Mark Bell's Power Project - Mark Bell's Power Project EP. 236 - Performance Dieting

Episode Date: August 16, 2019

Today Mark Bell and Nsima Inyang are talking about diet, specifically for performance and answer your questions live. ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Find the Podcast on all platforms: ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4YQE02jPOboQrltVoAD8bp ➢Listen on Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/markbellspowerproject  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

are we on are we wait actually boom okay let us know when we're off just uh you could also mute my mic this whole episode again yeah we can we can work with that i was also thinking today like a few years i don't know yeah it was it was a while ago everything when i looked at like nutrition and all this stuff was through a lens of body composition right through the lens of okay can you still look shredded by doing this yeah okay everything else isn't a big deal you know what i mean but um god dang yeah that's that's just like part of it looking good, but then everything else can impact that. Like, like this is the first time that like, I like the way I look, I like the way I feel, but also like everything up here is working the way it should. Not that it's ever been like off kilter, but it's just like everything is kind of, you know, everything's in line. of you know everything's in line you're pretty naturally uh jacked um have you ever uh i mean i know like some of the bodybuilding prep you've probably gotten into this situation but you ever

gotten yourself in a situation where you look good but you just feel like shit yeah that was during the bodybuilding like okay yeah outside of bodybuilding prep um i think after my my the 2015 because you don't really have a problem with like body fat per se right i mean even like if you if you eat crappy for let's just say like a month like would you just get fat or you'd only be slightly fatter than you are right now right now because of like because of the habits i have in line right now probably wouldn't get that fat that much but it's because of everything that's in line like when i was um focusing on power lifting right i was focusing on staying big and i was 265 260 whatever there would be periods of time where i would eat more food right because i was like okay we got to pack on this size and i

would put on a noticeable amount of more fat like i looked back on at videos of when i was you know 265 266 right i saw videos of my shirt off, you know, two 65, two 66, right. I saw videos of my shirt off. I'm like, okay, you can still see some lines there, but damn, I was puffy. Like I didn't realize how big I was until I look at that now. I'm like, wow, like that was really, really big. And I can remember times when I like got even bigger. Like I touched the two 70 ranges. I felt strong. I didn't necessarily feel good all the time. So I can, you know, and even then, like, I had all right sleeping habits. I was making sure to, you know, get enough sleep. But there are a lot of other things when it comes to, like, I don't know.

I wasn't doing a lot of cardiovascular exercise. I wasn't probably taking many walks. That just wasn't leading me to physically feeling as good, even though maybe I looked all right. Have you ever been too skinny? No. No, too skinny has No, no. Too skinny is never, too skinny has never been an issue that when I was a 13 and I had to stop because, you know, soccer and the injury, um, that's when I started getting actually fat because like I couldn't,

I just ate a lot without doing a lot of activity. So my thing's always that I could, you know, eat and just like the, the scale weight would go up. Right. Um, there's never been a time when like I was, yeah, there's never been a time in my life when I was too skinny ever. That's, that's never been a problem that I've had. Not part of the Nigerian makeup for you, huh? It's not part of the Nigerian makeup. I don't think, yeah, it's not part of my makeup, but I can, if I, if I wanted to get fat, I could get fat. You could chub out. Yeah. I think, I think there's kind of, you know, the, the history of people is, is really interesting because, um, you know, maybe because of your background and maybe because you started lifting, um, you know, maybe you have a healthier relationship with your own body and the types of foods, you know, that, that you eat and stuff. And I think sometimes people have a

tendency to want to be really unhealthy, but their choice is because they're trying to stay skinny. You know, they're trying, they're so scared that they're going to gain a little bit of fat. And in your case, like, especially when you got into powerlifting, you were like, well, you know, if I gain a little chub, then so be it. I'm trying to get, I'm trying to get bigger, you know? So if I really want to put on more muscle, that's the goal. But if I put on a little bloat and a little chub, then, you know, it's kind of part of the game. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's I think it's tough to think about because as power lifters. Right. You know, we want to be as strong as possible. And a lot of us don't really pay much attention to the diet. Like we've mentioned this before. I was eating the Ben and Jerry's multiple times a week, a full thing of it.

And even more food on top of that. It was a great idea. Yeah. But like it was like get in the calories, you know, get in the calories so you could gain that weight. But it's not like, yeah, it's good for strength, but it was not a healthy thing. And for me, diabetes runs in the family. Like my, my grandfather died of diabetes. I have an uncle that has diabetes. Um, it's very likely that if I, even if I look good, right. But if I had bad nutritional habits, as far as that's concerned, it's highly likely that I'll get diabetes also. So that's why like, like all these simple habits. Yeah. The habits of getting enough sleep, like the fasting part of it, all of that stuff, um, helps me. Yeah. I can look good, but it's also going to play in for

my overall actual health, not just me looking good. And that drive to look good, like we were talking about, it drives a lot. It drives a lot of like what I've done and what I've learned. Like a lot of years ago, the lens and through I look through about like nutrition and exercise was through the lens of, okay, can you still be shredded while doing X, Y, and Z? Which is why which is why I think drives like, you know, the macro side of things when people just track and only think about macros, it drives that too. Yeah. I think, you know, I think people get annoyed sometimes because we talk so much about sleep,

but it's just, it is, it is such an important component of it all. And, uh, you know, I myself have had a lot of shitty years of crappy sleep. And, you know, now that I'm sleeping better, I just feel better and better all the time. And then I also get a lot of questions about, um, and you probably get a lot of questions, especially with the amount of people that you help through coaching. I get so many questions about motivation, you know, how to stay motivated, how do you stay inspired and excited to to work out and obviously like i love lifting weights and so for the most part i usually love coming here and training but being well rested is part of it you know if i if i wasn't think about your motivation levels for

for anything if you're uh let's say you're insanely hungry let's say you're doing bodybuilding prep we've talked about this before what's your sex drive like it's in the toilet insanely hungry. Let's say you're doing bodybuilding prep. We've talked about this before. What's your sex drive like? It's in the toilet, right? What's your motivation to go for a walk if you kind of feel lethargic and depressed because you're maybe fasting or not eating enough? You are not sleeping well.

Your motivation goes out the window. So anyone who has trouble being motivated or fired up or excited, that would be the first place I would start. And the second place I would go to is I would see like, are you exercising? You know, and if you can get some sleep and you can start to exercise and we can get some hold of your nutrition, it doesn't have to be perfect, but if we can get a good hold of your nutrition, then you're going to be on your way. And then you're going to be like, holy shit, I feel so good every day. You're going to want to share that with everybody else.

And you're going to become a maniac and post all over Instagram the way that I do about the different foods that you eat. Yeah. You know, Mark, I'm curious. Are you able to think back to, you know, when you were at your highest performance in terms of strength? Yeah, you were really big. But as far as the way you were feeling on a day-to-day basis, do you remember that? I know you mentioned your sleep happens were at even the greatest then. How were you feeling then compared to how you're feeling now?

Even though you're not as strong now, but do you feel better? Yeah, I feel awesome now, you know? Um, but I, at that time I didn't really know that I felt bad cause it was just the way that I felt. And it was, um, an accumulation over a period of time. You know, I didn't just, you know, go from, you know, being a two 20 to 30 to being 300 pounds. It was a long process. And I weighed like 240 to 260 for probably about two or three years. And then I hung out and, you know, additional 20 pounds heavier than that for a while. And then I started getting real big, but there was a point where I started getting bigger, bigger, bigger, and I no longer got any stronger. And that's when I was like, oh, there's something,

something's wrong with this. And that's when I was just really having a hard time sleeping. I was having a hard time digesting food. I'd start getting like acid reflux. Like I was, I was in a bad way. And then I was like, you know, after I got hurt, after I fell, I was like, let me try some diet type stuff to see if I can kind of, you know, reverse some of this, start to feel a little bit better. And I'm like, I don't know what my powerlifting career looks like. I fell with 1,085 on my back and I don't know if I'll

ever squat again, period, you know? And so I knew that whatever squat I did after that would, would never be the same and never have the same strength associated to it. So I was like, well, I can't do some of the stuff that I love and some of the stuff that I'm known for. So maybe I can, you know, change things up a little bit and, uh, just start to feel better and start to look better. And so I started on a paleo style diet and immediately, immediately without really trying to like lose weight, I lost like 30 pounds. I mean, the weight was just, it came off fast and it wasn't really trying to, I wasn't doing a bunch of cardio or anything crazy like that. And that was kind of my first dosage of, you know, of, of understanding that, man, it really matters. It matters a lot on, uh, not just how much you eat, but what you eat.

