Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 104 - Laurin Conlin

Episode Date: August 30, 2018

It was Mark Bell's last training day and we got a visit from Laurin Conlin who also competed at the same event as Mark. Laurin is an IFBB Bikini Professional, Overall 2014 NPC Nationals winner, has her Masters of Science, Exercise Science, and Bachelors of Science, Exercise Science. Rewatch the Live stream: https://youtu.be/Tdg4Oz_TPWg ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots ➢Subscribe Rate & Review on iTunes at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/mark-bells-power-project/id1341346059?mt=2 ➢Listen on Stitcher Here: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/mark-bells-power-project?refid=stpr ➢Listen on Google Play here: https://play.google.com/music/m/Izf6a3gudzyn66kf364qx34cctq?t=Mark_Bells_Power_Project ➢Listen on SoundCloud Here: 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 Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

How long have you been dieting for this show? 37 weeks. Oh, my God. Is that a world record? It's actually my... 37 weeks. I know. I tried to think about how many months that was the other day.

If my math is correct, that's like 2.6 years. That's what it felt like. I honestly could have... A long-ass time. Yeah, December 11th. You must have been really fat. That's what we need to start out with. How fat were you?

Yeah, were you like a big cow um i i i mean i this is why we don't have women on the show oh i don't give a shit no um i've been way fatter before than i was so have i you've seen that yeah so you've seen the bloat you know my my brother uh mad dog r.IP, you know, passed on years ago. But when I met my wife, he had a great way of checking out my future. And that was to look at my wife's mom. And he's like, damn. He's like, you're in good hands. And your mom's hot, by the way.

Hair flip. I mean, my first, she's like, oh, this whole thing. When I first met you guys together, I think it was at a trade show, maybe at the Arnold or something like that. It was the Olympia, I think. Yeah. And I was like, oh, okay, now it makes sense why Lauren is the way she is. All dolled up, looking wonderful. Oh, mom. Yeah, she comes to all my shows.

So she's show mom. That's awesome. Yeah. Comes with all your. We're all LocoFit shirt. All your bodybuilding shows, huh? Yep. How about the powerlifting meets that your hubby's done?

Yeah. If they're close, they come. Her and my dad are really supportive with all that. So they try to be cheerleaders for everything. So unfortunately, we don't have that many chicks on the show. And we need to get in a better routine of that. Because people are going to start to talk about us. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it doesn't help that we're always sweaty and you have your shirt off every time we hang out. I know, and we're always grabbing each other's butts and worse. I mean, and the rooms at the sign don't enter. Yeah, and that's when people are here, so you can imagine. Yeah, it gets to be pretty bad. But what I want to talk about today is I want to talk about nutrition and I want to talk about how, how does it differ? You know, like some people will say, oh, it doesn't matter.

And then you got like a lot of coaches for powerlifting and for bodybuilding. And I think it's just a blanket statement just so they don't have to do extra work. And they're like, oh, it's the same. You know, you do the same. You're going to do 12 sets of chest if you're a guy or a girl. And it's like, to me, a lot of that kind of thinking has never really made any sense. What are some of your thoughts on that? Well, I think that it's, I mean, nutrition particularly is so individualized. We're going to like focus on that um when bodybuilding started i would say that a lot of the people who got into it had very similar physiques right because there was only

like two divisions there was a male division and a female division and you kind of either like had that body type or you didn't really think about doing it i see right and it was just body and it was just bodybuilding and at that point when it all started like bodybuilding looked a lot more like figure does today but still like you were genetically you like you looked a certain way and then now that they've added all these divisions there's a lot more like figure does today. But still, like you were genetically like you looked a certain way. And then now that they've added all these divisions, there's a lot of different body types that are coming into the sport. So I think that we need a lot of different diets to handle that. So it's not just like eat chicken and rice and that works for you.

That may work for you. But like, for example, like for me with my clients, I coach people on a variety of different styles of dieting. Right. Like some people do keto. Some people do carb cycling. some people do, you know, low, lower fat, higher carb, other people do opposite. Some people do higher protein than lower protein. I mean, it just really just depends. Um, and then there's things of course, like meal timing, um, you know, I'm big on time restricted feeding. So like when you eat, like there's all these different variables. So when people say things like, oh, it just matters how many calories you have or like what your macros are, I think you're really missing the mark

for people who are just getting started, right? Like I wouldn't overwhelm them with all these details, but if you're stepping on stage to do a physique competition and you're trying to look your absolute best at like the most extreme level, I don't think it can just be like, yeah, it's just your macros. Like there are so many other things to it. And even if it is only 5%,

why wouldn't you want that 5% to be better? Now a standard, uh, diet to get on a stage, whether you're doing bikini figure bodybuilding or whether you're male or female, the conventional way of doing things, um, which is just what I've seen and what I see from the masses, doesn't necessarily mean it's right for everybody, but usually the fat content is low, the amount of protein that you take is high, and the amount of carbohydrates you take kind of is where maybe some more individual preferences might come in. And I'm sure the fat can be manipulated there too, because those are your two main energy sources, your fat and your carbs. Is that kind of what you've seen?

And is that some of the strategy that you utilize? So I would say that that's right. Like protein is generally on the higher end. And then you really can kind of play with carbs or fats. Now for most people, I find that a lower fat approach and more moderate carbs seems to do best, um, for body composition. But if you are somebody who doesn't respond as well to carbs, I find that people do better with lower, significantly lower carbs and a little bit higher fat. There's always going to be calorie restriction with a diet. Um, but I would say that you can't, most people don't do well with both. You kind of either need one or the other, like in certain amounts. Um, so for, and then one thing I will

say when I say low fat, um, some, some of these diet plans and whatever, you'll see people, then one thing I will say when I say low fat, um, some, some of these diet plans and whatever, you'll see people, you know, females eating 10 grams of fat for six months that run to the fucking Hills. If that's what your coach has you on, like that is not ever. Okay. Um, we just, I just mentioned this before we got on. I see that for females, the window of where fat should be is a little bit, um, it's just a little bit different than males. I find that you can drop males fats a little bit lower for a little bit longer without as many hormonal issues as maybe females. Um, 40 is really where I like to stop dropping fat for females and then really kind of hammer down on the carbs. Um, maybe drop it to like 35, like for the last, maybe like two

ish, three weeks if we have to. Um, but I'd much rather play around with carbs and cardio than anything else. There's also things like refeeds, which is typically, you know, you may increase fat a little bit, but it's usually a carb increase. And I find that if you're somebody who's doing a more, a lower to moderate fat approach and then a moderate to higher carb approach, that works really, really nice. Now there are some people who, for whatever reason, I mean, obviously genetics are a huge thing, respond better to fats. Um, I find that older clients respond better to lower carb, higher fat. Um, and again,

this is within the range of calorie restriction as well. And just like, you know, try to keep in mind of what we're talking about. We're talking in general terms. Yeah. And also keep in mind, I'm sure that you work with some international people as well, but for the most part, you're working with people that have first world problems, basically. They have the convenience of having food everywhere. And the insulting of the metabolism over an extended period of time from the time you were three until the time you're 53 is kind of what we're talking about and so uh for the older individual i mean there may be hormonal reasons like you literally just certain things may shut down at certain points, uh, testosterone and some of these

things. But I would also argue that if you had a lifetime of healthy habits, maybe you could prolong a lot of these things and you could, uh, outlast a lot of these problems, you know, but for the most part, we all grew up in households where we had a, an overabundance of food. We had, uh, you get rewarded you know good report card good this good that or parents are just you know they're just tired of you being annoying so they bring you for ice cream you know like just shut up and eat this ice cream yeah just you know you're just let's get everybody out of the house everybody calm down and food is very cultural and

social i mean that's just the way that i mean humans have evolved over millions of years is like food is a cultural and a social thing and it's you want to get together with friends and family and enjoy food and um that's probably one of the hardest parts i think with competition prep is the mindset of okay there is going to be restriction um during and you have to accept that, but you can still be a part of things, right? You do a really good job at this. Like you still have a family, you still run a business. You don't just say like, I'm doing a bodybuilding show. Everything else has to like, fuck off. No, you really do a really good job at that. Some people won't put

themselves in that situation. They really isolate themselves, but you have to understand going into it, there's going to be some restriction and you're just going to have to either work with it, like either bring your own food, you can order something or just don't eat. Afterwards is really the hard part because you've had this restriction, right? And then you've built up-

