Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 22 - Eric Helms PhD: Nutrition, Veganism, Obesity, and Communication.

Episode Date: April 24, 2020

In this episode, Danny sits down with Eric Helms Ph.D. to talk about all things nutrition. The growth of nutritional "tribalism", the importance of communication and communication styles, the carnivore diet, obesity, and more! This is not your run of the mill, eat this not that podcast, it's a discussion about understanding nutrition and nutrition communication strategies better so that more people can be positively impacted by implementing lasting behavior change around diet (and exercise).Learn more about the Nutrition Coaching Global Mastermind HERE!Check Out M.A.S.S. Here (I really recommend this for coaches who want to level up).Check out Iron Culture Podcast HERE! To read Eric's recent study "Nutritional Recommendations for Physique Athletes" Click HEREFollow Eric On Instagram HERE!Thanks For Listening!---RESOURCES/COACHING: I am all about education and that is not limited to this podcast! Feel free to grab a FREE guide (Nutrition, Training, Macros, Etc!) HERE! Interested in Working With Coach Danny and His One-On-One Coaching Team? Click HERE! Want To Have YOUR Question Answered On an Upcoming Episode of DYNAMIC DIALOGUE? You Can Submit It HERE!Want to Support The Podcast AND Get in Better Shape? Grab a Program HERE!----SOCIAL LINKS:Follow Coach Danny on INSTAGRAMFollow Coach Danny on TwitterFollow Coach Danny on FacebookGet More In-Depth Articles Written By Yours’ Truly HERE!-----TIMESTAMPS:Where did the dieting industry as we know it arise: 7:38Do you think nutritional tribalism clouds waters and misleads information? 14:00Where should people go to build a good foundation for understanding basic nutritional principles? 23:32What are some ways that a coach/fitness enthusiast could communicate more effectively with everyone in general about making a nutritional change? 30:44What are some ways people can respectfully include animal products/animal byproducts into their diet? / Are there practices worth implementing for someone that wants to consume meat and be environmentally conscious? 39:02What’s a good way to approach eating during COVID-19 that’s respectful of what people are going through? / What can coaches do to communicate to clients about how to handle this in a way that doesn’t shut people down? 59:42What is Nutritional Global Mastermind? 1:15:09  Support the Show.

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogues podcast. Today, we get to sit down with one of my favorite people in the space, Dr. Eric Helms. And not for the reasons you might think. Yes, Dr. Helms is an incredibly established, accomplished physical culturist, professional bodybuilder, competent powerlifter, Olympic lifter, PhD in strength and conditioning, very, very smart human being. But today we're talking all things nutrition, but not just nutrition. We're talking big time topics. We're talking obesity, plant-based dieting, even nutrition during COVID-19 and how to communicate effectively with others about

nutrition. In a space that's become really politicized and overloaded with dietary dogma, the ability to communicate clearly is important, but not just communicate clearly, communicate in a way that people are receptive to and that will hopefully help them change because that's what we all want as coaches. And hopefully, if you're just a fitness enthusiast listening, which most of you are, you will learn a lot about how to communicate to friends and loved ones if they're willing to listen. So give this one a listen. It's a great chat with Dr. Eric Helms and I couldn't be happier with how it turned out. Have a good day and enjoy the podcast with Eric Helms. So Eric, how's it going, man? Doing um i think i guess all things considered you know uh

so trying to make the best of a of a less than ideal situation but trying to do my part so yeah man how about you same same making uh making the most of the time i've been spending more time creating digital content because i'm away from some of my in-person clients kind of continuing to enrich the virtual client relationships I have even doing some stuff on zoom but mostly trying to create content like this which is why I reached out to you actually I think before this happened but it ended up working out perfect because we're going to weave a lot of what people are going through now, hopefully, into the focus of today's discussion anyway. So it'll be nice and very applicable. So for those of you guys who don't know much about Eric, Eric is somebody who I've been following the space for

quite some time. He's a PhD. He's also a professional bodybuilder, but he's a PhD he's also a professional bodybuilder but he's one of the people in the space who I think does the best job of communicating nutrition and training strategies in a really in a way that's very I guess you could say people would be more receptive to a lot of people are very emotional dogmatic and they pick sides which can shut people down. And I think that you do a tremendous job of kind of conveying what it is that you're trying to say in a way that I think people are very receptive to. So that's why I kind of chose to bring you on to talk about some of these potentially more tender topics. But for those of you who don't know Eric, that's kind of a little bit about him, but I'll let him expand more on what he's doing, what his kind of road to where he is now is, and then we'll dive into it.

Yeah, that's one of the better compliments I've had as someone who fashions himself or takes on the mantle of trying to communicate science. I would say it's more important in many cases in the science itself to be able to communicate in a, in a human way and respecting the people listening rather than coming across as condescending or assumptive or, or really exclusionary is, which I, which I think comes across if you don't communicate correctly intended or not. So anyway,

my whole thing is I'm just a dude who loves to lift and loves to train. And that has become an expression in every aspect of my life, whether that's my education, my career, my businesses I've started and the partnerships I've formed to my own personal physical expression. partnerships I've formed to my own personal physical expression. And I would even go as far to say my, the way I connect and my quote unquote spiritual connection with the world myself and people I care about. So yeah, that's creative elements. That's intellectual elements, that's physical elements and it is the way I put food on the table. So which we're going to be discussing a lot about the food on the table.

So kind of a little bit about all of that, essentially what I do today on paper, if it was to give you the virtual CV, I'm a research fellow here at the Auckland University of Technology, which is in New Zealand and our biggest city of Auckland. And I came out here in 2012 to do the research portions of my extended education. I did my master's thesis here and then my PhD, specifically looking at topics relevant to strength and physique athletes. I'm very much what I call myself is a sports scientist in the realm of strength and physique sport with a specific focus on

helping people have a sustainable career with their sport. And sustainable, I don't mean like making sure they drive a Prius to the gym. I mean, having a relationship with the sport or with their fitness pursuit, that is something that enriches them in the long term rather than burns them out or causes problems. So I've actually got a lot of interest in the, the psychology of eating body image and things that can often unfortunately come with the pursuit of sport and fitness. And that's kind of our vein and coaching with 3d muscle journey. We take a holistic approach.

We want people to compete as a master's three, if they, if they desire to do so rather than burning out to junior or in the open and having kind of the sour grapes experience with the iron. Um, and then as far as science communication, I have books that are written about training and nutrition. Um, my coauthors, Andy Morgan, Andrew Valdez, and I also work with someone you've also had on the podcast, Eric Trexler, along with Greg Knuckles and Mike Zerdos on our monthly research review for strength and physique sport mass. So that's kind of my deal. That's what I do and who I am. Yeah, I think all of that really kind of speaks to how you developed from somebody who was probably

just a fitness enthusiast earlier in your career and actually a trainer, if I'm not mistaken, you spent some time training and even educating trainers, and you're still doing quite a bit of that with the projects that you have now. The passion hasn't burned out at all. And it actually, I think, shows quite a bit in the way you communicate that you spent that early part of your career as a lifter and even a trainer in the way you communicate to people. You don't communicate exclusively like an academic, which I think is something that is a lost art amongst people in academia to some respect. You have the ability to condense things to the layman that maybe would fall through the cracks. So I'm certain we will see quite a bit of that as we move into today's discussion about nutrition.

But the first thing I kind of want to talk about, and who better to ask than somebody who has dieted a tremendous amount for physique reasons, but where did the dieting industry a social norm, something that was expected for, you know, women to do, you got to be on a diet. If you're not on a diet, you're, you know, it's very much become a normal part of society, but I'm sure at one point it wasn't. Where did it emerge in and why did it emerge? If you can expand on that. That's a great question. And I will first put a big old fat disclaimer stamped on the screen that, you know, I grew up as a dude. I'm a dude. Right. And I was actually a skinny dude. So I was very much and I was also an only child. So I didn't have sisters. And I, of course, I had a mother like like most of us. And I definitely am someone who likes to think I'm aware of other people's experiences and talks to them and all that.

