Barbell Shrugged - Nutrition Periodization for Optimizing Body Composition w/ Cody McBroom, Anders Varner, and Doug Larson - Barbell Shrugged - Barbell Shrugged #490
Episode Date: July 29, 2020Cody McBroom is the Founder of Tailored Coaching Method, an international coaching company that is built around the idea that every single individual is different and deserves a different plan. Their... slogan, "Helping average people understand advanced strategies to achieve above average results.", explains their approach to coaching quite well. They bridge the gap between science and practical application. Cody is also a passionate entrepreneur, podcaster, and content creator, as well as a happy husband and father. In this Episode of Barbell Shrugged: How long should you be in a calorie deficit? How often should you diet throughout a year? Why is maintenance calories king for longevity? How do you structure a year of nutrition? What is nutrition periodization? Minimal effective dose in the weightroom. How do you optimize body comp and not diet year round. Cody McBroom on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram ———————————————— Training Programs to Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/34zcGVw Nutrition Programs to Lose Fat and Build Muscle: https://bit.ly/3eiW8FF Nutrition and Training Bundles to Save 67%: https://bit.ly/2yaxQxa Please Support Our Sponsors Shadow Creative Studios - Save $200 + Free Consult to start you podcast using code” “Shrugged” at podcast.shadowstud.io Organifi - Save 20% using code: “Shrugged” at organifi.com/shrugged www.masszymes.com/shruggedfree - for FREE bottle of BiOptimizers Masszymes http://onelink.to/fittogether - Brand New Fitness Social Media App Fittogether Purchase our favorite Supplements here and use code “Shrugged” to save 20% on your order: https://bit.ly/2K2Qlq4 Garage Gym Equipment and Accessories: https://bit.ly/3b6GZFj Save 5% using the coupon code “Shrugged”
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Shrug Family, Cody McBroom on the podcast this week.
Super stoked talking about nutrition, periodization,
and how you can schedule out a full year,
when you can be in a calorie deficit,
maintenance calories, calorie surplus,
get big and strong.
Cody's an awesome dude.
I've been following him for quite some time now,
so it's great to connect.
He's one of our first interviews that we did in quarantine.
Really excited for you guys to check this out.
But before we get rolling, I want you to get over and talk to our sponsors, my buddy Yannick over at
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I also want to thank our friends over at Fit Together.
Starting August 1st, we have a massive giveaway.
Go and download the Fit Together app on your phone right now.
It's F-I-T-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R, Fit Together.
Our friends at Fit Together are going to pick up two winners, gym membership dues for the
next six months.
That's right.
They're going to be picking up your gym membership dues for the next six months.
All you need to do is go download the app, post your workout starting August 1st through
the end of the month.
I'm going to be kicking in a special giveaway in the middle of the month
to make sure the engagement stays high, to make sure everybody stays motivated.
And then at the end of the month, we're going to be picking two people
and buying their membership at their gym for six months.
On top of that, the second place finishers, we have two grand prizes.
The second place finisher is going to get a brand new Fitbit of their choice.
Those are massive giveaways, plus what I'm going to be giving away in the month.
So all you need to do is go download the Fit Together app.
F-I-T-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R, Fit Together.
It's available on all your devices, whether you've got the Android or the iPhone or whatever else exists in the world.
But get over, download the Fit Together app, get signed up by getting into the Barbell Shrug Group,
friending me at Anders Varner, and just post all of your workouts for the month of August.
It's 30 days in a row. Use the hashtag checkinchallenge challenge and we'll be keeping tabs on
how many people are checking in who's doing it the most all those fun things
and picking two winners for six months free of your gym membership as well as a
free Fitbit and then a surprise giveaway in the middle of the month I'm really
stoked on this fit together has been awesome. I'm really stoked on this. Fit Together's been awesome.
I'm excited to see the Check-In Challenge kick some serious
ass.
I just said that in the intro. Look at that.
But get over
Fit Together on all of your
devices. F-I-T-T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R.
Fit Together.
Fred Me. Get into Barbell Shrug. Check-In Challenge
coming August 1st.
Welcome to Barbell Shrug. I'm Andersin challenge coming August 1st. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Anders Barger.
Doug Larson. Cody McBroom.
Dude, this is awesome. We were just talking two seconds ago.
We've got a bunch of friends in common and been kind of following you on Instagram,
seeing everything that you've been building over the last kind of year and a half or so,
and I'm really stoked to do this.
It's kind of like the general outline of where we want to go talking about nutritional periodization,
which is, man, those are like two words you throw together and eyes are going to roll and
nutrition's big enough on its own. The idea that we have to periodize things out over a 12
month period and start talking about, you know, maintenance calories
and living at a place where we can build muscle and just live a healthy life and then create
those habits. Periodization is another giant topic. But I'd love to hear just, dude, I only
know about kind of your career over the last 12 to 18 months. I'd love to hear just the high level
points of how you got into this and where'd you come from? Tell me everything.
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm born and raised Seattle, Washington. I live just outside of there now.
And I run a company called Tailored Coaching Method. It was once Boom Boom Performance. And
I started about three and a half years ago, but I started, my nickname's always been Cody Boom
Boom. And I started a blog eight years ago called boom boom performance and i would just write about fitness
because blogging was like the medium back then uh and that turned into a business and then
eventually i grew a team and i was like okay i gotta change the name because this doesn't
describe what we do whatsoever and it's named after my weird nickname so let's let's make this
really changed this, this year
at the beginning of 2020 to tailored coaching method. And it's been a really good, good transition.
But essentially what we do is, is I always tell people, we help average individuals understand
advanced strategies to achieve above average results. So we are kind of like trying to teach
general population, the science.
And I think that there's this kind of missing gap where there's these scientists and research
junkies that are just like so in depth and they don't understand the art of coaching. They don't
understand application. They don't understand human connection. And then I see other people
that are so habit based that they don't use any of the science and they just kind of cross their
fingers and hope that people will listen. And there's this, and there's a lot of bro science in that
world. We're kind of in the middle. We want to work with the people that are everyday people,
but they want to be educated. They want to learn about the science. They want to learn about some
more advanced stuff and they want to utilize it for an above average physique or strength level
or whatever it may be. So we kind of base our whole philosophy around just educating people.
And that kind of stemmed from me personally.
I grew up overweight and I was never like obese, but I was always the chubby kid in
my group.
And I had a couple of soccer injuries in high school.
So I graduated and just gained even more weight.
So now I'm fat and I need something to change.
I've never stepped foot in the gym.
And that's when I had like this huge lifestyle transformation.
And I changed my life, dropped 50 pounds, started getting into training and nutrition,
started interning as a strength coach. And it kind of just, just piled on, but it wasn't until
I found somebody that would actually teach me this shit that I got really hooked on it. Cause
before I tried every fad diet, every, uh, high intensity bootcamp thing that was like popping
up on my feed that I could jump into. So it took me a while, but once I had somebody educate me, I started changing, I changed my degree in college and
started really learning about this stuff. That's when I found my passion and I started creating
content and just kind of been a snowball for the last eight years until we do what we do today.
Yeah. Who were some of the mentors? Yeah. Yeah. Same question. Who was the mentor?
