Barbell Shrugged - Nutrition for Aesthetics vs. Performance vs. Health - 203

Episode Date: March 9, 2016

We debate the pros and cons of all the diets, nutrition plans and lifestyles that are popular right now and try to shed some light on how you might switch up your diet when eating for performance vs. aesthetics vs. health.

This week on Barbell Shrug, we talk about the differences in eating for health, aesthetics, and performance. Hey, this is Rich Froning. You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Hey, I see you sitting there, lonely by your keyboard. If you want to, just whip your fingers out. Put them on your keys. Type in http://www.barbellshrugged.com. While you're there, swing on over, sign up for for the newsletter we'll send you some cool free stuff and make sure to check out overtime it's a sweet place with a bunch of sweet stuff and last but not least I know you're trying to find a bitchin t-shirt to get your mom for a birthday head on over to merch barbell shrug calm One, two, three, yeah!

Soccer, bro! Boom! Welcome to the Barbell Shrug Podcast. I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick, here with coaches Kurt Mulliken, Alex Macklin, and coach Mike McElroy. What's up? Who just turned 30. Congratulations, by the way. I'm sorry I missed you. But McElroy probably looks like he's like 45, though, for real. What's your biological age?

All right. So today we had a bunch of heated debates yesterday on what the real deal is with nutrition. There's so much information out there. So much. And we thought it would be a great episode to put them all together, bring up all the different diets, and talk to you a little bit about what the differences are and give you some insight into what path you might need to go based on what goals you have, whether it be health, aesthetics, or performance. There's just so much information out there and so many resources that we thought.

It's so overwhelming. Let's talk about it a little bit and clear some things up. There's so many diets out there, and they're all out there for a reason. They've all had success with them, whoever's presenting those diets. They've all had success with them for different reasons. So there there for a reason. They've all had success with them, whoever's presenting those diets. They've all had success with them for different reasons. So there's obviously a reason. Yeah, unless you're giving some of that bullshit like, hey, lose five pounds drinking this shake all day.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's about real plans. A real diet with real food. It might work. You could lose five pounds just drinking that shake only. Yeah, but then you'd have to think about, okay, well, what after the five days? You gain 25 pounds later, yeah. Right, exactly. shape only yeah and then but then you have to think about okay well what after the five days right exactly so i mean you know a diet a diet i feel feel like it necessarily i feel like i hate

calling it a diet because it's it's like nutrition plan it's it's more of a lifestyle you know like if you if you do this you say diet it's always something like that seems like temporary it's like a temporary fix but if you really want to you really want to create a lifestyle a nutrition a lifestyle of good nutrition that you can sustain over time you know yeah so that brings up you know do you when you're picking a nutrition plan where do you start do you look at your lifestyle first and see what may apply best to your lifestyle yeah i mean i agree i think if it's someone who's involved with like looking at it in a health and longevity perspective like you don't want to call it a diet because it's not very sustainable that way but i mean i don't have a problem calling it a diet if you're prepping for

a show or you know getting ready to like lose lose weight for you know for weightlifting competition like it could be a diet then because it's not really like a lifestyle then at that point it's more like you're prepping specifically for that competition right so it's not like like this is my lifetime diet yeah but you know but i feel though the majority of people are in that boat where it it does need to become a lifestyle thing yeah if you're if you're you know an overweight and you're unhealthy then the only way that you you're going to you know get better is just to make those lifestyle changes. And yes, getting on a diet, but I think it's really about making those lifestyle changes and making those habit changes that you can sustain and sustain this method of eating in life.

Not only that, but when you are doing nutrition, a diet, let's say, for a competition or for a weightlifting meet, why don't we try to take at least take some principles from that that are sustainable right so we're not just doing it for that temporary time maybe we don't sustain the whole thing but we take some principles that we've learned through that experience and continue it forever oh yeah yeah yeah um with that said like all the different resources out there like you've got iifym um you know paleo diet primal diet rp strength i mean there's a ton of different resources out there. Uh, let's talk a little bit about like the differences in some of these and

why you might use them and you know, why it might not be a great idea. Like how do you pick it? You know, how do you know if it's the one for you? So do you have any experience with, you know, macro weighing, like, you know, if, if it's your macros or paleo diet, anything like that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've, I've have done IFYM, flexible dieting, things like that. Like, so, you know, I've done paleo. And they're all, they're all about, you know, it's funny because they're all kind of like the same. It's just, you know, there's little bitty things that you do that are differently. And those are more like the habit forming things that are required for, to make the successful so like you know if you do macros you've got to weigh and measure

