The Intimacy and Gym Connection

Strategies in the gym is very similar to what you do in the bedroom. In this episode, we're going to unpack those strategies and learn what is the intimacy tracking workout. I'll see you on the inside. This podcast is for you. The modern man. I'm Dr. Anne Truong, your host. I'm an intimate health medical doctor and best selling author of the book Erectile Dysfunction Fix. I'll do a deep, deep dive into sexual health and performance and how it affects men of all ages and backgrounds. So let's get started and be sure to visit my website@sexualhealthformenpodcast.com for more information and resources from the show. See you on the inside. Well, hello there. I'm here today with Carl Berryman. He's a personal trainer and he's going to show us how the principle in the gym can be applied to your life and for your sexual health. So I'm so glad you're here, Carl. How are you?

I'm doing fabulous and thank you so much for having me. I've been really looking forward to this.

Oh, awesome. Plus we have a lot of topics to talk about today. So first off, let's just get right down to the topic here. One of the topic I really want to center on is how you overcome ED with sexual fitness.

Okay. So for me, and I know there's a lot of men that experience this too and may not talk about it, just how anxiety inducing sex can be like specifically with a long term partner. Because that was a situation I've been in so many times where if I go back over all of my relationships, yeah, they start off on fire and I'm good to go anywhere, anytime, how many ever times a week. And I just take control. And then sure enough, months go on, years go on and all of a sudden it's like, oh, Carl, you know what, it's date night. You have to have sex this night because it's been two weeks and then something comes up. I put so much pressure on myself and then sure enough, it doesn't happen. And that just, it's like putting on weight, right? Like you skip the gym a few times and it's not that big a deal, but then it ends up being months since you've been to the gym and that's what it was like for the bedroom. So for me, I started to think about because I was able to make a really radical transformation with my body in a very short period of time using very basic principles. So I said, like you said, what can I take from Inside the gym and just apply it in the bedroom. Like, it's the same thing. Like, they're both workouts as far as I'm concerned. So I said, okay, well, when I'm really struggling to get to the gym and I don't feel like going, the one thing that really helps me go every time is just to tell myself, go, have a nice, relaxing workout. Don't worry about lifting a ton of weight. Don't worry about going super fast in your circuits. Just go to the gym and have a nice, easy workout. So I'm like, okay, well, what if I did the same thing in the bedroom? What if rather than going to bed with my partner, Jenny Lee, and being like, Carl, you have to make sure you get her off twice. Like, she has to get off and making all the focus. That was putting way too much weight on the bar for me. So I said, you know what, Carl? Just don't even worry about that right now. Let's just get to the bedroom and cuddle. Can you rub her legs? Can you hold her and have her head on her chest? Can you rub her back? Can you play with her hair? Can you do those things? Yes. Those didn't produce anxiety. So I do that. And then, sure enough, just like in the gym, every single time I tell myself I'm gonna have a nice, relaxing workout, it ends up being anything but. Because I get really in the mood, I'm like, hey, this is awesome. I'm ready to go. Same thing with sex. Whereas I start off nice and easy. It's like, hey, now I'm ready. I'm ready to go. So it ends up being way better just as a result of removing those expectations or lowering the bar for myself. So that is probably the thing that helped the most.

Wonderful. I like that. So don't set such so high expectation and just kind of start a small goal and then just work your way into it. It's kind of like what you say when you do progressive sets in the gym, right? Yeah. So a lot of men understand what's like going to the gym. Describe to me the progressive sets and how you can kind of carry that over to the bedroom.

Okay, so what you're referring to is probably one of the most foundational principles in the gym called progressive overload, where you have to be taxing your muscles more each and every workout. So one day you go and you're doing your bench press, you're doing 135 pounds. Okay, well, next time you go to the gym, let's try 145. Let's try to put 10 more pounds on there. And over time, you get better and better and better. Well, same thing within the bedroom. What I would do is, is K. Carl, let's start off with just a really nice cuddle session today. Okay, so we did a cuddle session last time. Awesome. Check that off now. What about the next time? Okay, well, can we add a little bit of a makeout session for this one? Yeah, we can. Just teeny tiny. Okay, we'll do that. Okay. The next time around, can you add a little bit more playfulness in there, too? And do some things that are going to be. You know what, they might make you a bit nervous, but they're going to make the experience a lot better. So just constantly thinking about how you can step up the game there. But not only from a standpoint of physical, because one of the things that I think is very, very overlooked, that I'm very grateful for with my partner is the communication that we would have after our physical, intimate session. So one of the questions that really, really helped was, which part did you like the best? Which part did you like the best? Because you're starting off with something good there. It's like being in the gym and somebody and you find something that works for you. Okay. I love this exercise. This exercise feels really good. Legs. I want to do more of that. Well, which exercise, quote, unquote, worked really good in the bedroom for you? And then you want to do more of that. Not too much because it gets overplayed. And we want to switch things up. Just like in the gym, too, where you can't do the same thing over and over again, but that one question alone. Which part did you like the best? Because that opens up conversation. And I started learning more, not just about how I can please my partner, but she would ask the question so that she knew how to please me more. So now we're learning from each other and just that progressive overload gets better and better and better. Because if we're asking that question every single time, we're gonna have different answers every single time. So as partners, we grew very well together that way.