The aftermath. Oh, the after is way harder than the prep because you're working so hard towards this like high of a high goal and everybody knows that it's super challenging. And then as you've been dieting, obviously you're hungry and you're working so hard towards this like high of a high goal and everybody knows that it's super challenging and then as you've been dieting obviously you're hungry and you're talking to your friends and you want to go try this and you're like oh my god i can't wait to go eat that together and this and that and then the following weeks after develop a list yeah and uh the first few weeks after a show everybody wants to take you out everybody wants to go celebrate everybody

and and that's that's that's normal and you do that, but you also have to know when to celebrate modestly and then when to like reign it back in. And the celebrations can't keep happening in your pantry at 2am when nobody's around. And that's the hard part. Damn it. Yeah. Um, that's something I see, uh, very often is people are taking victory laps left and right, and they haven't really done anything yet. And you see it happen all the time. Um, and there's, there's just not enough, um, there's not enough, uh, like sacrifice being made to even get to some of these, uh, celebrations and that, that some of these things get to be very hard because as you're talking like socially, oh man, you're really missing out. You know, you hear people say all the time,

oh man, just, you know, let me just have a piece of cake with me, live a little. It's like, no, I don't want to live a little. I want to live a lot. And I want to live the way that I want to live on my terms in my way. And I don't want to get involved in your bullshit. I don't want to be fatter. I want to be better. Um, so it gets to be hard too, because it's like, no, but this is special cake made from grandma. And so there's these certain situations where it's like, you know what? Get the stick out of your ass. Stop being a jerk. Have the goddamn meatballs that your aunt made that she only makes once a year and if you choose to uh to have some restriction on it just have one or two you

know exactly but that's that's almost harder yeah oh it is way harder once you get the taste start then you're like you get the fuck it's and then you're like ah well i'll eat the whole a whole bowl of meatballs and then the big zd and then the cake and then the, yeah. So that's where the issues come in. And people mean really well, you know what I mean? Because they don't, they're not saying like, they're not trying to sabotage you. But it's the same thing.

You probably get this with work too. Like you work so much. You shouldn't work so much. Like, why are you doing this? Like, just like go on a vacation, just like relax. And it's the same thing with like the bodybuilding stuff. And people really underestimate how much it takes to be really successful i mean if you just want to be mediocre that's fine like for all intents and purposes get on stage and be like

average but if you want to be your absolute best you're gonna have to do a lot unless you are just like just off the charts genetically gifted which most people not. So if you want to be your best, which may not win, but your best, you're going to have to do a lot and sacrifice a lot, um, during and after even, and again, if you're looking at a competitive season, if you're looking to be a competitive athlete as something, whether it's powerlifting or bodybuilding or even like endurance sports, like there is an on and an off season. You can't just be on during the on season and then off during the off season. There's still a lot going on in the off season that you need to do. And that's different for every sport. It's extremely problematic. You know, bodybuilders bodybuild too much. Powerlifters powerlift too much. Lawyers are lawyering too much. And whoever,

whoever's doing these particular jobs, these doctors are, it could be an Uber driver for God's sakes. It doesn't matter what it is, but if you don't have the opportunity to get experience outside of that, then what are you doing? What are you learning? If you only read one book your entire life, that's what you know. If you've only been taught a handful of things and no one else ever taught you anything,

it doesn't mean that you're dumb. It doesn't mean that you're rude. It just means that you never learned anything else. And that, and that's what you see happening a lot. And with, when it comes to bodybuilding or, or powerlifting, you can do it so much and you can be so into it that it could be to your detriment.

As you're mentioning some of the females dieting too much. Maybe some of the men are guilty of going the other direction and saying, I'm going to be big. And they go from 235 to 295. And it's like, do we really need to be 295 in the off season probably not you know if we gained 15 pounds we gained 20 pounds yeah you probably have more reason to be a lot better off um what happens too i think with a lot of the competitive endeavors if you are a competitive person is you get you know you get this taste for it right and you get that especially with like i mean just competing you get this like really high high right? And you get that, especially with like, I mean, just competing,

you get this like really high, high. And then there is always subsequent lows afterwards. And it might be a small low or it might be like a really low low. And then what you think to get you out of that is that you need to do another event. And the really hard part with the- Addiction.

You just described addiction. Yeah, basically. And what's really hard, every show you do is a dopamine hit. You're like, oh, I'm just going to keep going. I need more. And then what's really bad with the physique competitions is typically what happens is people are, they have a very restrictive diet, and then they kind of fall off a little bit,

and then they maybe gain a little bit too much. And then this is, again, particularly females, which is who I deal with. And then they're like, oh, well, I got to diet again because I gained some weight. which is who I deal with. And then they're like, oh, well, I got to diet again because I gained some weight. Once you do that a few times, you're really not in a good spot, like mentally or physically. After a diet, like you are not in a good place hormonally, metabolically, mentally, like you need to, once you said your season's done, you need to be done, right? And you need to kind of move forward and have like a healthy off season. And if you just keep going back for this after you've gained a little bit of weight, try to pull it off, gain some more, try to pull it off and you keep

going up and down. That's when you start to see these huge issues and these girls who just compete nonstop for a few years and then you never hear about them again. And then, um, there could be some other things involved that have like really messed them up hormonally. Some of these girls are gaining like 30, 40 pounds and they're not big people to begin with. So that's an excessive amount of weight. And really fast. Um, and you just, you see this a lot and it's like heartbreaking, you know what I mean? Um, but really at the end of the day, I feel bad, but then you have to say, okay, you have to take personal responsibility for what you're doing. And me and Paul actually just did a long podcast on this because the new trend is to bash competing for like your problems.

Like competing ruined me. Competing ruined my metabolism. I gained all this weight. Look, you shouldn't do a show. Just love yourself how you are. No, no, no, no. Take some personal responsibility. Nobody was feeding you after the show.

You were the one who did that. Now, again, you're in a place that's not productive for like it's very conducive for weight gain after a show. Right. And I'm not discounting any hormonal issues, any mental issues, but you have to sort that out yourself. And the, the sport is not as a problem. You just had the whiplash of being a competitive athlete or something. Right. Um, and a lot of people who get into this, there's a low barrier to entry. So they may not have ever been athletes before. So they're like, Oh, let me just do something competitive. And then they get in and then it, they get hooked, you know, and

then they get hit after hit. I think what we're dealing with is you're trying to get to a peak state. And really what matters most is your average state because your peak state, you're in it for three weeks. You know, it's a small pocket that you ride out for a very small period of time. And even after 37 weeks of dieting, you end up with a couple of and a couple shots at an event. Yeah, and you can't live with that forever.

People want to keep that going. And I'm sure you get this, which I think also plays into the psychological issues, is that people really compliment you as you get leaner because it's very dramatic. The same thing as when you're getting stronger. When you're getting to the pinnacle of anything that you're trying to achieve, so say it's getting leaner, it's very dramatic. The same thing is when you're getting stronger, right? When you're getting to the pinnacle of anything that you're trying to achieve, right? So say it's getting leaner. It's very dramatic and people start noticing,

especially as you get like a lot leaner. And then they see your photos and they see you on stage and like everything's all peaked and like your abs and everything's perfect. And you get hit with all these positive comments. And some people who have, whether it's low self-esteem or they don't have anything else going on, they use that as like crutch and they're like oh well i can't if i stop competing and i gain a little bit of weight nobody's gonna say this anymore and then you see

it they live through these old photos on their instagram and it's just like this huge mess and there's so many issues that people like tie together with competing that can make it really negative experience but it can be so, so positive if you look at it in a completely different way. Why do you think people get so upset over, uh, weight gain or I was just watching a show the other day and the woman's like, uh, it took this picture of me and I had no idea I was this heavy and she was really upset, which I'm, I'm not saying that I don't sympathize. I'm just, I'm just asked, literally just asking you the question of why you feel this happens or you watch biggest loser and someone's crying. And it's like, um, literally this is a body of work for you. You ate excessive amounts

of food for a very long time and you did not take care of yourself. Um, I don't know how it would differ from not taking a shower and not brushing your teeth for a long time and going did not take care of yourself. I don't know how it would differ from not taking a shower and not brushing your teeth for a long time and going, holy cow, after 25 days of not taking a shower, not brushing my teeth, I have cavities and I smell really bad. And then you're shocked about it. And then could you imagine crying about it? Could you imagine that? Could you imagine being like, oh my God, I smell so bad.