your food and you've got to eat a certain amount of macros and that's almost similar to zone because it's like uh you know you got blocks and you gotta you gotta eat those numbers gotta get there right exactly but then there's other things that are more general like paleo or something like precision nutrition which is more like just eat these types of foods and structure your meals like kind of like this and it's more general um and you know it's it's easier for people to follow because there's not so much like complicated things steps that you have to do you know it's very it's very simple something like the zone and then ifym like what would the difference be then because it sounds like you're both, in a sense, like weighing the macronutrients or like organizing the macronutrients at certain times when you eat them. Like what is the difference then?

I mean, there's not really. That's what I'm saying. Like there's not really that much difference. I mean, zone, you know, it's based on, you know, like percentages of your diet. So, you know, 40, 30, 30, you know, 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% carbs. Yeah, protein and carbs. So, I mean, that's more like that kind of thing. And then you manipulate that percentage based on whether you want to lose weight or gain mass.

But, I mean, same thing is for IFYM. And then, you know, IFYM stands for if it fits your macros. So basically the premise behind that is you really eat whatever as long as it fits within the daily allotment of macronutrients, protein, carbs, and fat that you're allowed to have. So would that be the difference then? The zone has favorable foods that they want you to choose from. They have favorable carbs and proteins and fats. Does this IIFYM do that? Or do they care what kind of food you eat?

I think the zone, I mean, it does kind of suggest certain things, but I don't think it requires certain things. You can still put whatever you want into it. I think the difference is that for the zone and like kind of RP nutrition is it gives you timing throughout the day. Like each meal should be 40, 30, 30. And with RP, each meal should have this, this, and this. IIFYM is, or if it fits your macros, is as long as you get that amount during the whole day,

you can do all your protein and fat in the morning and then eat only carbs at night. You can have steak and Skittles if you want. Yes, yes. If you get to the end of the day, you have 30 grams of fat left, two tablespoons of peanut butter, whatever. Or maybe you have 100 grams of carbs left and you eat a bunch of dry cereal. Yeah, there's definitely been times where I've just literally literally just gulped egg whites because i had protein i remember you eating dry cereal at our retreat you just had like three three things of dry cereal because that's all you had left was carbs bleeding gums but those so now those

those diets i feel like uh especially with ifym, because they are to a point where it's like, okay, well, yes, you do want to eat quality food, but you don't necessarily have to. I feel like that is more of an advanced or maybe even an intermediate level because it's like, you know, food quality at that point is not the most important thing. It's quantity because you're trying to manipulate. You're trying to get your body into the optimal body composition. And so if you're a new person or you're overweight and you just need to lose weight, I would not go that route. I would just go like eat quality food, eat real food. If you're eating shitty food like sodas and bullshit fast food, cut that crap out, eat real food, make it simple so that's easy for you to do because you're probably not ready to

take on all the things that are required to make something like IFYM or something like that or RP or whatever successful. Well, you said earlier in passing that you have these more general diets for more general people like precision nutrition or paleo, and then you have these more focused things. So maybe as your goals get more focused, maybe shift towards those things later down the road. And early on when you have these broad goals like just getting in shape, just learning these habits, and just getting healthy, stick to the more broad. Yeah, so recognizing where you are on your journey in nutrition so some of us are more advanced some of us are start just starting out doing nutrition uh and recognizing that from the front end to not go if this is your first experience with manipulating your diet don't go 100 paleo and measuring macros and all that

stuff all at once because it's probably not going to last so when i have clients come to me it's starting out with the most basic thing i also have the conversation of you know what do you see yourself being successful with does this look like something you can see yourself being successful with um so those are some of the things that's a really big important thing because because the thing is if you cannot follow a diet and you cannot follow the requirements of it uh the structure, you are not going to be successful. It's not going to work for you. The best diet is what works for you.

Dr. Andy Galpin talked about that at his nutrition talk at our summit. In a nutshell, he basically was like, look, you can only follow a diet plan that you're actually capable of doing. If you're not a habitual person, it's going to be really difficult to start off with your first diet ever weighing all your macros. Even if you don't even know how to select good food quality, that's got a lot to take on all at once. So start with something that you know you're capable of handling. Yeah.

