Welcome back to another episode of Arnold's Pump Club. Today I want to talk about fruit. No, not the berries I eat with my granola and yogurt. I want to focus on the problem or reaching for low-hanging fruit. I'm sure most of you have heard the metaphor, but just so we are all on the same page. Low-hanging fruit is the easy stuff if you imagine an apple tree, the low-hanging fruit, the apples on the bottom branches. You could ask a child to pick the low-hanging fruit,
but it's the fruit that's higher up in the tree takes more effort. Maybe you'll need to climb and put yourself at risk. There might be discomfort, but there's something about that challenge that makes it feel so fantastic when you get that high-hanging fruit because it requires more effort. The effort makes the reward sweeter. It is more fulfilling. When I talk to people about fitness, I find that many never go beyond the low-hanging fruit. They want to be fit and healthy to be
easy and comfortable. They want the 28-day abs, not the 90-day program that forces them to do the basic lifts. They want the fat diet, not the lifestyle change. They want the fat loss, a testosterone-boosting magic pill, not the effort of eating well, sleeping well, training hard, and moving more. I'll be honest. I don't even think we should count these things as low-hanging fruit. Low-hanging fruit at least has value. These things are the spoiled fruit that's fallen off the tree
rotted in the sun and be nought on by bugs. The magic pills, the diet hacks, and the bogus short-term workouts like the spoiled fruit will probably make you worse off. The reality is the low and high-hanging fruit might be different for all of us. The strong person that the gym who benches more than everyone else but never enters the squat rack, that's someone going for low-hanging fruit. The plant-based
eater who stays thin but never does any resistance training. That's more low-hanging fruit. We all do it. Hell, I know I've done it. When I started in bodybuilding, I built a big foundation. I loved squatting and deadlifting and benching heavyweights. When I came under scene at 18, the bodybuilding magazines talked about how huge I was. They said it could be the beginning of the Schwarzenegger era.
I became the youngest Mr. Universe ever at age 20. Then my dream came true. Joe Weeder, the publisher of the Muscle magazines, invited me to America to compete in his Federation's Mr. Universe. And I lost to Frank Zane, who was much smaller than me, but much more defined I was devastated. I let myself cry for a night. And in the morning, it was time to be honest with myself, I'd been picking the low-hanging fruit. Yes, I trained longer than almost everyone. Yes, I trained
heavier than pretty much everyone but Franco. But I was in my comfort zone and doing the things I loved and what came easiest to me, if I wanted to make my vision of being the greatest bodybuilder of all time, a reality, I had to escape my comfort zone. It was time to die before competitions, at least a little bit. It was time to do the training. I didn't enjoy the reps and reps of crunches and leg raises to match Frank's ab definition. I hated every minute of it. It was boring,
it was uncomfortable. It sucked. But that was my high-hanging fruit. I accepted that I had to go after the high-hanging fruit because it is the only way to achieve your full potential. We all have different low-hanging fruit. Some of you might find that it is easy to train, but it's hard to stop eating shitty food. Some might find it easy to eat really healthy all
week, but it is hard on the weekend to say no to the fried food and beers. So you end up pushing your week's calories from a level where you maintain or lose weight to a level where you gain weight with two days of binging. Some might think it is easy to eat well and train, but you don't sleep well or make any effort to connect with people socially. We all have our own fruit sitting at the top of the tree. My challenge to all of you is to sit down and figure out what it is for you.
What's holding you back from your full potential? Be honest with yourself. Once you figure out your own high-hanging fruit, it's time to make a plan to go after it. Accept that it won't be easy. It might really suck. You want to quit and you have to force yourself to keep going, but it will be worth it. When you make the effort to see your true potential, instead of only picking off the easy wins, you'll learn who you really are.
You'll shock yourself with strength. You never knew you had. And when you pick that high-hanging fruit, it will be sweeter than you can ever imagine. You really don't have any excuses. We are trying to give you everything you need to succeed in this podcast. The Daily Newsletter and the app, the pump, you have me and my team providing you with motivation and the best information,
helping you make sense of all the latest research. In the app last week, Adam and Daniel shared a video showing you how to train with the intensity that creates muscle growth with the first set mindset. They showed you how to eat well on a budget. When you're short on time, everyone who receives this newsletter has access to me, including the smartest people I know. The app members get to interact directly with me and experts receive custom workouts,
build better habits and get accountability and support. We have given you the latter. You have to choose to climb it and the fruit will be there. Before I go, I have one study I want to share today. The latest diet study might be one of the best yet at proving what's becoming an undeniable conclusion. Many different diets work for fat loss. But what matters most is what you eat and how much of it
and that means you can spend a lot less time stressing when you eat. Researchers compared where the intermittent fasting was more effective than eating most calories later in the day. One group ate 80% of their calories before 1 pm and consumed all of their calories within 10 hours. The other group ate 50% of their calories after 5 pm but at a longer eating window. And the researchers prepared all of the meals for the participants to ensure everyone ate the same
foods in the amount of calories. After 12 weeks, both groups lost a similar amount of weight and had no differences in insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, blood lipids and fasting glucose. Your main takeaway is that you can choose the eating pattern that works best for you. If you prefer variation of intermittent fasting, whether eating earlier or later in the day, then that can work.
Or if you feel better when you spread your meals throughout the day, that can also work your health and your weight determined by the foods you eat, not necessarily when you eat. And that's it for today's episode. I created this podcast because I believe that fitness is for everyone. So I'm using the power of machines to help me deliver news, information and support that will make you healthier. I am not a cybernetic organism, but I do have an important mission
to build the 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 in chief Adam Boenstein and Daniel Ketchel, who helped me with this podcast in a daily newsletter, as well as our producers, PennName 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.