So there's, there's quite a few
the first one was a guy named tim vagan um he so he ran this personal training program at the
community college i went to and he was friends with uh charlie weingroff dan john uh michael
boyle great cook like some of like the legends of the perform better functional movement screening
all that back then i feel like that was my whole perform better experience you just mentioned right there
literally boil on friday yeah yep martin rooney was in there alan cosgrove like so he was he was
just in this group and it was it was crazy because uh he approached me and it was i was in the
college gym working out and i think I was doing like leg
extensions and I had a knee brace on still. Cause I just got done with surgery. And he was like,
Hey, I think I have some like better advice for you. And I was just like, who's this old dude?
He wasn't like, didn't look impressive at all. And he was like, you should stop my class. It's
called functional training. And I was like, well, I don't like school anyway. So I skipped class,
went to his and just fell in love. I actually ended up forging my dad's signature to change my degree to get into his program. Um, but it worked
out well. And, uh, and essentially he just kind of took me under his wing. I started going to the
perform better summits with him. I started shadowing him at his gym. I started being
introduced to all these people, the ones that I just named most of them. Um, and then he brought
in a guy named Luca Josevar into the school to talk on business of personal training.
And so this was the first guy that came into our class
to talk that wasn't wearing khakis and a polo.
And I finally really related to him
because he was actually pretty hood.
It was funny.
He came in, he had a chain on, he had Jordans on.
And I was talking with him like,
man, this guy really knows his shit. And he's not like this like i said khakis and polo geeky uh physical
therapist which was like the stereotypical thing i had in my head i want to be a successful trainer
isn't he the guy that hangs out at the fit aid house with us all the time luca
uh yeah i'm not sure if i saw him i'd certainly know but there's so many there's so many people
in that fit aid crowd i'm trying to multiple times i know i know we've hung out with that
dude for many hours and i'm trying to put him on the place in the party or wherever the hell we
were that we've hung out with him in the fit aid house just seems like the one that i was at
i wouldn't be surprised if you knew him.
He ran a gym in Renton, Washington, which was just underneath Seattle. And it was like a functional training place. And I basically, he would do these charity bootcamps. So I would just
show up to every charity bootcamp. Finally, I was like, yo, can I work for free, do something?
So he brought me on as an intern. I worked for free for like three or four months until he hired
me as a coach. And that was like my first intro, which was nice because I didn't have to start at LA
Fitness or anything.
I got to go into like the functional spot.
Because back then, it was like one of the original gyms with the graffiti on the wall,
the turf, the change, like no machines, kettlebells.
And he's Slovenian.
So he has like a lot of Russian friends.
So he showed me a lot of Pavel stuff.
But he knew Eric Cressy and Martin Rooney and
just a ton of different people that were in that world as well that were unbelievably intelligent
strength coaches, Joel Jameson, which is in Seattle as well. So then I started being around
all these people. And it was just like learning and learning and learning. So those were the two
biggest mentors for me was Tim Vagan and then Luca Osevar. And I worked for Luca for six years, training people six days a week on the floor,
just learning and going to seminars with them and hosting seminars. And I had some other mentors
along the way. A guy named Steve Krebs is one of them. He owned a few gyms and he kind of took me
under his wing for like more of like the life development side of things. But after that six
and a half years, I was at a point where my
blog was pretty popular. I had a podcast and I was kind of like, I want to do this online thing.
I just, to be honest, I didn't have the balls to jump into it because I was, I didn't know what
it was like. And then I found out I was having a daughter. And once I found that out, I was like,
I need to leap right now or I'm never going to have the time. It's going to be at the gym till
nine, eight, 9 PM. Exactly. All right. I'm going to have a kid time. It's going to be at the gym till 9, 8, 9 PM.
Exactly. All right. I'm going to have a kid, but I'm going to wake up at five every day,
go coach for 12 hours and then get home at nine and see what happens. Yeah. Nope. Wrong. That's
why we all have to get out. That's why we got to go. So yeah. So that was, that was my like
light bulb moment. And, uh, I, uh, talked to my pregnant fiance at the time and just said like i think i'm gonna
make this work i'm gonna quit my job give up all my clients so i won't have any money for a little
bit but this is gonna work and i don't want you to go back to work and she was like at least she
wasn't pregnant i'm sure that went over great yeah it went over i'll be fine we'll all be fine
i promise yeah so and it worked out man i i went all in and it was like, this is all I got now. And I just, I slowly accumulated like a good base of teaching and content. I started doing seminars around the state at all these different gyms for free because I was just reaching out to people like, yo, I'll speak free. I got a great presentation. What do you need? And I was just going everywhere. And it just grew. And now we have, there's eight other people on my team scattered everywhere. Our chief science
officers in Alabama. We have a coach in Florida, a coach in Colorado, one in Toronto, one in London,
one in Germany, and then me here in Seattle. And we're kind of like all in all these time zones.
And it's just, it's all organic, man. Yeah. Dude, how did you not get hung up in CrossFit?
You look like you're our age. You look like you're competitive.
You look like you're in shape.
How in the world did CrossFit not suck you in for a good decade of your life?
Yeah, and you know what?
I coach a lot of CrossFitters and nutrition as well.
So I think the honest answer was when CrossFit first came out,
I really thought it was just the stupidest thing in the world because I had –
I love it i had i had this like classic
uh strength and conditioning background you were in the wrong crew i was yeah boil you were listening
to the wrong guy exactly and nobody nobody in the perform better crew got sucked in they were very
they were very against it because i grew up i grew up learning from all those same people
reading all their stuff and i was i thought crossfit was stupid too i recognized that the
market was growing but like when i actually bought it as an owner in a crossfit gym i was like okay
we're going to change the name of this gym that way when i go to nsca i don't have to say i own
a crossfit gym i can decide on a strength conditioning facility yeah that happens to
have crossfit crossfit got better over time,
but I totally understand why a lot of those guys,
they didn't really accept it very well.
Well, and the programming is really confusing at times too.
So back then I'm like, okay, they're taking four different goals,
four different intensities, four different modalities
and putting them all together.
This doesn't make sense.
Like just throwing shit at a wall.
But then you meet people, like I've met people over the years like some of the guys
that training think tank and people that are like really intelligent and i learned from them and i'm
like oh shit there's actually like a method to the madness so i did jump into crossfit for i think
six months because i kept getting like listeners of the podcast asking questions about it and i was
like okay i gotta stop talking about it and just go fucking do it and i had a friend who owned a
crossfit gym out here and he had a Olympic lifting background. So he really understood technique and form and
like actually programming and periodizing. And it was a really, really good CrossFit. So I jumped in
and I had a blast, man. It was, it was a lot. I completely changed my perspective on it. I think
if you do it the right way, it can be a lot of fun and it's really competitive. And it was definitely
out of my comfort zone because I did a lot of strength and bodybuilding and then to condition
like that, just. That's actually, as I was, as I've been just kind of like following or knowing
who you are, that one of the things that I've been like, I'm like, why, who is my age that is in
shape, competitive, came from a sports background? Like, why wouldn't you have how could you escape
crossfit but it's because you were around all those guys so there was no there was no need in
your so said like said crew to even want to venture out it makes so much sense now yeah um
i went the other way i was on the other team i was all in well yeah yeah we have a couple coaches that were like
really yeah you've been a crossfit that worked for us and now they're a little bit like one of
my coaches was like she worked at a crossfit gym she was pretty competitive and then she made a
completely different flip and she got into bodybuilding she actually just won her pro card
as a bikini competitor because she was like oh i'm just gonna try this out and it went really
well and she was like i think i might still compete and then she she won it was really cool um but same thing she
she was like drinking the kool-aid for years yeah i was a good 12 years crushed it loved it
broke myself get to hang out and talk about strength still um but dude that's uh that's
a really cool thing how'd you get so. How did nutrition kind of become the thing?
