength training for that.
I'll walk you through that.
I'll also walk you through a goal that I have of hitting 20 pull-ups, and I'm
really excited about that and what I'm doing right now to kind of move through a
strength phase to help me get more reps.
Right now I'm kind of stuck at 10, so that is the next episode.
I'm excited for that one.
and I'll also share how you can get your first pull-up now.
Today's episode.
You know, with 2026, I'm one of those between Christmas and the new Year, I
love thinking about like, new goals.
Like, what am I gonna do?
And I also love looking back on the past year and been like, you
know what, what did I accomplish?
And am I becoming the person?
That I wanna be and where are my gaps and how can I fill them in,
you know, joyful, progressive ways.
So, so I was just thinking about that and, and part of that thinking
was how can I serve you better?
How can I serve this community better?
What can I do to help educate you or what can I highlight this year?
And the thing that kept coming to me over and over again was to start a YouTube
channel where I can give longer format.
And a lot of it is going to actually be focused on how can I help you
navigate social media better?
I know that that kind of sounds funny, but, but think about it, when it is
hard to navigate health and fitness on social media because there are so,
there so many opinions out there and.
The information a lot of times are just, it's wildly different.
Okay.
Let me, let me just use this as an illustration.
The other day I was on, reels and I was just kinda scrolling and.
Up popped up this video where this guy, I, I was dying.
I was laughing so hard.
I actually sent it to my husband and he came in the room and he was laughing
so hard, but, okay, I'll explain why we were both laughing so hard at
this because this guy, he nailed it.
He nailed the marketing, he nailed the real.
He had millions of views.
He had like 20,000 likes, and he nailed it.
It was like at the very beginning of the reel, it was like,
you're doing biceps curls wrong.
It's like, oh, well I wanna stay and watch.
Am I doing it wrong?
Right.
So it, the hook was just like amazing.
And then he, he flashed a picture of.
anatomy, picture of the biceps, and this is the biceps.
And, and then he starts using technical words like inertia,
and you have this sticky point where you're fighting inertia.
And I was like, okay.
And he kept using inertia, that word.
And I'm like, uh, what's that one part of, uh, princess Bride?
When he is like, you keep using that word.
I do not think it means what you think it means anyways.
It was so funny because I'm like, I dunno, I think we have different
definitions of inertia and then he's like, the muscle, the strength curve
is like this and we wanna flatten it.
And I'm like, well, I don't think we can flat strength.
Do you mean I don't think you mean strength curve.
I mean, I think you mean resistance profile and that's fine, but,
but once again, you, you can't.
Flat in that.
And anyways, it was just really funny and he's, he's big and muscular and
using all the right words and all of a sudden graphs are flashing in and, and
people are like, wow, this is amazing.
And anyways, I sent it to Alex and he walked in and he is laughing so hard
and he's like, I think every single word he used so many big words, and
I think every single one of 'em.
I don't think he knows the definition.
I'm like, that's exactly what I was laughing about.
And I'm like, but he, he did, he checked every single box in what
makes, like it pulls you in, right?
And like he's muscular.
Check.
He, he uses anatomy, pictures, check.
He used this graph, check.
He has all these big words.
Check all of them.
Were wrong.
Check, check.
And I'm like, this is literally, this is, and I told Alex, this is what's
wrong with the fitness industry.
This is it.
Like he literally came to this crazy conclusion based off of what looked
intelligent, but was way off base.
He didn't even know basic, like, you know, used all the big words, but
didn't even know what they meant.
But yet.
People who are just trying to live their lives and have lives and have
families, and have jobs, they don't, they don't have time to read about
all of these things and, and know it.
They haven't studied it.
This isn't their jam.
So that was so convincing,
and I told Alex, I'm like, I want to help people navigate this better because
he literally showed you a worse way.
To do a biceps curl telling you that he could ch it was, Aw, it was awful.
It was.
And I was just like, ah, this is, how can I help my community?
How can I help them navigate social media better because it is so hard?
And that is what kept coming to my mind over and over again.
And as I was thinking about it over the past few weeks, I've had some
experiences that just kind of came to my mind and, I want to use three women
and three experiences to illustrate this whole idea of we've got to be
better at navigating social media.
And maybe how we can, and I'm, I'm hoping that using these three women can help
open our minds a little bit, because often what we do is we compare our private
lives to someone's public highlight reel.
And what we're seeing is a, is little glimpse and, not necessarily
the full helpful information.
Now, before I go into this, I, I do wanna say really clearly that
these three women are wonderful.
This is not a dig at anyone.
This is not calling anyone out.
This is not tearing anyone down.
This is to hopefully open your eyes about a few things.
Okay?
Because I really have, I've been thinking how can I serve you better this year?
And I really think that this might be it.
