Barbell Shrugged - Talking Depth - The Psychology of Nutrition

Episode Date: July 6, 2016

Watch FULL DEPTH on BarbellShrugged.com FIRST! This is the after show.

What's up everybody, CTP here, and this is Talking Depth, the after show for Full Depth, which just launched on barbellshrug.com. This week's episode is Food and Focus. We're kind of highlighting what we do here in Memphis, Tennessee, where Barbell Shrug was birthed. Birthed? That's a rough word. Anyway, go watch that first, and then listen to this. Gå inn i kålen! Do we usually have four people on or no?

Oh, yeah, we do four. Yeah, four. Oh, well. Welcome back four. Yeah, four. Oh, well. Welcome back to Talk. Talking Depth. Welcome back to Talk. What up? It's your boy, CTP.

And welcome back to the show where we talk about the show you just should have watched on barbellshrug.com. Full Depth just aired today. And today was about? Food and focus in Memphis, right? That is very correct. That is very correct. And we have Alex Macklin.

Yo. That's him. And we have Shereen. Rena Bedina. What's up? Benz. I always want to call you by your maiden name. That's all right.

Shereen, who are you, just for folks? Who the fuck are you? Who are you? I'm your background person. You're the person who needs to pull your mic closer to your mouth. You pretty much should be tasting it. Yeah, there you go. Oh, God.

That's like really close. Like that? Yeah. Damn. Yeah. Serene, what do you do for Barbell Shrugged? In a single word, operations. Okay.

So I make sure you get your stuff when you sign up for a program. Shireen basically is also our mom, kind of. She keeps us all in line. I am Barbara Shrugged's mom. In an awesome way. That's right. That's what you should say to your mom, right? She keeps our shit together.

And everything that, yeah, like you said, everything that goes out, make sure you get that shit. So, well, like I said, this is a talking depth, which is, uh, you need to go watch full depth. So we're just going to talk about that, which aired exclusively on barbellshock.com or on our YouTube channel, go check it out and then listen to this. So if you haven't heard that, go, go watch that first. Um, where do we start? Yeah. Where do we start? Go check it out and then listen to this. So if you haven't heard that, go watch that first. Where do we start?

Yeah, where do we start? So the episode started with us kind of reminiscing. Where were you all at? In a coffee shop, right? In a public coffee shop. Yep, that's where Mike and Chris would meet up and do kind of trial runs when we first kind of had the idea. It was like, okay, well, just go get a mic and let's just see what happens. Can we talk?

And they would give me those. And I was still delivering pizzas at the time, and I would download them on my phone, and instead of listening to Rogan, I'd pop on the – I think they did three or four that they sent me. And instead of listening to that, I'd drive around for an hour or two, listen to whatever the fuck they were talking about, and I liked it. I was like, man, I'm down. Do we still have those? I think there's an old – Chris Moore has an old laptop that i think had him on there or mike but it's in possession

of chris and if you're just now listen to this and you and you have not heard the news chris chris uh passed away almost a month ago now yeah so um i mean i'm still getting people who'd like, will post on comments and stuff. Like, oh, I didn't know. I didn't know. Everybody's not just on social all the time. So it was really cool to see him again on this episode. It's pretty powerful.

And I'm sure we'll go into that some more. But, yeah, I think he has it on a laptop. So we'll have to see if Janie has that laptop. Yeah, we should probably. I've never heard of him. I never heard of him. I think I heard one driving driving to johnson city tennessee i think that was like the first one i don't know because from there we kind of didn't talk about this but from there they did those and then that's

when i was like yes i like this there's something here yeah um you know let's let's keep this going i wanted to start upping production value and stuff and then from there we went i was like well let's do it Ustream style which is just a live streaming website where you can record audio and video with a webcam. We did a couple of those and they were terrible. Shereen you remember coming in. I was about to say

I busted in with Taco Bell we were drunk. All the girls came and we were like it was like one in the morning us just playing around and they busted in with Taco Bell all the chicks. Nice. So what was kind of the rationale, like, doing this particular episode? So, yeah, we were just wanting to kind of show, you know,

because, well, we all lived in California at the time. I've since moved back to Memphis. Chris had moved. He was moving back from California, and then he was going to move to Amsterdam. That's where he was. So we were just kind of like shedding some light. We wanted to show how we all came together. So and I was here in Memphis. Me, Mike and Chris are all from here. And then Doug moved here for college. But we all met at the University of Memphis. We all went through the same exercise sports science program. Mike, or excuse me, Chris and Doug have masters.

And then me and Mike are just bachelors. But, yeah, so they all went to school together, and that's how they met. And then I came through the same program years later, like three or four years later. So I didn't have classes with them, but, um, anyway, we wanted to just kind of highlight that, um, a part that we kind of edited out, uh, that you never saw. Um, you saw some clips, but you didn't get the actual interview was with Dr. Brian Schilling. Um, he's been on the show before that's Leslie Schilling, who's in the episode. Uh, it's her husband and, uh, yeah, we, we filmed a whole bit, but as it

turns out, like, you know, we were going to show how he was our professor, and he kind of connected the dots for us and got those guys into Olympic weightlifting. If it wasn't for him, they wouldn't have gotten into Olympic weightlifting probably. They probably would have never met each other. Right. Because that's how they met. Right.