But I would say that my exposure to dieting almost purely came as a consequence of competing as a bodybuilder, which for those who don't know, it's not just about bodybuilding. You build your body and then it becomes a phasic period of competitive starvation to maintain as much as what you built while being basically fat free. And there is a lot of potential psychological issues and physiological issues that can go along with that. And that is what aware to me more to the reality. And like you said, I was a trainer, I was a personal trainer. That was my first career after I got out of the Air Force. So I did that until 2011. It was my, or 2012 actually, was when I finally completely stopped doing any in-person coaching and shifted completely to online coaching of bodybuilders and powerlifters and lifting enthusiasts online. But yeah, I was a trainer for about seven years in person. And then I spent about a year and

a half as a personal trainer educator in person, actually teaching them and taking them to the gym and helping them through their certifications. And then also, you know, I still do that in various forms online. But anyway, so that's the big disclaimer is that whatever I state, A, I'm not a sociologist or an anthropologist, and B, my personal experience with this all came a lot later in life, and it's not as ingrained. So I was able to be a little more conscious of my experience. And I think the juxtaposition I had was someone who had a pretty much neutral relationship with food and my body, to then jumping into the world of bodybuilding and feeling those pressures.

I could step outside of myself and really be aware of it. But from my reading, my experience and conversing with other people, that I think is very much not the case. Like I took a cool course in my undergrad called Women's History. And of course, you know, having significant others in my life and being straight, you know, having deep connections with my now my wife of 14 years. I think I've come to understand both looking at historical documents and that to that experience that it's a deeply ingrained part of our unfortunately part of part of our culture and many other cultures around the world of, you know, don't, don't let things go. You need to stay tight. You need to look a certain way. Social acceptance comes from meeting a certain body image norm. So I think you could trace that back a long time.

And there are body image norms for men as well. Don't get me wrong. I would say they're probably not as pervasive in the, or aggressively enforced. And in the Western world, it's only changing recently. We've actually seen a huge increase in the number of eating disorders among men. So I think fortunately, not fortunately at all, we're getting to experience a little more of what women are experiencing now through the joys of Instagram.

Like if you look at Luke Skywalker over the years, those are really cool. Like he originally looks like just a guy holding a lightsaber. And then he gets increasingly more muscular, smaller waist, broader shoulders. And now he looks like a Mr. Olympia competitor. Same thing with Superman, Batman, all of our toys. While the history of, say like Barbie uh started with having an impossibly small waist so I think there there are some cultural factors that have been there there is a pressure to look a certain way and therefore that trickles into what you do with

your nutrition now as far as why has dieting culture been like a thing or a place of authority or while our clients get filtered into it. I think this came from the obesity epidemic. And to see the world growing in terms of waistline and the lifestyle quote unquote diseases that come from that, the rise of type two diabetes, you know, the fact that we start to see type 2 diabetes even happen in children, etc. I think there was this panicky moment of, oh my god, like all hands on deck starting in the 80s, we've got to get nutrition researchers to solve the obesity epidemic. So I think if you combine these two factors, the historical sociocultural pressure to look a certain way with the rise of

the obesity epidemic and the, the action by the academic community and nutrition and public health to try to do something about it. The rise of the personal trainer, all of a sudden now we have a whole industry dedicated to getting people to not gain weight and ideally to lose weight for, for ostensibly for health, but that tying into a lot of their their body image, self esteem, self self efficacy. Yeah, I think that's actually a fantastic point. We choose to often be myopic with how we look at things and particularly obesity as being even I'm guilty of this myself, but a lot of us in the

fitness space for parroting the move more eat less just move more eat less when in fact much of this is quite multifactorial it's biological of course it's sociological right going back to things like toys and action figures that we're exposed to super early on and how that can change the way we look at food, dieting, our own body image. Something that's changed a lot with nutrition, I've noticed in the last couple years in particular, it's probably bigger, it's certainly bigger than nutrition. You needn't look very far. Everything has become politicized. But there's certainly been an increased politicization, if that's even the word, of nutrition. People seem to want to pick sides. People seem to want to debate quite regularly about different aspects of nutrition

to the point of some people even calling it nutritional tribalism. Do you think that this one actually clouds the waters? Do you think it's possible for this discourse to be valuable? Or do you think that it actually damages the nutritional narrative in helping people find healthful ways of eating that are actually adherable? I think for one, I think we just need to acknowledge that kind of the in-group, out-group aspect of human sociology is just the way we operate. And then it's a question of how much do we fan those flames or we make ourselves aware of it? And what do we value in those groups? Um, it's kind of like, cause it would be very easy to sit here and just say, Hey, the two party system has been destroying America for longer and longer and longer. Uh, you know, the, the concept or, or, Hey, like, you know, nutritional dogmatism has been causing all these issues.

And Hey, as soon as things become in group out group, all of a sudden you're no longer trying to hear the other people and see that as people you're trying to dehumanize them and look for a way to argue with them. And all of this is very destructive. But the answer is kind of like for anyone who's been on the planet a decent amount of time and started to see these in-group, out-group space kind of interactions that started. I remember in high school and before that, it ain't going nowhere. And old news. We know that.

that, it ain't going nowhere. And old news, we know that. And speaking to the woes of that is kind of just like being just a pessimist saying, well, humans suck. And then leaving it there. That in and of itself is not very constructive. It's good to vent, don't get me wrong. And, you know, that's, it's definitely something we need to be aware of. But I think understanding that it probably won't change, but we can be aware of it, and we can reward certain things. And we can, ironically, kind of invert that situation, like the, the quote, unquote, evidence based community done right. If we elevate rational skepticism and all elements of it philosophically to the highest level, it kind of like self combats that. So rational skepticism being where we try not to use logical fallacies and

some of those things like the principle of charity, like we hear the best version of what someone's saying. And if we, you know, take on board the whole concept of dunning kruger and that we can always be wrong that perception is inherently fallible we can only know so much that should build in humility and respect almost across all sectors and that we should be valued being correct more than value value being right if you will so if like like for example the evidence-based community absolutely is an end group, for example, the evidence-based community, absolutely as an end group, people will hashtag science, hashtag evidence-based, you know, treat me like I'm a guru, things like that. Even though I'm inherently saying don't have gurus, like, yeah, you're so

smart for saying that you're not that smart and that we're all fallible. You know, it's like, there's this endless loop of, of creating cults. So it's not going to go away, but if you have the right values within a group, it can lead to being as more facilitative rather than debilitative. So I think one of the reasons why we see what we see is human nature. As to the question of, is it useful or can it be useful? Only if those kind of things are in place, and that creates a certain level of awareness. I think you kind of have to get off the bus of saying, you know, we have the light and the truth, and we've come to proselytize and share. And that's difficult, especially like I would say in America, a great example is politics. At some point in the last 20, 30, 40 years, you

could argue there was the acceptance of that this is a war. This is a culture war. Whether you're on the quote unquote left, quote unquote right, which supposedly represents 50% of the country versus the other, it's not about compromise or coming together or finding a solution, which it necessarily must be in a two-party system. But rather, it's about we're or coming together or finding a solution, which it necessarily must be in a two-party system. But rather, it's about we're going to suppress the other side because they are wrong. Every political argument pretty much devolves into you're a bad person if you don't agree with me. And therefore, you don't get to the same things I do, at least respect at the very least. And we're just going to move ahead without you, whether you like it or not, because