I can't believe it. What do you, how do you, how do you think we get into this trap? I think it comes back down to personal responsibility and people don't want to have that uncomfortable conversation with themselves. It obviously starts somewhere, right? Like whether it was when you were younger, you ate a lot and you had maybe poor habits instilled with you, whatever, or you had a breakup and you started overeating, whatever. I've heard everything, right? And I totally, again, sympathize. Sometimes activity stops. A lot of people have got injured. Yeah, you get hurt. You start a certain medication. You get whatever it is, right?

But at the end of the day, you have to monitor yourself. Like, nobody's going to do that for you. Like, people mean well, right? But, like, you can tell somebody until they're blue in the face. Like, hey, you've been gaining a little bit of weight. Like, hey, have you showered? Like, hey, have you done whatever? And until're blue in the face like hey you've been getting a little bit of weight like hey have you showered like hey have you done whatever and until you want to do it until you want to change you're not going to so people really just don't want to have that uncomfortable conversation with themselves like i want to

get better i need to take personal responsibility for my actions and i mean that's the only thing that i can think of and in that moment probably hits them i mean like on the plane on the second flight over here today the whole ride the two people next to me it was a girl probably like 14 and then like a you know like maybe her mom or aunt or whatever the whole time they're eating pizza drinking soda eating candy bars cookies which mind you i was like oh man i really high. You guys know how to live. I'm really eyeing this up right now. But I also feel sad because you just want to have diabetes, I guess. Like this whole two-hour flight has just been like an insulin bomb the entire time. The girl could already be pre-diabetic, and that's why she's so hungry.

Oh, yeah. No, exactly. And I know what it's like. They think, oh, I just need a little something, you know, and they just kept pulling candy out of their back. And I'm like, this is never-ending. And so you just get caught up in that, and you get caught up in in you know whatever and it's you see it on the extreme ends too like my 600 pound life and and that kind of stuff right and um my my boyfriend's a firefighter and has had

to deal with situations like that at work and um one time that I I kid you not the the lady uh mind you the one guy almost broke his arm trying to get her out of the house because there was like six of them lifting this one person. And they got like shoved in a corner and whatnot. And she's like, I'm so uncomfortable. I need something to eat. I need snacks. Like you guys are starving me over here. And Brian was like, I'm just going to walk away right now before I say something that I probably shouldn't.

And like there's a huge disconnect. I think it's kind of like any like any extreme, right? Like an addict. You get to that place and you're not like, man, I really want to do all these drugs today. It just becomes part of your habit, right? The same thing happens with food. You don't realize it. But until you wake up and you have that conversation with yourself, like, am I who I want to be?

Am I working towards those goals? What am I doing here? You're never going to get out of it. Yeah. It's hard to, hard to make those changes. I know people get so, they get so wrapped up in their food. Um, I've heard people say, uh, you know, that they can't go see a movie without having food. They can't, they'll say that they can't do stuff. And it's like, um, well, um well i disagree um if someone was to give you ten thousand dollars cash you would probably figure out a way to not drink or eat anything during the duration of of the movie but it's just um it's a self-limiting belief too because you've always what you've always done right and you just don't think that you can break that habit right and i'm

i'm here to tell you guys that you can, and there's so many ways. Um, obviously you don't need to make it harder on yourself than necessary, right? Like if you're just, if you're in this place where you feel like you can't go to the movie without having a snack, I wouldn't say that you need to jump on a bodybuilder diet tomorrow, right? Like maybe take some other steps, you know, maybe have like a better snack right while you're there. And then maybe like eventually cut that out, you know, know just small steps but you need to understand that you really can do anything um i'm sure you're you know jocko and yeah all that so um i listened to um extreme ownership the audiobook while i listened to a lot of podcasts and uh videos and everything while i do cardio because i was doing a lot of cardio and i like blew through

the audiobook because i was you know doing a bunch of cardio and just when you're driving gets you fired up yeah your fired up. Yeah. Super fired up because I'm listening to, I'm like, Oh, I'm dying. I'm so tired today. I'm this, whatever.

And I'm listening to like, first the messages that they're saying, then the stories they're using to teach the message. And I'm like, I'm pathetic. I'm on the treadmill for an hour. This is nothing in comparison to like what people are actually doing. Right.

Um, and it's just all about a mindset. And it's what you chose to do. Yeah. That's another big thing, obviously. Um, with anything like bodybuilding. It's like I made the decision, I have a cushy enough life that I could come to the gym at one in the afternoon and do an hour of cardio. Yeah. And control starve myself for fun. Am I really bitching about this? And yeah, and I got access to food everywhere if I feel like not doing it or whatever right i think i think the

hard thing becomes strategy you know how do we the reason why you know something like the war on carbs exists the reason why a ketogenic diet exists is because the pendulum has swung so far one way um i'm actually a believer that we don't really need a particular diet. If we have taken the proper precautions throughout our entire life, we wouldn't really need a diet. We would just eat the things that are around us. However, we're in a different time, we're in a different world. There's a lot of convenient, yummy foods around us. And we have a real hard time with control.

So how do we build out some strategies? Let's start with the movies. Like what's a strategy? Do I just, you know, eat a nutritious meal beforehand? Do I try to sneak something in? Like what do you do when you go to the movies? So this is like, I've been doing this for so long. I honestly don't really snack during movies

just because, well well i'm usually dieting or i'm some i find that eating in front of a television or something she's gonna be like i chew on some gum and everybody listening is gonna be like what a bitch yeah i knew it actually fucking sugar-free gum god damn i'm not listening to the show anymore you know my favorite thing is this is my treat when you branch chain amino acids um No. You know those like the Coca-Cola machines, like the red ones? So they have Raspberry Powerade Zero, which they do not sell

in the bottles. So I will spend $6 on a drink. I don't care. And I sneak as many refills as possible for that shit. And that is like my treat

when we go to the movies. And usually, again, it's because I find that mindless eating, like, you know, your mind's already like like you know watch like your mind's already act like yeah I got you know being stimulated while you're watching a movie like do you really need to eat too like eat beforehand don't go in hungry obviously but if you know so

I would say that that's just like a like a willpower kind of thing and just breaking that habit the the most important thing that I see with strategy is people are not prepared. And I'm not saying that you have to go full bore, like Tupperware, you know, prep your meals a week out kind of a thing. But having a few things around prepped, even if it's one meal a day, is going to be exponentially better for your progress, right? Because usually what happens is people will kind of pick up something, you know, maybe like lackluster for breakfast, if anything, and then they maybe have like a shitty snack or like lunch and then they really overdo it at dinner. And then they're like, oh, well, I haven't really eaten all day. So then just munch and munch and munch and munch all night.

And that's very, very typical of what most people do. So I would say that having more structure to your like your meals and having some of it prepped. I mean, honestly honestly there's no excuse nowadays with amazing meal prep companies like icon meals like at the hotel i had them shipped here right their meals quality food you know taking into account with shipping and everything's about nine ten bucks a meal okay you're going to spend that eating out no matter what right um so there's really no excuse right like there's so many companies like that and then when you go places so i have to travel i travel a lot and i

will have to eat out even when i'm dieting and people will say oh i'm traveling i can't eat out or i'm i can't stay on my diet because i'm traveling no you just chose to not eat what you wanted to right i mean there's that all the literally, I did a show in Italy two years ago, that of all places, right? And I couldn't bring food because it was international. So I had to eat in Italy for like two days before the show and I made it work. Now I ate a lot of chicken and boiled potatoes and olive oil, but that's what I did. Right. And you just have to kind of make it work sometimes. Um, when you go out places, you have to have a strategy about what you're going to eat and every single restaurant has meat vegetables eggs i mean the most bare minimum if you're very very strict right and you can you ask for things people oh my god how do you ask for that

without oil i just ask them hey i could i have the you know you put it on the grill hey could i have the sirloin put it on the grill? Hey, could I have the sirloin? And they'll put it on the grill. Um, with, you know, medium rare, no oil, please. Okay. And then you can tell when it comes out, if it has oil on it, right? I went to a place one time and I asked them, you know, if they can make the salmon. Cause last time I went there, it was in some oil and it was delicious, but I said, yeah, can you cook it without the oil? And they're like, we're not sure how to do that. And I said, do you have an, I was like, do you have a grill? Cause you could just put it on a grill. And they're like, yep. I're like, we're not sure how to do that. And I said, do you have a grill? Because you could just put it on a grill.