And so, yeah, so if it wasn't for Brian, I don't know if we'd all be here. The godfather. Yeah. So we wanted to showcase him and tell that story, but we're going to do that by being at the University of Memphis in our old training room, and we did that. But as it turns out, Brian was in the midst of leaving the University of Memphis, and he's since got a new job in Las Vegas.

Hey, and it's a great job. It's a huge step up for him. I mean, it's fantastic. So it just kind of became a little weird to have all that included talking about the program. And so we decided to leave it out. But mad props to Brian because none of this would probably happen without him. So I don't know why I was answering that. I was asking why you came back to do this episode.

Oh, that's right. Yeah. So we wanted to showcase Memphis. The roots, man. You want to get the roots out. Because the story of how the podcast got started, I mean, that's a great story. It'll make a great story.

I think one day it'll go in a tell-all book or something like that. For sure. And this is still where a lot of the team lives. Yeah, that's true. There's a good chunk of the Barbell Shrug team. You know, you see the coaches, you see the people on the podcast,

and there's people who do stuff behind the scenes as well. We are fairly spread out, but a good chunk of us live in Memphis. This is our home. This is where Barbell Shrug started. Yeah. This is true. Yeah. Yeah.

And then, let's see, we jumped to, the episode jumped to talking with Dr. Schilling's wife, Leslie. Yeah. Who is a, what would you call her? She's a nutritionist. Food psychologist, nutritionist. Okay. I mean? She's a nutritionist. Food psychologist, nutritionist. Okay. She's a nutrition expert. Right.

She's a dietary. Dietician, yeah. Registered dietitian. Is she a registered dietitian? Yeah, I think so. Okay. Yeah. She worked for the Grizzlies NBA team.

Yeah, she had her own practice here in Memphis, and she saw clients that would come in wanting nutrition advice, nutrition counseling, and she was able to provide that to them. And she has just this really great philosophy on not only how to change your eating habits, but how to change your relationship with food. I think that's like the most important thing that she is able to explain very clearly in this episode is changing your mental relationship with food. Not necessarily if you have an eating disorder or not I mean that's certainly a mental issue with food but having a better relationship with what you're eating why you're eating it how you're eating it really is is I think what this episode gets across yeah oh I love her she came and and did a little um presentation for the coaches at barbell shrugged and we had her just on a on a conference call and

she gave a whole talk about uh food behavior and building a relationship with food and a lot of things that she said on the show you've got to go i'm gonna butcher it because she said so many good things but you've got to go actually watch it and listen to what she has to say because a lot of things of what she has to say, I don't think a lot of people are in tune with, especially in our community as in fitness. Like what? Just the healthy, the relationships with food

and having such a, sometimes like very, very negative. Like one of the things you said, if like, if I were to change, if I were to ask somebody to change their diet, like what kind of reaction would that take? What kind of reaction would you feel with that? And I feel I've observed a lot of people, you know, when trying to suggest that they do things differently with their nutrition, they're like, what's going to happen? I'm going to get fat again. It's this big, big emotional distress response that's come from this notion and surrounding food. And I think that's a big, big thing in our community. Yeah. And there's just a point now that there's more to it. Like she said on the show,

like if it was just eat less, train more, then we'd all have it figured out. That's such a great quote. There's so much psychology that goes about around it, especially, you know, how did you grow up? How did you, how were you raised to eat? Yeah. I mean, there's so many variables in your nutrition. Like there's no one size fits all. There's no magic pill. Hydroxycut isn't going to cut it. Right. You know, there's nothing. And I think there's nothing she brought up was about supplements and not taking a supplement isn't going to fix your nutrition. I mean, supplement is the definition of adding to, right? You're supplementing.

And what I like about the episode is she doesn't necessarily – I love science, don't get me wrong. I like the background and what goes into, like, eating calories and proteins, fats, carbohydrates, the macronutrients, everything like that. But she doesn't so much go into that as she goes more into the psychology. The psychology behind it. Yeah. Which is why I like how you put it. She's kind of a nutrition psychologist in a way. Yeah. And the psychology thing is a huge component that not a lot of, you know, I see a lot of

stuff out there. You know, you can do these diets, you can do these meal plans um but they don't address the psychology part and i think in the episode they talk about how um people being on diets for so long and then that leading to some eating disorders like compulsive eating um disorders which is apparently now an actual defined binge eating disorder. I used to do that. Yeah. It's crazy.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, fuck, man. I'm talking like it would be extreme. Like I fucking – I was the – I think – I can't remember if she mentioned it, but like the kind of – like the person who wouldn't like be social anymore because of just how I ate. Like, dude, it was bad. People would invite you out to eat.