we have to fight in the truth. And I'm going to purposely mishear what you say and paint it in the worst light possible, because we need to win. So it's a means to an end. And I think that's a really, and I'm not trying to be political and discussing that. But I think it's something that people on the right and the left would agree with. They both feel this way, largely about the other side, you know, and feel that it's them doing it. But I think if we could acknowledge that exists, that's a problem. And that's not been going well for us as a maybe not so much longer first world country with the way we're mishandling ourselves, that that's a kind of a nice example to see, oh, this happens in all aspects of life. And with nutrition, it's an interesting thing where, you know, training is

optional. You know, I would love it if everybody found some form of physical activity they could express themselves through. But there are people who live their whole life as working desk jobs, and maybe video gaming or whatever they do for recreation that requires them not to be active in any way. That's not necessarily a healthy way to live, but you won't die. If you do not eat at all, you will die. So this is something that I think everyone engages with to some degree and therefore everyone feels a connection to. engages with to some degree and therefore everyone feels a connection to and it is something uh that that necessarily becomes moral for that reason because uh insert in the name of any culture and then you think about rituals in a way of connecting celebrating uh and and signifying

moments it has a nutrition component you insert any culture with the word grandmother after it, and you know, they're going to feed you, you know, you know, and so food is how we celebrate birthdays, events. We have it at funerals. We have it at baby showers. We have it at getting a new job. We have it when you leave, leave a job and go on. We have going away parties. It's how you sit down and connect with your family. You don't show up to family dinner. There's something wrong with you. You're a bad teenager or overworking father.

We can think of all the cultural memes that we have. So many of them are tied into nutrition. So I think the mistake we made with the obesity epidemic when it became an academic pursuit to find a solution to it, and that trickled down to the quote unquote evidence based community, was we were very much focused on, like you said, move less, sorry, move more, eat less, right? huge difference between the literal physics way that things operate and what is a useful way to communicate a solution to a problem. And that is where the disconnect is. And I think it comes down to taking a very, I would say, quantitative approach to something that has qualitative cultural elements, emotional elements. And, you know, because food is such an integral part of our society, that means it's going to have, you know, impacts on morality, you know, politics, the environment, which therefore in the States,

at least gets politicized as well, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So nutrition is a non-optional part of life. It in fact is the cycle of life in and of itself. And therefore, it gets wrapped up and built into everything about us. And I think it's very easy, once we've seen it out of that context, as this is the cause of the obesity epidemic and overnutrition. nutrition. I'm a trainer. I'm going to solve that. Here's the literal solution is to have a higher calorie expenditure than you have as an intake. And I'm going to have, you know, solutions to solve that. You're operating outside of what the reality of nutrition is for people trying to fix a problem in a vacuum and invariably causing sometimes more harm than good. And I think that's the root of the issue. I agree. I think the way in which we communicate things as an industry has perhaps been less than ideal for the people who need to receive the message most. And I can't help but go back to the political comparison because one of the most common

phrases, particularly amongst people in my age group when it comes to politics is, oh, dude, I don't talk politics. That shit is too crazy. I just don't. I don't even want to go there. And I can't help but see a massive correlation in the way a lot of people look at nutrition. There's so much clouding of the water. There's so many people who are very opinionative, very loud voices right even even the same way that you've got people arguing on facebook about political things you have people arguing about nutritional things and the people who probably most need to be educated on you know the bare bones political system or the bare bones nutritional system just throw their hands in the air and defeat because it seems

like the voices that are the loudest are clouding the water so where would these people go and again this is great for coaches too but where should people look if they just want to build a solid foundation of understanding basic nutritional principles in a space that's become overwhelmed with, you know, there's no shortage of diets you could look into or follow or YouTube videos you could watch or podcasts you can listen to or gurus you could find, you know, where should they look first to build that base? Yeah. And the good news is I think there's a lot more hope than there is in politics. Yeah. I don't want to sound exceptionally pessimistic. I mean, we are in a unique political situation here in America, but I'm much more

optimistic and pragmatic about our nutritional future. Yeah. Same. Or I wouldn't be involved at all. Because the reward mechanisms for politics are such that you will purposely misunderstand other people to then paint them in a bad light to win. And I think sometimes people get into those loops where they want to be right, or they're digging their heels in, especially in public confrontations or in, you know, your egos on the line, etc, etc. But there's not necessarily reward mechanisms in place in the same way. So there is absolutely a chance for just one of two people interacting to be compassionate. And that almost diffuses almost, I can't tell you how many times I've interacted online with someone who might align themselves with a specific nutritional

group. And because I carried myself in a way that was not trying to speak to them the truth, correct them or whatever, but asking them, well, how is that working for you? What do you think about this? You know, here's some information, hey, take it or leave it, you know, like, and even taking a few steps back with what your question is, is getting down to how do we know what we know, you know, and, you know, just them understanding that, that their anecdote may only apply to themselves is sometimes as far as you can take it but it's such an incredibly important understanding for someone uh that oh hold on so someone else could be uh socially and physiologically different enough for me that me telling them to do what i'm doing or using my system um or the

echo chamber that's created from other people who like me have had the same experience and we just talk together and we've talked this into being the truth and the light for all nutrition problems. I could actually be hurting someone else. If they just understand that, all of a sudden their language changes drastically and they go from being a missionary and a judger to someone say, hey, here's a work for me. Hopefully it's useful for you. say, hey, here's what worked for me. Hopefully it's useful for you. And that's 100% fine. So where should someone go? I think this is a great case for just some pure academic nutrition courses. You will see it in certain academic courses, kind of the assumption that you're learning nutrition for X reason with the obesity epidemic. That's starting to change. But I think

just understanding like digestion, the energy content of foods, like not even, I don't want to say the big, bad word biochemistry, but nutritional biochemistry in like its basic sense, like how do we generate energy? And, you know, what are the energy systems and which of the macronutrients do what? And there's a lot of really kind of basic straightforward stuff. And then you can juxtapose that with any type of nutrition goal. Like for example, the muscle and strength nutrition pyramids that I created are that basic information and a prioritized hierarchical structure, but through the lens of muscle, right? So someone who wants to get as much muscle as possible,

improve body composition or improve their physical performance, which changes the lens a bit, which is totally fine. Because ultimately, understanding kind of the basic biochemistry without it being in the context of anything applied, for a lot of people makes it very difficult for them to pay attention, understand or put those concepts into something of use besides just memorizing information. So yeah, there's a ton of great online courses. Now that we're all kind of on lockdown, like for example, I just took a Coursera course that was free. And that was on like nutritional biochemistry at a higher level, which I wouldn't recommend at all for someone who's not like a trainer or a science communicator.

But for someone who just wants to learn kind of the basics of nutrition, taking one of the many nutrition courses that is online that is from a university, which means it's gone through a certain accreditation process and all that, I would highly recommend. You just need to, because the beauty of it is you've got a lot of time on your hands, maybe, you know, I don't want to say that to, you know, like a mother of three who are normally in daycare, and now they're just pulling their hair all the time but for a lot of us we are stuck at home and we do need some things to do and i think um looking online and finding uh some of these courses from actual universities and then just basically window shopping you know see how the lecturer does while they're while they're talking on your video screen if you start

to find yourself distracted or if they're they they're bland or monotone, go to the next one, you know, look for the ones with the highest ratings, like you would with any product, really. I think you can find good free course on nutrition and that that's probably where I would start. Um, but some of the things that I would really recommend, given that we've, we've, we've started this conversation with Hank saying, Hey, nutrition has a lot of dogma it has a lot of in-group out-group stuff it has become politicized is you want to identify the language of someone who is uh in those circles versus the language of someone who is trying to communicate information to the best of their ability and is using what is more of a default rational skeptic approach.