Like this idea of nutrition periodization, a little bit of the journey on just like putting
your stamp on that and that really being your calling card.
Yeah.
The first thing was I actually did a bodybuilding show myself and I just did it on a whim.
Like why not try?
Something I'll never do again, to be completely honest with you, just because I don't have
the desire to do that.
Yeah, it's hard.
Try and get strong and starve yourself.
It doesn't make sense.
Yeah, it's not fun.
But what I noticed was the guy I hired, he didn't really touch my training much.
He was like, oh, your training looks great.
Your nutrition is completely off.
So he changed what I was eating, changed my macros.
And that was my first introduction of, okay, okay, we tweak these things and I got
absolutely shredded.
So like nutrition is the key to helping people do this.
Now, I don't believe that whole like, oh, it's 80% nutrition, 20% training.
I think it's like much more even.
But the point being is like nutrition is really fucking important.
So I started diving into the science because after I got off stage, I was like, all right,
dude, I'm done.
I'll just go do my thing. And I just gained all the way back. I actually went on a cruise
literally the day after my show and just drank and ate until I was
You put yourself on an island where the only thing you could do was eat.
Literally. It was pretty bad. So I, uh, so that taught me a lot. Cause at that point I had to
learn how to reverse diet and that
was like when reverse dieting was like just introduced um and uh I started learning more
about hormones and metabolism and nutrition and I just kind of went in this rabbit hole man and I
just started digging deeper and then I got certified from precision nutrition and then I
got certified from PN2 and then I did NCI and then I did MNU and I just started going further
and further and further um and I just love the science of nutrition.
So I started using that as kind of like my specialty in the gym because I was the only
coach in this gym that knew nutrition like that.
So I had the most clients and my clients were getting the best results.
And I saw that as like my value add.
And then I took that into the online space.
So I think like the reason I got into it was just I just noticed inside of bodybuilding, like it was the biggest key. I mean, when you're training for a bodybuilding
show, you don't really change your training. Like you just keep training to build muscle.
And when you're cutting, you're not building muscle. You're just trying to maintain it by
training like you're building muscle. So the nutrition was like the biggest thing I could do
to create value and give benefit because that was the thing I needed to manipulate the most.
So when I learned how to do that, it just kind of opened up a whole new door for me
to help people transform. And the way I kind of looked at it was bodybuilders understand the
science of getting shredded so well that I can just apply that information to the dude that just
wants to lose 10 pounds and like kind of see his abs because that shit works really well. So let's
periodize it, do it right. And let's, let's give them value through science. Um, and that's when I started diving into
periodization, which I think can be broken down into a few categories. There's, uh, there's daily,
weekly, monthly, and yearly. Like, yeah, we want to look at a year long because you can't just diet
for fat loss for months on end. You can't just compete for months on end. You have to have
different seasons where you're focusing on different things and maintenance phases and gaining phases and diet
phases and things like that. But then beneath that, we got to look at like a quarter because
it's not always that you get a client that signs up and buys into a year or two of coaching right
away. Usually they're like, okay, three months, like I can commit to that and get my head around
that. So how do we periodize within three months to make sure that they're not just burning out or getting diet fatigue or, or rebounding and binging? And,
and then within that, how do we change their calories throughout the week and throughout the
month to make sure that they're seeing results, but they're being, uh, refed and refueled and
refreshed essentially, because I kind of look at diet fatigue, multifaceted it's, it's a stress,
it's biofeedback, it's sleep,
it's are you even seeing progress, it's metabolic adaptation. It's a lot of different things and
people just don't pay attention to it. They go into a deficit and they just keep going until
they get to a result. Well, 95% of people gain weight back because they don't take breaks along
the way. So part of periodization is just implementing the right strategies to kind of
lay off the gas a little bit and refeed and diet break at the right times too does that make sense the reason they don't the reason they don't
want to take a break before they've accomplished their goals because they're afraid if they
take a break and they eat more calories than they've been eating they're going to put the
weight back on which is counterintuitive in a way where you're saying if they don't take a break
they're going to put all the weight back on but if they take breaks the way, they're not actually going to put the way back on by
taking the break that long-term it will help them out even more. So how do you talk to people and
get them to accept taking the break and adding more calories back in before they've actually
accomplished their goal? Yeah. So I think we as a company get somewhat, I don't think it's luck
because we put out so much content and we talk about this stuff. And I think that's really it. Like buying trust from a client that works with you starts
with the free education that you provide through content. So we write blogs, we do, I would do four
podcasts a week. I'm doing newsletters throughout the week. Like we put out so much free content on
this stuff that people kind of come to us already knowing like, okay, I've tried this once before.
It didn't work. You guys are the ones that are going to help me make it work. So the buy-in for us is really good on that end. But I think it comes from
educating them on the failures that I've had and the failures that other people have had. I mean,
the biggest loser, like the perfect example of going through a crazy weight loss and then all
of those, the cast gaining all the way back, if not more. Totally. I'm so excited. I'm so excited
to talk about this now that you brought that up. So're uh and you know what's funny is i actually got uh casted for
the new one that came nice they wanted like a holistic approach so i interviewed for it but
steve cook obviously got it i mean why that guy he's got a following yeah he's got a huge phone
but i took the interview i was like shit yeah um, but yeah, so I think like it comes down to not necessarily using the biggest loser as an example, but using situations like
that as the best example. And again, this is where we actually don't steer away from teaching
the average Joe, the deep science, because I think there was this period of time where everybody just
assumed that would overwhelm them. Like, Oh, they're not a trainer. They don't need to know
this stuff. Like we're just going to overwhelm them. They're not going to be able to stay compliant with it.
And I've always had the other approach. Like, let me just teach them the really complicated
science stuff and I'll just break it down in a simple way. So they understand because
if I tell them why things are happening to them and how they can avoid these issues,
they're going to be much more bought in. They're going to be much more compliant because they
actually get what the fuck we're talking about. It's not just blindly following this diet plan. It's, it's understanding
what's working behind the diet plan. But isn't the thing about the biggest loser though? Uh,
so much so that they leave, they're, they're stuck in this house for three months with
nothing to do but lose weight. And then they have to go home to their family.