Like that's part of having an eating disorder. People don't want to be around you. I wouldn't even accept an invite. like man i would just man oh yeah that i would do was crazy yeah she would she said on that in the episode if you if you have a um if people shy if you shy away from social environments because of food i mean that's that's a big big red flag um but what i was what I was saying is that, um, you know, with people with, who have been on diets and stuff and they can't stick to a diet, you know, they say, Oh, I don't have any willpower. I'm just lazy or whatever. It's, it's, it's probably more stemming from a psychology

standpoint rather than the fact that you actually can't physically do this, do this thing. Well, by, by just saying that you've kind of put yourself in this cycle of, I have no willpower. I suck at life. I'm shaming my body. I'm going to just continue to do what I do did before, which is eat shitty. I'm eating shitty. I have no willpower.

I mean, it's just endless cycle of, of body shaming, body shaming, nutrition shaming, and you can't break out of it until you're able to start changing some habits there. Well,

I love what she said in early on in the, in the episode about focusing on, so with changing your behavior and changing your, essentially what she's trying to do is she's trying to change somebody's entire, almost lifestyle behavior wise. For some people, giving them all of the pieces at once is not going to work. It's very overwhelming. You got to kind of, and I almost think really with most people, you just all of the pieces at once is not going to work. It's very overwhelming. You got to kind of, and I almost think really with most people, you just kind of, kind of look at one domino at a time, focus on what's in front of you. She said, made a very good point about focusing on what's in front of you, making a small, small change and then tackling the next thing.

Um, and I think that that goes big part of what she was saying later on in the episode about how making changes, you need to get out of the cycle of like this stuff causes you fear and then the shaming. And you've got to just take one small step each time. Well, I mean, think about a science experiment. And one thing they brought up was knowing how food affects your body or how certain things affect your body um alex like you're really in tune with with how nutrition affects your body and if you eat certain things how it makes you feel i feel like i don't have that much of a pulse on it um well that's fairly recent for you though right yeah and it's i think it's because you know you've dialed in your nutrition or you watch what you eat and you make small changes so in a science experiment experiment, when you set up an experiment, you have a control and then you have a variable

and you can only change one variable. You change one thing at a time and then you see how it affects you later. So if you change lots of things all at once and you suddenly feel like shit or you feel really great, you don't know what made you feel like shit or what made you feel great.

Or what made you take a shit. I mean, in Alex's case, it's Halo Top ice cream. It is Halo Top ice cream. It's a little too much Halo Top ice cream at once. Well, I mean, according to this, I need to – You know, and she brought up another thing. I like her philosophy on food. I've heard her say she's the anti-diet.

Dietitian. Dietitian. Yeah. She is not keen on diet food she's very much so about eating real food she talks about on the episode how she eats uh specifically made diet food yeah you see the 100 calorie oreos or something like that yeah the shit that that's been that's been so heavily processed to take out the stuff that has calories and then make it palatable again so not necessarily food you would eat on a diet,

but specifically diet made food. Right, right. Yeah. Thanks for clearing that. She's the anti diet, I think. Diet food. Yeah. But I think that's, you know, that's a very,

that's a very good philosophy because if somebody is, if you're trying to get somebody that's, they think that they're making the right choice by eating this non-food, I think that's a good philosophy. Like, well, here is real food and it has all these benefits and explaining that. Yeah, and she was talking about portion control. Even with the example I just said, I'm going to compare Oreos to Oreos. So that's still probably not the best choice, but you go look at the marketing. It's like the small size, the small size, you know, the a hundred calorie bag, you know, you buy

those thinking, well, okay, I'll buy these. So I just get the a hundred calories. Well, what do you do? Cause it's a hundred calories. You eat two or three, but next thing you know, you've eaten four bags. You might as well just bought the damn. Yeah. Yeah.

Actually, I want to go back to that, uh, ask you CTP when you were talking about how you had, you don't have the answers if you don't want to, but like what are, what are some of the things that you kind of do to like kind of get out of that, that habit of kind of binge eating? Man, I think,

man, I couldn't tell you. I thought I was, while y'all were talking after I'd said, I was like, what did I do? I can give some wisdom here. I think,

I think a lot of it was getting around people who weren't getting around a group of people who were doing better than i was right so putting myself in situations where like at that point i came back to uh i came to faction the crossfit gym right and uh i just immersed myself in that world so i was going to the parties with those people and it was kind of funny because you know you go to you go to a crossfit party not good but on on that on the whole the people that i was around now were more um more you know just trying to do better so you kind of had that uh what else could have been happening there um i think

would you say would you say that you found a distraction like yeah that could be another thing is is then i started getting really um into the training right that's what i was gonna say that's your training was a distraction but you know what here's what happens you start carrying you start training you know because you're just trying to lose weight or you're just whatever and then you start caring about the training yeah And what happens when you start caring about the training? Like you have to earn that, I think. You have to like earn that spot. You're not going to care from day one necessarily.