And what question is that?

Particularly, which part did you like the best?

Which part did you like the best?

Yep. One of the things that once your communication gets to a certain point as well, the opposite of that question comes in. As long as you have the trust in your relationship to ask this question is like, which part did you not like so much? Or what can I do less of? And then if the person's comfortable enough and it's a safe space, then they can share that as well. Because you want to know what you're doing wrong. Like I don't want to be in the bedroom thinking, oh man, I'm doing this awesome right now. Meanwhile, she's thinking, okay, you need to stop that because that doesn't feel good. But we won't know unless we're told that. Because guys, we're clueless in bed, for the most part, we're clueless. We need direction, but that direction is on us. We need to ask those questions to get that direction. Because trust me, if your partner understands that your goal in the conversation and in the bedroom is to have a better experience and have her have a better experience, she's gonna be more than willing to share what works as long as you ask the right way.

Absolutely. Ask the question, what did you like? And how it worked. And that is so true. So what I find working with the men is that communication with their partner is that the more frequent you do it with your partner, the more your body and your mind actually synchronize.

Yeah, absolutely.

And tell you a story of a patient I saw actually this week, came to see me like maybe three weeks ago. And he was young, he was like 40 and he works for the government, very fit, but was having ED for like a year. And he felt that he was failing his wife. But you know, he's that alpha male, right. He felt like he was failing his wife and really was like he need to get it back again. So we did a treatment on him with botox and platelet rich plasma stem cell. And the shockwave, literally within five days he was able to perform with his wife. He said he'd get the best erection he test since he was 25 and she actually orgasmed three, which is the first time that's ever happened in like years. So to be able to get his erection back. So what's happened is that it's not just about the sex. It's that his wife now has such a great time, she now wanting it more often. So before they were lucky, they even do it once a month. Now they have date night. This is just happened three weeks ago. Now they have date night. Now they're doing it like three times a week. Before it was excuses of kids. I mean they have four kids. They're like, oh yeah. Now they're like, well, we'll just sneak away to a hotel or we'll just find time. It was a mutual thing where they made a priority in their life. But a point I'm always trying to say is that if your partner is not having fun, then who wants to keep doing it? Right?

Right.

You guys get together and only one partner is having fun. That's not fun, right? That's not fun.

No, it's not fun at all. You bring up such a great point there, Ann, too. Because like so many clients, my personal trained clients will ask, okay, well, what's the best workout? For me, I'm like, well, what do you enjoy doing? Because if you can find what you enjoy, then going to the gym isn't such a hassle. So same thing with the bedroom. Like, what do you enjoy doing? Because it can become very mechanical. Where you start with this round two is this round, and it's just the same thing over and over again. Well, no, you have to talk to each other about, okay, what do you like and what can make this fun? Like, fun is a huge aspect of it.

Absolutely. On that same topic now, when I face a challenge and I work with is that you are what you eat, right? And your sex life is what you eat, really? Because the penis has 40 times more blood flow in it when it's direct. So that means it's very sensitive to what's flowing in your blood. What's flowing in your blood? The food that you eat. Right? The drugs that you take, all the medication you take, that's what's in your blood. So the penis is 40 times more compared to the heart, compared to the liver, the kidneys. So having said that, it absorbs all the toxic stuff that you eat more than any other organ. And what I find is that it's always been a challenge for them to eat more healthy. A Mediterranean diet, even exercising, it doesn't have to be the gym, but just exercising about 30 minutes, three times a week or four times a week. What strategy to that way? I like the way how you said to make it fun, to make it interesting, but yet not so overwhelming for them to be motivated to stick to a healthy diet.