So you want to look for basically someone who is not using hyperbole, who is not speaking in black and white, is not trying to sell you something that is not information. If they're trying to push a supplement or a specific food plan or something that's like coaching, not in all cases, there's nothing wrong with coaching. But, but, uh, if there's ulterior motives, if it reads like a sales page or sales copy, um, if they make it sound like there's only one solution or one way to go, um, or if they give you very, very specific numbers and outcomes, like, well, if you follow this, you'll lose X percent of weight in the next amount of time. Um, tell the all too common story of here's the conspiracy, here's why everything you know is wrong.

And guess what? I have the solution I've seen behind the Wizard of Oz, you know, curtain. That is always a red flag. That's almost the standard appeal to the nature of the way humans think and a way to get you to buy something. So I think if you're aware of all those things, you can parse the language and then you can find someone who is worth listening to in most cases. I think that's really valuable information. A question that I get asked often, and I think it's something that's really close to home for a lot of people. And I think you've laid the foundation really well, especially now that we've kind of,

we've, we've laid the foundation that there's a human being involved with every nutritional exchange, whether it be from an academic, whether it be from a trainer, whether it's on Facebook, that the person receiving that is a, is a human being and there's emotion, it's social, there's a lot built into that. What are ways that a fitness enthusiast who's listening to this, a trainer who's listening to this, a coach can communicate more effectively with friends, family, loved ones, potential clients about making nutritional change because it's very difficult. I'll speak for myself. I've earlier in my career had a very difficult time understanding why people didn't prioritize or care about nutrition as much as I

did. And if you don't grow and you don't understand people and mature, you might actually miss the opportunity to give somebody life-changing advice because you aren't seeing that there's a person there and you're just, oh, they just don't get it. What are some ways that people can actually, you know, break down those barriers, communicate effectively and distill the nuts and bolts to somebody that they care about that perhaps is just hopping from diet to diet and not getting anywhere and there's frustration and maybe they don't want to talk to them about it because they know that they're going to be judgmental. What are some ways we can get to those people? Because I think they're the people we all know and care about the most.

Yeah, and that's a tough one. And this is why a doctor isn't supposed to operate on their son. You're not supposed to like therapize your, your own family members, et cetera. Um, because the closer we are emotionally to something, uh, the more we, uh, can, can lose our sense of perspective, uh, let bias creep in and essentially have a conflict of interest. Right.

Um, and even if it's for good reasons, like in those examples I gave that conflict can still cloud your judgment and, and lead you to overreacting or pushing something because you have a fear for the person or their well-being. And in the end, you're almost making the person feel like you're taking away their agency or you're telling them that they're not competent enough to solve their own problems. So I think the first thing to do, especially if I'm speaking to people in the quote unquote evidence-based community is don't give unsolicited advice. That's the biggest problem I see in the in-group that we're both part of is that when someone learns all this stuff,

when they've got there, and this is not staged, I promise, when they've got, and this is not staged i promise when they've got i've got my personal training handbook you know um i've got my dude i swear to god this is not staged i just was using these books for stuff i've got my my precision nutrition principles you know were you doing additional range of motion push-ups with those books or what i was a hundred percent you nailed it um and i was also waiting down my chairs for dips. So, you know, when you've got this, this information, you have these tombs, you've got these followers, you've got my books, you've got the NSCA books, whatever, whether the information is correct or not. And if it's my books, of course, it's correct. I'm just kidding. It's, it's, you know, things that are intended to be accurate, are scientifically valid based on what we know now, and have you know tried and true principles of uh of science you see someone post something that you feel is in uh in conflict with that or is incorrect and your first thought and social media makes it really easy to not have any impulse control is just to correct them or to tell them that's wrong or what this? Or don't you know? And I think that almost always goes poorly. You know, like, can you imagine like you're learning to ride a bike for the first time and some random person on the street runs up to you and you're eight and you're like trying to

get and you go, don't turn the handles to turn, lean into it. Don't you know you're supposed to do that? Haven't you read this PubMed study on riding a bike? And you're like, I'm eight years old. I'm with my dad. I'm just trying to do this. I was having a great day and you ruined it. You know, let me scrape my knee. So I think people understanding that unsolicited advice, no matter how good it is, it almost is never well received. And that you need to think about how would you want to be approached with new information. And even if you are a robot who just likes facts, that's probably not most people, like you said, you know, there's, there's, there's at least 7 billion experiences on the planet that are, none of them are more or less valid or others. It's just an experience. It's qualitative. And I think, so I think we have

to understand that the person who you are potentially trying to help is the one who is eventually going to help themselves you are providing resources right so this goes back to like client-led coaching um it goes to uh autonomy it goes to our understanding of human motivation you know self, self-determination theory, it's all comes down to in the end, the only person who can get you to your goals is you. There may be mentors, there may be teachers, there may be people who are partners in that. You know, the way I like to envision a trainer or a coach's role is not as the captain of the ship and they've gotten on it and saying, hey, would you help me get to Antarctica? They're sorry, not as the passenger

on the ship who says, hey, I'd like to get on your ship. You're the captain trainer, take me to Antarctica, but rather, Hey, I am the captain of the ship. This is my first time as an officer. I've never been to Antarctica. I know it exists and I know I want to get there, but I'm looking to hire a seasoned navigator to help me help guide me there. And that's the trainer, it's the navigator. So it's it's the you can get fired by by your client, you can also quit, essentially, you can fire that captain and be like, listen, you know, I've done my best to navigate here. And we just keep slamming into icebergs. And maybe it's my fault, maybe it's your fault, but this isn't working. And I'm going to go crazy. That's something any trainer has experienced. Uh, but that, that, that's a really important philosophy or standpoint to have as someone who's trying to help others is that you're helping others help themselves.

Um, you can't force someone to have the right information, you know? Um, and are you trying to dunk on somebody, uh, in a one-on-one game of PubMed? Or are you trying to use science to help them understand something closer to the closest we can get to knowing the truth? So I think that just that philosophical stance is the hugest, most important, but also first initial step towards not running into those same traps, people talking across each other and becoming in-group, out-group. Yeah, I really like that. I think that kind of, again, just going into the conversation, whatever that conversation may be, not with the attempt to win the argument, not with the attempt to be heard,

but simply with the attempt to listen, see where somebody's at, and see if their receptive first and foremost goes a lot further than just giving or parroting unsolicited advice. Something that I've wanted to ask you for quite some time, and it has to do with how quote unquote woke you are. It's an only child thing for those of you who don't know. Only children are exponentially more woke. There's tons of data on it. Don't bother Googling it. It's just a known fact. Just take our two opinions on that. I'm imagining you might be an only child as well. Yes, I am an only child, which is usually met by the phrase, and I'm sure Eric can second this, that explains so much. Official response to eddie from anybody who has a sibling to anybody

with an only who is an only child but um given that eric is woke we've kind of touched on politics a little bit and he has a lot of experience with diet dietary manipulation changing things teaching things i think i'd be remiss if i didn't talk about, clearly we're living in the midst of some interesting to say the least climate things going on. There are things going on in the planet which project to potentially cause pretty exponential if not irreversible damage. And a lot of people are making an effort to do their part by making nutritional choices. Maybe that's going to a completely plant-based diet. Maybe it's doing X, Y, Z.

And then on the other hand, you have people who are like, hey, I don't care. I just want to make my gains and get the hell out of here before this whole thing goes to shit. Is there a middle ground here? If there is a middle ground, what are some ways that people can perhaps respectfully include animal products, animal byproducts into their diet? And are there practices that you would recommend implementing for somebody who says, hey,

I want to try to get the best of both. I maybe want to consume meat, but I also want to be aware that I want to do my part. Man. Loaded question. I mean, and there's a lot of groundwork to be done before we can even get to those specific aspects of it. ethics climate change and you could also even argue economics which is almost invariably tied up with with with with the environment it gets really complicated and I think we need to go back to what we first said is you don't have an option to not eat right yeah so when I think a good example... Breatharians just unsubscribed. That's okay.