And they're like, yep. I was like, just put it on the grill. They're like, will that work? Will it stick? I was like, no, it shouldn't stick. I cook it on my grill all the time. You could put aluminum foil down if you need to. You just have to ask a lot of times too, right?

Have a strategy. Like you can go out. Usually they're accommodating. Normally they're pretty nice. Just don't be a bitch. I mean, like, don't be like, oh, don't cook my food in oil, you piece of shit. I mean, you have to, like, be nice about it. You fat bastard. Yeah.

Like, you have to be a little bit, you know, nice and polite. Earlier this week, I ordered a baked chicken and broccoli from Spaghetti Factory. Okay. They came back twice. They're like, well, what about the marinara? I'm like, no, none. Stop. They came back twice. They're like, well, what about the marinara?

I'm like, no, none. They came back again, like, so where do you want the marinara? Is this covered in cheese? I'm not sure if I wrote your order down right. Yeah, I was like,

okay, fine, put the marinara on the side. You really want it. Yeah, I wish I didn't do that because I ended up eating the marinara. Damn it. I know.

You need to read extreme ownership, okay? God, get it together. But no, perfect example, somewhere that I love to eat when we travel is IHOP. Now, I would love to house some pancakes while I was at IHOP, right? That would be amazing. But you can order an egg white vegetable omelet, no oil.

You can order eggs on the side over easy poached. If you get poached eggs, you know that they're just literally cooked in water. If you are having like toast or something, you can ask for that dry. I mean, there's so many options. You can literally eat as low-calorie as possible. You just have to choose to do that. Like, yes, I would rather order the stack of the cupcake, confetti, whatever the hell they're called, delicious pancakes. Oh, yeah.

Too sweet. Don't get it with the icing. Without the icing, it's perfect. Yeah, the icing's overkill. You know, and I don't know if people haven't stepped foot into a uh grocery store in a long time but there's a lot of good options now oh my god everything's all cooked and prepped and cut up and everything i mean there's uh tons of vegetables uh obviously fruit is it you know fruit is like one of those things where you know it's not sometimes on maybe on a strict bodybuilding prep or whatever, but fruit should very easily fit into anyone's diet.

Even when I was doing a keto diet, I'd have fruit here and there. And you have so many options in terms of cheeses and meats and there's just, it might not be the most ideal thing, but it's a better choice than maybe something else you might have. It's all about where you're at to context is so important. You know, like if we're talking about, you know, like my mom or your mom's diet, that's going to be a lot different than like what we're doing to step on stage this weekend. Right. And that's super important to remember. Um, so even making like, I, I'm a coach and I compete myself and I, you know, coach people with macro diets. And obviously we change things as far, like I some people are keto some people are you know low fat some people are whatever it is but at the end of the day like that's a very niche population right I'm not suggesting that everybody

needs to do that like I would say that for most people don't you don't need a food scale like if you don't have one it's okay you know maybe that's like a step down the road but just let's start making better choices right watching how much you eat when you're eating you know like are you not eating all day and then just like overeating at night that's not really a good idea either there's so many ways of doing all this stuff i haven't i haven't written down one thing food wise this entire time i haven't now i have weighed some stuff but i did so in the beginning and I don't mess with it anymore. I don't count my calories. I'm not like, oh, I had 2650 today and 2700 yesterday.

First of all, I don't care. Secondly, the caloric, try to look it up. Try to look it up and tell me how many calories are in four ounces of cod. You can get 17 different answers. me how many ounces how many uh calories are in four ounces of cod you can get 17 different answers so it's impossible to even know with it within it with any accuracy really well especially when you get into like the packaged food stuff like a lot of people um well they have 50 percent they're allowed 50 leeway on their labels 50 50 percent so a lot of stuff like that's wild i try to you know promote whole foods and things like that you know not the store paycheck but whole foods when i write that on my phone it

autocorrects like capital w capital i'm like no not the circle r that's what i mean um that's because it's owned by amazon they're taking over the world just listening to me um so i you know having majority of your stuff come from whole foods and there is going to be a little bit less error with say jasmine rice than there might be with some like weird low calorie bullshit that you're like eating out of a package right um obviously i you know we'll eat stuff like that too um but for the most part keeping it simple and that's a really good message for a lot of people like hey just eat more simple foods like that's going to be most most likely better So the way that packaged foods work, especially like junk food, air quotes, is it's literally created to be like the perfect obesogenic food.

Like if you look at it calorie wise, it's about 50-50 calories, carbs and fats. So because fat is almost double, you'll see something that says maybe it's like nine grams of fat to 20 carbs for like a serving. That's like the perfect obesogenic food. Your brain has been wired over years and years of evolution to go, how do I get the most amount of calories for the least amount of work? Well, we have it sitting in all of our grocery stores, right? So you can't think that you're just going to override millions of years of evolution

when this is super tasty and it's super easy. Just to think about this for a second. Take some olive oil. Take a teaspoon of olive oil, extra virgin olive oil. And just, oh, John's seen it. He passed out. He's like, I don't want any extra virgin olive oil. Couldn't handle the virgin part of it.

He's going to hang out with Jesus. He lost his hat too. But, you know, have some extra virgin olive oil. Take a teaspoon of that right fucking disgusting burns the back of your throat really really bad right now take a piece of bread dip the bread in the extra virgin olive oil a little bit of salt yeah now add some salt to it and bread even though we don't recognize bread as being sweet bread has some sugar in it usually it usually has some sweetness to it and now we have a combination of things going off in our mouth

that are just it's like fireworks going off on your tongue and it's just fucking party going on there right and those are the kind of things that we're up against i mean as you do like a bodybuilding prep or anybody who has really uh tried examine their nutrition, when you go to eat something like spinach and you just eat it completely raw, if you try it a few times, you'll actually notice that the spinach, it's not disgusting. It actually has like a nutty flavor to it. Now, if you can figure out things to add to it that aren't going to mess up whatever diet plan you're on, well, now we're starting to get on the right track.

Maybe a little bit of lemon, maybe a little bit of olive oil, maybe a little bit of salt, maybe some salt and pepper. And you start to kind of mix and match things together. And somebody might say, I hate vegetables. Okay, well, so does most people. A lot of people hate vegetables. But maybe you start to mix them in on your plate with some meat and some other things that you like and maybe the vegetables only represent

20 or 15 percent of your meal at first just so you can get used to it do you need vegetables to have a long healthy life i don't know i don't know what the answer is there's there's studies that show either way there's studies that show good there's studies that show either way. There's studies that show good. There's studies that show that they're neutral. I've seen studies that show that kind of stuff. But it's important to recognize that they do have vitamins. They do have minerals. They do have potassium. They do have fiber.

These are all things that can help kind of clear things out for us. And also, if anything else, or if nothing else, it's a filler. Which is huge. And there's not a lot of calories in it. I'm basically a cauliflower, if you weren't aware. I've eaten so much cauliflower this prep, because it's probably the most versatile vegetable, because it's semi-flavorless, but it will take the flavor of really anything, and you can cook it up a lot of different ways. Yeah. i mean there are there's so many options to try and strategies i would say to to get started and really that's what it is is a lot of people have this mental block like i don't like healthy food what the hell does that

even mean like what is a healthy food like they're that's people really say that yeah all the time like and you're like so i had um i had some vitamin i had wild, I had wild planet chicken the other day. I opened it up and the person that was next to me here in the office was like, that smells like tuna. And I was like, I knew the answer. I was like, do you like tuna? They're like, no. And I'm like, I said, you have an allergic reaction to healthy food because this is chicken. And it doesn't smell anything remotely close to tuna.