It's interesting somebody asked me this question on their podcast earlier this week, and we can think about, okay, which diet's going to be best for me, and maybe I shouldn't buy this stuff. And you know what? Willpower, motivation. But we need to ignore all of that because it doesn't work. Like, I've been in this industry for 12 years, and it's anytime I'm with a client back in the day, it'd be like, okay, we're great while we're training together. And then as soon as our program is done, I see them six months later and it's like, we never worked out because they didn't follow certain principles. So for me, and this goes in the gym, this goes with anywhere in life. Much more important than what you do is who you do it with. So if you want to get in better shape, you need to be around other people who the behavior you want to adopt is the normal behavior. And this is something that James Clear in his book Atomic Habits, talks about a lot. That if you're looking to get in better shape, get around dudes who are in good shape, if you're looking to eat healthier, get around other guys who. That is what they do. Like, a lot of the guys that I hang out with, I'm fortunate because I'm a trainer and I work at a gym, but I have had clients where they're. I have a lot of lawyer clients for some reason over the years, a lot of lawyers. It's like, yeah, once they make this a part of their lifestyle and they're around other people that are doing the things that they know are going to keep them healthy and they're not doing it on their own, that is when the success habits start to stick. So even when they're not motivated, it's like, ah, I've got so and so and so and so waiting for me at the gym. I gotta go. Or the basketball court or whatever it is, I don't care. I definitely recommend lifting weights because so much of our health deterioration later on in life is a result of the muscle mass we lose. So you need to be doing something to maintain and building muscle, but making sure that you have the right people in your life that are going, going to encourage and solidify the habits that you want. That's. That's where it starts for sure, is.

The people so hanging around people that have the same thought as you or the same goal as you, that keep you motivated. That's why runners, you know, hang around runners, right?

Exactly.

Run together, right?

Yep.

Yeah.

CrossFitters. Like, I've never done CrossFit for my own reasons, but CrossFit became huge for a reason because it provides people a place where they have similar goals and they build kind of like tribes, they build communities. So you need to be part of a community. If you're not part of a community and you're doing on its own, it's very likely you're just going to slip back right to where you were because you got nobody else holding you accountable. And when you're doing it only for you, it's not going to work.

Well, how would you put that in the diet wise? You suggest doing it with somebody who is eating healthy as well. And for men, that's hard. Men like to kind of like, oh, I can do it myself. And you're right. My patient says, well, my family is not eating healthy. They eat this. So it's hard for me to kind of eat healthy as well too. I can see that.

I can see that. And I've seen that so many times with men. But here's the thing with men that I find, and this is how it's worked with me. One of the things that really, really shook me up that one of my coaches told me back in 2017, is he made me realize how much I was lying to myself. He made me realize, okay, Carl, like, let's go over this, let's go over that. It's not the behavior that you're engaging in and the excuses that you're using. That's not okay. We have to accept that. That's not okay. We have to be like real with the facts of what things are costing us. Like, think about, like, sure, okay, you go a date, let's go back to the bedroom. You go one week without the date night happening, Ah, it's not a big deal. You go two weeks, three weeks. Ah, you know what? It's busy with work. She understands. No, that's not okay. That's not okay. The more you continue to lower the bar, the more that's gonna become your norm. So same thing with eating. Like, the only reason, not the only reason, but one of the main reasons we continue to eat foods that are not sustaining a healthy lifestyle and a healthy body is because we've made it okay. And we've made it okay by lying to ourselves about it. When you go and you make a poor nutritious habit, you have to realize what that is like a nutritional choice. You have to realize what that's costing you. But you're never going to realize what it's costing you if you don't take that. It's like, imagine trying to lose weight, but you're too scared to step on the scale and you're too scared to look in the mirror because you know that you're not going to like what you see. Well, we need to figure out as men how you get true or how you get awareness of the facts of what your behavior is actually doing to you. And that's really simple. You just write it down. You write it down. You Take some type of assessment that lets you know, okay, I am really messing things up here. We, as men and as human beings really, we're always going to be way more motivated by the stick than the carrot. It's not going to be losing weight. That's really going to get us to keep our nutritional habits going. It's going to be the embarrassment of what it looks like walking around as a man who a can't get it up because his body can't sustain it, or that his wife or his partner is embarrassed to be around, who can't keep up with his children because he has to hit snooze. And he keeps telling himself he can't make the healthy choices he wants. Like when you say that what you're saying is, I don't care about my family. That's what you're saying. And until guys realize that they're going to keep making those horrible choices, I love that.