Some people we're probably not going to reach. Actually, the one thing I do want to say, to square the circle of what I was saying before, of philosophically making sure that you are seeing it as I can only help you help yourself, and I'm only going to help you if you're legitimately looking for information. I'm not going to try to force you to change. That first step is how you begin a conversation. The next step is then basically finding some ground where you're on the same page.

And I always find myself basically going, so what do you agree is good evidence? And if someone is like a complete denial of science or they believe science is fundamentally a bad thing, which is rare. Hey guys, just wanted to take a quick second to say, thanks so much for listening to the podcast. And if you're finding value, it would mean the world to me. If you would share it on your social media, simply screenshot whatever platform you're listening to and share the episode to your Instagram story or share it to Facebook. But be sure to tag me so I can say thanks and we can chat it up about what you liked and how I can continue to improve. Thanks so much for supporting the podcast and

enjoy the rest of the episode. If we get to the place where, hey, if you're ready to learn, I will teach you or share information with you or discuss things with you. So it's not that kind of top-down view. And then two, we've agreed on what we might be considered as evidence. And then they can kind of understand in terms of an anecdote and certain levels of science. That's where you can actually make progress with someone. But if you don't get there, then you're going to be talking across each other. So as this connects with the whole morality of food or

climate change and how it all relates politics is something that you can disengage from we talked about how it's very common people are like hey I don't talk politics because they know it's so difficult to have those discussions without finding yourself being called a bad person

or damaging an otherwise perfectly fine friendship because you both tend to escalate quickly and become very charged. Yes. So when someone takes, when nutrition becomes an aspect of climate change or an aspect of any kind of morality, even if it is, I think it's really important to remember that people don't get to opt out of nutrition. That people that people have grown up a certain way. Uh, they have been fed a certain way when they were actually incapable of getting their own food. Uh, there's a lot of ingrained behavior and you're asking someone, uh, the men, I'm basically speaking to people who think people

should be eating a certain way. You have a moral judgment about someone else for the way they eat, either based on how, you know, the suffering of animals or based on the effect on the climate or the effect on economy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Even if those things are true, remember that the way you change hearts and minds is not through judging people. And people can't necessarily opt out. They have had ingrained behaviors. So compassion goes a long way. Like the whole concept of shaming people into change is proven to be really, really not,

not only just harmful, mean and false, but doesn't work. You know, this is a strange thing that's come up in politics and done on purpose for political and social change, even in modern times, which surprises me, because we have so much data showing shame-based change doesn't work. Like if you look at teen pregnancy rates in places that have absence-only education

and basically saying hey you know like you're you're you're a bad person if you engage in uh in sexual intercourse out of marriage or or when you're underage hat didn't work just objectively just looking at the numbers right so why do we think that would work for some other uh it's not the way humans operate you know shame just makes us feel like crap and then trying to hide and feel weird about the things that we're trying to change. And I would argue it hasn't worked for the obesity epidemic either. Right? Yeah.

So why would it work for climate change? Why would it work for humane treatment of animals? Why would it work for anything like that? It won't. It'll actually become part of the problem. So I think that's kind of step one. And we have to agree on that. And if we don't, you're probably going to be, that's fine.

You're welcome to your opinion, but you're going to find yourself continually talking across people or your goal might ostensibly be to influence people and make changes to make the world a better place. But all you really do is identify people who are the enemy, you know, and you go, well, then these people are bad and well, I'm going to write them off and I'm just going to attack them or, or, or vilify them or, or position them as the problem, you know? But that's that's, that's a really hopeless battle considering like if,

if you are a militant vegan who sees someone who eats meat and even when they've been told, you know, forcibly and aggressively about the facts that if they don't eat as a vegan, then they're a bad person. You're looking at more than 90% of the planet who is now a bad person. And that's a pretty difficult fight for social change. Right. That's a pretty difficult fight for social change, right? So something we talked about off air is that the carnivore diet is a great example of what happens when you try to force something down people's throats. No pun intended. In this case, it would be like, you know, chickpeas and broccoli. broccoli. I literally was joking sometime 10 years ago that I was like, you know, with how extreme the vegans can be and just the way the pendulum always shifts, because I've been in the industry

long enough at this point, I guarantee you there's going to be a carnivore diet. And we would all be like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, in the nutrition community, because it was so funny because it was absurd. The idea that someone would go all meat only was ridiculous to us because if there was one thing that everyone seemed to agree upon and all the different various clicks of nutrition at the time was vegetables are good. You can go keto and what are you eating? Higher fat meats. Basically, all your quote unquote carbs are vegetables. If you're traditional, of course, vegetables are good. If you're a bodybuilding diet, broccoli, asparagus, you're eating vegetables. If you're doing paleo vegetables, whatever it is, vegetables were good.

So the concept of there being, um, this reactionary, uh, diet completely because of, uh, vegans being too militant, um, was something that I jokingly predicted. And I'm unfortunately right. You know, like I wish I wasn't. So that's just an example of it that, that if you push people like that, and if you make them feel like an out group, that out group will bound, bound together and create a group, you know? So, um, yeah. So, so getting back to this, the question is, is all right. If the way food is made has an impact on the environment, um, which we, I think, I think it's very difficult to argue against that. I'm not a climate change expert by any means. I'm like a muscle doctor and not even like an in vitro real muscle doctor, like basically like a guy who likes to lift weights and learned about mobile. So don't

take my, my, uh, my statements as facts about the environment. Uh, climate change science is something that I am not well versed in at all, but we do know that, um, different manufacturing processes, uh, have different carbon footprints. We know that it may or may not use sustainable manufacturing processes, packaging, is that plastic, et cetera, that there may be more or less fossil fuels involved in transportation and the creation of that. And I think you completely not argue against the fact that many practices have different levels of humaneness to them, depending on how you define it. Most vegans would say that using animals, which have just as much of a right to life as humans, this is their position,

is there's no way to do that ethically. That is starting with a false premise. It's like, how do you be a nice slave owner? Which is basically their perspective, which I don't think is necessarily an invalid perspective. It's just something that is, it's very difficult to walk up to somebody who's just been eating hot dogs because they're an American

and they grew up that way and saying, you're a slave owner. It's essentially kind of what some vegans will approach that with that level of, um, exactly. And that is their position. And it's a logically consistent position for them as well. But I think probably what is more useful if we're looking to have a positive

impact, um, on, you know, reducing, reducing animal suffering and, um, you know, potentially reducing, uh, emissions that are, that are harmful for the planet is not looking at it as black or white, um, because black or white is very difficult to institute. Uh, just like getting back to that cold abstinence only kind of comment, right? Um, if people can understand that the decisions they make with the food they buy does not only impact their own health and potentially performance, but also impacts the suffering of animals and impacts the climate. And they make different choices. I think that's quite respectable. And I think it just be being someone who is aware and

thinks about those things and thinks about what changes can they make in their life in a gradual fashion, in a way that still respects their goals, in a way that respects the fact that they have really difficult to change ingrained behaviors, like you couldn't change your nutrition for your health, you know, you've been being yelled at in society that your BMI is too high, and you're gonna die and you're a bad person. And you still struggle to do that, despite the fact that maybe you have, you know, pre-onset like diabetes, like you have metabolic syndrome right now and you're struggling to change your diet. But now all of a sudden you're supposed to change it again for another way you're a bad person because you're hurting the environment or you're hurting animals. So now guess what? You're a bad person for three reasons. You hate the

environment, you hate animals, and you're also a healthcare thing, and you're not a good person because your BMI number is too high. That's just a whole lot of shame with very little change. So I think that whole approach needs to be turned on its head. Normally, I think education is probably where you start. Just having an understanding that your food choices impact those elements outside of your own body is important. And I think another thing that people need to realize is that changing your nutrition sometimes has economic costs that can't be. It's a first world problem to be able to be like, oh, I had all these great vegan cheeses and these, these meats that are, that I got from whole foods, you know? And I, I drove my Prius there because I care about it. Like, you know, like, come on, you know, like some people are, are, are, are buying whatever is cheapest because they have very little money and it's only getting worse right now with COVID. So your high horse is, is, is not appreciated in some,

in some instances. It doesn't pay respect. It at least shows a certain unawareness of what someone else's life could be. So I guess my overarching point is before you start having ethical, moral discussions with people about their nutrition, realize that they don't have an option to opt out. They have deeply ingrained behaviors. Judgment and shame is not the way change occurs anyway. And it doesn't have to be black or white. You don't have to go completely vegan.