And I think there's, there's such a debate over the two, right? Like which one would you pick over the other, whatever. I think for short term, I think how much you eat is, is really impactful. If, if somebody, you know, paid me a hundred thousand bucks to help them lose, uh, 20 pounds, I could very easily do that in 20 days. And the way that I would do it is I, I'd have them not eat, right? But if I want somebody to like, they would do a lot of fasting, a lot of fasting, probably like something that you normally would, would not recommend under normal conditions, but it would also be for a 20 day period. Now, if someone said, yeah, I'm going to pay a hundred

thousand dollars and I want to lose 20 pounds and I want to lose it forever. And I would say, okay, well, listen, you know, this is going to take about three months, month one. I don't even really care if we lose weight because month number one i just want you to get used to the food i want you to get used to the nutrients and i want you to get used to how your body's going to feel without all the junk in it you know so that was kind of my first introduction into understanding how good you can actually feel because before that i didn't know and so i think that's an issue is that you you know, fitness to fitness, when we're talking to each other that way, we're like, oh yeah, man, I ate a steak last night. I feel fucking great. Like, oh yeah, all I had yesterday

was, uh, you know, some apples and some meat and you know, we're all talking the same language to each other. And then people that are outside that box are kind of left scratching their head being like, fuck that. I'm not fasting. I'm not only eating meat and vegetables and, uh, and fruit. That sounds like a shitty diet. It sounds like an annoying way to live your life. But when you understand what it can do for you and how good it can make you feel and on top of it, yeah, it can help make you look really good too. Um, I know like just, I feel so good every day that it encouraged me, encourages me further to, to dive into the, uh, diet even more. And then a lot of times too, the changes in body composition are undeniable and you're like, shit, man. You know, I, I,

cause a lot of times you're like, man, I, okay, I think, uh, you know, I got this coming up or that coming up. I'm going to take a couple of days off and just chill, you know, but then those, those days come and you're like, I'm not going to chill. This feels good. Like this feels so good. This is, this is my new normal. Yeah. And that was, that, that was the big thing for me. Like I was able to, in the past I was able to, you know, get lean, but when I had to get lean, I had to track all my macros. I had to make sure I was eating within my calories. I had to like make sure I was having enough expenditure. It was work to get lean, I had to track all my macros. I had to make sure I was eating within my calories. I had to make sure I was having enough expenditure. It was work to get lean, and it was even more work to try and stay lean.

And when I was lean, I couldn't maintain it because I always felt hungry. I didn't have a lot of energy, and it just felt crappy. So I was like, okay, well, it looks like I have to have this amount of body fat if I want to feel good because I'm not going to stay this lean if every day I'm feeling tired. I don't want to work out, but I look good. I couldn't do that. And the shift happened for me when I started to pick up fasting a few years ago. Because that's when I kind of got an understanding.

I've got a feeling of hunger, but then I was also able to easily, I don't know, control my appetite. And then when it came to being in a small deficit, I didn't feel hungry all day. So I wasn't mad and thinking about my next meal. And then after that, all these other habits, as far as food came in line, whereas now, like I don't, it's being this lean isn't work. Being this lean is literally just my normal. I feel good every single morning. I can work out at a high level and I don't need to track to maintain what I've got. And when I look back at it, like it's, it's so crazy because back then I wouldn't necessarily say that I was unhealthy, but since that, like that was normal to me, that was great. I'm like, wow, I figured out, I figured it out. This is how you're supposed to do it. You need to track all

the time. You know, you need, this is what you got to do. And again, when I look back at that, I think it was very useful that I tracked because I think that also gives me an intuitive idea of what's in the food I'm eating now. But like knowing what I know now and doing what I do now, it's like, I don't see how I was so productive back then. But if it's even now, like a year for now, I'm going to look at what I'm doing right now and be like, fuck, I was so stupid a year ago. Right. That's how it always is. The thing that's so great about fasting is that, you know, you, you kind of recognize that there's something at the end of it, right? Like, like, you know, every day that there's food at the, at the end of the day, like that's when you eat, right? You fast for 18, 20 hours, something like

that almost every day. Right. And so you, oh? And so you have this routine, but that's still like an eating schedule. You still know like when you're going to eat. And so I think people think that fasting is just this horrible idea because they're going to be so hungry. And yes, you are hungry, but it's like a bargaining thing that you make with yourself. You're like, I'm going to be hungry because hunger in a lot of cases equals health, not in all cases and certainly not in third world country and certainly not somebody with an eating disorder. But in a lot of cases, hunger can equal health. We've heard so many people come on this podcast and share all the health benefits. On top of that, just the, just, you know, giving your body a little bit of a break from eating food. I think we can all agree,

like we probably weren't designed to eat as many times a day as the average American eats. It just, the human body just, we, we didn't eat like that, you know? And so I think there's so many benefits to the fasting, but the fact that there's like light at the end of the tunnel is what's so great. And so somebody might think in uh, in terms of diet, a cheat meal, they might kind of think of that the same way. Like, yeah. Okay. And see him. All right, dude, I can, I could do this diet for, for seven days. If you give me some cookies at the end of that seventh day, you know, I can make it to that. But like if in seven days, anyone who's done a diet, But like if in seven days, anyone who's done a diet, anyone who's ever dieted, I mean, seven days is a long time, right?

What are some of your thoughts on cheat meals? You think it's important to kind of have some of them in there? Matt, no. Okay. So this is like I don't even like to look at cheat meals as cheat meals because, okay, so. I like what you're saying. I love changing the dialogue, changing the verbiage that we're using yeah i think it's important yeah i had wings the other night and it like you know i didn't look at it as a cheat because like i i knew how much i ate during the day i was like fuck i'm gonna get some wings i feel like ross with the black lemon pepper

wing stop yeah but i didn't look at that as a cheat and i didn't look at that as you know negatively impacting my performance i didn't look negatively at it i think it actually falls in line with uh what was what was her name ariana yesterday yeah what she was saying in line at looking at food without guilt because i feel like yeah we're not supposed to be eating wings and pizza every freaking night but when you do have it don't be so guilty about it make sure it's not a uh you know a disrespectful amount for your body. And as long as you're good, then you're good. But you just got to figure out ways to have that stuff without it being all the time.

That's why I don't like cheat meals. Because if I were to tell someone you could have this cheat meal, then when they're having it, okay, sometimes it's good for them to feel guilty so that they know they shouldn't do this often. okay sometimes it's good for them to feel guilty so that they know they shouldn't do this often but in the long run for the rest of their life i don't want them to always eat a slice of pizza and feel like it's bad or feel like they're doing something wrong i want the cheat is included in the price like it's the cheat is included in your diet so it's not really a cheat from anything it's not a cheat it's a variation of what you're right yeah yeah i want you to be able to look at that rationally and be like damn this is a good slice of pizza all right well i'm not gonna have like five or two pizzas i'm just gonna eat some of this i'm be good it's not a big deal it's not gonna take me out of what i'm trying to

do for my health for my life i'm enjoying my time with my friends and whatever i i don't want it to feel like a cheat you know um but i do see this is where like like back when i was prepping and what about for some of your clients i, how do you share that with them? I mean, do you tell them like, hey, man, on this day or this, you know, this meal, you can kind of eat whatever you'd like. You know, you. So we have guys, I have them depending on the type of person is because I do have people at this point that don't even track anymore. They just track their weight and we just make sure we're staying within a range of weight. They're where we want to be as far as like your dietary practices. I want them to be able to get to a place where I am, where you don't have to track to maintain the body you have. But with individuals

that are learning about nutrition, I want them to track what they eat. The big thing I want to figure out though is like their eating habits. So like how often do you go out to this restaurant every single week? Okay, you don't track at all right now, so you don't even know how much you eat. Okay, you're eating this often. All right, we need to stay away from this. We need to start eating these types of foods. And I don't want you to not eat this at all anymore. Let's say maybe on Friday or Saturday, whenever you and your wife go, you guys can go and have this,

but just make sure that you're not eating too much of it so it stays included. That's just to build an understanding. So on the long run, they can like, first off, they're used to eating good food. And then later on, they can also have the freedom to go out to that restaurant, not track the restaurant. And it's not going to be affecting their mental health or their dietary habits. That's how you want it. Like, that's how I feel is good, especially for someone who doesn't have a history of their nutrition or understanding of their nutrition. When I look back at how I learned about what I do now, or not learned about what I do now, but how I built the habits of what I'm doing now in terms of nutrition, tracking helped a lot with that, man. I know that you don't think everyone should track, but for me personally, it helped me to build a good understanding of how much was in what I eat. Like how much really is in that In-N-Out burger? How many calories is that?

