Welcome to the positive corner of the internet. Every weekday, we make sense of the confusing world of wellness by analyzing the headlines, simplifying the latest research, and offering quick tips designed to make you healthier in less than 5 minutes. If you were forwarded this message, you can get the free daily email here.
Today’s Health Upgrade
Number you won’t forget
Setting the nutrition standard
Weekly wisdom
Pre-workout that goes in your ears
Good vibes
Arnold’s Podcast
Want more stories from Arnold? Every day, Arnold’s Pump Club Podcast opens with a story, perspective, and wisdom from Arnold that you won’t find in the newsletter. And, you’ll hear a recap of the day’s items. You can subscribe on Apple, Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Nutrition
Number You Won’t Forget: 1 Meal
Ever feel like you're spinning your wheels, chasing results that seem just out of reach? Instead of going to dramatic or extreme measures, a slight adjustment could be all it takes to get you out of your rut.
Research suggests that swapping just one meal per day with a protein shake could help you lose an extra 5 pounds compared to traditional dieting.
Studies compared calorie-restricted dieters to those who cut calories and integrated a meal replacement shake. The shake group shed more pounds and kept the weight off after 3 months. And one year later, they still hadn’t gained back the weight.
There’s nothing magical about protein shakes, but they can help prevent you from being your own worst enemy.
Research has found that we significantly underestimate our calorie intake by about 47 percent and overestimate our calorie burn from exercise.
So it’s less about what’s in the meal replacement and more about what’s not — which means you don’t have excess, unintended calories.
You could accomplish the same type of research with whole food meals, but that requires you to ensure you’re on-point with your portion control.
Protein shakes and meal replacements — at least, the good ones — are backed by science and can help burn fat, reduce hunger, and prevent muscle loss.
If you’re ready to put this strategy to the test, pick your most challenging meal (usually breakfast or lunch) and swap it with a shake.
Aim for a shake that packs at least 20 grams of protein and falls between 100 and 350 calories. (Here’s our favorite whey protein and the best plant protein).
If you’re doing more than just a powder in water, keep an eye on the extras you use like milk and nut butters. While both can be perfectly healthy, they are calorically dense because of the fat content, and it’s an easy way to add far more calories than you intended.
Together With Sundays For Dogs
Setting The Nutrition Standard
If you care about what goes into your body, why settle for anything less when it comes to your dog?
The problem is that most dog foods aren’t designed with what you care about as an owner – and what your vet would recommend as a professional.
At The Pump Club, we believe your best friend deserves food as good as yours. That’s why we went on a mission to find the ultimate dog food for animal lovers—something healthy, delicious, and easy. And we found it: Sundays for Dogs.
Most dog foods make you compromise. Cheap kibble? Convenient, but full of fillers. Fresh meals? Nutritious but a hassle to prep. Sundays offer the best of both worlds—air-dried, human-grade ingredients that are nutrient-rich, shelf-stable, and ready to serve.
Just like we want the best for our bodies, we apply the same logic for man’s best friend.
Superior Taste: Sundays beat kibble 39-0 in a third-party taste test.
Real Ingredients: No artificial junk—just meats, fruits, and veggies you recognize.
Zero Hassle: No fridge. No prep. No cleanup. Just scoop and serve.
This isn’t just dog food—it’s nutrition that sets a new standard. And we challenge you to let your pup decide.
Try the Sundays Challenge: Place Sundays next to your current food, and watch which one wins.
Get 40% off your first order with code PUMPCLUB and discover the food your dog deserves.
Mindset
Weekly Wisdom
Fitness
The Pre-Workout That Goes In Your Ears
We’ve told you that music is scientifically proven to help you push harder when you exercise. But it’s not just what you listen to during your workout that can give you a boost.
New research suggests that listening to music during your warm-up can improve strength and endurance.
In a recent clinical trial, participants performed a Wingate test, cycling on a stationary bike as hard as they could for 30 seconds. This test measures anaerobic power, the strength used when lifting weights, sprinting, and doing other high-intensity activities.
Before the test, the participants warmed up for 10 minutes, during which they listened to self-selected energetic music or no music.
When participants listened to music during their warm-up, their peak power increased by six percent.
Interestingly, listening to music and consuming caffeine provided the perfect pre-workout boost.
When participants consumed caffeine an hour before cycling and listened to music during the warm-up, their peak power increased by 15 percent.
While the mechanism isn’t fully understood, researchers suspect that listening to music may improve exercise performance by stimulating the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine and endorphins, which reduce the perceived difficulty of exercise.
If you want the best results from pre-workout music, listen to tracks you enjoy that have a tempo of around 120 beats per minute or faster.
Here's a short list of songs that clock in at the right pace to give your ears what they need to help your body perform its best.
Thunderstruck – AC/DC (~134 BPM)
Jump – Van Halen ( ~130 BPM)
Enter Sandman – Metallica (~123 BPM)
Don't Start Now – Dua Lipa (~124 BPM)
"Blinding Lights" – The Weeknd (~171 BPM)
Titanium – David Guetta ft. Sia (~126 BPM)
HUMBLE – Kendrick Lamar (~150 BPM)
Lose Yourself – Eminem (~171 BPM)
Levels – Avicii (~126 BPM)
Rock You Like A Hurricane – Scorpions (~125 BPM)
Good Vibes
If you haven’t seen this video yet, it’s worth a moment of your time. When we started this village, we knew wanted to build something different. And now, two years later, lives are being changed worldwide. Messages like this from Scott show you that you might be one Pump Club email away from turning around your life.
And that’s it for this week. Thank you all for being a part of the positive corner of the Internet, and we hope you have a fantastic weekend.
-Arnold, Adam, and Daniel
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Publisher: Arnold Schwarzenegger
Editors-in-chief: Adam Bornstein and Daniel Ketchell
