Welcome back to another episode of Arnold's Pump Club. When people ask me what the pump app is all about, I tell them to do their first workout and then go read the comments on the weekend. Shmoos. It has become weekly tradition where we share wins, struggles and support each other. It's one thing to tell people, it's an app that gives you workouts, helps you build better habits and provides the most positive
and supportive community on the internet. It's another thing for people to experience it. I love chatting with the community and this week people told me my message was important. So I'm sharing it with all of you. If you want to be inspired by people supporting each other, it's free to try for a week. Go check it out at the pump.app. Here's what I shared. Welcome to all the new members. Introduce yourself so we can welcome you and ask any questions you might have. There's a whole
village ready to answer. It's an open Shmoos. Some people talk about how they see the power of their workouts in their lives. Hiking is easier. They're accidentally throwing the kids twice as far as before when they play and they don't have pain. This is a place for anything anyone wants to share except fake crap. I know on a lot of the internet people just talk about how great their life is. That's bullshit. In the village, we are real. I think a lot of the anger we see in the world comes
from that. First, like I've told some of you at our live meetups, bottling up your feelings is a mistake that will lead to an explosion at some point. And second, when all we share is our victories other people start to think they are failing because they aren't doing that well even though they're only seeing a snapshot of our life. I'm very proud that we don't do that here. I try to show the way by sharing my comebacks from heart surgery and my challenges but some of you have absolutely
blown me away with the bravery you have shown us. You face your struggles and proud that no matter where you started, so many of you have decided that you can become someone new and you've all been proving it. I am proud of fitness programs in this app and the transformations we've seen. I am proud of the routine builder and the habits that some of you have built. But nothing makes me proud of in this community where people know they can share anything until have a village
lifting them up. At the same time, we are all about celebrating wins, no matter how small. That's because people have a habit of beating themselves up for taking one step forward instead of two steps. We want to remind you that progress can be slow but as long as you don't give up, there will be progress. When you celebrate the little wins, you give yourself fuel to keep moving forward. Step forward is a step forward. When you beat yourself up, you take your fuel away.
I see this all the time. People will lose one to two pounds a week and think it's too slow and stop if they had just stuck with it for a year. That's 50 to 104 pounds. Or they will be angry that they can't do a pull up and just give up. Even though now they can jump to the bar and slowly lower themselves or they can do 10 perfect body weight rows to a table or a doorframe when they could barely do a few reps when they started. Instead of celebrating the daily progress,
they beat themselves up for not achieving the end goal. Stop it. In the gym, we learned that progress is incremental. One week, you lift two pounds more and that's a win. We celebrate those wins because if we don't, we risk you giving up before you see the power of progress. My win this week is seeing my steps in a chart that lin in my office made. If you missed it, when I couldn't train after my pacemaker surgery, I committed to getting more steps every day.
I have always been a machine about my daily bike ride and workout. But I realized as we shared more and more in the newsletter about the importance of movement outside of our workouts that I was falling short, we all fall short somewhere. That's okay. It's not a failure. It's an opportunity to get to work. Surgery recovery was the perfect time to start and lin also wanted to move more. So we created a friendly competition where we both were step counters and sent each other a photo of our
step number at the end of every day. You can see the power of accountability and sticking with a habit because my first day was around 4,000. So I set a goal of 5,000 since we believe in setting goals that are a stretch, but aren't going to stretch you so far that you snap and fail. Pretty soon, the number went up to 6,000. Now when I look at the chart, I'm averaging 9,000 and I have so many days with 10,000 steps and even a couple days with 15,000. When we started this, I thought I'd
never do 10,000. This all happened in two to three months. Lin steps are also going up and up. When we tell you to set a goal and stick to it before growing the goal, it works. If you're walking 5,000 steps a day, you don't want to set a goal of 10,000. You'll fail one day and then there's a good chance you'll give up. You set a goal of 6,000 and win for a while before you grow it to 7,000. Proof it works. But more importantly, it's a reminder of how progress happens. At first, it seems
unlikely or impossible. Then you make small changes. Those changes become easier and easier. Eventually, the heart becomes routine and your life changes in so many ways. So no matter where you are or what you're doing, get started and then be patient. If you stay consistent in two to three months, you might be surprised just how much you can achieve. And now, let's get to today's tips. Before your next teeth cleaning, one addition to your diet could help you get a nod of approval
from your dentist. According to a recent study, eating more tomatoes could improve your oral health in the meta-analysis of seven randomized controlled trials. Those who consumed more like opine, the nutrient that gives tomatoes the red color reduced dental plaque, that's because like opine is like strength training for oral health. It pumps up the immune cells inside your
mouth and kills the bacteria that causes plaque and inflammation. Studies have found that the amount of lycopene in one to two medium sized tomatoes about four to eight milligrams of lycopene is enough to help reduce the likelihood of cavities and gum bleeding. Please keep in mind, this is not a replacement for general oral care, such as brushing and flossing, but it could be an additional habit that improves the health of your gums and teeth. If you don't eat raw tomatoes,
tomato sauce might be an even better option. That's because research has found that cooking tomatoes increases the bioavailability of lycopene, meaning your body can absorb more nutrients, or if you're not a fan of anything with tomatoes other lycopene rich foods include watermelon, grapefruit, pink guavas, and apricots. That's it for today's episode. I created this podcast because I believe that fitness is for everyone. I'm using the power of machines to help me deliver news,
information, and support that will make you healthier. I am not a seven-netic organism, but I do have an important mission to build a positive corner of the internet and lift up the world. There's too much negativity online, and I want this podcast to give you the support you need to become a little bit better. I want to thank our editors and chief Adam Boenstein and Daniel Ketchel, who helped me with this podcast in the Daily Newsletter, as well as our producers' pen name consulting.
We value all your feedback, and the three of us are here to support you. If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review. We love hearing from you. Together we have the strength to lift up the world.