And they were like, oh. I'm not going to lie. I just don't know about the sardine thing. Like that is like my limit. Yeah. I feel like of. Well. That's the company though, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Not too sure about that one. They're not bad. When it comes to, like, texture, when it comes to, like, you know, trying something fucking weird, like eating an eyeball or something,

yeah, it's different. I mean, you know, I mean, you're really kind of stretching when you're going for some of those foods. Yeah, Dom always, he's like, oh, I just love a can of sardines or two. I'm like, hmm, I don't know. They're tough to even look at.

I can eat them,, I don't know. They're tough to even look at. I can eat them, but I don't know. I try to look at some shit like this. Like, uh, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to do everything so hard, uh, that it's at the expense of having fun and, and, and doing other things. Like, I don't want to eat stuff that's disgusting. And I think that's a misconception. Like the foods that I'm eating right now, it's all stuff that I like eating. Just a couple of days ago, I got kind of tired of eating chicken and I took out, I took the rest of the chicken in my fridge and I threw it out. I'm like, I'm not eating chicken anymore. I'm done. I need to move on. And so I started eating more fish and I like fish. So, you know, you find things that you like and your food doesn't have to be gross.

Now, on a bodybuilding diet, things get to be weird. But for the most part, when you're just trying to be nutritious and you're just trying to be healthy. I feel like that's not even the same conversation. You know, like the bodybuilding stuff is so extreme at the end. Maybe not in the beginning. You know, I would say that it's maybe. Well, all of this is extreme to to most people right like just you know tracking your food and being super hyper aware of what you're eating for most of the time um but towards the end is when it really gets i would say it just kind of swings really really restrictive and that's just because the goal is really restrictive

kind of like a month too you know it's not forever you know it's not not well for some people it is like we talked about in the beginning if you don't stop and you don't take an off season then it can kind of become this weird forever of under eating overeating and then you kind of that's when it kind of gets real weird um but if you're doing a show and you're you know you're very restrictive um just calorically and just in general you're getting to a very lean body fat level like that's going to be pretty fucking hard right like if not you would walk around that lean all the time. That's what I try to explain to people. Like if the weight was just falling off of you,

like then that would be easy, but like that's probably not the case, right? So because it is so extreme afterwards, I would say that it is okay to like have a meal or two that's maybe more than you would normally have, right? Like after the show, like I just like to enjoy like a nice meal, you know, it depends if I have another show coming up or not

or, you know, whatever that might be but so people might look at that like oh my god you died all this time and then you have this like huge meal like that's kind of crazy and it's like well you have that and then you kind of move on and then you can't have that forever right um and that's that's where the issue becomes i think is people will get with regular you know non-competitors too they think it has to be so restrictive and then because they see whatever died in the newspaper or the today show or some magazine and then they do it for a few weeks and then they're like oh my god i can't do this anymore and that's setting yourself up for long-term failure like you're never going to be

successful if you're always trying to eat foods that you hate and you're always trying to do some weird workout class and you're always trying whatever that is you know like and again if you're doing a bodybuilding show there's gonna be parts that suck and you're gonna be you're gonna be aware of that going into it right okay i gotta do some stuff i don't really want to eat this chicken but you know maybe i have to or that's all i have right now or i'm really hungry but i gotta suck it up but when you're doing this for like a lifelong thing, there is no reason to absolutely hate every single part of it. Yes, there's gonna be parts that you don't like,

but if you swing it so far one way, then you're really gonna have issues afterwards because what happens after your diet? Like then what? Then you go back to what you were doing beforehand if it's so extreme. You need to build that into kind of your lifestyle and that should be the ultimate strategy

is like replacing bad habits with good habits and knowing when you can have some fun or cheat or whatever word you want to use with like food, alcohol, whatever your choice is or both, which is the most fun. But know how to have that in a more moderate amount. Right. Yeah. I was talking to somebody the other day and they were just saying they were just getting back into some training and they were just getting back and they just started walking and they wanted

to run and and then i asked them about well i asked them about lifting and they were like i don't really you know i haven't gotten into lifting yet i said well it's great that you got into walking and it's great that you're starting to diet i said those are two very powerful things um and I actually steered him away from running. I said, you know what? Running is great. And it has, it has, it can add a lot, but I'd rather see you lift once or twice a week. And the reason why is a lot of times when people are, I know the guy and I know him well. So, um, a lot of times when people are not fit and they're not in good shape and they start to go running out of nowhere and they're like, I'm going to run eight miles, they hurt themselves.

And then they have a negative, they got a negative reinforcement and they're like, damn, I hurt myself. You know, there I go. I hurt myself exercising again. You got that negative reinforcement to back everything up. I'll start the diet next week after this weekend's birthday party. And then next weekend is the barbecue. And there's always something. There's always something going on.

There is always an excuse to not start whatever you want to change. And that if you have a life that has at least any kind of like meaning to it, you know what I mean? Like you're going to be doing things, whether it's family, friends, travel, business, work, like self-development. There's always going to be something. I'm going to tell you something. You're not missing out. When you go to a barbecue and you only eat the steak and only eat some of the vegetables and you don't eat the Doritos, you are not missing out.

I was with my family one day. We all ate, but they were just kind of going hog wild the entire day um i had a steak some veggies did kind of my normal thing and i jetted on out of there and i went on like a walk and i was like i want to walk for like 10 minutes had some headphones on and i wasn't even i was not even paying attention and i was gone for like 40 minutes came back and guess what you were were okay. I was okay. I didn't die. And everybody was in the same exact spot.

They were just drunker. If that's a word. I didn't miss out on anything. I sat down. We all spent another hour together. We all hung out. We got in a hot tub. We messed around and had a good time.

And that was that. I didn't miss out on shit. The only thing I missed out on was a bunch of extra calories that i didn't want anyway because they're not going towards my goals and i think it's important to understand that sometimes that's fine you know what i mean like it's okay to do that every like once in a while to be a normal person if you enjoy that right like if you enjoy food and you enjoy drinking like have at it screw it i'm gonna sit here and i'm gonna eat a bunch of Doritos. Yeah.

Some days you just want to do that. I mean, but it tastes good. You have to know. It just really depends again on your goals and like what you're working towards. And if you have to have enough, you have to put yourself in the right position to do that that night and then move forward and get back on it. Right. Because that's usually the problem is when people lose momentum with one thing, then

they're like, oh, well, last night I had this. And then, well, now I kind of feel like shit today. So I'll just eat a shitty brunch and I'll just get back on it later. And then they just, they skip a meal because they're full and then they eat, you know, a bunch of snacks that night and they're like, oh shit, well now it's Saturday. Well, Sunday, whatever. I'll just, you know, I'll just start on Monday and it just kind of trickles. Right.

So you can, you can enjoy certain things'll just start on Monday. And it just kind of trickles. So you can enjoy certain things, again, depending on your goal. If you're doing a bodybuilding show, probably wouldn't suggest eating Doritos and getting really drunk. But you have to know how to reel it back in. And you have to have enough willpower and discipline and strategies in place to do that. And if you don't, then don't even go. Just don't even start there.