There is simply, you know, decreasing the amount of process. Like if we're looking at it from a health perspective, if we're looking at it from a performance perspective or looking at it from an ethical perspective, there's very different stances. So anytime I get into a discussion about plant-based diets, I have to figure out where is this person coming from? Do they believe that a plant-based diet is inherently more healthy? And then I have to go, okay, what do you think is a plant-based diet? Normally the misunderstanding there is that it is the absence of meat, which is healthy, rather than the presence of vegetables, which I would say the collective data would suggest that the inclusion of lots of multicolored fruits and vegetables and plant-based foods is healthy. But general, including animal products is not unhealthy,

unless you're talking about, you know, like charred, charred red meat, processed meats, meats that have a lot of preservatives and nitrates in them and things like that. And then it's a small increase in risk. Like, you know, if you have a lot of vegetables, but you're also having like a ton of sausages and bacon and salami and stuff like that, maybe they cancel each other out, but it's not that unhealthy of a diet. So first we have to understand that for the most part, a health conscious person would be well to include a lot of fruits and vegetables. They don't necessarily need to remove animal products. And in fact, removing all animal products, if we go to the nth degree, requires actually more

nutritional knowledge and more care to ensure you don't have any micronutrient deficiency or you aren't missing anything else because we are indeed omnivores. So that's the health perspective. And that's where that conversation needs to start. If we're looking at it from the performance perspective, this is in the conversation I often had to have until Game Changers, you know, the documentary, which has more of it, right? Yeah. the documentary, which has more of it, right? Yeah. So more and more as nutrition becomes a moral discussion, people are willing, not even necessarily willing, but it's much more likely that if you have a moral belief for something, you're going to have a bias perspective when you hear information about it. If it is morally correct to not eat meat, any information will get elevated to a higher degree of evidence that supports that position. And you'll find a way to dismiss stuff that's the other way.

If you want to test yourself on that, think about how you would respond to a supposed study that suggested that an ethnostate was a good idea, you know, that we should actually only have one ethnicity per state, and we need to, you know, castrate people or remove people or deport them or kill them. Like, what if you saw research that suggested that the Nazi party was right? You would immediately find a way to figure out why that's wrong. You're like, no, that's morally reprehensible, so I don't want to believe it's true. There's nothing wrong with that, by the way, I would also have that reaction. I don't think that's true. But the point being that if you have even 20% of that response to something about nutrition, you're not going to objectively evaluate the information. So game changers, in my opinion, is, and there may be also be some conflicts of interest there in terms of financial stuff. But let's just say, assuming that's not the case,

if someone makes a quote-unquote documentary pushing a certain position, they're much more likely to make intellectual shortcuts and use low-quality evidence as proof that this is good because they already have a conclusion they're working towards. They're not following the scientific method. They're working backwards. Exactly. They're working backwards from a conclusion and trying to find the data that fits that

narrative. So the performance thing, um, truly the question is how can you perform without, how can you, you follow a plant-based diet without hurting your performance? And that's the conversation I have with someone not is a plant-based diet necessarily better for performance, which has become like a new conversation because of the muddied waters from game changers and then it's basically how plant based are you vegans have to think about it a little more if you're like you know the person who says they're vegetarian but that actually just means they eat chicken and fish you're fine

you don't need to do anything um and then if you're lacto-ovo if you're lacto only if you're uh you know along that spectrum there there you're, uh, you know, along that spectrum there, there's a little more attention you have to have. So that's the performance discussion. I talked about the health discussion, understanding that it's not necessarily the absence of meat. The moral discussion is really one of inquiry. In my opinion, I don't tell you what your morals are. I provide you information, right?

So if someone, and I'm not the person who's going to tell them about the environment or about humane treatment of animals, because I'm not an expert in that. I would need to go do another 10 years of study for me to comfortable telling them about that. What I would do as a nutrition professional for performance and body composition is I would ask them, okay, what are your nutrition and body composition goals? They tell me what they are. And I go, okay, cool. So what, what have you landed on for what you are ethically comfortable with, with what you want to do with your nutrition? Do you want to reduce your food intake? Do you want to do this? Do you want to do that? Okay. Given those constraints,

here's how to optimize your body composition or training goals. But that's a very, very different position than me telling someone what their morals should be, what their ethical decisions in their life should be for something that they cannot opt out of. And I think that is a position that gives people empowered choice. If the only choice is become a vegan or you're a bad person, that's going to be a really hard sell. But if we can acknowledge that eating like 10,000 pounds a year of animal products versus 2000 are different degrees of negative impact on the planet and on the total global quote unquote suffering, then now if you acknowledge that, then the

question is, all right, well, how can I be useful to create the least amount of harm and the most amount of benefit? And now you have a much more graded discussion. It's much like the data on black and white thinking for food causing issues with dietary adherence, weight loss, and eating disorders. We know that flexible restraint, not seeing being on a diet or off the diet as black and white, not seeing foods as good or bad, but rather having a more holistic, non-dichotomous view of foods and nutrition tends to result in better weight loss, people being lighter, healthier, and having less psychological issues going through the process of changing their nutrition compared to the black and white mentality.

That also applies to this. So having a more nuanced view and having more options gives someone more choices, therefore more empowerment, and is more likely to result in change. I love that. I think in the spirit of continuing the discussion of de-weaponizing or de-escalating a lot of the dialogue existing in nutrition and respecting where people are at right now you brought up COVID it's something that everybody's been impacted by essentially regardless of where they're living I've seen a lot of content in the space coming from coaches fitness professionals and again it goes back to much of what we've talked about today where we dehumanize things but

much of what we've talked about today where we dehumanize things, but now is a great time to work on your diet. Now all of your excuses should be out the window. Now you can cook from home. Now's the best time to get shredded, which again, effectively makes sense for somebody who has been living in that framework for years. But for a lot of people, it's an instant shutdown because it doesn't take any of their grieving into account or any of their circumstances into account. And as somebody who is quite good at creating hierarchies around nutrition, particularly triangular shaped hierarchies, but you're somebody who is very good at giving people a lens with which they can look at nutrition. What's a good way to approach eating, whether that's for body composition, health, or even just survival during COVID, that's respectful of what people are going through? can coaches do to communicate to clients for family, friends, and loved ones about how to handle this in a way that doesn't shut people down or, or lack a tact, if you will. Yeah, I think

that I've done this myself. Like I have, um, I have definitely seen some of the silver lining of a bad situation in that, um, you know, as someone who writes, uh, does, does podcasts, does webinars, um, and now can't travel, you know, normally I spend, I do like six or seven conferences around the world and that takes a lot of time off my hands, but I love it. And it's a great opportunity to connect with people through this crazy thing called lifting weights who are from different countries, backgrounds, et cetera, which I love can't do that, but it gives me more time to do that other stuff. So I have had more time on my hands, but I've also been stir crazy. There's some negative effects and I don't want to be, I think it's very easy for someone who isn't financially negatively affected by COVID to the same degree that other people are, whether their place of work or their

place of business is closed, cannot operate, and they're just hemorrhaging money from rent. That is a very different reality. And imagine you're that person. And also your kids who are normally at school or, you know, with a babysitter or at afterschool daycare, and you have three of them and they are super, like, you think you're stir crazy. Imagine if if you're you're eight you know they're all home right right um now do you have more time on your hands or do you have less with more stress so people's situations are quite different a single person who loves video games and has an online business right now they if they didn't watch the news they might not even be aware they've been living that quarantine life no matter what, right?