But then once you kind of get a rhythm in training, you say, oh, how can I do this better? Well, nutrition is part of that. I got to dial this in a little bit. And now that I have a good why, and it's not just oh you should eat healthy now that i have a good why like oh well if i i remember i went into a class once after i this was when i was still fighting this i'm telling you guys it was bad i was like i would eat you know like pizza hut had like a ten dollar box where you get like half of a pizza oh shit you get cinnamon sticks and you would get cheese sticks dude i would pound that whole thing not not all at once but within like an hour and a half yeah like in two separate settings i did that once before i

went and trained and dude i just remember feeling like complete dick and i was like and i knew i was going to i was like i'm gonna feel great like but it was that that big realization like this isn't gonna help me right and i and i kind of had to learn the hard way even though i already knew it um had to like feel it you had to feel it yep right. And I kind of had to learn the hard way, even though I already knew it, had to like feel it. You had to feel it. Yep. Right.

And then I had to say, well, I don't want to come in feeling this way and I want whatever I'm going to eat to make me feel great so I can do the workout, you know. So it gave me a why is the point. It gave me something to like, okay, now I have a reason to care about what I'm eating more than just like, oh, you shouldn't eat like a fat ass. Yeah. I mean, there's a comparison here to binge drinking almost, right? Yeah.

Like you can't binge drink the night before you go work out on a Saturday morning. I learned that very quickly when I started CrossFit that I would have to change my lifestyle. Or smoke cigarettes or anything. Yeah. Yeah. Some of that stuff. But yeah, I mean, you change those habits to make that work because you know that there's going to be an output to that input and that output could be fairly negative.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. And Leslie actually mentioned that on the show. She she she explicitly said, like, you got to find your why. You know, like that's a huge thing, too, with anybody, you know, starting a nutrition plan or anything really why are you even doing this because you've got to have something that is is going to keep you doing it um you know and it can't and from the at least for me um it's not necessarily like it's got for me it has to be like intrinsic thing i was gonna say intrinsic versus extrinsic it needs to be something like like that's gonna it's not necessarily an external motivator. It's gotta be for me.

It's not somebody telling you you have to get healthy or looking at a picture or something along those lines. Somebody saying like, Hey, I've got this great new workout or diet or whatever, and you should follow it because of this, this, and this. It's, I know that I have a health problem. Yeah. Or this is going to make me feel better. Right.

Yeah. Right. Like, Oh, that's a big one. That's a big one problem. Yeah. Or this is going to make me feel better. Right. Yeah. Right. Like, that's a big one. That's a big one too. Yeah. You don't even know you feel like shit until you start eating. Right.

And then it's like, then, then it almost gives you an extra why, like a hidden why you never knew existed. Like, Oh, I don't have to like, I didn't realize I felt like shit all the time. Shit was the default.

Yeah. That's magical. Oh my gosh. We were just, I was just inville and we ate like shit man you're tired as fuck oh my god i felt terrible my stomach hurt like all the time i mean of course i ate like amazing food like went to a site come all you can eat breakfast as long as you had a moment with your food while you were eating place called monel's oh yeah yeah you

gotta have the moment yeah i mean anyways, I felt like shit all the time. But that was that's the default. You don't even realize until you actually make a change, a small change and say, how does this make me feel? Assess. Does it make me feel better? Does it make me feel worse? And then you can start, like you said, like Shereen, like you said, you know, taking a very scientific approach to it and seeing okay what is it that I need to change to get where I want to be you were talking about intrinsic extrinsic so I want to ask you I know like Alex you've been healthy for a while

now we've all been not I think we're kind of mostly talking if I can over generalize here like going from like you know bad eating habits to just getting on track, now I want to take it to we're all pretty on track and then locking it in. Do you see the difference? You've been on track for a while, but now you've recently locked it in.

If you don't follow Alex on Instagram, you can see the abs coming out. Abs on Instagram. They just popped out. You just followed it. Seven weeks, no abs no abs man there he goes um so what uh what's the motivation there what kind of got you what fueled you through that to to even continue going now um you know i think a lot of it is just that you know i i definitely for me um you know i i compete in weightlifting, and this is kind of an external motivator,

but not really though, because I have a desire to actually, uh, do, I, you know, I want to be good in the sport. Like I want to feel like I, I accomplished something and I, and I achieved like the highest, the highest level I can possibly go to. you know I realized that okay I am you know 85 kilo normally and I'm not very lean and you know I could be lighter and and still be competitive and I can be and these this is definitely a you know 77 weight class is is a class that I could probably do better in so that's that's more my intrinsic motivation is like, I'm competitive and I want to do well in the sport that I love doing. Um, so I would say like, that's my main, my main motivation. And then also now I feel a lot better. You know, I feel, uh, I, I don't feel

as tired cause I'm not eating, you know, whatever I want to eat. And I have more energy. Like what Leslie was saying on the show is she was talking about athletes, and she helped a lot of athletes, is that with nutrition, it's about the micro and the macro. It's about doing well in the game or the competition or whatever, but also doing well five seasons from now, five years from now. So that's become way more important to me is about longevity. Like I'm getting older.