You know? And yeah, it is a moving target because like you can't track things perfectly, but you can be within a 200 calorie range, which is all right. You know, at least you're not clueless. You know, like you may, you may think in your head, okay, I'm eating 2000 calories a day when you're really like around 3,500, right. Because of how dense some of these foods are. So that's why I think like, it's good to learn those things. But, um, back, back in 15, cause I wanted to mention this yesterday. Um, I binged on jerky and it was like this really fatty jerky. And this was when I was like, I was eating 40 grams of fat a day and I was like 229 pounds and lean right i probably had 600 to 700 grams of fat in that one bag of jerky and i fainted because of like the shock literally the amount of the amount of fat i ate

at that one time caused me to faint so i fainted of my as my girlfriend's like oh my god what happened and it was because again of that so like that's crazy yeah it was crazy shit it was it was uh yeah that's when i was like i have a problem yeah do you think it's uh like a pitfall or like danger to like like plan out a cheat meal or a cheat day like within like a program because i what i see all the time is like oh i've ate clean all week sunday though i'm gonna go to you know chipotle and get like a burrito Cause I, what I see all the time is like, Oh, I've ate clean all week Sunday though. I'm going to go to, you know, Chipotle and get like a burrito. But then that burrito turns into like a burrito with chips and then like, you know, nacho cheese or whatever, you know, like, do you think like it's like easier to snowball when you plan a cheat meal versus like,

no, I'm just going to eat responsibly and yeah, I'll have tacos instead of the burrito. I think the second part of what you said is the ideal, but the first part is going to be necessary for someone starting out. Yeah. Like I feel like if they don't plan it, then they have more leeway to snowball because they don't know what they're getting themselves into. But when they've done it a bit and they understand how to navigate those waters, then you don't really need to plan it.

Then you can be like, I'm going to go to this restaurant and it's not going to be a cheat day, right? It's going to be a meal you can be like, I'm going to go to this restaurant and it's not going to be a cheat day, right? This is going to be, it's going to be a meal that you can enjoy. I'm going to go to this restaurant. I'm going to look at the menu. I'm going to choose something that, you know, I feel, I feel like I want to eat and you eat it. Like that's the end goal without, without it, you know, snowballing to something else. But I think it is a really good idea if you have this structured, like we always talk about planning what you're eating every single day. Right. You know, having a set times that you eat.

Right. So it's good to have a set time where you're going to have this meal. And it's probably a good idea to know what you're going to go get so that you're not like, you're not like, OK, this is a cheat meal. So I'm going to get this and I'm going to get this and this and this and this. Oh, I forgot about that on the menu. And then that. And then hit the menu. Right.

Then it's a 3000 calorie meal. You know? Yeah. Yeah. So I was just curious because like somebody had reached out and they were just asking about the vertical diet and like, you know, how you and I worked on my macros and stuff. And like within the first like sentence they had asked like, so should I schedule like a cheat meal every week? I'm like, buddy, like if you're starting out the conversation with that, you know, you're thinking about it all wrong. Let's earn that cheat meal every week. I'm like, buddy, like if you're starting out the conversation with

that, you know, you're, you're thinking about it all wrong. Let's earn that cheat meal. So I told him like two months or something. I tried to Mark Bell him a little bit, but that's why I was asking about that. Well, I also know that like people are going to fall apart anyway, you know? So, but, but at the same time, I, I'm a big believer in like, you know, knowing like within a couple of days of what you're going to do, you know? So like, let's say, I don't know, let's say I'm thinking about like this weekend and I'm thinking, yeah, I might, I might, uh, let's just not even call it cheating. Let's just say like, I might eat more. You might eat more. Right. So I think an eye for an eye is okay. Uh, but only with reasonable amounts. So like if I'm, if I'm like, okay, you know, on Saturday I'm going to have at it.

So Friday I'm going to fast a little longer than normal. Or let's just say you're not even used to fasting. Let's say you don't normally fast. Just that Saturday maybe you go in and get your normal exercise in for the day, your normal workout. Maybe you have a protein shake after you work out. Maybe you have a small meal like a sandwich or something small just to kind of you know keep your sanity and then later that night is when

you kind of have your cheat but what i don't what i do think is a bad idea is saturday comes and you're just gangbusters all day long with this cheat meal and then sunday because it's still only sunday and it's not Monday, you're not going to get back on your diet. You mess up on Sunday as well. And then there you are Monday on the elliptical going hard. Like that's just not, that's not anything that's going to work, especially for, especially over the long haul. I've seen it firsthand with a lot of friends and a lot of people that I know over the years, they they've been training for a long time and they, they, man, they put a lot of effort in the gym. They put a lot, like when they train,

you know, I would say their level of effort in the gym is even maybe even higher than mine. Like they look like savages when they're training, they're doing fantastic job. But then they have this self-sabotaging mechanism that's very repetitive, and they can't ever really get ahead. They're kind of behind to begin with. Their body fat percentage is not low to start out with. And so for somebody to go from like 20% body fat down to 10 is really a really, really tough task because you have to be so different than the way that you used to be. And you'll have to figure out ways of balancing that. And I think in SEMA and a lot of the people that have come from a background of counting calories,

the thought process is, hey, let's have some food in there that gives us enough variety so you don't go haywire, so that we're not really even talking about a binge on the weekend. We're not really ever talking about that. Or hopefully we can avoid it by you having Beach Hut Deli, We're not really even talking about a binge on the weekend. Like we're not really ever talking about that. Or hopefully we can avoid it by you having Beach Hut Deli, you know, having a sandwich at noon. Hopefully that'll curb you away from wanting to eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's every single night. You know, we're going to make room for some of these things. And you can have some frozen yogurt with your kids. So there's that route. Or there's kind of more the route that some people go, they do go hard for five, six, seven days and then they have a cheat

meal. But it's just, you know, I call it turning your taste buds inside out. You got to be careful of when you do that and you got to be, you got to understand that to turn your taste buds back the other way, they don't automatically want to flip inside out the other way just because you woke up the next morning. Your mind is still wrapped around that sugar and still wrapped around the cookie or whatever the shit was that you ate. You're still kind of, and you might even have like a little bit of a, almost like a hangover feel. You might feel like a little like,

you might feel like someone kicked you in the back of the head. Might be in a little bit of a daze from that. You said Beach Hut Deli, the sandwich I had yesterday. I don't even know like uh they had asked me what i wanted and i just remember eating a meatball sandwich from there once and it being hecka good and this is during the live stream so like i didn't think about it yeah i'll take that and i ate it and man it wasn't it was delicious it was great it was amazing you know what i'm paying for it badly this morning. Oh, no. Oh, God. Dude, my stomach has not.

Oh, my gosh. It's like I think I'm two poops in. Oh, man. And it's just, yeah. So in that aspect, like, yeah, I am learning how to eat better, but I still have like a just it wasn't really a slip up, but like, you know, I'll go off my diet. Yeah.

But now that I've been on it so long, like I don't think I want to have beach hut again for a really long time if ever hey there you go kind of getting scared straight yeah exactly exactly yeah that's what uh happened with me when jesse burdick was helping me with my diet he was like yeah you know just take this next week just take the whole week off and i was like i was like i can't take the like i was getting like anxiety over it yeah and then you know uh come like wednesday of that week i was like dude I can't take the like I was getting like anxiety over it yeah and then you know uh come like Wednesday of that week I was like dude I can't do it I can't like keep eating whatever I want and he's like what have you eaten so far and like when I told him he's like he's like you're

such a pussy he's like I knew you wouldn't be able to do it anyway but it's it's shocking at how uh how much you change and like you know, your cheat might be two quest bars, you know, like might be like, Ooh, like some big, you know, big deal. You ate some fucking popcorn or you had a burrito. Oh, you ate some flour. Like, you know, your cheats are going to be, uh, less and less, um, you know, impactful on, uh, you know, messing up your, your rhythm, you know? Yeah. And you know, I was just talking to a guy this weekend and he was talking about how he's tried so many different types of diets. He's done keto in the past. He's done vertical in the past. He's done macro counting in the past. And he's really,

really heavy. And every time he managed to lose weight, but he kept saying, yeah, but then I'd lose patience or something would happen and I would, I would fall off. Right. Um, and then I was like, okay, well, if you could think back to all these times, cause obviously you go and you go to the gym, you work out, you follow these diets, they work, but they don't work for long. What has your sleep been looking like? I'm pretty much sleeping like four or five hours a night. Usually. How do you feel, man? He's like, I feel fine. I'm like, Oh, you do. And, and like what I was thinking when we were talking about all of this is like, again feel fine. I'm like, Oh, you do. And, and like what I was thinking when we were talking about all of this is like, again, one of the reasons why I think it's cool that

also Stan, when he was on the podcast, he put at the top of the hierarchy, I don't want to talk about sleep for long. Cause I know we've been doing that too much, but at the top of his hierarchy of importance, he's like, if we like get your sleep right, because that will affect your decision making every single day of the week. Even I noticed, like I told you, I think I mentioned that on that podcast. There was a few days last week or the week before where I was underslept. I got five or six hours. And on those days I wanted chocolate. I wanted ice cream. I wanted foods that I usually didn't typically crave up until this point. Why? And I, I tracked, I was traced about like the night before I was