So I think there's going to be a different experience for a lot of people. The interesting thing about this situation, though, and I was actually reading a paper on the etiology of obesity, and it's basically targeted towards public health and what a society can do at the top from a top-down perspective to try to improve portion control as it relates to the obesity epidemic and they had this list of more intervention by the powers that be and at the very top the most crazy one was restrict choices basically in a magical society that not even, let's say an authoritarian society where we could make high calorie foods illegal, or you'd limit or portion control for people, like you only get to buy this many calories per person. That was at the top of the list,

you know, basically enforcement by restriction of choice of portion control. And the crazy thing right now is not on purpose. In many places that are on full lockdown, like here in New Zealand, there are no restaurants open period. And if we look at the data on consuming food away from home and energy consumption, whether it is a fast food restaurant or a sit down full service restaurant, both are equally to blame for a higher portions. And a lot of this has to do with the psychology of being given food rather than preparing it for yourself and also the fact that it's hyper palatable you've paid for it yet there's a value transaction there's

a social expectation of what they've given you they've told you this is a reasonable portion even if it's not people around you are eating etc there's a lot of complex things that go into portion control, but being provided food is a huge component of that. And there's some data that suggests just shy of 200 calories is consumed more on average eating out versus eating at home when you look at that at the population level over time. And that you can predict or have a reasonable correlation and association between increased BMI, increased energy intake and the number of times eaten out away from home, regardless of where you go, whether it's, you know, a restaurant or fast food. data to show that if you give someone increasingly large portion sizes, whether it's on a plate that you give them or it's in a dish and they serve themselves, if it comes from a larger portion, they see that they eat more. So if you give someone a 1000 gram portion of macaroni and

cheese in a dish, they'll give themselves more if that dish was half that size, about 30% more energy they will consume on average, which is very interesting. Now, some of this comes down to the auto-regulation of food intake. If you're at home and you make your own food, you're going to make the amount that you predict is going to satisfy. And that's based upon your hunger going into it and all that stuff. And also typically the foods we have at home just don't taste quite as good because they're not designed to be a dining experience, right? So food consumption at home is going to be far less. That's the silver lining of the situation. And if we're looking at this from kind of like the weight control or weight loss perspective, which may or may not be valid or may or may not be someone's goal, even if it is their goal, maybe it's not helping them holistically, which we can talk about in a second. But assuming it is, assuming someone was doing great and was

crushing it, and they were eating healthier, they were seeing their body composition improve, their health markers improve, and all of a sudden COVID comes around, it's very easy for that online personal trainer or Instagram influencer whose business is doing just fine, who just sits at home and trains in their house now and makes videos and sells ebooks on home training to be judgmental and not understand why all of a sudden they've gone off the rails. And it could be those environmental factors. It could be they've lost a loved one and they're an emotional eater. But there's another piece that is kind of affecting everybody here is that if we're going to talk about the auto-regulatory intake of food

and portion control, there's what's called the J-shaped relationship between activity, appetite, and then body weight. So there's a classic study from Bengali mill workers where they have the managers and then they have light, moderate, heavy, and very heavy workers. So not heavy in terms of their mass, but heavy in the amount of work they do. So various positions in the factory and you will see much higher levels of activity in each one of these categories. And if you look at just the moderate, heavy, and very heavy, like basically the people who are not the managers, it's a straight line. Their body weight's stable. However, their activity goes up, as does their food intake. So there's this auto-regulation of food intake that matches energy expenditure, and therefore there's body weight homeostasis.

the left and you look at the managers and they're taking in as much as the heavy or very heavy workers and they themselves are heavier they have a higher bmi they weigh more and they are dysregulated in terms of their appetite meaning that we're built as humans which we've overcome with the modern food environment to maintain our weight by eating an appropriate amount of food but when there's constant food availability it's hyperatable, and we don't have to move to get it. Now, all of a sudden, appetite and activity become dysregulated. And that's when you see waistlines rise, metabolic disease, higher BMI, and the obesity epidemic. So that is something that is also changed with COVID. Sure, you can cook your own food. Sure, you can't even go to a restaurant in some countries or some states and you're more likely to have, you know, healthy food options and be able to stick to your diet. You know, people often, you know, how many times have we as personal trainers, you know,

we've got someone who's, who's decided they want to try to lose weight. We help them. We set up a good food plan. They're on top of it. And then the weekend they go out to eat and then it turns into this kind of a house of cards that collapses because they have fajitas at Chili's and then all of a sudden it turned into ice cream that night and then they weren't motivated to get back onto that on Monday because screw it, you know. That ostensibly shouldn't be happening, right? So therefore it's easier. Yeah, but what if you're hungrier than normal and you're stuck at home, you know? And I think that's kind of the other flip side of this coin is that while we have some pros in our corner, we've essentially had the public health inevitable,

like, or sorry, not inevitable, the never thing that would never happen, the restriction of choices actually occurred, you know, the hypothetical in this paper that I was talking about has occurred. Now we, it's much due to a restriction of choice to eat healthy. However, our activity has also been slashed. So some of the advice that I would give someone in this scenario would be to really make sure you leverage what you can do. I'm not going to tell anyone to do something that may not be legal in their given state or country. Like for example, I was talking to a friend of mine who's studying his PhD in France. And there was periods of lockdown where he wasn't allowed to go on a walk outside of one kilometer from his home.

Here in New Zealand, on the other hand, we're actively encouraged to go on walks, stay healthy and exercise, but you're on lockdown. So if you're out of the house, there's ostensibly two reasons. You're going to the grocery store, you're an essential worker, or you're actually going out to get some vitamin D and go on a walk or go on a bike ride. So exercise is encouraged. And that's a totally valid reason. You're just supposed to keep it local, but there's no like one kilometer restriction or anything like that. So if you're in a place where you're allowed to, and I would encourage you to get outside, you know, and try to be similarly, if not more active than you

normally were, you're going to have more time on your hands and you're going to get stir crazy. You're going to want to get outside of the house. It's a great opportunity to connect with loved ones, listen to a podcast. If it's snowing, obviously it's a different story. I know it depends on where you live. But finding a way to get your activity levels back up may help you regulate your hunger. And then you can benefit from the supposed upside of being able to control your food environment. But I would say, for people for whom the food environment was the biggest

challenge, this could be a huge silver lining. For others, where the food environment was not necessarily the challenge, or COVID has presented even greater challenges, you're very right that that could be a very non-empathetic way of looking at things and just being like, Hey, you should be able to solve this now. It's like, yeah, well, my grandmother just died from COVID. Like that's not really what's on my head right now. Or I've got, I got to feed three kids in there. I'm like, I'm pulling my hair out, you know, or I'm, I'm, uh, I'm,