I'm realizing that, um, for me to stay in this and perform as well as I want to perform, I'm going to have to actually pay attention to this shit and lock this shit in. So that's kind of more of my, my motivation for doing that. Gotcha. I love that,

that micro and macro approach to time. That was a huge nugget yeah it was great i mean please go listen to the episode and check that out there are so many good things for me like these motherfuckers should have already listened to it yeah if you haven't um for me like i i think about the next competition and how it'd be nice to be a little bit lighter make it a little bit easier on gymnastics i could move a little bit better that kind of thing but i'm i'm definitely trying to eat to perform. I want to perform at my highest level. But I'm also thinking sometime down the road, trying to have a kid. And I want to dial

in those eating habits now. Because I mean, hell, you know, hormones can do a number on your body, and I can't always predict everything. But I figure if I can have these habits dialed in now and I'm putting good things into my body now during that pregnancy, I could be putting good things in my body then feeding and nurturing a child so that, you know, everything past that I'm thinking macro in the sense of the, the life that I want to provide to a kid in the future as well. Yeah. Should that happen? Yeah. So as a female, what are some of the psychology things that, what's some of the biggest ones y'all run into? Cause I know,

I feel like if I, maybe it's just my personal experience, but if I'm to look at like the people I've ran into, I feel like, um, I hear more of it from women. Maybe that's cause they're more vocal about it. Um,

I'm not saying dudes don't, I definitely did, but what, what are some of the big ones y'all face? Um, I mean, for me, it's, it's definitely like the, and there's nothing against the women who have these bodies. Like, I mean, good for you. Like you're able to achieve it, but man, the Instagram girls out there with, with the

apps these days, like, holy shit. I don't feel I could ever achieve that. And it's just, I think it looks like my body type. I have a super short torso where my hip bone practically touches my rib cage. I'm never gonna have a six pack. That's not going to happen. I don't have a long enough. Well, I'll say that. Yeah. So it's, it's very, um, so seeing that it's intimidating, it's intimidating and it's, it definitely puts you in a position, a place of, man, I could never be like that. So I shouldn't even try, you know, it's giving up before you even try. And I, and that's, that's how I felt

about it for the longest time. Um, but it doesn't mean that you can't achieve the best body day. So you don't feel that way anymore. Uh, I still struggle with it. It's an, it's an, there's some self-awareness. There's some awareness around it. And I think one of the, the most recent articles that came out from the – or it was a post from the CrossFit Games on Facebook. I mean, there's this girl who's going to the games. You know, I feel like I kind of look like – like she looks like me. I look like her.

She doesn't have these ripped abs, and she posted about it, about having these body image issues for a long time because she didn't have this body. And I kind of came to the realization that abs aren't necessarily functional. I want to be functional. And seeing your abs doesn't mean, or not seeing your abs doesn't mean you don't have them. Exactly, exactly. You can have very strong abs and just not see them.

Yeah, so it's more about, again, I'm trying to eat to perform. I'm trying to eat to perform not only in the next competition, but I'm trying to eat to perform in the life that I want to have two, five, ten years five, 10 years from now. That's your why, like where do abs fit in your why? I mean, why do you want abs? I mean, why like ask yourself, why do you want to look this way? Like, yeah, exactly. You've got it. You've got to find that reason why. And I think with, um, the difference between men and women, I don't know. I feel like it's always been a little more acceptable for guys to be overweight, like walking around the office where I used to work. It just seemed like it was more acceptable.

I don't know why. Just the way it was. Because guys are judged by money. I don't think so. More so than anybody. But, I mean, like the dad bod was a thing, right? Like that was a thing where it was like it's okay to be a little fluffy. And I'm not saying that it's not okay to be fluffy,

but you would never say, like, man, give me that mom bod. Yeah, yeah. You know? That being said, I'll take that redhead from Mad Men every day of the week. There you go. Christina Hendricks or whatever. Yes, sir. Yeah.

I will agree with you on that point, but I think in our community, in the fitness community, there's a lot of still body shaming on guys' part. I mean, because you look at the same thing, like Instagram. You got all these dudes like i want to have abs like rich froning and and there's pressure oh yeah guys wanted to guys that's weird because if i was gonna have abs i don't know if i'd pick rich froning abs i've seen much or noah olsen or whoever whoever's got like just the fucking eight pack like the eight pack abs or whatever um you know people people it's it's kind of fucked up like people people, people body shame. Dude, people, I got body fucking shamed on Instagram. Some dude said I had a dad bod.

Well, that's funny though because here's the thing. I don't know if I've said this on the show before, but I'm going to say it. Anytime we ever have someone hating, you click on their profile. I'm telling you, this is nine times out of 10 without fail. Yeah. No, no.

Yeah, that you can't do anything about that. But I'd say nine times out of ten without fail. Yeah. No, no. Yeah, you can't do anything about that. But I'd say nine times out of ten, whether it's on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, you click on this person's – a hater's profile, it is going to be some motherfucker who looks like he should be on that Jersey Shore show. Like he's wearing a tap out – Complete jabron. What do you call those T's? The foil shirts?

The affliction foil T's with like the tight jeans that have, what do you call them on there? Frill? Yeah, whatever. I don't know. Distressed. Anyway, and if that's you, no problem. I love you, bro. High five.