Helping you learn how to filter a little bit better what we see, and helping
you understand that yes, there are principles we can learn from one another,
but we are also still very individual.
We are not all working with the same canvas.
We have different heights, different genetics, different muscle insertions,
different hormone environments, different stress levels, different life seasons.
If we don't understand that social media can really mess with us.
So let me kind of go through three stories, which I feel
like illustrates this very well.
the first is a woman, someone at the gym that I actually
really look up to and love.
She's a professional bikini, bodybuilder.
She comes in, she works hard, she's kind to people.
She isn't showy, just disciplined, just gets in, works hard.
This woman has literally the most incredible quads on planet Earth.
I swear.
I swear, I'm not exaggerating.
They're unbelievable.
And I finally gained enough courage this past year to walk up to her and tell
her in the least creepy possible way.
I'm obsessed with her legs.
Okay, I didn't say that.
I did not say that, but I, I'm like, okay, how can I not be creepy?
Like, go up, talk to her, Lindsay.
Don't be creepy though.
Don't be creepy.
Anyways, I just told her, you have an incredible physique.
You come in here and you work so hard, and I honestly, I love your quads.
Um, she laughed and said, what's funny about that is genetically,
they're actually too big for my sport.
So when I compete, I've been told multiple times they need to be smaller.
So she said, so I don't train them at all and this is just what they look like.
And she's like even kind of hoping they continue to like, they atrophy a
little bit, but I don't, I don't know if they will pass this point, but she's
like, I don't even touch them and this is just what they look like and I just
want you to kind of let that sink in.
Okay.
This woman whose quads I admire so much doesn't even.
Train squat ever.
So all of her glute stuff, all of her hamstring stuff, she's trying to stay
away from squat patterns and she's doing a lot more hinge because squat
is gonna be recruiting more quad.
So she goes in and she does a lot of glute stuff, but as best as possible,
limiting anything that will touch quads.
Isn't that so funny?
So the hard thing about social media.
Is oftentimes we look at someone and think, oh, I better do what they do so
that I can look like them, so I'm gonna do their workout so that I look like them.
Well, imagine if I tried to do that.
If I'm like, oh, I love her body.
I love her quads.
Okay, I better do her workout then, so that I, no, no, my,
my quads would, would atrophy.
They would disappear because I have worked so hard over the
past 10 years to build my quads.
Like those of you who've seen my before and after picture.
The before picture is like a pencil.
The after picture, I have like tripled my quads and they're still not where they
want, where I want to be, but genetically, me and this woman just built differently.
So it really is so fascinating.
Genetics do play such a massive role, and this is once again,
why I want to do a YouTube.
channel so that I can show you guys, show you origin points, insertion points, how
those change muscle, how bone structure can change the look of a muscle.
How I want to dive into all of this with you because we live in this world
right now where people think, oh.
F I'm following this girl on Instagram.
She has incredible quads and maybe she points to her quads
and says, you know, like, do this to have my long, lean muscles.
It's like, well, one, unless you're her height, you're not gonna have longer
muscle tissue than what you have.
So that's like already a huge red flag.
And a lot of what she has may just be due to genetics.
So we have to be so cautious when you, when you do those exercises, One thing
that's kind of frustrating for me looking at social media is sometimes I'll
look at the exercises that they share and I'm like, those are not even quad
exercises Nobody's building your quads.
With that, unless they already have your exact genetics, I thought
that story was so funny to me.
'cause I'm like, wow.
Here I'm trying to look like her, and I am doing, you know, quads three times a week.
She, on the other hand, is like, I'm not touching them because I like am just
trying to atrophy or maintain what I have.
They cannot get any bigger, so it's so, so funny.
A lot of people online have great muscle shape guys.
They have great physiques or size, and we assume that they built that
purely from what they're currently doing, but many of them really
haven't gone through a huge stage of going from bird legs to, you know.
Quads.
Some of it really is just how their body distributes body fat even and
muscle, and we don't see that part.
Right.
That's so hard.
so onto the second story.
So there is this, she's a very cute woman who is really, really
popular on social media and once in a while I see her at my gym.
we've talked, I even had her on, uh, my podcast, I think once.
On the podcast, it was kind of funny because she talked about how she
wouldn't do a a, like a A show again.
She did a bodybuilding show.
or maybe she couldn't because it was 2020 or something.
Anyways, but she prepped for it and she told me she would never do it again
because the dieting portion was just too extreme for her, was just too hard.
And she didn't care about being that lean again because it came at such a cost.
So last year I saw her in the gym and I noticed, wow, she's shredded like.
Not lean, shredded.
We're talking about like three, four weeks out from a show.
So I walked up to her and was like, what?
Did you change your mind?
Are you doing a show?