So how do you get people away
from their family? Because the family, the friends, like you just look, you got to divorce
your whole family. You got to get all your new friends. You can't hang out with the same people
anymore because you don't have the willpower. None of us do. That's why my friends don't look
like that. Like the willpower is impossible. I'm not that strong. So I just choose not to
hang out with people that force me to test my willpower. Yeah.'m not that strong so i just choose not to hang out with
people that force me to test my willpower yeah that's and that's funny because that's actually
why like uh a lot of people will look at research studies and assume that they can just apply that
right to clients but yeah a research study is a metabolic ward most like in you in the best case
scenario where there's nothing they can't control with these people they're locked in this place place. They feed them, they make them sleep and make them train, do whatever.
And that's essentially what the biggest loser was. Like it's a metaphor so they can control things.
I think that, you know, like this is where more of the art of coaching comes into play in,
in flexible dieting, right? Like letting people know, like you're not going to be perfect all
the time. Like there's going to be times where it sucks, but even part of that whole diet fatigue
conversation I just had willpower falls into
that. Like self-discipline falls into that. You don't have an infinite amount of willpower
because the more often you say no to something on your counter, the more likely you are to go
have a burger and pizza or whatever at night when you go out to dinner, instead of choosing the
salad, because you've been saying no all damn day. So I think sometimes it comes down to simple
actions. Like we'll assess
like, Hey, what does your kitchen look like? What does your pantry look like? What does your fridge
look like? Like, who are you talking to every day? Like, what kind of things are you reading?
What kind of content are you consuming? Like there's much more inside of nutrition coaching
than just macros. It comes down to what is your life actually like and what are you taking in all
day? Cause that's programming your brain to make decisions at the end of the day.
How do you help people with, with preparation, like to do a meal prep and just making sure that taking in all day because that's programming your brain to make decisions at the end of the day.
How do you help people with preparation, like to do a meal prep and just making sure that you,
that they rather have good food available and prepared when they get hungry? Because if there's no food available, you're going to eat something. Not every person's going to make a clean, perfect
meal from scratch every meal. There's pre-made meals there's cooking in bulk etc like
what kind of strategies do you have for just having good food available and prepared when
they get hungry yeah i think it depends on the person um obviously there's some people that are
more financially in a place where it's like hey let's use something like trifecta or something
and they just get all their meals prepared like that's not always the option for everybody
but then there's also like the idea of, again, flexible dieting, like understanding, hey, beef jerky is a great protein source. It's processed, but it's still it's healthy, quote unquote. It's good for you. Right. So like stock up on that stock up on the right nuts, stock up on berries, like let's stock up on things that aren't going to be really negative, even certain protein bars or granola bars and just things that aren't, quote unquote unquote the healthiest. And then sometimes telling people they don't always have to prep.
Like for some people prepping like that makes sense.
But for other people like myself,
I don't want to sit on a Sunday
and cook 27 Tupperwares of food.
Like the thought of that is like mind numbing.
And I don't like-
Great Instagram picture.
Look how dedicated I am.
It's a great meme, but that's it.
But so what I tell people too is like you know what like you can kind of
play the the macro tetris game like as long as you're doing it a day ahead so like tonight i
want you to plan out your day for tomorrow like what are you eating i don't care if you're eating
at chipotle or if you're eating a like beef jerky and an apple for lunch like it doesn't need to be
perfect but you need to go into that day knowing what you are eating. Part of meal prep is just having a plan.
It's not necessarily having Tupperware's prepped a food.
So as long as they wake up and they have that plan ready to execute, I think that situation
doesn't happen as often.
But again, this just comes down to asking questions.
There's unfortunately a lot of nutrition coaches out there that just give macros and say, hey,
hit these numbers and expect people to just do it.
And it's like you have to get them prepared to do it. You have to set up their day and their
week and their lifestyle and their environment to actually be able to execute that. Um, so again,
a lot of times it just, it kind of steers the conversation completely out of the numbers and
out of the data and out of the science and just talks about like, what is your life like? And
like, let's just talk because having communication and accountability is unbelievably valuable.
Yeah, talking about it just relieves a lot of the pressure, just saying this is what I struggle with.
You've mentioned a couple times kind of the flexible dieting side of things.
And is there an amount of time that you look for for people to be very strict to get to a specific place before you say, Hey, go live your life a little bit.
Like you've gotten to the point where we've stabilized your weight. We've stabilized some
blood work or whatever the metrics are that you're chasing before going and kind of easing
off the gas pedal a little bit because sugar is a powerful thing. And you know what makes me have
my third cookie, usually cookie number one and cookie number two.
And if I don't have cookie number one, I definitely can't get to cookie number two.
Yeah.
So it's really challenging for people that don't have really like a base before you say like, okay, just let's try to fit in into these ranges.
I think that, you know, like I look at flexible dieting,
uh, as what I believe is like the original form. There's a lot of people that look at it like,
I F Y M if it's your macros. And I think they're two completely different things.
So even for me, like if I look at my diet, like the flexible side of my diet this morning was
having, uh, like some reduced sugar ketchup on my omelet that was cooked organic you're way
too strict already that's what i'm saying like flexibility is yeah you're like i had brown rice
instead of the white well flexibility is like hey you don't have to have brown rice have white yeah
i eat white rice all the time yeah totally like steak instead of chicken like that's like where
it kind of started so i think just making sure that like if 90% of your food is coming from that place,
I think you're less likely to kind of go off the deep end of flexible diet. But I think there's,
it all depends on the person. You know, there's some people that you almost have to be like,
you need to be more flexible, like calm the fuck down. Like you're just too strict. And there's no
reason to do that. If your calories are hit, you're going to lose the weight. And if you're just too strict. And there's no reason to do that. If your calories are hit, you're going
to lose the weight. And if you're getting enough fiber and micronutrients in your diet, you're not
going to be like superhuman if you get more vitamin A and C, like it's just, it doesn't work that way.
So for some people it's, it's getting them to be more flexible for other people. It's,
it's the complete opposite because they're too flexible. And a big piece of, of what makes me
want to get a little bit more strict with the food choices
is not necessarily that spinach and white rice and chicken have this special ingredient
that helps.
But processed food is typically like, I think the air is like 20% margin of error on the
labels.
So if somebody's eating processed food for most of their food or being really, really
flexible or eating at Chipotle all the time, which is one scoop of this and that, like who knows what the
hell that really is, their metrics are just off. So when they say like, oh, I'm hitting macros on
the dot, but they're eating processed food, they're eating out all the time, you're probably
not. Like you're good at playing the MyFitnessPal game, but you're not really eating that much.
So sometimes getting strict is like, hey, you're at a plateau. Let's just focus on more home-cooked meals
so we can actually be sure
that you're accurately eating what you say you are.
Because then we can at least rule out the idea
of you're just not hitting your numbers.
But I think it just depends, man.
I'm a big fan of like the 90-10 rule.
I do believe that like a majority of your food
should be whole food and be pretty healthy.
And I think you're probably gonna feel better and be better off that and have less cravings and things like
that yeah digestion is going to be better but if you get too strict with it then then people won't
stick with the long term yeah i feel like there's like this your 90 10 is such a weird uh scale
compared to somebody else's 90 10 i think, 10 is like a really good number.
The 80, 20 thing, we did a show a couple months ago that I just, that, that number just drives me crazy when people say things like that. Cause I'm like, do you know how big 20% is?