underslept and I started having those cravings. I fought those cravings, but fuck, I actually had to fight those. I had to try. Okay. So if we can just like get that in line, then all of the practices that we're trying to keep in line in terms of our diet, in terms of the willpower to exercise, in terms of our mood will be so much easier. We'll have less work to do because we're not fighting against our emotions. Yeah, I experienced like the opposite. So like I've been filming like everything with Sarmageddon

and training as much as I can. And I went on vacation. And the day that I came back, I was telling Mark, I'm like, dude, I feel like I got shot out of a cannon. Like I was like, I had, my energy was insane. My focus was crazy. Diet, I've been doing good up until that beach hut deli sandwich yesterday but i was like wow like man what changed what changed it's like oh

i actually got like legit sleep for the past couple days yeah and is it so i noticed the same thing but the opposite like i'm like wow i've been underslept pretty bad for this you know a good duration of time so i have a lot of sleep debt to pay off the easiest thing to avoid uh temptation is just to not not have any right and so yeah there's a saying that says you know you you uh you can't uh desire not to desire you have to just not have the fucking desire in the first place you can't have the temptation uh in front of you desire in the first place. You can't have the temptation, uh, in front of you in, in the first place. And how, how do you avoid that? And there's a lot of different ways to avoid it. And some of it for some people it's, uh, you know, weighing their food and then occasionally eating a pop tart or having a couple of scoops of ice cream because they, you know,

it fits their macros, it fits their, their calorie count for the day. And for some other people, it's maybe just indulging every 14 days or just whenever that cycle comes around where you feel like having some cake or whatever the hell it is that you want. But the main thing is to figure out how do you not get fatigued? How do you not get bogged down and dragged down? And the answer is going to be that you figure out ways of recovering from all the stuff that you're doing. One way to do it is through your sleep. Another way is pay attention to your training, because if you're over training, that's going to lead to a lot of, um, that's going to lead to you thinking about, uh, all kinds of

foods and stuff like that too. So you gotta be really conscious of, of these, uh, things that they all have to be thought about. And something I got rid of recently was caffeine. I ditched caffeine and I'm now about two weeks in and like the first couple days of it was like absolutely brutal. For me, I like coffee. I like kind of just the act of like having a coffee in my hands. I messed around with all the bulletproof style coffee things for a while. And like, I played around with mixing all kinds of different shit into my coffee over the years. And for the last 10 years, I've been mixing protein and into

coffee. I've been doing that for a long time, especially, uh, uh, like a cold brew or an iced coffee or something like that. And it's, it's amazing. I love it. But, you know, I was also like, you know what? I think I kind of use, I use caffeine because I'm fatigued and I've been working on my sleep and I've been getting my sleep better. But every once, like every other night, it's hard for me to like get to sleep or every other night it's hard for me to stay asleep. And I hear so many people talk about, well, it might be the way that you metabolize caffeine. So I'm like, all right, let me just, you know. So I started cutting back on caffeine a while back, probably almost like a year ago. And still to this day, at that point, I still might have had like three or four cups here and there. But I was trying to keep it lower with not a lot of success. And so at that point, I was like, well, maybe I kind of have an issue with this. And so I that point I was like, well, maybe I kind of have an issue with this. And so I removed it and I definitely did have an issue with it because like even just the first two days

was really, really hard. Um, I didn't have like headaches or anything, but I, I just felt, I felt tired, you know, it could have been mental. I'm not sure, but, um, it was just the first like three days. And then after that, I've been, I've been feeling pretty good and my sleep has improved. And I think that, you know, Stan hit the nail on the head when he was here and he talked in a seminar about, you know, people taking pre-workout and people never, they never listen. They never want to pay attention, but this is important. Don't take pre-workout to make you untired. You know what I mean? Like if you're, if you're tired, then you're fucking tired. And actually you might just, you might be better off just going home for that day.

Like just drive your ass home and, and, and make it a point, say to yourself, you know, I'm just going to get to bed like an hour earlier today. And when I get off of work tomorrow, I'm going to, I'm going to kick some ass in the gym. That way you're not dragging ass and not, you know, loading yourself up on some pre-workout. But a lot of times caffeine is just helping people that are behind. They're not getting enough rest. They're not getting enough sleep. And they're trying to use it as some way to catch up.

But you can't really catch up and you can't really necessarily get ahead because you're behind in the first place. So make sure that sleep is intact. And for me, it's been feeling pretty good so far. Would you say the same thing about pre-workout? I kind of know the answer, but somebody was asking, AWXOME, ask if caffeine and pre-workout count. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any, yeah, any caffeine. Yeah. I like how Stan put in basically, he was like, if you're, you know, leaning on a pre-workout to get you like motivated like you already lost right yeah i thought that was huge right now now if you feel good already and you've been sleeping and it's

pr day and you want to go for a little extra and you feel like you need a little extra zip then go for it yeah you know what i mean yeah i think that's the time to use that kind of stuff then go for it got it and then max asked a pretty good question um it's for both of you like especially during like your strongest days did you find a certain type of food made you feel better and stronger no no actually well no at least not now you know i'm really trying to think back to when i was eating before a lot of my workouts actually okay so for me it would be like like oatmeal a few hours before like a bowl of oatmeal like literally that that's what it would be just to feel fuller just to feel fuller and it didn't like bother my stomach at all i i felt good but it wouldn't be like it wouldn't be anything

crazy literally a bowl of oatmeal but now since i don't eat during what before most of my workouts i feel fine with or without i think it's like accumulation of food over time. So, you know, food's going to make you, it can make you strong. I mean, there's some research that shows cholesterol can make you strong. Eggs can help and stuff like that, but it's not going to be because you ate it, you know, an hour or two beforehand. I think for some people having, you know, some salt and having some carbohydrates uh rice oatmeal those kinds of things and if we're talking about like right before your workout then it should be things that

digest pretty clean things that digest pretty easy um you wouldn't want to eat like a ribeye necessarily before you work out not that that would cause any like damage but it's going to take forever to digest yeah yeah um you probably want more of a carbohydrate. The only thing I would say is if you're looking to get stronger, you might have a meal an hour or two before training that is substantial in carbohydrates and fairly lean proteins and has a good amount of salt in it because that can help you retain more water. And by retaining more water, you can feel a little stronger in your workout well what about like when you were both doing

bodybuilding like did you like appreciate a certain type of food when you're leaning out do they appreciate a certain type yeah body bodybuilding wise um it was kind of the same deal it was like just you know rice and chicken that kind of stuff uh before the workouts and that for me personally i really enjoyed enjoyed being able to get some carbohydrates after the workout. Like that felt really good. And then, you know, during the workouts, I always had like a good pump

and I played around with all kinds of different things where I was having like intra-workout carbohydrates and stuff like that. And that seemed to give me a little extra kick and a little extra push through the workout. So something like that could work really well for someone that wants to gain some size or somebody that's messing around with some bodybuilding. Yeah. I was eating pretty clean at that time too, even though I was like tracking most of the food because you know, you don't have a lot to work with, but I mean, before workout,

it'll always be a meal with like rice, some type of meat and like a lot of veggies because you're not eating much food. So you're trying to feel full. Um, and that was, that was pretty much it when I was, when I was doing that. But at that time also, I wouldn't want to prep like this again, but my fats were really low. Like when it got to the deepest, I was eating maybe 30 to 40 grams of fat a day. And if I would tell anyone anything as far as like, at least really guys to, um, if you're prepping, try to try to like at the deep ends of your prep, try to have a little bit more fat because I've noticed like for, for guys that I prep, like if they have more fat, they don't feel as bad as far as the libido or their moods concerned. But once they start eating less fat, everything is just like, they're mad at everything and everyone, you know? So if I had

more fat, then I think I would have been better but um yeah that's pretty much some people like have these weird worries they think that fat and carbohydrate you know they think in a combination is going to make you fat and really the only thing that makes you fat is taking in excess energy you know so it's just you know like there's there might be science that shows that like you know this spikes your insulin levels or this does, you know, but a lot, a lot of it in the long run, ultimately what's going to happen is if you, if you eat a lot and you don't really move around much, there's going to be like a price to pay. And a lot of times the price to pay is the accumulation of body fat. So, um, with Stan Efferding's diet, the vertical diet, you know, he allows for enough fats in that diet. He allows for a nice amount of carbohydrates. The real thing is if you can think about, if you think about

your nutrition this way, you want enough nutrition that fuels having awesome workouts, but it's not so much food and not so much fuel that it encourages body fat accumulation. That's really all you're trying to do. And so sometimes people get a little crazy with the way they set up their diets and stuff, but that's all we're trying to do right there. Yeah. Like even what you were saying there, right? A lot of people don't think about it, but you know, sometimes some of your best workouts from the night before you had a fat pizza or something, right? And it's not because of the pizza. It's because like, first off, yeah, okay, you had a lot of fat or whatever, before you had a fat pizza or something, right? Yeah. And it's not because of the pizza. It's because, like, first off, you had a lot of fat or whatever,

but you had a lot of sodium, right? And that definitely probably helped out your workout that next day. So, like, pretty much with the vertical diet, and I love everything about it, but it pretty much allows you to get in all of those micronutrients, the sodium, the potassium, everything you're looking for from your food, again, without eating so much that you're going to get fat. That's why I think it's like, it's so awesome that like a lot of power

lifters are starting that too, because I think that, yes, we know that, you know, the bigger you get, okay, you can move a little bit more weight, but I don't think that a lot of, as power lifters, I don't think we need to be like really, really big to be able to move massive amounts of weight. You're seeing that a lot now with a lot of lifters. You see a lot of jacked, bodybuilding-looking lifters that are lifting a lot of weight, and they're also on top of their nutrition. So I feel like that's something that a lot of us could get better with within this community. Something else that will make you feel good.