If you've just now started and you want to lose weight and you want to start a diet and you've never weighed and measure ever in your entire life and you're going to try to do a diet that is so condescending based on totally based on weighing and measuring your food like good luck like maybe you are successful i i you know if you are that's awesome but like for for a lot of people that's going to be like that's going to be so overwhelming and it's going to just be like they're just not going to know where to start and it that is the way to like just you'll do it for like three days, and you'll be like, I can't do this shit anymore. Well, then what do you suggest trying first then? I mean, so do you start even if it's someone who is pretty habitual? Like do you need to go that in depth? Do you need to weigh and measure everything?

Could you just follow a paleo diet for six months? And if that works then great at what point do you go into the very highly detailed like nutrition programs that we're talking about versus just keeping it super broad right i think when you feel when you feel confident about what you're doing it feels easy again creating that habit yeah when it becomes a habit of doing something also when i'm starting with beginners i try to think about adding something into their diet instead of taking away something into their diet so um taking away something into their diet. So when paleo was real popular and everything, people would come to me and ask, like, why can't I eat peanuts instead of almonds?

And they're still drinking, like, Coke. Yeah, yeah. So trying to add in drinking water versus trying to take away even drinking Diet Coke. So if they drink more water, they're likely going to drink less Diet Coke. So if we think about trying to have things to add in, then it's going to be easier for them because they're not going to eat, drink less Diet Coke. If we think about trying to have things to add in, then it's going to be easier for them because they're not trying to be as restrictive. That's one place I start with beginners.

Any other ways to help develop nutritional habits that you've used with clients? I think just making small changes. Making small changes is the most important thing. There's so much stuff that you can do, but should you do it? Probably not.

You know, like making small changes. So like McElroy's example of, you know, if someone is drinking soda, you know, all the time, instead of, you know, saying like, oh, well, you need to stop drinking all soda at all, like at all, maybe drink one less can of soda and replace it with water. Like we always talk about habits, and you really can't get rid of bad habits. maybe drink one less can of soda and replace it with water like you like we always talk about habits and and you you really can't get rid of bad habits you can only replace them with better good habits so just replacing that bad habit

with a good habit like you know you can do that so you know I think I think having people focus on you know one small thing that you know and that comes from just either you know looking at yourself and seeing you know one small thing that you know and that comes from just either you know looking at yourself and seeing you know what all you do so if you you know write down your food for like three days and see what you ate and then oh man you ate like chips every single day like do you need to eat those chips yeah maybe try to maybe try to substitute those chips with something else like a healthier snack like some fruit or some vegetables i think the thing that i kind of teach people it sounds bad at first uh but i like to like here we go yeah yeah here we go i like to plant seeds in people's heads like give them just like a mindset way to think and so i think i was reading

uh maybe it's the warrior diet you know that's really that's an old school ory hoff meckler but uh kind of plant like a little bit of a almost a tiny superiority complex in your head when it comes to food. Now, you don't voice it. You don't walk by somebody who's eating a bag of chips and be like, eh, shitty. But think about it in terms of like predators versus like a vulture. These people are eating like this cold, dead food.

I like to tell them like they're eating this cold, dead food that was like left by somebody else. Someone else prepared it, and they're just over there picking over it like vultures. And here you are, this guy who's working out. Cold dead shit. Yeah, you've got to think, okay, I'm going to go, I'm going to work out, I'm going to earn my food, I'm going to prepare it. It's the capture kill kind of thing.

And so whenever you're walking through the airport and everybody's eating this bagged crap, you have this thing in your head, that's cold dead food that they're picking over that someone else left for them. And so like, yeah, it sounds bad, you know, don't say anything because then you're a dick about it. But, but if you have that mindset, it kind of just helps you just make better food choices. Yeah, that's a really good idea. And I mean, going back to what you were talking about, how do you know, like when you're ready, you know, I think, I think when you'll know when you're

ready, when you have established like good habits and you can you can you can have that control and that mind that that mindset of like okay I know like you know I'm eating this and I'm choosing to eat this it doesn't have this power of me I feel like there's a lot of emotional attachment to food and things like that if you have if you get to a point where you you now have control and you see food as you know uh something just to give you the energy and things like that you you're not you're not in control the food doesn't control you you know i feel like that at that point you're probably ready to like go to the next level and be like okay now i'm ready to like actually now i want six-pack abs like give me them shits yeah i think i mean obviously having a