Are you aware what that really looks like and how hard it is to come back from that?
It's just eating from home is like the biggest thing.
Just don't go out. It's hard to figure out what you have out there. But that really leads into
like the behavioral change and how long does it take do you feel for a lot of people to really get
to creating the behavior patterns that generally allow for success.
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save 20 let's get back to the show i know there's like this whole thing i don't even know if this
is proven by science but like the whole 21 days to build a habit kind of thing i think that's
bullshit i think it takes a lot longer than that to be honest with you. I'm a big fan of 90 days, I think three months, 12 weeks, like,
like commit to something for a solid, like, yeah, I mean, in like training, like somebody's like,
Oh, I really want to build muscle. Can I follow a six week programs? Like, no, like,
give me six months of trying to build muscle and you'll get bigger. Like it takes time. So I think
that three months is a good benchmark to say, like, you can achieve a lot of really good success,
but that gives you enough time to, like patient with it, to learn, to implement some
diet breaks, to eliminate that fatigue, to understand the process and what's going on.
That's our minimum requirement for coaching. And that's exactly why is because we need this
much time to actually show you how these things work. Because if you're with us for three months
or six months or a year, like no matter what, you're going to do this on your own at some point.
So we got to figure out how to make sure you understand how to do it.
Yeah.
But I think three months is probably that mark where people really start changing their habits.
I would imagine a lot of people come to you that are like relatively in shape and healthy, already have some sort of fitness background or interest in lifting weights.
Do you feel like in that demographic, the majority of people are overeating or under eating when they
come to you? I have this interesting thing of like, I feel like most people that are training
five days a week really don't understand how much
they're supposed to be eating on a daily basis. And the majority of them just aren't even at
maintenance calories yet. They carry too much body fat around. Yeah. Um, the type of people
that come to us are definitely that they're usually people that they already got their
foot in the door. They already know quite a bit of stuff and they want to kind of take it to the next level.
And I would 100% agree.
I think the majority for sure is under eating, especially women.
I would say with guys, it's still pretty common.
It's funny how much more I see people under eating compared to under eating that are like
being serious lifters.
And a lot of times the people that aren't necessarily under eating their macros are just completely ass backwards. So what I mean by that is like,
they're trying to lose weight, but they're really getting any protein and they're eating
way too much fat every day and plenty of carbs that are not coming from great sources. So they
got all this sugar in their diet, they got all this fat in their diet, and they're barely getting
any whole food protein. So I don't touch their calories, I just flip around their macros and
they lose a bunch of weight, right? So I see see that a lot and I definitely see a lot of people that are under eating and
not necessarily over training, but I think that they're under recovering because they're not
fueling themselves enough. Do you get much into the hormone
side of things when working with people or you just focus
more on just big rocks, getting some sleep, nutrition, and
some lifestyle changes to right the
ship? A little bit of both. I'm not as deep into the hormone stuff as our friend Sam is, but we
definitely have that conversation because I mean, I think it's like one in three women have thyroid
dysfunction. So yeah, wait it right. I would say probably at least one in three guys have low
testosterone. So we have to deal with that too. I, I have plenty of guys, I would say like in, in my world, um, I'm much more having a discussion
around cortisol and stress hormones and things like that. Um, and then with a lot of the guys
that work with testosterone, cause some of them are on TRT or some of them just have low T levels
in general cause their lifestyle choices aren't that great. So we're working on things. Uh, but
I have a couple of coaches that are, uh, certified in some things that like allow them to do a little bit more deeper advanced stuff with
hormones. So if we get women that are having issues with thyroid or their menstrual cycles
and things like that, I'll send them to one of my other coaches that kind of specialize in that
area. So it's definitely something we discuss. Yeah. What are your strength programs look like?
What's a, what's kind of like a general block in three months that you, that you start people out on? It all depends on the person. I
mean, that's the whole point of our, our thing, our company being called tailored coaching is
like, we really want to make sure it fits the person, but I try to blend a little bit of, uh,
like classic strength and conditioning. Uh, like we, I mean, all the stuff I learned from all those
guys before and some bodybuilding because most people that hire us they just want to look better so we have to incorporate
some bodybuilding the problem with bodybuilding is it can get pretty boring because you're doing
the same thing for a long period of time or you're doing like just curls or just lateral raises and
people don't always have fun with that so i have a lot of people that come to me from uh the crossfit
world and they thrive on that intensity but they're burnt out and they need something different or their, their goal just isn't
performance and might be geared more towards performance. So we kind of try to blend some
things. So like using things like EMOMs and EDTs and AMRAPs and things like that, but with body
building movements or just compound lifting and using an upper lower split for a more high
intensity program is typically the route I go. Um, but I'm a big
fan of the West side conjugate method as well. So I use a, uh, uh, upper lower split with a lot
of people who we were going to have a couple of days that are max effort, a couple of days that
are dynamic effort. So two days a week, we're going heavy. We're trying to push strength.
We're lifting and we just have a normal linear, uh, periodization week after week,
don't try to build strength. And then on your dynamic effort days, we're doing more speed work.
We're doing hypertrophy work, some unilateral stuff, really working on our movement capacity.
And then I just sprinkle in conditioning throughout the week.
And I think that's been kind of like the best way for me to approach most gen pop people
who are serious about lifting is having a little bit of power lifting and a little bit
of bodybuilding and kind of combining it in a way that gives them that intensity because people love their heart rate getting up and they
love getting sweaty whether that is what they need or not like i want to provide that mental
stimulus because that's what keeps them going totally um dude you mentioned earlier you have
a chief science officer you don't hear much of that going on in the fitness industry too much
where where did that come from um you know i've just
always been just into the science i've always like i'm always part of these like research reviews and
i'm always listening to seminars and these guys that are doing research and i just one day was
like i want to say i i saw rp had one i think mike israel might be there dr mike you got to have that
guy on your show he will light it up oh yeah i actually already had him on that we did we did a
second one yeah he's i actually saw him live we i went to their thing in philadelphia
dude is hilarious like not short on opinions no information and there's no filter no i guess ever
i laughed through his whole presentation because i remember what it was about because it was just
cracking me up but um i just stopped following him on Instagram because I couldn't take the posing pics.
I just can't.
I'll read your articles, but I don't want to see it.
I'm out.
Our last show with him, I laughed the entire show.
He did such an amazing job of weaving in really good content with the jokes
and then back on track.
A lot of people that are funny, they'll get track and just they just make it entertaining and fun and then like
they're like what was i talking about like he just did a great job of like being on topic weaving in
the jokes going rolling with the punches if we're like if we're pitching them shit or or making
jokes like he would roll right in and then right back on topic like he did it perfectly yeah he
just keeps going and going
yeah but i i essentially i was looking at something and i saw his title was chief science
officer and i was like man that would be cool somebody that sounds cool i want one yeah can i
buy one of those kind of that's great it definitely started as one of those things where i was like that will
look really good and be really cool yeah like kind of digging into like what would that role
be and it was basically just a way for me to have somebody that would help create content
so he does one podcast a month with us and one blog a month and then he basically educates our
coaches and then he does like a live feed for our members in our private group where he can
just answer questions and stuff.