We've been talking a lot about feeling good. We've been talking about being motivated, having energy. Something to make you feel good is to get control over your own body and your own strength. And, you know, there's something valuable to taking command and taking control over the way that you look and saying, you know, I'm not looking like that anymore. I'm going, this is the way I'm going. And this is what I want to do. And I find it really interesting. People put, you know, they have a bucket list, like their bucket list is I want to meet the rock and I want to go to, uh, you know, I want to go to China one day or wherever, you know, they have these things on their bucket list, but there's the things they put on their bucket list are usually pretty easy. And I think that people are scared to put things

on their bucket list. Like they want to have six-pack because they're not really sure if they can ever have a six-pack and I'll uh dispel the myth for you guys all right now anyone can have a six-pack true anyone can have a six-pack so now there are some people out there right now that may have uh you know gotten themselves to be so heavy that maybe at this point it's not possible for them to get down to a low enough body fat percentage. Maybe they have too much skin or whatever. It's the same thing as saying like, you know, um, you know, when you grew up, you believed you can do just about anything. Well, yeah, you can do just about anything, but you can't be Shaquille O'Neal cause you just, there's only one Shaquille O'Neal, you know? Um,

and I can do all kinds of stuff with my life right now, but at 42 years old, there's, there's really no possibility of me being in the NBA, right? Like there's just certain, certain things that are a little outside your capability, but in terms of abs, in terms of having like a six pack, it doesn't really take a special skillset in terms of, well, it doesn't really take a special skill set in terms of, well, it doesn't take a skill set other than being able to deal with being hungry maybe. And it doesn't take any sort of special genetics. It just, it just takes you buckling down and deciding that's what you really want. I think, yeah. And I think the biggest thing rather than like, you know, focusing on the amount of food you eat in terms of your macros at all, it's everything that we're talking about here and focusing on all of your

habits as far as like, you know, being okay with being hungry sometimes. Like I haven't eaten today, you know, but I'm not like, I think that in the past, the way I feel right now, I would have felt like, I would have felt like, oh, this is ravenous hunger. Whereas now, like, I don't like, you would have been, you would have been mad. You would have been like, you would have been pissed, right? And you would have been like, I need to eat. Like, and you'd also be thinking about the muscle that you're losing, right? Yeah. But like, and I would think all of that's going on. Right. But it, but it really isn't. So like getting, figuring out habits, like maybe fasting, getting better sleep, all these simple habits to help you get on top of your nutrition. Because again, a few years ago with the way like my physique is right now, this would not have been something that was on my bucket list. I would have been like, okay,

I could get that lean, but I would have never believed that I could stay this lean and perform while being this lean. I would have never thought that that was even humanly possible because I always thought that like, okay, there are some people out there. Right. Like when you look at certain fitness models or whatever, there's some people out there that can just be lean and stay lean and they're OK at that. Right. But if I have to do that, I have to do a lot of work. And I hear that all the time. Like, hey, you're not going to stay single percentage body fat. Yeah. You know, you can't just stay there. I really thought that was true, even though I've been there because I because it felt so so bad. I was like, yeah, that that's definitely true. I can't do that. Some people can, but that's

definitely not me. And that's not most people. When you got your DEXA scan, what did it say? Your body fat was at 7.8. Now it's a little bit higher. It's probably like nine, right? Oh, you really let yourself go. I sound like a dick when I said that. But seriously, because of like all of the habits, not just not even nutrition, nutrition outside. That's important. But because of like the good habits that we've built around the nutrition. Right. That we've picked up with all of the guests that we've been listening to. Those are the reasons why I'm able to maintain what I have right now. That's the big thing, you know. why I'm able to maintain what I have right now.

That's the big thing. Well, I think also, too, it's important, too, that you said you were 7% body fat. You might feel like you have a little bit more on you now. That's actually important to understand, too. There's going to be times where you put on a little extra weight. There's going to be times where you are like, you know what? Maybe this time next year you're like, I want to see just what it would feel like to get to 6% body fat. Maybe I'll be faster in my jujitsu or, or maybe it'll be worse, but I just want to see, I want to, you know, get my DEXA scan down, uh, lower. There's going to be, you know, there's a time and place for all of it is the good news.

And you don't have to kind of like, uh, you know, just be stuck doing one thing. I'm, I'm constantly trying to move things around for me lately. I've been kind of like just between two 45 and, and, and two 40 for a while. So I'm like, let me see if I can, you know, get, let me see if I can just lean out and get lighter. And so that's what I'm working on now. I'm fasted today too. And, um, and just playing around with some different things, trying some new things. I've been fasting through the latter part of the day, which is just an absolute kick in the ball. So for today, today it's actually just a regular 24-hour fast

since I have no training, no training scheduled for today. But normally I've been, lately I've been eating a meal before training session and then a meal after the training session and then not eating anything the training session and then not eating anything the rest of the day. And from a like social standpoint, like that is really weird. You know, I have, I have a family and stuff too. And sometimes they want to go do something. So like that whole part of it has been weird, but, um, luckily really nothing's come up. It's just been these last couple of days where I've been able to kind of hone in and mess with

it. But I went from, when I came back from New Jersey, um, I weighed, uh, two 50. And then when I, I, this morning I weighed two 33. Now some of it's slightly deceiving cause it's just, it's just water. Like I did obviously didn't lose, you know, a ton of fat or anything from that, but it's just, it's just something I'm playing around with right now to see how my body reacts to it. And for right now, like, like so far, I don't really love the diet. So like, is this something I'm going to do long-term? No, but it's, it's leading me to understand like, oh, you like more like a 16, eight eating window. You enjoy eating later on in the day. Yeah. yeah you enjoy having like and i'm also learning like i actually just like having coffee and then it's like well how many fucking things do you want

to abstain from in your life you know like how bad do you want to beat the shit out of yourself all the time yeah it's like i feel pretty good i feel pretty successful i should be able to enjoy myself here and there um actually when nick came over the other night like we all had a glass of wine you know it's just little things like that it's like every once in a while you're going to have to let your guard down and just, you know, um, goddamn enjoy yourself. Right. No, I agree. But you know, one of the things that, that you mentioned that I think I'm actually going to try soon, uh, in terms of having the eating window be a little bit earlier. Cause right now my eating windows like at the end of the day. So it was like, I'll have jujitsu some days at 7 PM. So I'll get back at nine, right? Discipline of it is hard, but I think you'd really like it. Yeah. And I think I will like it. And I think again, based off of like everything, like I've been learning recently in terms of like the, I guess the best times to eat.

If I eat too late, it might affect, like it probably is affecting my sleep a little bit negatively. And if everything I'm doing is trying to get my recovery better, if I can have those meals a little bit before maybe my last meals at seven or six, I might sleep a little bit better, which might help me feel a little bit better during the day. And everything might just move better, you know. So I'm really thinking about trying that out. But then there is the difficulty because there are people in my life that like to eat later like to have dinner at eight or nine right so it's like shoot can i get them to follow me or am i gonna have to be like you know compensate on some of the cool thing about some of this stuff too is it doesn't really have to be implemented every single day you're right so it's like if you can implement it here and there you can utilize it here and there um

that might be that might be just as effective. I do think that, like, when it comes to this kind of stuff, I mean, now we're really, you know, really nitpicking, but there's a lot of people who would be super excited to know, like, hey, maybe if I shut off eating four hours before I go to bed, maybe I do produce a little bit more growth hormone. Maybe I do produce a little bit more ketones. Maybe I do get a little deeper sleep. And, you know, for some people that don't care about that, cause that's that like extra, like, you know, a little one or 2%. Yeah. But for some of us maniacs out there, we,

we care and we want to see, we want to see how it reacts. So, you know, anybody that's, that follows along with what we talk about here on the show and you've heard us talk about, you know, the war on carbs and counting calories and all these different styles of diets. It's, these are all things that we've tried. They're all things that we've utilized are all things that we've done. And it's like, you're still just trying to land on the thing that feels the best and works the best for you. What are you zoning in now in terms of, cause like you've tried all these different diets, right? And am I safe to assume that what you're doing right now you find has been the best for you? Or has there been something in the past that you feel I might hop back on that because maybe I was feeling a little bit better eating that way?