Tribal tats. But I'm just saying, nine times out of ten, it's that guy. And nine times out of ten, that guy's not the person I'm going to be hanging out with anyway. But it still affects people. So when you read it, you got bummed? I mean, you know, it it was you can't not say you it doesn't affect you it affects it affects everybody and it may affect people to a different

extent and some people might be able to easily brush it off before like more than others but it does affect people and you think that motherfucker motivated you to step your shit up i mean i would say i would say maybe a bit, but I'm not going to give them too much credit for that. But, but the thing is, is that, that you gotta stop that, that, that shit's gotta fucking stop. Like don't fucking go on social media and just sit there and like, you don't know what the hell's going on in that person's life. You don't know, you don't know what, what they may be dealing with. They may have, they may have an eating disorder. You don't fucking know. So you don't know what what they may be dealing with they may have they may have an eating disorder you don't fucking know so you don't have a place to sit there and pass your judgment on them and that's all i'm gonna say about that i mean that is what leslie said in the show is everybody's different

there's no one size fits all it could be hormonal it could be psychological it could be mental it could be anything it could be anything that could cause this and that's why you have to find what works for you yeah yeah um well shit i mean you were you brought up the you saw the picture of the abs and all that like i mean when i before i didn't start training until i was like 23 23 and a half 24 right like i'm talking from cat like literally people say from couch to whatever and i went from the couch to finally starting to do anything. And where was I going with that? Oh, but so I was 227, and I was like a gross 227, like big gut, big man boobs, almost triple chin. And then I was like, okay, get my shit together. And it was like my 100th try trying to get my shit together.

So for people out there, like if you are on your 100 try like fucking keep it going you never know what could happen like maybe 101 anyway um i got down to 164 from 227 worked my way down and fucking still had a beer gut still do i'm like god what do i have to do yeah so i mean um where was i going with that oh you were you were, I was like, that's just not, not just a chick thing. Yeah. Like you were saying, I think it's dudes as well. Yeah. I mean, I like, I think it just all still boils down to, you know, just having your reasons why. And, you know, if you're, if you're struggling, if you're struggling with nutrition and you've been struggling, you know, maybe, you know, it, it, it may be some time to like seek out somebody to like help you with it.

Like, you know, I think people are afraid because there's so much negative stigma about, you know, being overweight and, um, you know, even, even a stigma about like mental, mental health. So I, just reach out. I have to say, just try to reach out to somebody and get help. I will say anytime I've ever had like massive success nutrition wise, it's because I got obsessed as fuck with it.

I see T Fletcher will say, you got to be obsessed. Like, I mean, for real, like you got to like, and like that has to consume your mind for a period of time. You got to want to watch every fucking video.

You can read every article. You can go buy all the the you know buy your tupperwares buy everything you need to do to get this going you need to be obsessed with it for a little while i think that's good for a little while yeah yeah you gotta get your jump start it can't just be uh i don't mean obsessing over like the details but obsessing over the fact that you want to improve yeah yeah i mean wanting improve, but I definitely think that it's good to do that for a little while, but then you've got to maybe take a break or reassess. One of the things that Leslie was saying also is that people spend a lot of time on diets,

and that can lead to a lot of problems. People are constantly on this diet, constantly on diet, constantly dieting, and that can mentally take a toll more than anything. And, you know, I had an episode with a binge eating too and it's because I was on this diet for like fucking six months and it was terrible and it was kind of scary. But I think, yes, focusing and being – To get the party and being to get the party started to get the

party started i think is a good thing yeah yeah don't just be half-assed yeah i kind of want to get i want to you know change make this change like yeah speaking speaking of buying tupperwares the other part of this episode was talking with brandy yeah i liked her her her food prep instruction. Oh, yeah. I got a lot of tips on that shit. I didn't know that you could bring back life to cook meat by just adding a little bit of water. Yeah, because you know when you cook meat, it gets all fucking dry and crusty and shit like that, especially like pulled pork. Yeah, especially pulled pork.

Yeah, you just throw it on a skillet and put some water and let that shit breathe back into life. Yeah, if you're ever in Memphis, definitely come to Bedrock because that food's the shit. We all eat there. Yeah. What are some other things that you picked up? There was a couple of things about food prepping.

I'd like to say I'm the one that taught her how to use the stick blender. Yeah, to make the mayo. It changed her life, and it will how to use the stick blender. Yeah. And it changed her life. To make the mayo. Changed her life. And it will change yours if you make mayo. Yeah. What was that term that she was using? Mise en...

Mise en place. Mise en place. Mise en place. And what does that mean? So it's in the restaurant industry. It means everything in its place. And it's basically, it means that everything is in a place that is accessible during your food preparation or your cooking yeah so like being able to find your tools having them out especially if you're

if you've bought all your groceries and you've brought them home and you're ready to cook get all of the stuff out that you need to cook with yeah before you start cooking because the thing that can add the most time to your to your food preparation is just like finding all the shit finding the shit, yeah. Finding the shit that you need to. If you're using a crock pot, get the crock pot out. If you're using a skillet, get the skillet and the tools and the spices and everything out so it's right there in front of you.