But having a PhD researcher on staff who's like doing the studies that we study is really
cool because then my coaches, if they have any question about anything, they can just
pick his brain and he's available.
So that's been a really cool thing.
It's actually pretty recent.
We just brought him on.
This is actually his first month being like official. We've been talking for the's actually pretty recent we just brought him on uh this is actually his first month being like official we've been talking for the last couple
months we just got him on board uh but i'm excited about that man because it's just another one of
those things and in fact funny enough like this morning i had a consultation call with a couple
that is hiring us to work with a couple of my coaches and they googled i think personalized
nutrition coaching or something and we popped up and they
were like, uh, we're in the tech world. And I saw you have a chief science officer. And that made
me feel like this was like the best fit. And I was like, perfect. And that's awesome. I just
impression of like, they really care about the quality of content going out, you know?
Yeah. What is that process though? I mean, you mentioned at the, uh, at the beginning of the show talking about taking these super complex scientific studies and papers and making it something that the general population can understand.
What is that process coming from your chief science officer?
What's his name?
Brandon Roberts.
Dr. Brandon Roberts. So going from Dr. Brandon Roberts to a blog, to the coaches,
to then getting into the client's hands,
how much, I guess, the conversation that happens on your end
to make sure things are at least digestible by general population and your athletes?
Yeah, and that was actually the first discussion him and I had,
I was like, people need to understand the content that's going out.
It can't be so high up that nobody gets it.
And even like for, for coaches listening,
if you've ever read like an actual PubMed research study, it's confusing.
Like there's so much jargon in it. It's really hard to decipher.
So I think that like,
there's kind of this leveling system where there's the actual
researcher that conducting the research. And then there's like an interpreter, and then there's a
coach, and then there's a consumer. So I kind of live in that coach and interpreter realm. And he
lives in that researcher and interpreter realm as well. And we kind of have to rely that's why
like research reviews are such a valuable tool coaches, like I'm not affiliated with any, so I
don't make money saying this, but things like
mass research review, you can sign up, they take the most relevant studies, and then they
break it down in layman terms so you can understand it.
And then somebody like myself can read that and interpret it to a consumer and apply it
because a consumer is still going to get confused by the interpretations of a researcher.
So I think that for us, it's
really just like, how much can we dumb this down realistically? Because it just has to end what's
applicable. Because there's some studies that like, that's never going to be something we use
in real life, because this is just an average person. And that's like an insane scenario that
you're just not going to use. It's not very applicable. Or even a good example of this is,
I don't know if
you guys are familiar with the Matador study, but it was like a really, really popular study with,
they basically did two weeks of dieting and then like two weeks off, two weeks dieting,
two weeks off versus just 16 weeks straight. And they got the same result, but at the end of the
alternating one, they essentially had less metabolic adaptation more muscle
maintenance stuff like that but it's 30 something weeks of dieting like that's a long time to be in
a deficit like yeah it was easier on their body but how many people can you get to buy into 36
weeks of dieting i guess tough so what can we take out of that study and use in our coaching
which is diet breaks but maybe not use it exactly how they did because I'm not going to tell somebody that they need a diet for 36 weeks straight.
Does that make sense? Totally. Yeah. I guess what's coming through that you feel like by bringing
on a CSO, call it that, instead of all of them, But bringing on a chief science officer, what's like,
do you feel like this has like really boosted the education and coaching just very quickly? Or is it a bit of a process of getting, getting people kind of comfortable with the new information
that's coming down the pipeline and, and implementing it? I think it was an immediate
process of trust. Like that was a big reason too, is like, cause he oversees a lot of what we put out.
So people consuming what we put out,
just trust us more.
Cause they're like,
well,
if this chief science officer is approving of this,
it has to be legit.
And that's the,
that's reality.
And we'll,
we'll go back and edit things as,
as new science comes out.
Um,
and then my coaches just have more,
uh,
comfort and less insecurity about what they're prescribing
to clients. Because if they ever question some kind of intake, or if there is like a hormonal
issue or anything like that, they can just text Brandon. And then they have an answer of like,
okay, that was the right thing to do. And this is the right action to take. And so now our clients
have more comfort knowing that like, we're not going to give you any type of diet or training
protocol unless we know it actually works. And it's actually safe. And it's actually going to give you any type of diet or training protocol unless we know it actually works and
it's actually safe and it's actually going to be something that creates results for you.
So I think the trust was an immediate thing. And then the content is going to be a process because
you can only put out so much content right away. So we're just going to kind of accumulate this
content and get better and better. But so far people have been loving it. Actually, when we get into the science and the research,
it's all very applicable to a specific thing and variable that they're testing.
And then now you have, call it, 100 clients.
And how much is that individual variable that we're testing
going to be able to be applied to 100 clients? It's a really
interesting kind of situation where you have this very valuable information, but at the same time,
everyone's different. So how do you kind of take that high level test, study, research, and then
kind of disperse the information and keep your messaging the same
because everybody is on a personalized program with you. Yeah. I think it comes down to not just
buying into one thing. Like, like for example, I remember when I first tried intermittent fasting
years ago before it was like really popular. I think the first time I tried it was like,
I think when the warrior diet first came out, like way back, every client I had went on
intermittent fasting because that was the way because it worked for me.
But that's exactly what you're saying.
They do one study and it works for the person and I apply it to everybody.
So it's our job to study all diets, study all research, look at different populations,
look at all these different things and kind of look for the principles inside.
And that's why I love that quote.
Methods are many.
Principles are few.
Methods often change. Principles never do. inside. And that's why I love that quote. Um, methods are many principles are few methods
often change principles never do. Well, if you look at all these studies and all these different
diets and all these different programs that have worked, there's principles within them that make
them work. So we need to understand the principles and our methods are what changed person to person,
individual to individual, make that tailored to the person, you know? Um, I mean, if you look at
all diets, I mean, the principle is they create a caloric deficit. So, but one way of creating a caloric deficit is great for one
person and not for the other. And that's where like the methods change. Yeah. That's, that's
an interesting one, right? Cause there's a lot of information on the methods that come out. It's a
really, I feel like that's where so many people get so lost. So is that part of the kind of the intake and just building the trust of like,
look, this is where we start with everyone. And, and what does that,
I guess, what does that system look like?
Or does it start off with intermittent fasting for some people?
Cause that's where they're comfortable. Is it, um, six meals a day,
smaller meals portioned out? Um,
do you guys have like a baseline that then is turned into
somebody else's or that is then tailored to their, to their lifestyle? Yeah, a hundred percent. So
like what we do essentially, it starts with an interview with the coach and the client.
Then they go through an intake process, which is like 30 something questions. So it's really in
depth. Um, but we want to know everything about them. We want to know their past diets, their
past training, their current diet, their stressors, their lifestyle. Um, once we get all this kind of
information, we kind of listened to them about what has worked for them, how they eat, how their
lifestyle is, what their work schedule is like. We can on our end, make an assumption of like what
we think is going to work best, but then we'll ask them to like, what has worked for you? And
then we just try to meet them in the middle, um, and kind of slowly steer them in the route of
understanding overall that it really boils down to calories and kind of slowly steer them in the route of understanding overall
that it really boils down to calories and macros. Like that's the fundamental thing. Like the more
research I dig into, the more I realize that it's just calories, right? And yeah, that's a tough
one, right? You know too much. Well, it's, you know, so much. And then all of a sudden you just
realize it's calories and calories out and then we've got to eat enough protein and the rest of
it we don't care about. And I always tell tell people like i wish there was like some cool sexy
i know just got to do this like that would be yeah i've been searching for it it's not there so
let me know when you find it so i think that's the key though man like just uh like letting them do
the intermittent fasting if that works for them or if somebody comes to us and they're like, low carb always works for me.