I love that. Because we're more motivated to help other people and sometimes even ourselves, right? And that we're more motivated by fear. Like Tony Robbins said, we're motivated by pleasure or by fear. And sometimes fear probably is a bigger motivator. Like you said, fear of not keeping up with the family, fear of not being respected. So that's powerful in thinking that way. And maybe that's something that our audience can take note of that as well as me when I talk to my patient as well too. Because the goal of getting to pleasure, which is, well, being more healthy, not having to take your diabetic medication, not having to take your blood pressure medicine probably doesn't work as well. That's more pleasure goal oriented rather than fear oriented. I love that. Now tell me about the intimacy workout tracking.

So one of the things when Jenny Lee and I got back together, the way we would both, and I realized not too long ago she actually did this too. And I didn't even know it, which was awesome. But we just didn't want to become roommates again because that was the real problem when we broke up. Like whether it was physical or even other types of intimacy, that was pretty much gone. There was no animosity in our relationship or anything like that. We've just become friends who are living together and that's not what we signed up for. So when we got back together, I'm like, okay, I can't let this happen again. So what was I doing in the gym that allowed me to make sure I was making progress and make sure I was doing the things that actually moved the Needle in the right direction. How could I know that for sure without guessing, without thinking that I know what I'm doing? My workouts, I wrote down the weights I was doing, I wrote down the number of sets, I wrote down the number of workouts I was doing per week. That way, if I had an off week, it's like, oh, you were supposed to do five this week. Carly only got in four. Where did I go wrong so that that doesn't happen again? So then I started doing it with intimacy. Going back to that question we talked about, where you asked the question at the end of it, okay, what do you like that I do. And it could be outside the bedroom too. For example, I know that Jenny Lee loves when I hug her from behind. Like, a face to face hug is awesome. But say she's in the kitchen just grabbing tea or cooking or whatever, and I go up behind her and I wrap my arms around her. I know she feels super loved when I do that. So what I would do is I have an app on my phone and it says, I've got four things that I track with Jenny Lee right now. I've got. Actually, I don't want her to know what they are, but it doesn't matter. I've got four things like that that I track that I have to do a certain number of times per week. And then at the end of the day, just like how I'm tracking a whole bunch of other things in my life. I'm like, okay, did you do this for Jenny Lee? And then for example, yesterday I look at, I'm like, there's something I'm supposed to do four times, and I only had it done once by Thursday. I'm like, oh, Kate, you got to step up your game. So I got in two reps of it yesterday, and now I know for the rest of the week, I'm going to be good to go. So I'm tracking the ways that I know Jenny Lee feels loved physically because physical touch is a big thing for her. I'm tracking those and writing them down to make sure that I'm doing that. And most importantly, that represents me being the partner that I want to be. And that's one thing that I really wanted to talk about really quickly with regards to what we were just talking about in terms of when we think about changing our nutritional habits or our workout habits, and we think about it from a perspective of what we want to do, that's not really going to work. You got to think, hey, what kind of man do I Want to be is what I'm doing, representing the man that I want to be remembered as being. So if I want to be the type of man that Jenny Lee says is an amazing partner, that inspires her, that helps her become a better human being, what am I going to have to do in order to do that? And then I track those things to make sure they get done on a weekly basis.

How do you track? What kind of man do I want to be? What metrics do you put down that. Follow that thought.

Okay. So for me, it's really simple. I have an acronym that I use, and it's called the Prep work. P R E P. And it stands for purpose, health and fitness, Relationship health and fitness, Emotional health and fitness, and physical health and fitness. Inside of each of those categories, I have two things that I need to do. Two things. So say, for example, in let's go with physical health and fitness, I have to train at the gym four times a week. So that is what I train there. And then inside of physical health and fitness, I have the nutritional component too. So for there, I know for me, what makes or breaks whether I eat well or not is food prep. So I have to do food prep three times a week. Because if I have food prepped, I won't be ordering in. I won't be putting stuff in the oven that I don't need to put in the oven. I have healthy food prep. So those are the two things that I track. And so I figured out what I call are my critical compounding commitments. Those little things, those little behaviors that may not have a massive impact right now, but over time, they lead to huge changes. And so I have that in all four areas of the prep work. And then I track those literally in an app called Done. It's a free app on my phone. And every single day I'm looking at, where am I at in the prep work. Because if I can tick all those off every week, that is me being the Carl that I know I need to be for myself and for the people I love.

And the app is called Done. D O N E D O N.

E, D O N E. That's it.

It's essentially a checklist, right? It's just a check off daylight, right?

Yeah.

Also. But your list of things could be different than somebody else. List of things. You have four categories. P is physical fitness, Right?