I mean, you look great, but you're really like, you're not just
lean, you're, you're shredded.
And she's like, no, no, not doing a show.
Now she told somebody else that life had been stressful, and so she was just
walking more and the weight just fell off.
Now, if I'm being super honest, walking a little bit more, uh, doesn't just
take someone from someone, especially someone who's been lifting for a
decade, like from lean to stage, shredded, just walking doesn't do that.
And so she, she confided like, like, look, it's life's been stress.
So stressful.
I literally can't eat.
I can't eat a thing.
I'm barely eating right now.
And I was like, oh, oh, my heart just broke for like, I'm so sorry.
And that is how stress will impact some people to the point that
they just can't touch anything.
Now, if you'd only.
S have seen her social media, you'd think, oh, I just need to walk a little bit more.
Right?
We are often really bad at understanding the mechanisms behind results.
So her results didn't come from just increasing steps a little bit more.
It was drastically reducing calories in.
So before prepping for a show, you know, she's tracking everything, you
know, feeling that hunger, fighting it.
It's really, really hard.
This time around life is just hard and stress.
Some women will completely lose their appetite.
Now, I don't know about you, but I don't wanna get results that way, right?
So.
It's so hard because we're, we're just, once again, we're
not seeing the full story.
So if you think that increasing your steps a little bit is going to dramatically
get you, so you're seeing every single ab pop and striations and shredded,
that's just not, that's just not reality.
Right.
So we're just kinda seeing on social media these little things that it's kind
of not adding up right The third woman, I've also been following this woman
for years, probably five plus years.
Anyways, she likewise, uh, went from Lean to now.
She's over the past few years, has held a. Pretty shredded physique.
Uh, she's about five one very small and petite.
and based on visuals alone, I would probably estimate
she's around 15% body fat.
Uh, possibly even a little bit lower, just depending on the, the picture
she's showing and the lighting and it's, you know, allowing things to pop.
But, but she's not just lean.
She has clear abdominal separation.
I'm not just talking about on the sides.
You know how somebody will be lean and on their sides, they just kind
of have this nice little lines down, um, the, like the edge of their abs
and kind of towards their obliques.
They just have these two nice lines down.
That's very normal for somebody who's lean to have that.
When I say clear abdominal separation, I am talking about every single ab.
Popping.
I'm talking about very visible obliques and dealt striations and little to no
body fat on the lower portion of the ab.
So that's another thing is when women are lean, they'll have these defined
sides to their abs, but they will have still a softer looking lower AB shredded.
Usually you see every separation.
There's no body fat being held on that lower portion at all.
It's just very like, very lean.
So high vascularity.
So this isn't a soft 18 to 20%.
Look, that's lean.
Like I said, this is what majority of people would call shred.
now there's a few things that she shared on social media.
She tries to really be open about everything, and I really appreciate that.
Um, but she says she doesn't track.
She rotates foods, which I think is brilliant.
Having staple foods is smart, right?
but she, so she doesn't track.
That's important to understand.
She estimates her maintenance though, uh, she's guessing.
Uh.
21 to 2300 calories.
Once again, though, she doesn't track, but this is based off of once
in a while she'll kind of track.
Um, but recently she actually said that she believes that her, she's hitting
way beyond 2300 calories, uh, most days.
Fascinating, right?
This is somebody who's five one, very, very small.
15% body fat.
I would say she's maybe 105 to 110 pounds, but she, uh, doesn't
share her weight on social media.
Now I understand that because people get weird about weight, right?
They get kind of obsessive about it, maybe get weird, and, and she probably
just doesn't wanna deal with that.
and so I get it, especially if you're a very, very small person, like
somebody who's five foot one guys.
I'm five eight.
Okay, so I'm tall and I weigh 130 pounds, so I probably have like 25
pounds on this woman and seven inches.
But I have coached literally hundreds of women and, very, very small petite women.
You know, five, one very, very small.
I've coached women who were around a hundred pounds.
not at, not at 15% body fat, but, so we were working, you know, getting
them to have more muscle and stuff.
but I, I just am saying I totally understand that desire of not
wanting to share body weight.
'cause people get weird about it.
so anyways, but it, let's just give you some context though.
Like I said, I'm five eight, around 130 pounds, and I'm
actually around 18% body fat.
I lift five times a week.
Okay.
I get usually around 10,000 steps, and currently I'm not doing any cardio now.
I maintain right now with what I'm doing around 2000 to 2100 calories.
I go in and out of tracking too.
I'm actually currently tracking right now.
I'm gonna be moving into a fat loss phase, and so I really like to know,
okay, where am I landing right now?
I'm going into a fat loss phase because I think it'll be fun to shred down for a
whole, uh, a Mexican trip that's coming up that we're going on with friends.
Right.