I think that the basics for me is just meat and fruit. And, you know, I can eat potatoes and rice and things like that as well. I just have to be careful that I don't, you know, kind of over want to overdo it on those things. But that seems to be like what feels the best to me and it feels the best to me now. And it's it's something that I I like always look forward to the food. Like I love eating like apples and oranges and grapes and and things like that. Vegetables is something I kind of brought back into my diet, not for any reason. I didn't have any like ill effects from anything.

I just I enjoy some vegetables. I don't really, you know, love them. I don't go after, you know, eating like tons of them, but I throw in some spinach and, uh, some asparagus and green beans and things like that here and there. Um, but yeah, I really, I really enjoy, you know, what I'm doing right now. And I think that this is something that something along these lines is probably something that I'll do for a long time. The vertical diet is a nice break for me from, uh, kind of my normal rigidness of like, uh, you know, fasting and doing some of the other things. Cause then it gives me an opportunity just to kind of buckle down and eat a little bit more. So I'll, I'll bring that back in.

Um, you know, maybe like a month from now, two months from now, something like that. Well, I'm curious, you can fast with vertical diet, but you typically don't? Right. Okay. Right. Yeah. And I have, I have fasted with the vertical diet as well. I've done like kind of a 16, eight eating window. But the vertical diet, it's, it's like, you know, when I think vertical vertical diet i think of monster mash and so that once i start thinking about monster mash which is uh some some form of red meat rice and bone broth i'm like man i'm gonna eat the hell out of that combination and so like yeah when i was ordering some stuff from uh stan's uh company uh i was getting the um like the the world's strongest

man monster mash or whatever and it had like 1,200 calories in it. And I was smashing through a few of those. But I really didn't, you know, even then I wasn't like, I didn't start like chubbing out or anything because, you know, the training was still good and all that. I think that, I think for me personally, I think there's, I have a lot of like wiggle room in terms of my calories. You know, I think there's, it's, and I don't know why that is,

but I just, I feel like there's not a huge difference between whether I'm eating like 4,000 calories or like 2,000 calories. And maybe, you know, if it happened over like a prolonged period of time, but I usually move around, I shift around quite a bit. So I have never really noticed, you know, a huge variance between, you know, eating tons of food versus eating a lot less. You know what I think? Like, okay, so this is going to be totally anecdotal for myself. And I think it might be the case for you too. But I think, um, as I've like picked up getting

better habits as far as like maybe fasting and that helping me be able to learn about my appetite and eating intuitively. Right. And then obviously being on top of my sleep, which will help me be in tune with myself more. I just feel better. There are days when I know that I eat an upwards of 4000 calories, but automatically the next few days I don't feel nearly as hungry. I feel like on those days I'm probably eating anywhere between 18 and 22 or 23. And it just happens because that's what my appetite feels. So if I were to probably really try and run the numbers and make some averages, I'd probably be averaging around the same number every, like every around every week or so,

even though it's eating different amount of calories every single day. I think that's what's happening too. Like, even though like there might be a day you do 4,500, right? Let's just say it's 4,500 calories. You probably make up for it because the next few days, even though you're not tracking it, you're just like, I'm going to eat a little less today. I don't feel like I need to eat that much. Right. You know, but it's because again,

you have really good habits as far as everything else that helps you be in tune with how much you should be eating. I definitely agree. I think that that is the case. And I also think that also think like longterm, I think there definitely is something, you know, much more going on with the micronutrients than we fully understand. And then there's that protein.

The protein thing can throw everything off quite a bit. So it's kind of hard to really tell, but I agree 100%. I think there's been times where I've done a 48-hour or 72-hour fast, Then there's been times where I've done like a 48-hour or 72-hour fast. And then like three days later, not the day following, but like three days later, there I am eating a lot of food. And I'm like, ah, I think this is from the fast. And so that's important for anybody who's trying any of these things that we're throwing out there. If you do a 16-8 eating window, it doesn't mean that in that eating window, you can go absolutely insane.

And you might for a while. Like I did that for a little bit. I, I, you know, I was like, all right, I'm just going to do this until it passes. And I think that's a good way to handle it. Sometimes, just as I was mentioning with the, uh, cheat meals, Jesse Burdick said, you know, take a week off and I could barely take a week off. Well, you know, when you go home and you're on a 16, eight eating window, maybe for a few days, you just kind of like, let it go, like see what happens naturally. And then say, Hey, you know what? I'm not going to really make any progress that way. Maybe I should kind of like weigh things out, or maybe I should get a better idea of how much food I'm

actually eating or how much food I should actually be eating, uh, to make gains or to lose weight. And you can kind of go from there. Yeah. And the micronutrient part that you mentioned, that's, I think the biggest part of the vertical diet, like I just look at that as a big concept. The biggest thing that I like about Stan's book is the guide on getting the micronutrients through your food, like where to get your vitamin C and your iodine and all of that. Because I, like you mentioned, I feel like that is a missing piece for a lot of people. If you can make sure to get all of that through food during the day, right? Even if you're not tracking, I feel like that'll help you have a better, or you will nest, you will feel day by day, really, you'll have a better idea about your cravings. You won't crave certain things as much. And I have noticed that

for myself too, as I've gotten myself on top of that through my nutrition, I've noticed better or less cravings for certain things, or even a want for certain things as that's been in order too. So if you don't get it for anything else, get it for that understanding. Have you ever tried to cut out coffee, caffeine? Yeah, we were just talking about that. I know like I've lessened caffeine because you remember when I was having the tricep twitch? Oh yeah. Yeah. And my tricep would not stop twitching. Like it was just like, just flexing on its own. It was flexing on its own. I was like, okay, there's a problem here. So I did some decaf, and I lowered the amount of caffeine, and that helped. But I haven't really tried totally taking it out.

I feel like I should. I feel like I will. It's tough out there, buddy. Let's start this tomorrow. I'm not drinking any more coffee today, so we'll start it today. But yeah, I'm going to do that. I'm going to start it today. I won't more coffee today. So, I mean, we'll start it today. But yeah, I'm going to do that. Let's start it. I'm going to start it today. I won't drink coffee tomorrow.

I switched out with just tea and I have tea that has no caffeine. I got like this peppermint tea or whatever the hell. And like, I don't even really care. I don't. It's just like sometimes you just need something to do. Yeah. And so I'm like sitting on my couch. I'm trying not to eat and I'm trying not to drink coffee.

So I'm like, I'll just make some tea. Like, damn it. How has that actually affected your appetite? Because the main reason I drink that coffee in the morning is to help me so I can maintain my fast for like during the day. So how has that affected that? Yeah. So mint is supposed to help with, uh, with your, uh, hunger as well. So that's why I, that's why I tried some mint tea. But yeah, it is annoying. Like, you know, normally you have the coffee and it's like the coffee just kind of almost makes you not want to eat, you know?

And it's like, it's weird because, you know, we think of, we think of energy like being like caffeine or we think of energy being like an energy drink. But really the only true energy that humans have is from calories, from the energy from our food, right? And so when you have your morning coffee, it kind of makes sense because you're thinking, oh, that's my source of energy. But it's not really a source of energy. It's just kind of like hyping you up because it's stimulating your central nervous system a little bit. But I think that a lot of people are so used to that, you know, used to that jolt. How about the cognitive functions stuff?

Like, have you felt a little foggy? Yeah, I feel fine. That's good. That's my biggest concern with not having caffeine. Right. Because, I mean, you said you kind of take it to get fired up and whatnot. Right. But, like, to me, I feel like it helps me focus a lot better.

Right. You know, I think a byproduct of actually, because, yeah, I'm going to start that. I think what's going to happen to me is I'm actually going to start drinking water more religiously because I noticed that in the mornings if I have coffee, I'll typically try to be on top of drinking water in the morning, but that caffeine will like blunt my need or like my want to drink water. And the days that I don't like drink some coffee, I'm like chugging water. Right. So I feel like I'm just inherently going to keep myself better hydrated because of the lack of coffee or caffeine maybe that'll happen um yeah but i'm i'm excited and

i'm also not excited to do this i asked the chat room if anyone else has tried to fast from caffeine and rick said he just used smelling small smelling salts in the morning oh that's great that's a good way to wake up yeah yeah so Yeah. So I, I ditched the caffeine. I also ditched mind bullet for a little bit too. Cause I was like, well, you know, I'm kind of leaning on that too, I think. So it was like, let me, let me pull some of that out. And, um, I still take it, you know, but I, I wanted to pull it out for a few days. And so I went a few days and I just, I wanted to make sure that it wasn't like something I felt I needed, you know what I mean? So it's, it's hard, man. It's hard to, to pull a lot of these things away from yourself, especially when you're so used to taking them. Yeah. You know, it's, it's just like

with a lot of people when they haven't had caffeine for a while, you can definitely tell, like you can really see it in the way they act and then like how they, what they're doing so far. I haven't been able to tell that from you. Like you don't look at it or seem any more grumpy or angry or whatever. I haven't seen anything too crazy, right? I mean, I do see you like beating on people like you do in the office, but that's just normal. So that doesn't happen to everybody.