Yeah.

And R is what? Relationship, relationship. E emotional, emotional. And the other P is purpose. Okay, gotcha. So it could vary. It could be just one metric or whatever that you can put in those four groups. I see. I love that. I love the part where you have four things that you checklist with Jenny that you try to do, and if you don't do it, you try to catch up to it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Which could be like, hey, I love you. You know, just saying I love you. A hug or a kiss or just bringing over water. I know that with my husband, like, a hug and telling him I love him is important. Even though we've been married for 30 years, it's still important.

Yeah, absolutely.

You think that you've been together 30 years, kind of taken. That you love each other, but sometimes you have to verbalize it.

Absolutely.

Show it as well. Because we're so busy with our lives, and even though my husband and I own the same business and we're in the same office, we won't even see each other the whole day. His office, like, 10ft away from my office. But we would see glimpses of each other in the day, so that's pretty powerful. So, guys, it's called the intimacy workout tracking. I love it. You can do it in the free app called done and that could be anything. And just ask your partner, what do you like? Yeah. What is it you like and does what she like. And that's it. Your checklist.

It's not rocket science.

No. But it's all come down to communication, right?

Absolutely.

Awareness. Yeah. Unless somebody brings it up. You don't know. So you don't know what you don't know. I love that phrase. And you don't know what you don't know, because unless we bring it up, like, today, then you're like, oh, that makes sense. Maybe might like me to bring home, I don't know, roses or a bouquet once in a while. That would make her happy. In fact, I didn't realize I like flowers, too, until one of my friends gave it to me for my birthday. And I'm like, I really love the smell of flowers. I like the color in my house. I'm like, I make it a priority for myself to get flowers every week. To put it.

That's awesome. That's awesome, man. Such a good idea.

Yeah. So I know that, you know, sometimes I want to focus on, you know, like, relationship. And I want to ask you this question. Why breaking up with your partner made you a better partner.

Really? Long story short, and then I'll elaborate, is I had to learn how to love myself. And we talked about this a little bit how when we split up, one of the things I said to myself that was a hardcore eye opener is I. Jenny Lee and I split up and I said, I have no idea how I'm going to live without her. And to me, that's an absolutely disgusting state of mind. Because what that tells me is, number one, I'm not enough. And B, I need somebody else to make me happy. And if man or woman you're coming into a relationship with, expecting the other person to make you happy and making them responsible for your happiness, you've already lost. You've already lost because the second they do something that cracks that or they walk away, you're screwed. So I didn't ever want to be in that position again. So I started thinking about, okay, how can I love myself more? And then it was a really easy answer. Okay, how did I love Jenny Lee when I was being my best? What did I do for her? And I just started doing it for myself. So I literally started making myself amazing dinners. I started dating myself, literally. But then I started making sure that I'm working on myself as much as possible. So if you want a good relationship, the first relationship you need to work on is a relationship you have with yourself. This is my experience anyways, so what does that look like? Okay, well, a good relationship means you're open and honest with each other. So I needed to start getting open and honest with myself. And the way that I did that was through journaling. I would journal every single morning during my morning routine, and I had specific questions I would ask myself, and I just answered them so I could get to know me better. Whether that was around my fears, whether that was around my desires, I just got to know me better. What makes Carl happy? What can you do to make Carl happy today? And I started focusing on that so much, to the point where when the three months was up and Jenny Lee and I reconnected to see if we were going to get back together again, I didn't know if I wanted to because I was so happy by myself. But I knew the reason we did get back together was because we both knew that as happy as we were by ourselves, because she was doing a great job on her own as well, we knew that there were certain things that we couldn't experience, like solo. The thing I love most about Jenny Lee is she really enhances the good things in my life and makes them better. She challenges me. So she helps me become a better version of myself. I should say she doesn't make me. She just supports me in that. And, well, I know I do the same thing for her. But it all started with me really repairing and building the relationship I had with myself.

How do you get attuned to your emotion? Because I find that men, you know, since you're young, don't show your emotion. You look weak, you're supposed to be tough and take it and don't complain. And I see that in my husband as well, too, because sometimes he just doesn't show his emotion. All of a sudden, the damn open and burst. How do you stay attuned to that? Because it's hard. You're taught not to show it?