You know what I mean? Like, don't go down the rabbit hole and if you slipped up you don't need to necessarily punish yourself the next day but you can kind of work it off you know you use it as like a strengthening thing and say that's really going to help strengthen you know those peanut butter cups i ate last night it's going to help fuel my workout peanut butter cups are the best thing oh man man, they're so good. But when you go into the gym the next day, I mean, because you've been restricted and because you haven't been maybe eating some of the things that you really enjoy

and that you really love, you don't need to go in the gym the next day and say, I'm going to do two hours of cardio. You know, that's when you're going to start to develop some problems too. But just go in and say, you know what? I'm going to tear it up today. I have a lot of energy. I feel good. I ate'm gonna i'm gonna tear it up today i have a lot

of energy i feel good i ate a surplus of food yesterday and it's gonna be a good day it's gonna be a lot of fun and get in there and get your work done yeah there's so many ways to handle it but the worst thing to do is you know mess up a little bit and then just keep going down the rabbit hole and the rabbit hole and the rabbit hole and then each day gets worse and i've been there too you know like i'm not i'm not like preaching to people like, Oh, I've never eaten off plan or I've never, no, of course I have. You know what I mean? And once you get in that negative mindset, it's really easy to stay there, but you have to look at it as a learning experience. Like, okay, sit down with myself, wake up. Okay. What did I do last night? Right? Like,

how did I get there? What was the trigger? What did I do beforehand that maybe didn't set me up properly? What should I do afterwards? Like you have have to examine it you can't just sweep it under the rug and go oh well i just did that it'll be okay because it might not be because then it might come back again but twofold instead of maybe doritos and beer it was doritos beer and a bunch of reese cups and the next time it's also cake and then you know so you have to take control of the situation and go okay what did i do how did i mess up? What were the triggers? What was my environment like? And then, you know, learn from that and move forward. I want to point out that physiologically mammals, humans do not actually need carbohydrates. Is

that correct? Um, I don't feel like I'm as qualified. I mean, I, I know. Let's just, let's just put it this way. We don't need a lot of carbohydrates, no. Right. You're not going to die because of protein neogenesis or however you say that word. Gluconeogenesis. Gluconeogenesis. There we go.

Your body, you're not going to die if you do not eat carbohydrates. Whereas if you don't eat fat and you don't eat protein, it's not like you're going to necessarily just all of a sudden keel over. Because there's probably trace amounts in some of the foods that you eat. But over time, you're going to probably run into some real problems. If you're going to survive on any food, it would be something that's a combination of fat and protein. Right. And micronutrients. A.K.A. why people can survive on the carnivore diet.

Right. And seemingly be healthy. Now there could be other deficiencies, but if there's one food to pick, that would be it. And now there's trace carbohydrates in foods anyway, so it doesn't even really matter that we're at zero carbs,

but you can live a normal life on a very low carbohydrate diet unless there's some sort of weird, crazy circumstance. But for the most part, you can. Now, I've heard people say before that a keto diet works better for men. And I've heard some women say that a keto diet doesn't work for them. What have you seen in working with women? Do you feel that some of these statements are true, or do you feel that maybe women just need to do something slightly different with a diet like that?

So a lot of things, I've learned this over time, that a lot of things that people say about diets that maybe seem like they're not backed by anything or maybe they seem like bro science could actually be right, but the way that somebody's articulating it, they maybe don't understand why. So when people say keto works better for men, there is, well, first, women have a more emotional tie to things.

That's just a general statement. And that happens also with food. Yeah, just in general, women have a more emotional tie to food. Also, there is some research that I've seen that when you are in a calorie restriction, women have a much greater drop in leptin than men do. So the combination of being extra hungry and kind of mentally feeling unstable and then maybe having an emotional tie with food kind of is like the perfect storm.

Maybe this is part of the reason why, uh, a male and female might be watching TV and the guy hears something that somebody just says, Hey, you know, I stopped drinking soda and I lost 10 pounds. And then the guy does it and the girl does it and the guy loses 10 pounds and nothing happens for the woman. Is that, is that, is there there maybe something responsive like what's responsible for something like that you think well you'd have to really look at the adherence right um maybe the guy's having a ton of soda or something like that yeah the guy could be having more and he could

also i find that men are generally harder to convince of things but then once they've decided they go all in whereas women are quicker to say yes something, but are a little bit wishy-washy and maybe don't adhere as well. You hear that ladies? It's true. I mean, it's, I, I, I, I study this kind of stuff and I, you know, I try to be open-minded to this and I try to realize, okay, what are the issues with like, you know, men and women following diets and adherence? Cause that's everything, you know, dietary adherence. And, and it really is true Like, it's very hard to convince a male, typically, to do something that they don't want to do. But then once you do it, they're totally bought in.

Whereas a girl, you're like, oh, you can lose five pounds. She's like, okay, sign me up. And then she may do it a little bit, and then may kind of fall off. And there's all these different responses. Obviously, hormonally as well, women just have a lot more going on, I would say, that fluctuates than maybe men do. Women are generally smaller, obviously, have less muscle mass. So there's a lot of factors that are pinned against you to not lose weight and body fat as well as a male.

But I would generally say that a lot of it does come down to adherence um and and just commitment to it from what you've seen if a female does follow a ketogenic diet like a regular ketogenic diet where the fats are high you're eating eggs and bacon and things like that have you seen it work for women oh yeah i have clients on keto um i think like we kind of briefly spoke earlier um I think that keto is probably the best for maintenance and or calorie restriction. I do think that when you're in a surplus, particularly if it's a high surplus and you're trying to get in so many calories from fats that you maybe start having

just an excess of calories in general, things could get a little wonky. But I believe that to be true with any excess calories. I just, so I would just say that I think it's a little bit better with like maintenance and, um, restriction, whereas a more balanced approach seems to work a little bit better. In my experience with what I've seen with like a surplus, it's just kind of having carbs and fats. Um, but I do see that, like how i mentioned that kind of don't really like to drop below 40 or 35 ish for dieting i find that if you do have carbs in your diet like a decent amount

going over too much fat also doesn't work like you can't have you can't have both yeah some people yeah people listening to go oh i do of course there's always those assholes right who can eat anything they want all the carbs all the fats and they have a six pack. Most people are not that, right? So you have to be very careful when calories get high and then carbs and fats both start to creep up. Um, because then what I've started to see was, and I didn't understand what this was, you know, beforehand, um, with some insulin sensitivity issues. And I find that that just happens when you're in a chronic calorie surplus and you're just hammering the food, typically carbs and fats together. Um, and I've seen this where I've started to diet some clients and I'm just like, man, this is not coming off.

We're just dropping, we're dropping or dropping, nothing's happening. Um, and then this past, I would say year, me and Rye have gotten pretty interested in testing blood ketone, um, blood sugar. Um, if you're doing keto testing ketones is great is great. But just in general, kind of get a feel for where you're at. It's simple, just a glucometer. Just, hey, see where I'm at, just trending for like the week or the month. And I started to learn more about this. And two people who are really great, who are in the bodybuilding field, John Gorman and Jason Theobald, both put out awesome information. They've both been coaches for many years, intelligent guys, and they started talking about this too, like the same stuff I was seeing. You know, like we just thought our clients

hadn't had an off-season long enough, but really they just had insulin sensitivity issues. So I find that that can happen when you're just hammering the high calories for a while. And what they use, actually, is they'll do keto for a few weeks, like hardcore, and then

with clients, maybe like four to six weeks, and then add carbs back in, and they just start keto for a few weeks, like hardcore, and then with clients, maybe like four to six weeks, and then add carbs back in, and they just start dropping again. So you really have to kind of reset that, which is a whole, I guess, different topic and kind of a tangent from what you asked. But yes, I do have women do keto, and I do think that it works. You have to, I do also find that women enjoy carbs more than men do um i would say that when you think of like men typically seem to enjoy high protein high fat foods whereas women like generally just speaking or like i love peanut butter but give me all the carbs you know um and that you know on my questionnaire when you inquire as a client i ask what do you prefer carbs or fats and literally

that's like yeah the most difficult i, I wonder why that happened or how that happened. I don't know. I don't know that reason. I wish. Because, uh, like from a cultural standpoint, it's like, it doesn't actually really, it doesn't make sense from like a long time ago, like where somebody would drag a deer out of the woods and everybody would eat it and rejoice. And they'd maybe have that and some berries or something yeah um but it makes sense from a standpoint of uh the way i grew up where my mom was in the house my mom did all the shopping so maybe i mean a lot of people will be pissed at me about this but maybe because a lot of the women were home and that's what we grew up with for a long time maybe mom was buying the yogurts

and the cereals and the peanut butter jelly time maybe mom was buying the yogurts and the cereals and the peanut butter jelly sandwiches and the chips and the pretzels and this and that where you know dad was coming home and want a steak for dinner a steak and potatoes or something like that so i mean i it's just a hypothetical guess on on kind of why but a friend of mine mentioned that he he thinks part of the obesity epidemic is related to women going to work. And I've never heard anybody say anything like that. But if both parents are gone and the kids are left to their own decision-making

or they're left with a nanny or they're left with grandma. Grandma's always a pusher. If they're left with grandma, they're going to eat ice cream all day. You know what I mean? There's a ton of fascinating research actually just about the way that culture has changed over the past few decades with both male and female working, having a two-parent household versus a one-parent household. There is so much interesting research on that

and how that affects not only like your personality and how you like behave in society, but also how you eat. You know, I mean, there's so many factors. If both, you know, you have a single parent home and, you know, somebody's working a few jobs and they never see you, you're left to your own devices. You may or may not have a high income level.