healthy relationship with food is very important, but I want to talk a little bit more about the differences in what it might look like if you're performing versus aiming at aesthetics versus just health and longevity. So if you're someone who's trying to, is only worried about your performance in the gym and doesn't really care about what your body looks like, I mean, even though probably subconsciously deep down inside you still do, even the point being is that, you know gain whatever you just want to perform like you're

worried about that number like what might that look like versus someone who's just eating for health and longevity yeah i mean for me in my experience when i was trying to be a high level crossfitter i went into a little bit of the paleo kind of lower carb-ish diet and i ran into a brick wall hard yeah um and it affected everything in my life because i wasn't getting the carbs and and the fuel that i needed to fuel that performance training twice a day training hard twice a day i wasn't getting the uh fuel that i needed and also you end up carrying a little bit more weight when you do that because your hormones are all jacked up yeah um so adding in all those carbs actually helped fuel performance and since then not with myself but other clients as we've slowly had them bump up their carbs it's done a lot more for their performance and their aesthetics yeah so the

beginning of the year it's very popular you have the whole 30 challenges you have the new payload challenges i think are great it kind of gives everyone a good restart. But a lot of athletes or high-level exercisers in gyms hop on that wagon, and then they cut out their carbs because they're just trying to go low-carb. And what they don't do is they don't supplement the proteins and fats with it. And, yeah, they do lose some weight, but, man, they are hurting in the gym. And some of them are okay with that. They're like, look, I don't care. My goal was to lean out.

But don't expect them both. I'm not saying they can't, but just be ready for that. Be ready for that shift that if you're going to reduce your calories like that, like it's going to hurt. Have you ever done something like that? Yeah, I mean, I've gone strict paleo before. And I'm trying to remember back. Like I don't really remember a huge drop off in performance for me personally,

but I also was very diligent about it. I still ate a lot of food. I had really good post-workout shakes, like lots of sugar afterward. I was only training once a day then when I did it, and it was like way at the beginning when I started crossfitting. Now, how I actually got into that kind of dieting was the first thing I ever did was the zone diet, which I was a big fan of. I don't do it now, but I was a big fan of it then because it taught me portions.

It taught me how to look at something and be like that's about six to eight ounces of meat i should have that much at every meal followed with vegetables around it pretty much you know and a little bit of fat and that's a really good starting point for someone who's never dieted before so i was yeah definitely i think it's like a really easy way to to learn how to start weighing and measuring your food and kind of tracking that and figuring out what a good plate looks like. Now, a couple of years down the line, again, I'm very grateful for that because it helped me figure out what works for me personally. So depending on what training cycle it is, I actually have to watch how many calories I eat sometimes when I'm doing CrossFit because I'm a heavier CrossFitter. I'm 210 right now, 215, fatty. Yeah, I'm a fat CrossFitter. And like, I don't need to weigh a lot more.

Like, it's going to slow me down on gymnastics. Like, I've got to compete against dudes who are just as strong as me that are 180, 185 pounds. So I'm not cutting calories, but I'm definitely watching what I eat. The 185s that have the great genetics, they can just eat whatever they want, lift, they keep getting stronger. And you know what? I see that, and I might try and mock that, but that's a bad idea because it's not me. Right. So you got to figure out what works for you and it takes time. Yeah. That's what you were saying. That's personally why I like, uh, you know, the macros and like RP style, like of, of, of diets because every macro

nutrient is important. Like, you know, if you're not getting enough carbs, like you said, like if you're doing high-volume training and, you know, you're training twice a day, you are going to fall on your face because you are not going to have any kind of energy to tackle your training, and then you're not going to make progress. And then same thing, protein is necessary for, you know, recovery and building muscle and things like that. And fats are even important because fats are synthesized in your body and they turn into your hormones like testosterone and things like that.

So you have to have all those macronutrients in the right quantities because if you eat too much, if you eat too little, you're not going to be optimized for good performance. So I find that for me personally, if I am not tracking and not figuring out how much that I need to eat, I tend to either under eat or overeat. I don't eat the right amounts. And so and so my performance is going to is going to come down or I'm going to get unnecessarily fat when I don't need to. And as a weightlifter, you you have to you can't really go super heavy and train. You want to train around where your body weight is. So I'm really trying to maximize performance and stay light.