Absolutely. We're taught not to show it. One of the things I always tell my clients, too, if I have somebody that's coming to me and saying, it's so hard to lose weight, I tell them, listen, it's not hard. It's actually really simple. It just takes time. It just takes time. If you forget about having to lose 20 pounds in the next 30 days or even six months, if you can take off 20 pounds in, like, the next two years, because he didn't put it on in two years, or you didn't put it on in 60 days, take it off the same amount of time. But with regards to getting in touch with your emotions, what really worked for me is again, taking a principle from inside the gym. I always tell my clients, k, I ask them before we start off, what level workout do you want to have today? Do you want to have a level one, level two, or level three? So I know how much to push them. A level one is. They're like, kate, I need to take it nice and easy today. For whatever reason. They're like, you know what? I'm feeling pretty good. We'll go with two, but we won't go crazy. And if they're like, you know what, Carl, I need a good one today. Let's do a level three. I'm like, okay, now I know how much to push you with regards to learning how to express with or express and get in touch with your emotions. As a man, I would say level one would be writing stuff down on paper. Literally, just pull up a journal and just start writing out anything. Just start writing, because some stuff will come out. It absolutely will come out. Like, you'll start getting your emotions down on paper. You don't have to show it to anybody ever. So there's no pressure there. You don't have to figure out how do I say this? Because it's just you. So just start with you. Level two would be start having conversations with other men, because you would Be so surprised. For example, yesterday I went out for beers with an old client of mine who's going to be a client of mine again. We went out for beers yesterday, and I just realized, like, man, this guy and I have a lot in common emotionally, because we were talking about depression, we were talking about past experiences. And as soon as you realize, like, holy cow, I'm not the only guy who struggles with this. I'm not the only guy who suffers with this, now all of a sudden becomes a lot easier to acknowledge those emotions and start expressing them. So that would be kind of like your level 2, but backing up kind of a mid level. One thing that really, really helped me, too, was therapy. So actually going to a therapist. I have a life coach that I see. I saw her for years and then stopped seeing her. And I started seeing her a couple months ago again. Not because anything was going super wrong, but. But because there was a little thing that happened and I could see myself maybe starting to go down a dark road. I'm like, I'm not going to wait until things get really bad to start seeing her. I'm going to start seeing her now, so I don't have to worry about that. So journaling therapy and talking with other men, you get those three done, you'll really start to become aware of and be able to express your emotions better.

All right, that is very, very good advice there. Sometimes journaling the best thing, because you get aware how you're feeling. And yep, as you're journaling, I actually started doing some of that just free writing first thing in the morning. I do for about five minutes. And it's kind of like getting stuff out of your head so that way it doesn't get bottled down. One of my mentors says, write things down that you're thinking that you're going to do from your head down to paper is going to lighten up the load in your head the whole day. And you'll be so surprised. You accomplish all those stuff and you write it down.

It's absolutely amazing how much of a stress relief it is when you take those things from your mind and put them on paper. Because you stop thinking about them. Because they're right there. You don't need to think about them. That is. I totally agree with that Ant.

Now, I wonder if we can do that for men. When you're thinking, okay, date night, gonna make this special. Can they kind of put that. Those checklists down on a piece of paper so that way it's not in their head? Because I know, sometimes, you know, it's like, oh, my God, all right, I gotta perform tonight. Make sure I'm firm enough. Make sure I like you said, like, I have to satisfy. I wonder if it's just like a checklist that you unload from your head. Just put it on paper and just go with the flow.

That could definitely, definitely, definitely work. Absolutely. But there's only one way to find out, and that's you got to try it.

So you got to try. Yeah.

Because what, what works for me? Like, same thing in the gym. I'll never have. I'll never have one workout for every single client because some clients like some things, some people like other things. So I have to tailor it to them. Same thing with us men. Like, you have to figure out what works for you. And you're never going to figure it out if you don't get in the reps. You got to try something. Say, oh, I don't like that. I'm not doing that anymore. Oh, I try on this one over here. Oh, that was really good. She really liked that. Okay, so I'm going to write that one down and make sure I get back to that more. So we just got to figure out what works for us. But that won't come without doing the reps.

So most of your clients are men, I assume?

No, most of my clients are women. The vast majority of my clients are women. That's starting to change now. Actually, right now I'm about 50%. But over my career, I would say it's been 80 women, 20 men. Because men are too stubborn to ask for help.

You're right.

They're too stubborn ask for help.