Most likely you don't. There's just, there's limited options, right? There's so many like weird cascades of things maybe mom or dad picks up taco bell for you because that's all they can afford and that's all they have time for yeah maybe that but maybe also it's all they thought about you know they didn't plan ahead as we talked about yeah i mean if you're a single parent and you have three jobs and you have three kids and you don't have a lot of money you're not like how can i meal prep this week i mean mean, so there's a lot of issues.

It's so fascinating when you really dig into that kind of psychological and cultural stuff. But the one thing that carbs obviously do kind of spike chemicals in your brain that make you feel good and stuff. So I think that there could be a part of that with maybe the women having a more emotional response to the food and that tied to the carbs. That's the only hypothesis I could think of right um which is really like stretching when you get to training i heard you mentioning in the gym that you uh work out like the same body part like three times a week and it's very typical it's very normal for females to be able to handle more training volume and this is the kind of missing element in nutrition is the training sometimes. Ketogenic diets, even though I'm a fan of them, because I think it's the ultimate fatty

diet for people that have had a heart. And when I say fatty, I mean the person themselves. Like if you're a fat guy or a fat girl and you kind of always been, a ketogenic diet is going to work really well for you because in my opinion, it can help kill off the hunger hormone because you can utilize some intermittent fasting with that as well. You can utilize intermittent fasting for other things too. Well, it really makes it, it limits the options. The cycle of sugar. Yeah, that sugar cycle going off in your head of you getting those cravings for a lot of those foods.

It limits a lot of the options. Because most things, like we talked about, that are tasty are carbs and fats together. Right. People are like, oh, man, I want some carbs. I love donuts. I'm like, you know how much fat's in a donut? Along with the carbs. So really, it's all that together.

And when you kind of take that away, you know, when you say, hey, you can't have any carbs, people start taking away the kind of shit, right? You're not going to have the muffins anymore. You're not going to have the muffins anymore. You're not going to have the giant frappuccino craziness. You're not going to have maybe donuts. You're going to have a lot more limited options. And it's going to be easier to stick to that way because the problem, like we talked about with strategies, is it's very overwhelming for people. So when you say, hey, limit this, make sure you eat a good amount of that, they're like, oh, okay. And then the subsequent things happen.

You don't have as many cravings. You don't have as many up and downs. You kind of have a consistent energy. You just feel good. Right. And that's one of the huge advantages of a ketogenic diet. Now, in terms of training, it's not a great diet when it comes to working well with your training regimen.

And everyone asks me all the time, utilize the diet to get stronger. I'm like, no, it's not. Even in a surplus of calories, there's people who try to have testing and they try to show that it's not better. It's not better. A lot of those people aren't legitimate either,

so I'll leave it at that. Yeah, 100%. I agree and I know what you're saying. Sips tea. When it comes to... That's none of my business. None of your business. When it comes to starting to put carbohydrates back into the diet,

now if we're talking about the differences between a male and a female, and this is in general but from what i've seen powerlifting wise bodybuilding wise um women can women can just handle more i mean even work wise my wife can do like 10 or 20 things in a day and i can do like three and i'm fucking dead beat you know i'm tired well i also think it's different too with you have to look at like the total amount of things right like so I will typically hit most things twice a week, and then if it's a weak thing, I'll try to hit three times if I'm not super beat up

and injured. But my amount of work as far as weight goes, or is nowhere near what Ryan does. Our goals are very different. Of course you recover from the sets faster. The weights are a lot lighter.

Yeah. So it's all... I would say that there is... When you equate for that, I don't really know how different it is. Right? And again, I haven't done enough of the meta-analyses to know all of that. But I would say that most women are typically not lifting as heavy for as many, you know, sets and reps. But I do kind of see that with, if you're looking at like powerlifting, right?

There's just a frequency going on, I guess. Like if, you know, if you train something two or three times a week as opposed to like once. And then the guys are going to get, the guys are just going to be training totally differently. Their heart rate is going to shoot up through the roof and it's going to come back down. Whereas the female, their heart rate is not going to shoot through the roof, but it's going to go up. And it's going to stay there throughout the duration of the training session, which I don't even know. But it may burn off more carbohydrates. It may burn off more sugar.

So, yeah, there are definitely differences. I'm not nuanced enough in the literature to know the exact reasons um but i do know that yeah women can typically do a little bit more right um but on a i guess you would say smaller scale um but even at like the the top elite power lifting chicks they're doing a lot you know i mean they're they're pretty strong and they're hitting it very frequently um whereas yeah i know like i just feel like guys can go they can hit their i feel like what like guys can hit their top like weight and sets and everything like just harder and like and tap into that better i guess um and maybe that's a you know maybe not 100 yeah

because their nervous system is more in tune yeah like Like maybe not for the elite power lifting girls. I mean, I'm clearly not even on that realm of planet. A lot of, uh, just it's hard to say these things like just flat out, but a lot of women are neurologically inefficient. Uh, part of the reason why they're not as strong and part of the reason why they're not as fast. Uh, they can't just boom, tap into their nervous system out of nowhere. I feel like guys can do that so well. Yeah. I, Sometimes there are girls that can do that. You watch UFC and some of these girls, man, you know, in a heartbeat, they can knock you on your ass with a left hook or something. But typically you see that from men. You know, you don't normally see that from females.

And that could have been something, again, maybe evolutionarily that developed because that was necessary. Right. Right. Because the women weren't always the ones like hunting and like fending off bears and stuff right like i mean that's just the the reality of kind of you know and that's again another reason why you know women are generally more um like compassionate and empathetic and caring why because they have to raise children that's what they you know you have to do right like so there's all all these different reasons. If men weren't as disagreeable and confrontational,

then they wouldn't have been able to protect everybody in the tribe. That kind of stuff just trickles down over time and culture. Now into training we see it. Again, of course, there's plenty of men, I'm sure, who can't tap into their nervous system and are weak as shit and probably always will be. Then there's also women who are amazing strength athletes who are going to be in the ufc and you know all that kind of stuff which is that they do they do the us ufc i'm like not into that whole thing do they do ufc yeah women okay yeah oh i didn't know if it was like call something i'm like yeah they do they do a WWE, like, you know, like any kind of just really intensive sport like that. You know, there's just always going to be outliers.

When you're trying to select a diet, you know, you're going to want like, again, if you're somebody that has struggled or if somebody doesn't want to deal with meal prep and you don't want to mess around with all these things. Or if somebody doesn't want to deal with meal prep and you don't want to mess around with all these things. To me, again, a ketogenic diet allows for a little bit more flexibility. You don't have to go to the grocery store being able to roll through Starbucks. You get a coffee, you get some heavy cream. You can stop and get their protein box, eat some of the cheese, eat some of the eggs out of it. Hard-boiled eggs, by the way, are a great snack for anyone on any diet. And're very easy and convenient and now they're pre-made on the plane pre-made oh yeah it makes everyone get super excited even using a company like wild planet which has chicken salmon it's got these pre

uh canned things it might sound disgusting to you but they they taste great they work really well even you can get a high quality protein powder that tastes amazing. Yeah. It tastes great. There's literally, like you literally put it in a shaker. I mean, you can make it a bunch of other better ways,

but there's literally no excuse to not get. And I would say that as far as if people are trying to start and like, what should I do? Look at the airport. The airport's full, like the airport is full of junk, but the airport's actually full of good food too.