And you have to have, I feel like, a lot more structure and a lot more detail in quantity of foods that you need to eat. And if you can't handle that, go be a super heavy because then you can eat every one. I think it's important to note, too, when we're talking about performance and your performance dropping if you can't handle that, go be a super heavy because then you can eat every one. I think it's important to note too when we're talking about performance

and your performance dropping if you're not getting enough food or if you're not getting enough carbs or something, we're not just talking about performance in the gym,

performance outside of the gym in your work or your family or whatever. Your brain doesn't function the same way so you can't concentrate.

You don't have the energy to play with your kids or whatever. So it's not a performance drop just in here but it's a performance drop all over. And it just gets worse and worse.

Yeah. I mean, they make those jokes like, I haven't had a carb in a week. But like, if you've ever gone extremely low carb or close to ketogenic, like you, I'm not,

I get depressed. And I'm just like, I don't even want this. It's so hard. Yeah. It's brutal. I think that's a good segue into, into being happy with what,

with what you decide to do and, and kind of how to take that. Yeah. So, and then, you know, if you're someone who's after fat loss, the differences in performance there, people feel like now it's so popular that if you're aiming at fat loss only, that you just always remove the carbs. However, I mean, it is extremely effective for a large chunk of the crowd. For a short period of time. For a shorter period of time because you need this thing called metabolic flexibility, right? It's like if you completely cut the carbs, right, you're trying to get your body better at using,

at burning fat as a fuel source, not carbs all the time. However, you become stagnant in that environment. So the carbs, when you eat them every once in a while, it's going to develop those spikes. It's going to get your body used to shifting back and forth to go into different fuel sources. So it's really important. So I'm not saying that it doesn't work for everyone, but just keep that in mind that going super low carb all the time might not be the best idea. You've got to monitor it. I think the more important thing about with fat loss and carbs is nutrient timing more than anything else so if you're going to eat carbs like and this is what

a lot of a lot of diets now are popularizing is about nutrient timing and this is this is old school i mean window of gains okay like if you train hard and you know you just did a workout that's when you want to eat your your higher carbohydrates of foods and the rest of the day you should be eating you know meats and vegetables and things like that like lower g lower glycemic index foods and then you save your higher glycemic index which is glycemic index is like basically uh quickly digest yeah how yeah how how much it raises your insulin or whatever yeah um so so things like rice pasta breads those are higher gi so you want to save those to like after after training and that's a habit that you have to develop. You cannot just sit there and just be like, I'm going to do this. Because if you've never done it before, you don't have that habit already in place.

That's not something you're going to do. So, you know, if you're a beginner type person, you're just starting out, like just focus on eating quality. I think quality foods. Don't worry so much about nutrient timing. Don't worry about that. And then when you get a handle of you can eat quality, you can eat, you know, you have an idea of what portions are for you that work for you, then you start going to those more advanced concepts and developing those habits.

And we have some people ask about, like, intermittent fasting too and just taking that into consideration along with macros or quality and what he mentioned about being happy with your nutrition and looking at your lifestyle first. So when you're looking at a nutrition plan, maybe you do look at what are your goals, you know, performance or aesthetics or just health and longevity, but also your lifestyle. So if you have, you know, a doctor that has a 12-hour shift that literally has zero time to eat, maybe he's an ER doctor or something, doesn't have time to eat that may be a place where intermittent fasting may come in but the point is not necessarily intermittent fasting the point is looking at your lifestyle looking at your lifestyle yeah like you were talking about that with your job and your lifestyle the macros thing was relatively easy right but if you have a busy like nine hour day that's really tough it's really tough and you're gonna have to

again it just goes back to also habits like you if you have a freaking full-time job with, like, three kids, you've got to take a soccer practice, and you're thinking about weighing and measuring your food out for every meal, thinking you're going to have time? No way. You've got to. No way. You can't do it.

I respect those that do do that. I don't know how they do it because, you know, unless they've got it down to where they eat the same things every day and they don't care about that. I think that's a thing. They'll eat the same shit all the time. That's fine, and that's totally fine. Is it?