And they're like, really on it?
I'm like, okay, we can do that.
And then I'm going to show you why that low carb diet is working.
Open up your mind to what nutrition is and what education is.
And part of that process is we always start by once we lay out everything for them,
their plan, their trackers, all that stuff, we'll film a video for them
breaking down everything, like literally teaching them the whole process. So they understand
how we came up with this diet, why we came up with this diet, how it functions, like how we
want them to execute it, how it's going to change over the next few weeks and few months, because
then they really understand. And then that opens the door for even more questions. And then we have
27 questions back that we can answer. And we're just going more and and more in depth do you find it tough to get people to on to maintenance
calories like do they do they believe that they really need like a 190 pound male that trains
five days a week looks at you and you're like they're like 3 000 calories really that's a lot
of food like it's a lot of food and i i struggle with maintaining its calories
or like getting to that number every day i'm like man i don't want to eat that much it's just it's
a lot of work uh i feel like the lifestyle piece of that and and getting that buy-in is a really
challenging part when you start to actually understand the caloric needs for your training
your life your sleep the the external stressors that have nothing to do with lifting weights
what is that process to like really how long does it take before you can actually get somebody to
say like okay we're two three weeks into this and we finally i guess reverse diet isn't really like
the best term but you've gotten somebody
comfortable with what it actually takes to be at maintenance. Right. For some people, it is just a
few weeks for others is a few months. Like there's some people that have so much resistance to that,
or they've been like chronically dieting for so long that they just, they get anxiety thinking
about adding more food. Um, so sometimes it's literally like, and this is what's unfortunate
is because I don't think reverse dieting is the best approach in most cases, because let's say you're in a
deficit and you're going to reverse out of it. And you're just going to add like a little bit
of calories every week. Well, you're just prolonging the deficit. You're just in a deficit
for longer. Sooner or later, your calories are going to be at the same point and you're going
to end up gaining that weight. It's just spread out over weeks. So it doesn't feel as hard,
but I'd rather get you right there because then that's less time in a deficit and it's less stress on your body so but for some
people unfortunately like i have to baby them up because they won't i can't say hey i need you to
eat 50 grams more carbs starting today because you're not eating enough and add 20 grams of fat
as well and they're like yeah and they're so ready to get shredded you go look i need four weeks just
give me four and two weeks into it they're like can we go now are You go, look, I need four weeks. Just give me four.
And two weeks into it, they're like, can we go now?
Are we ready?
Is it time?
Is it time?
I'm ready to cut.
And you're like, no.
Even if we go six weeks, it's a lot easier to get shredded later.
It's way easier later.
That's exactly it.
So what we teach is we have like a three-phase approach, and we call it priming, progression, and then recovery.
So there's like a priming phase, and this is like, we're quote unquote priming your body. And I always tell
people like, I'm not going to take you through a cut until you're healthy. So this might be two
weeks, but it might be two months. And it's a time where we can build you up to maintenance
calories. We can make sure you understand how to track, you manage your stress, you're getting
enough sleep. We put your body in the perfect position. Then we take you through a progressive
phase. And this is where we will get aggressive with the cut. And we will sprinkle in
diet breaks and refeeds. But we're going to get after it because we need to be in deficit to lose
weight. But now your body's ready to accept that deficit. Yeah, on so much better to it. And then
after that, we'll do a recovery phase, which is usually a fast reverse, because there's no reason
in staying low, which bring them right back up to their new maintenance. Because as you lose weight,
your maintenance does lower because you have less body mass.
But we'll bring them back up and we'll spend some time there.
And my biggest – I would say my biggest focus for the last year inside of my content
has been educating people on phasing the diet this way and periodizing your diet.
And it all surrounds maintenance because maintenance isn't fun.
It's not sexy.
You're literally not doing anything.
You're just maintaining.
That's not like a goal to strive for's gonna stay right here i'm sorry are you getting better pay a lot of
money to do it yeah it's gotta be frustrating for a lot of people like i'm not paying you to stay
where i am there's gonna be no results i'm doing it right yeah it's weird it is weird man but it
takes a lot of education for them to understand and i think to be with you, most people have to do it wrong at least once.
Most people that come to us, they're like, I've tried it the other way and I did regain
the weight and I couldn't maintain it and I'm not happy.
So I'll do whatever you say.
If I got to do this for three months just so I can cut later, I'll do it.
And then what we do is like, okay, let's set other goals in your life.
I mean, even like, and this is getting even deeper, but like, are you meditating?
Are you journaling?
Like, what does your morning routine look like?
Like, let's focus on that.
How much do you lift?
What's your like rowing time on a thousand meters?
Like, let's just set some cool goals that make you feel like you're doing something
or you're getting better as a human being.
And when it's time to cut, we'll focus on the metric of losing weight.
But for now, let's just, let's just focus on feeling.
Totally.
Did you have eight employees spread out all around the world.
How do you even apply for a job, and how do you train all these people if they're not coming all the way to Washington to hang out with you?
What is the process in kind of building an online team that is literally a global team?
Where do you meet all these people?
So most of them were a client at one point or a mentor client of mine, somebody that
I mentored on, on them being a better coach and nutritionist and stuff like that.
Um, but it's been, it's been kind of crazy, man.
We do one, uh, yearly meetup.
We're going to do two soon.
Um, but one of them is going to be optional cause I don't expect them to fly from Europe
if they don't want to, but we do one a year where they all come out here and I treat them
for a week and they hang out at my house. They come to the warehouse and that's where our
gym and our office is. And we just, just hang out and just do coaching education. I brought a guest
speaker in last time to talk about leadership. So we do still have those kinds of things in place.
We have weekly meetings. I do personal calls with all my employees as like a way for me to mentor
them. So I'm getting on the phone with them one-on-one and just talking to them about life, like their goals and their financial goals and their personal goals
and their fitness goals and just helping them grow as individuals. And that's, that's really
been the nuts and bolts of it, man. It's just a lot of communication. All of them came from being
either a nutrition client or part of our membership site or just a podcast listener. And they just
kept like popping in my email.
And finally I was like, hey, let's get on the phone
and then let's talk.
And then I bring them on.
And I think that's why it's going so well
and it's so powerful is because the people who come on board,
they already believed in what I was teaching
and my mission and how I want to represent this brand
and change this industry
and really kind of like make coaches out of clients so they
understand how to do this on their own for the rest of lives. And they all agreed with that
message. And so when they came on board, it was just a hell of a lot easier. I didn't have to
convince them or try to get them to buy into my brand. Yeah. It's an interesting thing. Did you,
I guess, just some of the struggles of building a team that's, you never get it right on the first time.