Just, I need a... It can happen. I'm not me without my coffee. Right? What'd you guys think about Nick Wright, you know, talking a lot a lot about uh that binging i thought that was pretty fascinating yeah and and we he was like oh i don't need to talk about it too much because you know who cares and i was like no this is an

amazing topic no i think it was first off i think it was great that he did either one of you guys mess with that i mean either one of you guys ever you know gotten yourselves to where you're just like out of control with food you want to start yeah i can't i mean and i of you guys ever you know gotten yourselves to where you're just like out of control with food you want to start yeah i can't i mean and i wanted to talk about it on the podcast but like it just didn't it wasn't in line with everything but i'm on the opposite side i have i you know stray away from food more than i've binged like and i don't think i've ever actually officially binged and he was talking about binging on cereals. Oh yeah, me too. And he's like, I'll go like three, four boxes in.

And I'm like, oh, I'm amateur, you know, like I'll go, I'll go three bowls at the most. But no, like I've, I've had situations where it's like, okay, I know I got to eat, but like, I don't really want to, so I'll just go to bed. I'm fasting now, you know, that sort of thing. Maybe you're gun shy with it because you've had so many stomach issues. Yeah, I think that that that's that's a possibility um but like you know with him you know he had uh ariana with them that's her name right yeah um so with me and stephanie like she kind of knows like okay he's gone pretty far over uh i have to just say the three words to get him out of it which is in and out and then i'm like oh okay yeah let's let's go get some food but um as far as like binging like no i don't think i've

officially ever had any issues like that at all i mean i know i've like craved stuff but not to the level where what he was talking about like not even close man no i know i definitely have that's that's obvious like especially OK, let's mention prep because that happened. Like I had a whole tub of peanut butter. Right. That that happens when you're in a massive deficit. OK, it's not it shouldn't happen. You shouldn't want it to happen either. Like you should stay straight away from that. But that happens to a lot of guys that do that. And it's not healthy. It's not good and it's not normal. But even outside of prep, when I was like, you know, bulking and trying to get bigger, I like, again, I was a voracious eater. I was literally like a trash compactor. I could put down so much food and I found pride in that. I was kind of happy. I'm like, I can eat all of this food and not get really, really fat. But one cool thing that Nick mentioned, and he didn't mention it during a podcast. He mentioned it in his video on youtube where he talked about his binging habit um is that when an individual binges and they eat a ridiculous amount of food like i have in the past but the next day they're like i ate too much yesterday let me do a little bit of extra work to just try to counteract what i just did that is a form of bulimia and then i

heard that i was like fuck i had a form of bulimia. Like I was bulimic in a sense. Like that's kind of crazy. Yeah. Right. Um, and again, while you're forming a condition that might not be very healthy for you. Right. But I looked good. Remember this, I look pretty damn good at that time. Right. So I was okay with that. I'm like, I can eat this much, do this. Okay. This is okay. This is passable. But when I look back on that, that was extremely unhealthy. And even then, like when I look back at some of my habits, like I wasn't consistent on my sleep. I wasn't getting in like a lot of the micronutrients and all that stuff that I'm getting in now. I wasn't fasting. My appetite was voracious because I was literally trying to rev that up to eat more. So all those habits weren't falling in line with like being healthy, you know? So

yeah, I had that problem. And I think a lot of, a lot of people within this realm, this is fitness realm, even if they look good, do have that issue. They don't know if they should fix it or not. I fixed it on accident. The hardest thing is that, you know, the cravings that we have, the food that we have cravings for uh fits in the pieces of the puzzle and makes it feel great so like if we're just all talking about pizza we're like fuck it let's go get some pizza we're not like all depressed like we're all pumped we're like you know we're like as we're eating the pizza we're laughing we're smiling it's almost like we're on like a drug you know we're having like a fucking we should go do this we'd be having we'd be having a blast right yeah and so that's the problem is like it actually

does it actually works you know the sensation and everything that you're looking for uh happens and then it's like it's almost that and then some and then you're like holy shit this is like even better than i thought it you know thought it was gonna so, you know, that's the hard part. And then you understand that and you know that. And so then you have to try to always abstain from that. And you're like, God damn it. And then you're like, why am I even abstaining from it? I can make it fit my macros, right?

I can, you know, so that's where we got to look above just the idea of looking good. And we need to look into like actually just being healthy for the long run you know right i think i think you get you know taking the word need out of things is important so you know people think they need to have their coffee in the morning you don't necessarily need to have your coffee in the morning and you should prove it to yourself and you should try it you should try to abstain from it just for a little bit you don't have to uh be crazy about it you have to try to get rid of it forever, but just try it. You don't necessarily need to have popcorn when you go and watch a movie.

You don't necessarily need to have Ben and Jerry's when you're watching your favorite show. You don't really truly need these things. And it would be great if you can empower yourself to understand that you don't need that. And maybe you want it, and that's okay. And if you make the decision, you're like, I really like doing that and you want to do it, then you make the decision to do it on occasion

rather than feeling like you have to do it every time. Oh, I can't do this without that. Oh man, I haven't had my morning coffee yet. You're like, come on, dude. You're always a fucking piece of shit.

Wake the fuck up, dude. Yeah. We should go to Woodstock Pizza. Oh, in Davis. Did you guys have a pizza party with that here before like you guys brought boxes at the old gym might have been oh we yeah we well we did have a ton of pizza at the old gym for something was that from woodstock might have been fat dan's birthday yeah yeah yeah what was that pizza i don't know that was really good though

that was such a good pizza like i always wanted to figure out what place i wonder if that was uh wicked west pizza that probably near that uh used to be yeah used to be in west sacramento there's a place out here and we're we're thankful that they closed down because from where we moved in west sacramento to where we are now we we would be a lot closer yeah and we also were talking about how dangerous that's going to be and then when we moved over here and we went to go check it out it was closed is there and do they relocate i don't think they exist yeah god that was such that was like literally the best pizza i have ever had that was the best pizza place like of all time but they had the worst name because i thought it was a barbecue place and and everybody thought it was like for little kids because like the wicked was spelled with like

these different colors yeah it was kind of weird then you walked in they had like arcade games they did have a lot of games and the place was totally empty all the time all the time that place should have been fucking packed it was so good it was such a good concept they had this area where the kids could play and then had an area where adults could sit and like eat pizza and like drink beer and shit chucky cheese yeah they don't have beer at chucky cheese yeah but it was like Chuck E. Cheese on crack. It was good pizza. They used to, or I think they still might have beer at Chuck E. Cheese. Maybe they do. But you have to get it by the singles.

You can't get a pitcher. Yeah. Yeah. Damn. But still, Woodstock Pizza, it's so good. That's where we're going after the podcast. I love the contrast, man. I love where we were talking about this, and They're like, we got to get some pizza.

Yeah. Hey, we're normal. We're just talking about what a bunch of bad-ass we are, how disciplined we are talking about our fasting. Yeah. Hey, but like,

seriously, I think it is like what you mentioned there in terms of the need, the want versus the need. I think it is like, that's what's allowed me to, I think feels be so even and keel now at this point with the food is because like, if I want something,

you know, I can go and have it and not feel guilty about it. You know, like I can go have some pizza with my girl or whatever. I can just do this without feeling guilty at all about it. I know it's not as long as I can. It's part of my lifestyle. I'm not having it every single day of the week.

It's in, you know, what's the word I'm looking for? It's part of the program. Well, part of the program. Yeah. Moderation. There we go. It's in moderation and it's in you know what's the word i'm looking for it's part of the program well part of the program yeah uh moderation there we go it's in it's in moderation and it's not like an ifom moderation where i'm like i can track it and make it fit and make it happen every day yeah no but it's like okay i want this today it's a friday night cool let's have it i feel like if people

can just like make that type of routine for themselves where it falls in line with their life then it's something that they can do for life i have somebody that i'm helping lose weight right now and the guy loves burritos he's like i fucking love burritos i can't live without burritos i said well first of all you can live without burritos but secondly i said okay you want burritos you got them i said once a week you can have burritos and he's like how many burritos i said order as many as you'd like you know just have at it you know so like week one he had like how many burritos i said order as many as you'd like you know just have at it you know so like week one he had three and week two he had two and and now he's like now as he's coming to his like cheat day or cheat meal he's like i don't even

know if i want to have it i'm like all right good we're you know we're getting places and i got him from he was uh 313 when we started and he's around 290 right now and it's like the lightest he's been in like four or five years and i said dude we're gonna get you down to like 260 that's great it's gonna take time but like what i'm always obsessed with and excited about is to try to have people you know be able to lose the weight and be able to lose a significant amount of it forever and to not ever have it come back in. And I think the probably number one thing to realize as you make this plunge is that you're not saying goodbye to any foods. Like there's really no reason for you to say goodbye to any foods forever. Um, you may have

to abstain from eating them a lot more than you currently do, but you could still make room for just about anything. I mean, within reason you make room for just about anything that you want. You really like Italian food. You really like Chinese food. You really like, you know, some of these foods are, they, they, um, they carry, carry a huge caloric load, right? You could still have them. You just can't have them every day. Yeah. And I like all those foods. There used to be a time in my life where I thought I could definitely live without burritos. I used to go to Chipotle and have them put like triple rice, double meat, all of this. I'd weigh it.