I'm spending eight hours a day on Zoom for my job working from home. When am I taking the second walk, Eric? You know? So I think we need to be very sensitive to the reality that people are operating in because it's not homogenous by any means. I think that being sensitive to the reality might just be the take-home message for today's entire podcast. Because if you think about what we've talked about, we've talked about diet, culture, body composition, social norms, social expectations for what each gender should look like. We've talked about nutritional politicization, tribalism,

veganism. We've even talked about COVID. And the general take-home point, if you're listening and you've made it this far, is that you have to zoom out and look at the entire person with the effective attempt to communicate in a helpful manner rather than to be right and to try to in some way shape or form make a positive uh difference through education so long as that person's receptive and that's why i had you on eric i just think it's something that not a lot of nutritional authorities are woke enough to have. It's not their fault. Their parents had siblings. But, you know, it is something that I think is grotesquely missed in our space, which is the empathy that comes from having actually,

I don't want to say that it comes from this, but I've noticed people who have trained clients for seven years, you train for seven years before you do what you do now, there's a degree of empathy that you develop and you understand how to communicate with people and you understand that the most effective way to communicate with people requires a little bit of empathy, a little bit of understanding and coming from the right place, a place of helping them rather than a place of being right. And I think that that tone rather than a place of being right. And I think that that tone was really present in our conversation today. I would encourage people to try to emulate that in the conversations they have with clients,

friends, family, loved ones. And hopefully they, you know, get better results in doing that. I'm sure that they will. And if they want to find more of your work, Eric, where is the best place for them to do that? Well, dude, I think you, you summarized the points I was, I was hopefully making that were, you know, understandable, hopefully, and in a really concise way. So thank you. I think that's, that's really well said. If you want to find more of my stuff, and I don't just write about science, although you can find that as well. If you go to 3dmusclejourney.com, um, it is definitely the perspective of, uh, someone speaking to bodybuilder

strength athletes and lifting enthusiasts. But again, with that perspective, Hey, uh, informed consent, you know what you're getting into it. You love this stuff despite all of its potential shortcomings and you want to do it for as long as possible in the healthiest way possible. That's the, the, the, the kind of the tilt on tilt on it. I've got blogs, we've got podcasts. We're on, I think, our 150th 3D Muscle Journey podcast. And you can find articles that I've written going back four years, things on philosophy of coaching that are very pertinent to this discussion and stuff that's a little more nerdy on the SNC or nutrition side of things. So yeah, definitely 3dmusclejourney.com is the one-stop shop. And then also you can check out

me on Instagram at Helms3dmj. And also I know that many of you, we talked about it a little bit with Eric Trexler. And then of course, Eric brought it up recently, but mass is something that I quite enjoy just as a trainer, but also as a fitness enthusiast. It's just a tremendous amount of content, and research reviews might seem daunting in the same way that research might seem daunting. But there's really no barrier of entry with mass, I've found, because, again, all of the studies are presented in full. They're accessible. You can read the all of the studies are presented in full. They're accessible. You can read the review of the study. You can read the bullet point review of the study, and you can even listen to the audio roundup of the study if you just genuinely have a disdain for reading.

So that's something that Eric is a part of along with a couple other really special dudes that I think is also worth checking out. But yeah, I noticed you didn't bring it up. So I just wanted to highlight that cause I, I tremendously enjoy that product. I appreciate that plugin. It's kind of unfortunate that there is such a strong market for science communication in that way, like a research review because it speaks to the inaccessibility of science itself. Yeah. Hopefully we'll change. But in the meantime, it's created a cottage industry out of um explaining what scientists mean um which uh as someone who got into science after being a trainer i think i'm pretty all right doing along with trexler zerdos and uh and knuckles who are all very good

at that as well so thank you it is quite good. And you're also doing something with Eric, the nutrition and Gab Fundaro, the nutritional coaching global mastermind. I want you to expand a little bit upon that. I think we'd be silly not to bring it up because a lot of the people who are listening to this are coaches and they probably just felt the seismic activity of the knowledge bombs you dropped and they're looking to continue to grow more in the space so i think it's a beautiful segue to talk about that before i let you hop off and play with your adjustable dumbbells absolutely well thank you so much for that and yeah it's like christmas here that those came um yeah so dr joe klimczewski who uh if you don't if you don't know

who that is he's been less active in the last couple of years, but he's essentially the very first online coach that I'm aware of who did the whole nutrition coaching thing. He was doing something that looked a lot like the My Priority System from the pyramids before I think I was out of high school. He was having people track macros before the term, if it's your macros was a thing. And he was incorporating science into practice a long time ago. And him and Corey Probst, who is a psychologist and a coach have done a great job with the diet doc franchise. But anyway, someone I tremendously respect. He's kind of the progenitor to me, Dr. Joe, he's a, you know,

competitive WBF pro bodybuilder back in his heyday, became a coach, started very scientific, and then became much more holistic and behavioral oriented, and has been really just trying to enact positive change for years. He approached me with the idea of the Nutrition Coaching Global Mastermind, and then we expanded out and formed a board, which consists of who you've had on, Gabriella Fandero and Eric Trexler, but others. And it's basically us having webinars with guests and the facilitators and the board, specifically related to the direction the industry is going, what professionals need to know, how to keep your ear to the ground and how to make sure that you are doing the best you can in terms of scope of practice, evidence-based practice, and quality of care, if you will, as a nutrition coach, which is something

sorely lacking and directly related to everything we talked about, especially people in the evidence-based community. They have a very quantitative bias, but not a great bedside manner or communicative style. And that's something we're trying to change. And now that everyone is operating online through COVID, there's going to be more regulatory awareness from the powers that be on nutrition coaches. And we are seeing, you know, prosecutors state that people saying that they can cure COVID with supplements or certain diets or things like that could be prosecuted. And we've seen successful litigation in the States against people defending the scope of practice of a registered dietitian.

In Australia, we're seeing more and more cases of negligence and lawsuits being brought against personal trainers who are stepping outside of their scope of practice and doing harm with nutrition. So this is something that it pays to be ahead of the curve. And we're trying to create a body that can step in, maybe be grandfathered in or liaise with the powers that be to make sure our profession is protected, both from those potential changes, but also elevating our in, maybe be grandfathered in or liaise with the powers that be to make sure our profession is protected, both from those potential changes, but also elevating our own profession primarily to make sure that we're doing the right thing. So we want this to be about access, not about profit driven by any means.

So we actually gave people access to the first two webinars for a dollar, which is the lowest you could put it on the Nutrition Coaching Global website where you can find us. But the long term, it is $99 for a year where we do a monthly webinar. So we're talking a very, very low price point, just enough to kind of make it worth all the busy time of the people involved. the busy time of the people involved, but we have RDs, MDs, PhDs, and licensed therapists on who have all done and currently do nutrition coaching, discussing things like scope of practice, duty of care, weight neutral approaches, weight loss, society, the whole nine yards and trying to help the people who are watching the webinars understand how they can be the best practitioner they can be. the people who are watching the webinars understand how they can be the best practitioner they can be.

Awesome, Eric. Well, that about does it. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for coming on. And I'll let you go because I'm sure you're going to do a quintuple drop set of lateral raises with your new adjustable dumbbells. Absolutely, man. Thank you for having me on. I truly appreciate it. So guys, there you have it. A great sit down with Dr. Eric Helms. Again, I want to thank Eric for coming on as I thank all guests, but I particularly enjoyed that conversation and I hope you were able to grab some value out of it. Just to wrap everything up and summarize, Eric said something that really stuck with me, which is that we need to communicate with the intention of helping rather than being right. And remember that extends beyond just nutrition. It extends into pretty much everything that we do, whether that's with friends, colleagues, coworkers, loved ones, whomever it may be. Communicating with the intent to help and help them is really,

really important. So if you guys enjoy the podcast, do me a favor, take a screenshot, share it, tag myself and Eric. That would make a huge difference for me and the podcast as well as getting it out there. And it would also be great for sharing these really important nutritional topics with the people who need to hear them most. Thanks so much for tuning in and you have a good rest of your day.