If it works for you and that's what you like doing, some people can do that. But if you are thinking about cooking a different meal every day and then trying to play food Tetris on MyFitnessPal and figure this shit out, that's going to take up so much time. I know i'm not trying to count almonds in my minivan so yeah you're gonna have to develop a habit of you know meal prep like doing it on a weekend or whatever day you can do it and then that just that just all i mean i feel like that's still it's all very nutrition especially if you're just you're just starting out just keep it simple as possible and work on developing these habits one at a time you know yeah and kind of like gap and said his thing the chef versus the baker and keeping it simple i think keeping it simple translates two

different ways in different people's minds some people measuring and weighing is the simple way right some people that is true that is true so i mean it just goes back to again what is your preference yeah so what about those that let's let's address the people that have tried these diets right so they're a few years in they're they're kind of passive beginner they've tried these things i say the biggest one i see is someone who's exercised who exercises uh consistently eats clean, so they say, and can't lose weight anymore. Like what are some things they can do?

What are some recommendations? Like what are the first things you look at? Honestly, if they've done it for a long time and they still can't lose weight in their training and they've tried maybe a bunch of diets, then I got to say, like, you're probably the common denominator here. Like, there's something going on that you're not doing. And maybe you need to maybe look at yourself and kind of assess all the things.

Reality check. Reality check. Like, you know, write down your food for five days. And, oh, shit, you drank that whole bottle of wine the other night. Like, where did that come from? But it was red wine. It was made from grapes, so it's fruit. But, like, no, but, like, that's the type of stuff.

So maybe look at some of that stuff. You may figure out some ways, some things that, you know, maybe your habits aren't as good as you thought they were. Yeah, I think looking at how long you stick to a nutrition plan. So maybe you've tried all these things. Maybe you tried all these six different diets all within a month. Yeah. And of course none of them are going to work because you haven't stuck to

anything for a long period of time. So making sure you're sticking to something for a long time. That drives me so crazy. I'm all about helping the, like you said, like kind of beginner to intermediate. They've maybe, let's say it was paleo because that's always like kind of stepped on or, you know, for a lot of people they get in, they start paleo. And they're not losing weight or they've stopped losing weight. And my biggest thing is like are you doing what is setting you apart from from the crowd you know if or are you trying to kind of fit your diet to them like are you making almond

flour pizza you know right or paleo treats yeah yeah like or paleo brownies are are you doing it just for the sake of calling it paleo yeah like gluten-free right and to me to me that's not you're not you're not doing what sets you apart. You're eating regular people, regular everyday foods, where there's like this paleo moniker on it. Right. I mean, all right, so let's say that you are doing everything right because we've just kind of attacked everyone

assuming that it's all their problem. It is their problem. It's all your fault. No, no, we're not saying that at all. So somebody has tried it. They've done it right. Yeah, they've done it right, and they really have. Go hire a nutrition expert.

Find someone that you trust that can take a look at it and give you some advice on that. Maybe you haven't tracked it to the extent that you thought. Have them look at it. Take a look at your lifestyle, too. We're talking about trying to fix an eating issue that you might have that's not helping you get the goals that you have without even looking at what your actual lifestyle might be causing that problem so you could be eating absolutely perfect and if you're only getting six hours of sleep each night and training hard you're working against yourself right so i mean take a look at that stuff too you know you've got the sleep is

hormones take a look at your lifestyle get some blood work done there's a lot of other things you can look at and in my opinion i think think that should kind of be done first. But, again, if you're a beginner, I'm not going to tell you to go do all those things. Like try and do the simple thing first because it's cheaper just to go eat clean rather than like go and get all these doctors and stuff. But there's definitely people you can consult for that, right? So like go hire an expert and get some advice there. Well, that's – I mean what you bring up is a good way to see if, if what you're doing is actually working. I hear this all the time. Like, well,

like, I don't know if this is working or not because, you know, maybe sometimes in the scale lies, the mirror lies, like everything is, you know, a lot of things work against you in terms of, you know, are things working or not, but, you know, you brought up an excellent point. You know, if you go get, go get your blood work done and done and you know if your triglycerides have dropped because you started changing the way that you eat that's that's progress too like don't always worry about like getting healthier yeah you're getting healthier like i feel like people just oh man if i don't see my abs in the mirror i just that this shit ain't working but but i mean that's like so that's like so on the opposite on the other end

of the spectrum like in terms of like you know what you're gonna do like what the results for nutrition good nutrition you know that's like at the end you know you got all this other good stuff in between like a healthier healthier lifestyle you get better sleep better energy things like that things like you can measure and and will maybe you know, if you measure those things, you can see those things are making progress and help you get some more motivation to keep going, you know? Yeah, I guess it comes down to what your definition of health is. So if your definition of health is being extremely low body fat, you know, so let's say you get there and you're like, I see that version of me and I know I'll be happy once I get there.