So that's purely just for, I think it will be fun, not because I think I need
to, I'm weird and I'm like, I think it will be fun to be a little bit more.
A little leaner for this, so that's why I'm doing it.
But anyways, so I am landing anywhere between 2000 calories some days,
2100 calories, another, and I've been maintaining my weight and
body composition here really great.
once again, not doing cardio, but if I were to add in two to three days of
cardio and even increase my steps to around 12,000 to 15 or 14,000, I, my
maintenance is closer to 2300 calories.
So can you imagine me with what I know about my body and how my
body's responding reading if I didn't understand what I understood
reading somebody who's seven inches shorter, probably 25 pounds lighter,
having a higher maintenance than me.
Could you like her, her, what she's saying, her maintenance
is, is a build for me.
Now, if I didn't understand what I do, that could make me feel
like, oh, I'm, I'm not, I must be doing something wrong, right?
I'm taller, I weigh more, I have more total tissue.
My maintenance sits in, you know, that range depending on output.
So me looking at a five foot, one person who weighs probably like 105,
maybe, maybe pushing 110 pounds.
Around 15% body fat lifting four times a week, doing two 20 minute cardio
sections and taking a casual hour walk every morning and saying she's
eating 2300 plus calories most days.
Do you see how that's kind of like a big claim?
and maybe I could internalize that and somebody else could internalize
that, but if I'm being really honest, I have coached hundreds of women.
If, if everything is like accurate, that's being portrayed here in,
in the social media posts, this woman is clearly an outlier.
She's a unicorn.
Unicorns do exist, right?
Um, but physiologically that is moving into the realm of a little
bit unusual to be able to eat.
That much being that small and also staying at something like 15% body fat.
But once again, two things can be true.
At the same time, it can be unusual, and it can also be true.
Okay, so I don't want anybody to think negatively about this individual.
I think what's important is to note that this is.
Unusual.
This is leaning towards a little bit more rare.
Okay.
And then here's the key.
What does this mean to you?
What she's eating and how much she exercises and how much she,
what does this mean for you?
Because this is important.
This is how we become better at navigating social media.
What does it mean for you?
Absolutely nothing.
Nothing.
Why?
Because 99.9% of us are not unicorns.
We are not the exception.
We are the rule.
And you have to start seeing social media through the lens
of that's so cool for you.
I can be your biggest cheerleader.
I can think that is so amazing for you and I am so like impressed
by you, but that doesn't actually mean much about like for me, it
doesn't have to be about you, right?
It doesn't have to be that you're doing something wrong.
It doesn't have mean that you take offense and get all weird and well, she
just must be lying maybe, but maybe not.
And I really like her and I think that she is giving us the best information
she possibly can about a lifestyle that she's worked really hard to establish.
And so I really just believe that she's a unicorn.
And so I want you to start being able to spot that and
have it not be a threat to you.
Not mean anything to you, and yet you can still show up and cheer her on.
That's awesome.
That is so awesome for you.
It means nothing for me.
It means nothing good or bad for me.
I'm just a cheerleader.
I just am inspired by you.
And that's the cool thing is she can inspire you to find what works for you,
but you gotta know what works for her.
As far as like calories and and energy out and the inputs and the outputs are
not going to be the same for you, right?
So start saying that that's cool for you.
It doesn't mean anything to me, good or bad, it doesn't mean anything.
But we can still cheer each other on, right?
Like I said, we are supposed to make the most of our own canvas.
Yes, there are principles we can learn from other people.
Progressive overload, adequate, uh, protein, adequate
calories and consistency.
But how that shows up on your body will never look identical to someone else's.
That's not a flaw that is biology.
So this year I am making this huge shift.
Like I said, I'm starting a YouTube channel specifically to go deeper
into this kind of education, longer form, more nuance, more physiology,
more content, because I don't want to just give you workouts.
I wanna help you think better about navigating this space, about
showing up with a healthier mind.
So right now I'm actually pretty excited because I'm planning on doing
a really big, deep dive into genetics and just how much they can impact
the way muscle takes shape on us.
How two people can train the exact same way and look completely different.
They can even have the same height look completely different.
Right.
How insertions and origin points change everything.
How body fat distri, uh, distribution varies wildly.
It's gonna be so helpful guys, if you want to learn how to navigate social media in
a healthier way, and stop feeling like you're doing something wrong when you're.
Go subscribe to my YouTube channel.
The link is in the show notes.
I'm so excited about this, guys.
I really believe this is gonna change how you see fitness.
Thank you so much for being here, guys.
You guys are absolutely amazing.
I'm so, so grateful for the community of women.
I feel like you are like-minded.
You want to improve yourself.
You want to show up as the best version of you.
I just love that.
I love you.
I appreciate you.
Have a wonderful week.