What,
I guess a little bit of that process and where do you see kind of yourself in
the business now?
Are you,
are you still coaching and one-on-one and having clients or if you pulled
yourself out of that and now you're just doing the coaching development?
I'm still coaching.
I don't know if I'll ever give it up
completely to be honest with you. That's, I mean, that's, that's what I love doing more than anything.
And I think I get frustrated with it, but I think there's a lot of people in the space that
they're, they start out as trainers or nutrition coaches and they do it with the intent to be a
business coach. Like, it's like, I'm just going to do this so I can get clients and build a business.
And then I'm going to teach people how to build. It's like my Facebook feed, by the way. It's literally, it's, it's what is my
Facebook feed. Sometimes I think I'm the last like nutrition coaching business owner that still
coaches a ton of people on nutrition that are just everyday people. Like it's nothing.
So funny. But yeah, I think, uh, I think it's like the hardest part, like, I don't want to
say it's been easy, but it has gone
smoothly. And I think for me, like I was a part of a team that wasn't ran perfectly. And I remember
a lot of, I've had a lot of leaders in my life that did things wrong. And I've had a lot of
leaders that did some things right, but I've learned a lot from those situations on how not
to treat people and what not to do. And I have a mentor business coach who actually
coaches my whole team. Like he talks with them and then talks to me and like he helps me navigate
how to lead them the right way. So I'm not being an asshole boss, but I'm being somebody that is
like an actual mentor and leader and has their best interest at heart. And I just try to give,
man, it's, I give them a lot of education, a lot of time and they're
my first priority. So I think that's been the biggest thing, but it's gone well. I mean, it's
gone really smoothly. And I think a part of that too, is like, I, when I started this on my own,
I just got burnt out. I was doing everything by myself. I was doing all the content. I got up to
like a hundred clients and was like, I can't provide a good service with a hundred people.
Like it's just, and now I'm not training because I have no time.
And my fiance's pissed because we got a baby on the way.
It's hard working all day,
every day.
And then I hired an assistant and she came in and was like,
look,
did I change?
I changed shirts right before this,
like three minutes,
just so you didn't know that I was banging weights in the garage.
I had to put on my pro shirt.
That was the dry one.
Cause the wet one is right over there.
It's hard. It is there. It's hard.
It is hard.
What do you do for your own training?
So I'm following – I have a coach there too.
I hired a trainer to write all my shit because I just don't even want to worry about it.
But I'm trying to gain weight, man.
I'm trying to get bigger.
So right now I'm like really bro-ing out, and I'm doing a push-pull leg split,
and it's just like six days a week, and I'm just eating and just trying to gain weight, just trying to get bigger.
How much are you eating?
How much?
Right now I'm at like 2,700 calories, which for me is a lot.
What do you weigh?
I weigh 175, 176.
That's a good number.
That's big.
And I think, too, like people – because I used to be on the floor training people,
and I would – to gain weight, I'd be needing like 3 000 plus that's the life right but this is you you coach like four clients a day
and you train 90 minutes plus real life not enough food in the world you can't put it all in your
mouth it's not possible and i was doing classes and yeah it was just fun but now i'm behind my
computer most of my day and i'll take a couple i've been
working so hard so i could sit on my ass right that's right so what happened i can't get nearly
as much which like you said earlier i'm actually glad because 27 calories i'm full as hell so like
it's totally fine with me but uh but yeah i think uh for me it's just been it's been like growing
up on bodybuilding.
I'm trying to gain some size.
And then I'll get back to how I usually train, which is more of a classic strength conditioning.
I love having some conditioning in there.
Like we have a big turf section with like sleds and shit like that.
Like I love doing that kind of stuff.
Grinders.
Carries and compound lifting, kettlebell work, dumbbell work.
Not a lot of machine stuff. But like I enjoy an upper lower splitter full body just like four
days a week but right now like i said i'm committed to just trying to get big so it's like i gotta do
what i gotta do dude that's a good thing right now yeah eating training can't beat it no yeah
everyone i talk to i'm like if you're not trying to gain weight right now you're crazy like you're
home all day long like assuming you have weights in your garage you could train whatever you want
to like i do like you're home all day long right next to you have weights in your garage, you can train whenever you want to. I do. You're home all day long right next to your fridge.
Now is the time to get big.
There's no excuse.
You have the time and the convenience of it.
We've had a ton of clients actually have – I don't want to say our clients have had more success since quarantine,
but a lot of them have because they don't have distractions.
They're like, well, I can't go to the bar.
I can't go out to eat.
I have to home cook all my meals.
Like, yeah, I'm doing some body weight stuff, but I'm still burning fucking calories.
You're not getting pulled away by all those people that make you do bad things.
Exactly.
So there you go.
I can't.
I can't.
The government told me to stay still.
I got to stay in my house.
That's what I do.
Man.
Dude, I'm so stoked that we got to hang out.
I appreciate it.
We're going to get out to the Pacific Northwest as soon as they let us out of our cage here.
Doug Larson has been trying to drag me back to the Pacific Northwest.
We've been talking about it for years.
We're scheduled for August, but who knows what's going to happen.
But probably late summer if travel opens back up and it's good to go.
Yeah, let me know.
I mean, like I said, we have the full facility.
I'd love to have you guys on my show.
We can shoot content here.
You guys have the gym. I would love to have you out on my show. We can shoot content here. You guys have the gym.
I would love to have you out.
Beautiful, man.
Where can people find you?
Website, socials, all of it?
Website is tailoredcoachingmethod.com.
That's where you can find everything, the podcast, videos, blogs.
We have e-books.
Some are free.
The podcast is the Boom Boom Performance Podcast.
And then my Instagram.
One million downloads.
One million downloads.
Pack yourself, bro.
That's radical.
Dude, smashed it.
A big milestone.
So I was excited about that.
And then my Instagram
is at Cody.BoomBoom.
And that's where I put
a lot of my content.
Savage.
Yeah, dude,
your website looks beautiful.
Thank you, man.
I appreciate it.
There's a lot of good content on there.
It's awesome.
Thank you.
Douglas E. Larson,
tell them where to find you.
There you go. Right on. I also appreciate you coming on the show. My Instagram. Douglas E. Larson, tell them where to find you. There you go.
Right on.
I also appreciate you coming on the show.
My Instagram is Douglas E. Larson.
Follow me there.
I'm Anders Varner at Anders Varner.
We're Barbell Shrugged at Barbell underscore Shrugged.
Get over to BarbellShrugged.com forward slash store.
That's where all the programs, e-books, nutrition, bundles, you name it.
Tons of programs.
Come and hang out with us.
BarbellShrugged.com forward slash store.
We're going to make strong people a lot stronger.
We'll see you guys next week.
That's a wrap, friends.
Make sure you get over to barbellstruck.com forward slash store.
That is where you're going to find Emom Aesthetics,
which is just flying off the shelves right now,
which is really cool because it's the workout program I'm doing.
I've been doing it for like five months now,
and it makes me so happy seeing how many people are getting strong,
lean, athletic, getting healthy, getting strong,
and enjoying it without spending 60, 90 minutes in the gym every day.
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