It'd be like two pounds or whatever. But I haven't done that. I like going to get the double wrap, double protein. Yeah, I'd have to double wrap it because it was so big that it couldn't fit in one tortilla. You said you could eat a lot. Do you think you could eat a lot like professional eater-ish a lot? At that time, potentially. Maybe.

At that time. At this point in my life, I can't do that anymore. At the Arnold, you usually put down a lot of food. Yeah. And I know that's because we don't eat the entire day. Exactly. We're like walking around the entire day. Do you eat fast or can you eat really fast?

I eat slower than I used to. I can eat very fast. I've seen you eat really fast. I've had to slow down. Like, whoa, that's gone. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah, no, I can eat very fast I've seen you eat really fast I've had to slow down like whoa that's gone okay cool yeah yeah I can eat pretty fast somebody asked Smokey eats fast Smokey eats very fast yeah he does but now he's struggling because he has to eat like a bunch of monster mash and you just see him looking at it just like yeah still halfway more to go I eat very slow takes me a long time yeah I pick out the food.

Someone, his screen name is a little tricky. Dude is something. He asked about our kids and how we handle their diet. For me, I just do the vertical diet and she loves Monster Mash, but she likes to put soy sauce on it. There you go. That's a huge win for me. So, like, I just try to follow and lead by example. And she's smart enough now to know that she has to have protein with every meal. Um, and it's,

it's really cool, but it did take like a solid year and a half of like, like, no, you're not eating like pop tarts. Isn't real food. Pancakes. Isn't real food. Like have the eggs. And then if you have room, you can have the pancakes. That's how we've been doing it. You know, you bring up something kind of interesting. I think that kids, they seem to love food in combination you know they love they my kids like if my wife makes like a chicken you know with vegetables and uh like rice and almost like a casserole type of thing the kids will eat that every time we have steak a lot my wife pretty much follows similar diet to me. So she's eating a lot of the carnivore stuff and the kids just see the steak and they see it like every night almost that

they're like, you know, they obviously don't want to eat that all the time. My son likes steak. My daughter will eat steak here and there. But if we have like, if we have steak or chicken or pork or anything, just kind of by itself. And then with sides, they're less likely to eat it but if we have shit all just mashed together they tend to want to eat it so the monster mash uh makes a lot of sense i think the the best thing you do with your kids is just to figure out figure out any way possible for them to eat more protein um just whatever way possible you got, you know, whatever you have to do. Because most kids, they just pretty much eat carbohydrates the entire day. And I saw something a while back that said, like,

the average American child has, like, 75 grams of fructose a day. That's not even including, you know, other carbohydrates they might be eating. And you think as an adult, like, I would never under any circumstances allow myself to eat like that because I would think that I'm putting myself in danger, you know. But we just let our kids, you know, sip on these drinks all day. That would be another thing. So, like, rule number one would be, like, eat protein. Rule number two would be, like, let's just try, try your best to eliminate sugary drinks because they really don't serve a purpose.

They have absolutely no point. They don't do anything. I can get behind the ice cream. I can understand some of the other stuff because it's fun. And, right, I get it. But those other, those drinks, they don't fill you up. They're not nearly as fun as the ice cream. Like just do your best to try to eliminate them.

It drives me crazy. When I see some of that stuff in my house, I just lose my mind. Sometimes we have a party or something. I'm like, oh, my God. I just don't even want to look at it. Yeah. What about just eliminating the thought of kids' food in general? Yeah.

I mean, that would be great. Most people don't want to do that. They cook one thing for themselves and then something else for the kids. But the kids should always have whatever it is that you do cook for the kids if you are going to make them something different. That should obviously be very healthy. Just whatever way you can figure out a way to get protein in there. Let's just say your children love mac and cheese.

Figure out a way to throw some damn chicken in there. Just something. Just figure out a way. And some damn chicken in there like just just something just figure out a way you know and their kids are tough to trick man something looks a different color smells a different thing has a different crunch to it they're pissed they know right away too i don't even understand how jasmine does that like when they were real little like if i bought a different brand of milk and stuff they'd be like oh my god i'm gonna throw this fucking milk across the room make this whole goddamn thing explode what do you mean it's like yeah you hear about these parents that like shake their children like to death and you're

like you're like i can totally fucking relate right now i could totally see that happening i feel like shaking them to death. God damn it. You're like, what, have you acquired a crazy taste in your whole four years of existence? No. You got to put in the work, kid. Luckily, neither one of my kids were ever like dramatic. Like there's some kids they'll cry and they'll like flip out and they'll like let the food like drip off their tongue. They're like choking and like because they don't like the flavor of it my kids never they never did anything like that they just you know would push something away or make a weird noise or something you know yeah yeah but man we've been

pretty lucky too with jazz she's she's got a pretty good palate you know and she even drinks uh like um like just plain sparkling water now yeah like no flavor or nothing she digs it yeah do a whole podcast on that one because that's a tough one because i mean we could talk about the foods that we grew up with too but if you're just if you're used to eating like ritz crackers or goldfish and things like that then you're not gonna you're not gonna want to eat it you're not gonna want to eat any chicken chicken has chicken has no flavor as it is and i mentioned this on this podcast before eat like a handful of doritos and then eat a steak.

Eat a steak that's cooked by the best chef in America that's like marinating or sitting in the best butter or whatever. Eat that after eating a handful of Doritos. You won't taste anything. So you're not able to really – your taste buds are desensitized. You can't taste the flavors of natural things and don't appreciate natural things anymore. Yeah, that would be a good podcast.

You know, when I think about it, though, when I was growing up, my mom made really healthy food at home, but she'd always give me money to eat to get food at school. I'd always use that money to buy cookies and sugary stuff. And if we ever had cereal, I'd eat a lot of cereal. So I feel like i was only kind of lucky because i i had sports because if i didn't have sports at this for the few months that i didn't have sports i put on like 20 pounds and i put on 20 pounds of fat because i ate a lot

right so i was only lucky in that sense but those habits built into my like into my college years and my early 20s and it took a long time, even though my mom fed me well at home to get away from those habits of eating like outside of the house. Right. So you just got to think like, it's awesome for you guys because like your, your kids have good habits and it's going to be better for them to get to becoming adults.

But for like all the kids that have really bad diets or your habits, that's tough. Yeah. It's tough. Or people that just don't know. Right. They have bad habits and they don't know. You know, like with my kids, like I've told them stuff and I've always told them like if they ever want to know more, they can come to me at any time.

It doesn't have to be weird. We don't have to talk about like body fat percentages or anything like that. Like we're not going to get out calipers or anything, but, you know, they can use me as a resource. And if they don't care, then whatever. But at least they know they now it's their decision they can do whatever they want yeah cool so you want to start that other podcast up fire it up yeah i'm saying we can shut this one down and then take a little pee break and then come back i don't know what you guys want to do just keep going all day on this one what are we talking about now all day every day because you said uh start a different podcast about kids oh okay i'll have some input yeah you will you were a kid once i was a kid once or i was always this i was always a man man child might have been bred like you and

lebron james oh yeah sounds good yeah all right we got some cool uh cool changes coming up here on the podcast we're super excited we have coming up here on the podcast. We're super excited. We have some, uh, advertisers coming on the podcast. I know some people sometimes get a little bent, but you know, in, in, uh, the evolution of this podcast, you know, part of the thing, you know, in, in the beginning was to, you know, just continue to share information with people and have the information be free. with people and have the information be free. But at this point, what we'd like to do is I'd like to provide more value for, you know, I want to provide more value and be able to put more into this podcast. And it helps to have the dollars to be able to put more money into the podcast. And it helps to be able to provide more for Andrew and be able to provide more for NSEMA. So I like to just be totally transparent with that. We're taking on some advertisers coming up and it's just going to provide more opportunity for all of us. And we appreciate all of you guys for listening because you are the guys,

you are the people that got us the advertisers in the first place because if we didn't have the numbers, we wouldn't be able to go to an advertiser and even get anybody to give us any money. So look for some annoying ads coming up pretty soon. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you guys later.