Well, a lot of them are like self reliant, you know, like, I'm independent, I can do it myself. And some of them actually asked me, oh, can I do the injection that you do myself? The injection I do in the office. And they wanted to treat themselves too, by injecting themselves with Botox or with the stem cell. And I go, wow, it's involved a lot more than just injecting yourself. But they managing their ED for like two decades. They feel that they can do it themselves, but they don't realize that taking ED medication is not treating your ed. Taking medication is band aiding your ED until your ED gets worse. And they're actually proud that, hey, I'm going up on the dose of the ED medication and I'm okay. I don't have any ED issues. And they still seeking that holy grail that, okay, what am I going to do? To make this better and make this better where if you just kind of go get the right advice from the right people, you can be on the right courses. I guess it's kind of like, it's amazing because I've had several of my patients say, well, can I just get this machine and do it at home myself?

I know the feeling, Ann. It's the same thing. Thing with personal training clients, it's. They learn a couple exercise. They're like, oh man, I can do this on my own. I'm like, well, you could, but there's a whole bunch of other stuff that we need to go over. Because it's not that people don't know what to do for exercise and diet, it's just that they're not doing it. And they. Until you can figure out that, like you said, the Band Aid, unless you can figure out the underlying cause of why you're not doing the things that you know you need to do, then it doesn't matter what kind of Band Aid you get, because it's never going to solve the problem. You could solve it temporarily because. But then it's going to come back. So what is the underlying issue that is keeping you from performing the way that you want to perform? In the gym, in the bedroom, in the kitchen, wherever? Figure that out first.

So let me ask you this. What do you think is the number one underlying cause why people find it so hard to lose weight?

I'm going to talk from my personal experience. My personal experience wasn't a weight loss thing because I didn't need to lose weight. I just needed to get in better shape. So the number one thing that kept me from getting in shape, I've already talked about, was that I was not truthful about the facts of what I was doing and where I was, because I was going. Like, I taught classes nine, ten times a week, and so I was in good shape, relatively speaking. But had I been taking pictures on a week to week basis like I started doing after I realized I hadn't been going anywhere, I'd be like, okay, I'm seeing some improvement here. Excellent, I'll keep going. Oh, there's no improvement here. Okay, well that's one week. No big deal. Two weeks in a row. No, I need to switch something up. I became aware of the facts of my reality. So what keeps people from doing what they know they need to do and making the change that they know is we just continue to lie to ourselves. We continue to lie to ourselves because we're not tracking those things that we know are important to us. Are you a good husband? Yes or no? Oh yeah, I'm a really good husband. I do this and I do that. Oh really? When's the last time you talked to your wife about whether, how she would rate you and do you know the things that you need to do in order to be a good husband? Yes or no? If you can't answer the question, do you know what you need to do physically as a husband to be a good husband? Then you're just guessing. And if you're guessing, you're probably wrong.

Interesting. I like that. I like that. So on that note from your relationship with your girlfriend, do to make her feel love, wanted, heard and sexy.

Okay, so making her feel wanted. I know. So actually one of the questions my I asked her this question this morning and this is a really good one. A podcast guest of mine, we were talking about masculine and feminine relationships and one of the questions that her and her husband asked that I've now adopted is what do you need from me today? So I'm up really early going to train clients. So I trained a couple clients this morning in home and then I go to my gym and I train clients there. In between I called Jenny Lee on the phone, I said, hey, what do you need from me today? And she said, love and support. So I asked her, okay, well what does that look like for you? And she's like, you know what, I'm still waking up, I'm not sure, but I know what that looks like for her. So I know as soon as she's done work at 4:30, what love and support is going to look like for her is making her a fun dinner, helping her relax after a long week, having a nice happy hour. It's beautiful here in Winnipeg today. So we're going to go on the patio, I'm going to whip up the barbecue. And that's what loving and supporting her is looking like. So loving and supporting her is making sure that when she is done work, the responsibilities she has for the rest of the evening are non existent. I want to take care of that. So that is loving and supporting her. So in terms of making her feel sexy, that's easy. That's just like with the touches with the eyes with the pulling the hair back and just that little gentle kiss on the neck. Like what did I used to do when we first started dating because she felt super sexy then I can just keep doing that stuff. It's super easy as long as I know to look for it. And I'm Asking myself those questions on a continual basis.

I love that. Remember what it's like when you were dating, what were you doing that enhances a relationship? Oftentimes when you're in a relationship or you're married, you kind of neglect that, and you take things for granted. And when it's time, it's like, okay, let's get down to business. Instead of spending more time in. Right. Spending more time in courting and role play and, you know, and oftentimes that helped also in for men getting erection and for women getting aroused, because you got to spend time warming up and getting to that phase. And, yeah, women takes about 20 minutes to really get there, you know, which is a lot longer than men as well, too.

Oh, yeah, we're two seconds.

I love that.

Sometimes that's all it takes.