But when you do, you realize the effort it takes to walk around that shredded because, A, it's not in your genetics to be there naturally. And B, it's a shitload of work and time out of your life. And maybe you're not even enjoying yourself anymore. You're not able to go have pizza with your buddies or whatever, because that's your idea of what you had built up in your head is healthy. Yeah. So just ask yourself, like spend some time. That's the biggest thing I can say here is like really sit down and figure out like what is healthy to you and like why it's so important that body fat is the definition of health. Yeah, again, I think like I mentioned it earlier, like when you're looking at these different nutrition plans, you need to be able to see yourself being successful and see yourself being able to do this for the long term

and see yourself being sustainable in this nutrition plan. If you can't see that before you even start it, then when you get into it, you're definitely not going to be able to sustain it. So, yeah. I mean, are you doing, are you doing this out of, out of self love or health or wanting to take care of yourself or, or, you know, do you think that when you have abs there, you know, you're going to get the validation that you've been looking for?

Yeah. I feel like that's a big, that's a big thing that, you know, a lot of people, they have external pressure to get, you know, this ideal body composition or ideal look. And they're not doing it for yourself. I don't care who you are. It's got to be for you. I'm sorry. Like, you can have somebody.

Okay, yes, getting the validation from other people and whatever. But honestly honestly it's got it's gonna run out you you have to have your own intrinsic motivation it has to be for you because you want to do it because you this this shit is not easy it's gonna take a lot of it's a lot of work and if if you don't have that intrinsic motivation to do it for you you are not gonna you are not gonna see it through it just we just won't it just won't happen. Um, and yeah, that's, that's, that's to me the most, I'm one of the most important things. As soon as you don't get that validation on Instagram, then you're going to quit doing it. I hear a lot. I hear a lot like, well, if I don't lose weight,

like my girlfriend or my boyfriend, they'll leave me. And then, and then, okay. And you lose weight and they left you anyway like right you know what do you do now you know it's got to be for you it's got to be yeah those are all really good points um you know so we gave you a lot of information we talked a little bit about the differences and how to eat if you're just looking for you know health longevity like have a really good relationship with food to look long term like the way am i eating right now can i do this can i see myself doing the same thing in six years that's a really good relationship with food, look long-term, like the way I'm eating right now, can I do this? Can I see myself doing the same thing in six years? That's a really good question to ask yourself. Sustainability for sure. Yeah. So if you're someone who's after aesthetics, like power to you, I think that's awesome, but just know exactly specifically what it is you're

eating for. Right. And, and, and there's nothing wrong with doing it for any reason, right? If it's aesthetics, if it's performance, just have a good idea that, you know, you know what it is you're heading toward. Yeah, because they are different. They definitely are different in terms of, you know, what you're going to have to do. Yeah. And, but, but, you know, and, and one of the main things is too, is like, yeah, sustainability, developing good habits. And so you can be consistent at doing it. And so you, you're not just just sitting here doing it for like three days and then be like, oh, I don't really want to do this anymore. So you've got to be able to look at something and be like, okay, I can do this and stick to that plan.

Yeah, I think that's one of the hard things talking about looking at what you're doing right now and what the purpose is right now in developing habits. It's one of the things I've heard people have trouble with with the if it fits your macros and then also personally uh the the struggles with training for performance for such a long time you know training to compete for such a long time doing two days and things like that where i could pretty much eat whatever i want um because i am a lighter person anyway so i was trying to keep up with it um and now transitioning out of that into just fully a coach and only training one hour a day just for health and longevity i find that those habits i thought i had under

control are actually a little bit harder than i thought to let go of because i'm not training that way so i have to dial that i've been there too i'm i'm in the middle of it right now that'd be a that'd be a fun episode just talk about too in terms of getting used to adjusting training volume and lowering calories because for a while when i was hitting triples doubles whatever like i was like i eat whatever i want this is awesome and now i'm like i actually gotta watch what i eat yeah yeah yeah look at food it gets just just ass grow 20 pounds you guys have anything else you want to add i think i don't i don't think i have anything else yeah the main thing to close out i think is just looking at your lifestyle looking at your lifestyle,

making sure you know what your purpose is with your nutrition and looking at what you think is sustainable for you going forward. And make sure it's for you. Be happy. You've got to do you and treat yourself. That's what you've got to do. That's what it is. All right.

Cool. Very cool, guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.