Don't go back to the cupboard to get what you need, leaving something on the stove to overcook or something like that. Right. Like have everything out and organized and ready. Nothing's worse than fucking having diarrhea and your toilet paper ain't miz on place. That is... It's a funny story.

When we were in Austin, when we were in Austin, we were at the public bathrooms at the fucking Paleo FX. Me and McGee, I went in and I went in and take a pee. I guess he went in and take a dump. McGee always has to take a dump.

So he... First of all, first of all, there's like eight stalls, right? And this motherfucker, and all of them were empty, and this dude chose to take a dump on the first one. I don't know if that's right or wrong, but for me, I think that's wrong. I never choose the first one.

Yeah, you never choose, right? I don't know why. I can't tell you why. You don't choose the first one. Anyway, so this dude chooses the first one, and that's where it went wrong. So what happens is I'm done peeing. I'm washing my hands. I see McG come, and I'm like, oh, he's –

and now I'm at the blow dryer to dry my hands off. And I'm like, okay, you know, whatever. He's done. He's coming. And then I walk out, and I'm waiting around with who was waiting on us. And we're sitting there waiting and waiting and waiting. And I'm like, well, shit, he was right behind me to blow dry his hands. What the fuck? And it took him about another'm like, well, shit, he was right behind me to blow dry his hands. What the fuck?

And it took him about another like 10 minutes, I'd say. I don't know if you were out there waiting with us, but come find out. He comes out 10 minutes later. He was not going to blow dry his hands. There was no toilet paper in there. Everything was not Miz on place. There was no toilet paper in there. So he was coming to see if there was paper towels.

But no, it was a blow dryer. Oh, my God. So he went and checked another one, and there was no toilet paper in there so he was coming to see if there was paper towels but no it was a blow dryer so oh my god so he went and checked another one and there was no toilet paper so yeah

I don't remember how this all panned out probably had to use the socks man I think he I don't remember what eight stalls and no toilet paper nah yeah well I mean it was a big

it was like a big event a big event then shit shit is right so the lesson of that story is. Miz in place. Miz in place. Have your toilet paper.

Miz on place. Miz on place. So you've gotten really good at food prep. Miz on plus. What's Alex's, the secret world of Alex Macro's top three meal prep tips? I would say Brandy covered a lot of them. I actually. Give them to us.

Well, okay, so the one thing that she covered that I would also suggest and I do is if you buy vegetables or anything like that, come home and cut it up like right there. Like don't put it in the refrigerator. Don't wait around to like get it because you'll forget and they'll go bad. A week later you don't want that soggy-ass zucchini. Exactly. What I used to do, and I still do, is I'll cut them all up and I'll roast them.

Or I buy these Ziploc steam bags. And you basically put the vegetables in these steam bags and you put a little water in it. You throw it in the mic and then they get steamed the mic yeah yeah they get steamed up and you just have these like fresh steamed vegetables at your disposal i think every time that i've ever taken my veggies and put them into the drawer they've always molded oh it's every time every single time i just you don't want to do it yeah because when you're about to make a meal the last thing you want to do is especially if you're busy like most people are last thing you want to do is especially if you're busy like most people are,

the last thing you want to do is have to clean up or have to cut and do all that stuff. You're like, I just want to cook it and go. So you said the steam bag. I see you do that a lot. And then also you could just buy some of that shit now. You're starting to see it in a lot of the grocery stores, pre-cut vegetables. Pre-cut vegetables. You're going to pay a premium.

Right. If you have more of the disposable income, that's definitely a way to go. I've seen, I've seen zucchini noodles at Whole Foods. Like they've spiralized the zucchini for you so that you can just buy the noodles. You don't have to do that yourself if you really want to. But yeah,

they do have the, I mean the pre-cut peppers. I heard they use an organic spiralizer too. I mean they should. It's Whole Foods. Yeah. Yeah. Any of the pre-cut stuff that,

because that should take the prepping time takes a lot of fucking time like the the cutting not not just preparing the food but the actual cutting it up and getting it ready to give a bonus pro tip listen to the fucking podcast while you're doing that shit there you go yeah i will say one one rookie mistake that i've made more times than i care to think about is doing my grocery shopping too late at night so I'll do it like later in the evening I get home I don't want to do the food prep anymore I'm like I'll just do it tomorrow I mean you may as well just throw into Thursday you may as well just throw all that food away like do your grocery shopping first thing in the morning Sunday morning if your food prep day is Sunday yeah and if you're trying to eat clean do not go to the fucking

grocery store high as a kite. Don't go hungry. Do not go hungry. Thomas Cox even said that. Do not go to the grocery store if you're hungry because you will buy all the shit that you probably don't want to eat that week. What's another pro tip? I would say another one is just, I mean, like what she said, like par cook. Partially cook. Partially cook. Cook meats meats like you want to cook all your meats up but if you're making like a stew you

don't have to like you don't have to like put all that stuff together you can just cook the meat throw the meat in there do it later like just cook cook the things that you know you're gonna cook and and just and just cook them ahead of time. And especially, like, you can always make some different types of dishes out of them. Like, if you make ground beef, you can make tacos, you can make whatever. Like, you can do all that stuff. Just cook the meat up while you got it out. Pro tip number three. I don't know if I have another one.