So, on that note, where can our audience find more information about you? Carl?

I would go to anywhere you can listen to a podcast. My podcast is called Inspired by Impact, and that is dedicated. There's a lot of women that listen to it as well, but it's dedicated to men. And we do talk about a lot of relationship stuff in there. We talk a lot about mental and emotional health, physical health, of course. And we talk about, like, finding and fulfilling your purpose. So the podcast Inspired by Impact would be good. Or on Instagram, if. If anybody's on Instagram, I'm at Ignite the Impact. That'd be the best place to find me. But the podcast Inspired by Impact, that's definitely where I'd recommend people go first.

Right. I. I definitely. I actually checked out an episode. It was actually quite well. And I think I'm gonna be on your podcast.

Yes.

I think we scheduled something.

Make sure we get that. Take care of that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That I'm excited about.

Yes, yes, that's right. So thank you for being here today and learning from you. And I love the intimacy workout tracking. That may be something I'm gonna start doing. I have to say, I'm not doing that.

That's awesome, man. Your husband will thank you for it. That's amazing. Good for you. This has been amazing. I really appreciate it.

Yeah, I'm gonna ask him to do that for me as well, too. And it's on a free app, of course. There you go.

Of course. There you go.

Yeah, I love that. So takeaway point today is start tracking your intimacy workout the same way you track your gym workout, and you will see progress. All right, having said that, thank you, guys. We'll see you in the next episode. Hello there. Want an amazing sex life? This free gift is going to give you more sex by helping you get harder and lasting longer. Let's talk about the most sensitive subject, the effect that aging has on your sex life. If you're over 40, there's about 67% chance that you have to deal with one or more of these issues. You sometimes go soft in the middle of sex. You sometimes have trouble lasting long enough to climax. Your erection just doesn't feel as hard as it used to be and your penis is not as sensitive as it used to be. You cannot reach orgasm or ejaculate. You sometimes have trouble getting an erection. These things lead to frustration and embarrassment when you cannot please your partner. My name is Dr. Ann Truong and I've been treating men for issue like this for over 25 years. As a board certified medical doctor who specializes in men's health, I helped over 7,000 men reverse the effect of ED. As a way to introduce you to the ED treatment that I offer, I want to give you the most incredible free gift ever. But don't let the fact that is free gift for you. This powerful gift will help you get harder and stay and last longer and may just revolutionize your sex life, making sex more exciting, more thrilling and an amazing experience again. How is that? Now here's what you're going to get in this most incredible free gift. Number one A Good morning wood smoothie recipe. This is my specially formulated antioxidant recipe that will help you get harder and stay and stimulating more blood flow. It is formulated to increase your nitrous oxide level which is one of the biggest keys to making you harder and firmer more often and will also help you last longer. It is filled with lots of green that create more nitrous oxide in your blood. This smoothie will give you that morning wood effect and will also make you harder on demand when you need it most and you'll see the effect in about several weeks. Number two Nitrous oxide testing strip. You will also get two of these strips which you will use along with simple instructions to test your nitrous oxide level in your saliva. Nitrous oxide is a gas in your body and is required for good blood flow to the organ. The strip can determine if your nitric oxide are deficient which can help us advise you on the best way to reverse your ed. Even more important since since ED is an early warning sign of problems with circulation and heart health, this can also be a great way to prevent heart related problem such as strokes and heart attack number three. And the best part of all, a 30 day free trial access to the Modern Man Club as part of our mission to make men hard again, we launched the Modern Man Club as a way to provide education and support to community of men who's on the path to reversing their ed. With pre recorded and live session being offered every week, I will help men regain sexual health through training support. I will be there all the way with you to hold your hand through so that way you can overcome ED and have your best sex life members rave about this session and the sense of community they gain by being a member of the Modern Man Club. And all you have to do is to say maybe to this offer and once you say maybe you will be on your way to a more fulfilling and exciting sex life. So all you have to do is fill it down the form below and then I will see you on the inside. Thanks for listening to the Sexual Health for Men podcast. If you love this episode then please take a screenshot on your phone and post it on Facebook, Instagram or wherever you post and be sure to tag me and let me know why you like this episode and what you like to hear in the future that will help me know what's great for you. And I would love to give you the most incredible free gift designed to help you improve performance quickly. Go to my website@sexualhealthformenpodcast.com to get the book the Five Common Costly Mistakes Men Make When Facing Ed. I would appreciate it if you subscribe, leave a comment review on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen and just know that you can have sexual vitality for life. I appreciate you. Until next time.