Shereen? I got one. Something I just recently did. I've done it before, but now I kind of stepped my game up. I showed y'all when y'all came here. It's buying nice Tupperware and lots of it. Because the problem I ran into is I had Tupperware. I've known the trick.

I've known the Tupperware trick. But it's shitty Tupperware, that kind that, like, you know, you use it once and it gets stained on the side, and you put it in the washing machine, it's never going to come off. That orange stain. Yeah, that stain. It's like, not that that matters. But anyway, but it's that cheap shit that like the top after like three tries won't go on all the way anymore.

So do yourself a favor. Buy the nice, fancier shit and buy a lot of it. Buy more than you probably think you need. And this way there's never like, oh, it's dirty. Or, you know, don't give yourself any excuses. So that's something I did. And then the other thing I did after watching McG was I bought a big cooler, like a cooler case, not like a cooler bag. Yeah, a cooler bag.

A big size one and two little size ones. So this way I have no excuse not to take my food with me because I started seeing that that was becoming a thing. Like, well, I could do it here at the house, but, you know, take oh i'm gonna put this in my car it's gonna get hot or what if i don't go to somewhere that has a fridge like then i gotta you know so it gave me the chance to have an excuse not to take my food so just go ahead and invest in that stuff and then the funny thing too is by having that stuff and paid good money for it you're gonna do it you're you feel more inclined to like well i'm not gonna waste i'm not going to have this shit sitting here.

I'm going to stick to it. So, yeah, I love having that good Tupperware because I'm so anal retentive about how my Tupperware cabinet looks like. If you've ever been to my house, my Tupperware is perfectly put away, perfectly put away. And you can't do that if you have mismatched Tupperware. You can't. You got to. Oh, mismatched Tupperware.

Oh, yeah. That's right. Yeah, no, taking the food with you is, I mean, you see me. I bring my food, but I'm kind of a cheap ass, and I use little plastic Kroger bags. Well, hey, we're going to have to wrap this up because I got to go fucking train. Oh, yeah.

Drop everything and train. I need to take a poop, actually. Sweet. You better have that Miz on Place toilet paper in there. Hey, you know, I got them adult baby wipes, yeah. Drop everything in train. I need to take a poop, actually. Sweet. You better have that Miz on Place toilet paper in there. Hey, you know, I got them adult baby wipes, son. I ain't trying to wipe my butt with that old 1992 toilet paper shit. John Wayne toilet paper. Yeah, get out of here.

He's got a corn cup in there. Yeah, so we'll give some more. We are about to launch the Shrug Strength Challenge, all three of us and plus McElroy. It's going to be awesome. Kurt, McG, we've kind of our baby project here that we've been doing for the past five months or so. So excited.

We're going to be launching that, and Alex is putting together, like I said, go follow him on Instagram. He's done all this stuff. He has all these tips and stuff. So is Kurt. I'm getting into it. So is McG. We've all been doing it, and we're going to put together a little guide on how we eat.

That's going to be a part of our Shrug Strength Challenge. This program is specifically for people who want to get strong while maintaining or improving their conditioning and kind of our big goals are to increase your squat by 50 pounds and to improve your healing time by three minutes.

We've got some other goals in there too, kind of like mobility and movement type goals, but those are the big two. So we'll be launching that, um, here soon, go to stroke strength challenge.com for any info on that. Um, yeah, the point I was going to make there though, is that we're going to have nutrition built in. So if you kind of see what we've been doing and you want more stuff, I'm sure we're going to kind of, we'll be in the Facebook group that goes with that program to give an advice. So, um, we'd love to have you there. Anything I'm forgetting that you want to mention?

No. As always, another great episode by Chris and Charlotte. Chris, Chris fucking was born to do that job and he crushed it. And I'm so glad we have those to have. It was great to see him on the show again. Hearing his laugh is so fucking cool. Like, you know, it's trippy and it's just awesome that we have that stuff. It was great to see him on the show again. Hearing his laugh is so fucking cool. It's trippy, and it's just awesome that we have that stuff.

And Charlotte did a great job editing, as always. So any other thoughts, concerns, questions, comments? Thanks, Shereen, for coming on. Yeah, thanks for having me. It was fun. All right. We've got to get you on the show more. You might be in the Stroke Strength Challenge coaching women.

That's right. What if dudes want to be coached you on the show more. You might be in the Stroke Strength Challenge coaching women. That's right. What if dudes want to be coached by you? They can sign up for that too. No dick pics. She's a married woman. No DMs. Taken. All right, y'all. We'll see you next time.

We've got one more episode of Full Depth coming that I know of, which is going to be with Coach Berkner. That shit is going to tear your butthole open. It's going to be so good. We'll see you guys later. Peace.