A lot better. There's tons of good food. So like I see like Fairlife milk now, like the airport is actually full of good food, too. A lot better. There's tons of good food. I see Fair Life Milk now, the higher protein milk. A cheese stick, yogurt. I mean, there's options. I mean, there's so many options. If people are starting out. Epic bars, those are great.

I haven't actually had those yet. Those are amazing. They're good? Yeah, they're really good. I would say that protein is definitely the most important thing to focus on that people really under-eat if they're, aware of what they're doing. And I would say that, you know, again, you don't need to like whip out your food scale every time you eat something, but eat protein at every meal three to four times a day, at least. I think that that's like a good recommendation. Um, how much,

obviously it's going to depend on your size, but just starting with that, Hey, have some protein at every single meal. You're going to be a lot more satiated. And then obviously it's going to have a lot more metabolic effects as well than, you know, carbs and fats. And even if you don't have time, you have time for a scoop of protein and water. And you can have that. And then a few hours later, have a meal. Well, and how about the old measuring of the protein should just be like the size of your hand or the size of your palm? I mean, just normal shit. Pretty simple.

It's really, really simple. And just trying to have that at every meal. I find that people really under-eat that. They're like, oh, I had protein. I had an egg. That's another grandma thing, right? That's my grandma. Oh, I'm so full.

I had an egg. And I'm like, grandma, you housed a banana and a bowl of cereal and orange juice. You couldn't have had two eggs? Like, no. And, you know, salad doesn't really count that much for your vegetables because we know that you only like that because it's loaded with dressing. Yeah. So if you get salad, which is great, if you have it with mostly vegetables and a little bit of dressing, um, but you really have to monitor that. I mean,

those are the easy things. So when people try to eat out, I try to say, let's just get like steamed veggies instead. Like usually that's easier than trying to get a salad because you got to like, you know, worry about that. You'd actually be surprised if you throw some vinegar, balsamic vinegar, not balsamic vinaigrette, but balsamic vinegar. Sometimes even lemon, sometimes even salsa. I mean, you throw some of these things on a salad, it actually makes it taste pretty good. You throw some of these things on a salad, it actually makes it taste pretty good. And the funny thing is you're not even going to understand how a lot of these things taste because you've been drowning them in Thousand Island dressing and ranch dressing for so many years. So that doesn't even sound good to me.

No. That sounds awful. Sounds gross. I mean, give me some peanut butter cups, but like the Thousand Island dressing, you can have that. Yeah. That's been my problem with like trying to eat vegetables because what he was talking about people saying i hate vegetables i am those people that's you but um like just recently i just started eating a bell pepper for breakfast like just plain not just a bell pepper but it's kind of interesting no no

with you know with like eggs and you know and whatnot but just a plain bell pepper is really good yeah like i never would have thought of it but just put some salt and pepper on that bitch and yeah but instead i'm trying to like dice it up and fry it with other things to kind of hide the taste but it's like shit like i didn't even know what a bell pepper tasted like by itself and it's really good yeah i think there's a lot more people like you shocked too if you if you tried that with like arugula or if you tried that with spinach and you just ate it by itself it actually tastes good um kale in a protein shake it tastes yeah you can't i don't know i don't know why because kale's not good by itself but it tastes pretty good in a protein shake yeah you really can't taste it i

mean just don't look if you like don't want to see that if they shake screen yeah that could kind of freak people out it adds like an apple-y taste to it almost yeah apparently you can put cauliflower in shakes too cauliflower is the most versatile vegetable. If you guys haven't gotten that out of this podcast. Yeah. Make rice out of it and everything. Why do you guys think people get so offended when you do decline their food?

Like I get it all the time from like family. It's like, no, I cannot eat that right now. It's like, are you too good for it? I think that obviously is a can be a cultural thing um and it stems from people putting work into it it would be like if somebody i guess gave you a gift and you were like oh i don't want that right now they'd be like oh i guess you hate it you think this is ugly right it would be kind of the same thing um because food to a lot of people is like art and like their work and they're pouring in their heart into that you know um

obviously some cultures are more into that than others um i would like obviously like italian like that's like you know it's very offensive if you don't want to like eat their food um but you just have to so i deal with this question a lot um with clients like hey my family or my friends or you know colleagues whatever like the pressure is on to like eat and like how do i not give in yeah and what i generally find is that if you explain to people what you're doing and why you're doing it they're more likely to understand when you just say like no no i can't have that or like no i can't do this or no i can't they just think that you're like bailing on them or they just think that you're trying to be rude but if you say like hey have a real conversation like listen this is what i'm trying

to do you know whether it's i'm trying to lose 10 pounds for real i'm trying to step on this stage i'm trying to win this power lift to me whatever it is you explain to them like this is part of me doing this and getting better then they're usually okay okay. People don't want to, you know, if they don't understand what you're doing, they're not going to get behind it. So I find that it's really, really helpful to have that conversation. Like, this is what I'm doing. And this is how I, this is just one of the ways I have to do it. And then afterwards, generally speaking, they're pretty supportive. They'll be like, oh, do you have to eat this today? Or like, you know, or, uh, you know, we don don't have to we can go here because like you can

eat this right or you know people become supportive um but you just have to explain it to them because you always tell people you have explosive diarrhea everyone kind of already knows that about me by now but you're like hey last time uh yeah yeah i don't want to have to clean up your bathroom again um but no that's awesome because that was my next question. I was like, yeah, how do we let people down softly? Because I genuinely feel like I'm nervous when I have my food with me when I take it to a family function. So I'm like, fuck, what are these people? What's someone going to say next? And I'll be honest, it's just kind of like when people say, oh, I'm scared to go to the gym because people are watching me.

Nobody fucking cares. Just being straight up. Most people aren't watching you at the gym right like there might be like one guy who's like trying to film you if you're like doing something stupid right for the most part people are just focusing on their own goals doing their own thing your family you may be internalizing or your friends or whoever you may be internalizing that they think that it's weird or that they think that it's like oh why is he doing this but they're really not and again if you just have the conversation and explain to them hey this is why i'm doing this i would love your support to get behind this if if you don't like it then

that's fine i'm still going to keep working towards this um but you just have to a lot of times we just create these things in our heads absolutely far worse than they really are i mean we're all guilty of that for everything oh Oh, yeah. Especially with the food thing. Yeah. Yeah, for the most part, you know, you can also eat before you get there and somebody can say, hey, like, you know, we're going to, even when you sit down and eat and just say, I'm just, you know, I'm not hungry. But like she's saying, if you explain your goal and you explain what you're doing and you said, look,

I just want to be in better shape. I work out all the time. I work out really hard., I just want to be in better shape. I work out all the time. I work out really hard. And I just want to like see the results from that. I want to see what I can do in the next few weeks. Probably won't do this all the time. You know, you kind of sell it like that. Probably won't do this all the time.

Like at Christmas, you're going to see me like going nuts on whatever food we have. But I'm just trying something a little different. I want to see what I can do with myself. And most people aren't going to be like, pfft. A couple people might, you know, poo-poo it because they're scared because they don't want to kind of make the jump themselves. But some people might just ask you more questions. They might be like, hey, that's actually kind of cool. Like, I should be doing that.

Yeah, how did you get, and then like a few months they see you're like, oh, how did you get like, you know, whatever. And then, you know, perfect example. like oh how did you get like you know whatever and then um you know for perfect example so a few weeks ago before a show i did i was in vegas with it was a client show and you know we went out afterwards like you know they everybody you know got for like the post-show meal and whatever and i'm excited to be there for my clients and i started peaking that weekend people were like how are you here i'm like how would i not? First of all, one of my clients turned pro. I was like, I would have shot myself in the face if I wasn't here to like be a part of that. You know what I mean?

And I'm a coach first and foremost. You know what I mean? I'm here to support my clients and I can be somewhere and still be like doing things. Right. And then we go out and of course it was like this like fancy burger place with like crazy shakes. And obviously like I wanted that, but I ordered water and got some pickles. Um, and I, you know, not like i wanted that but i ordered water and got some pickles um and i you know not like i wanted that yeah but you just you're a part of it and you enjoy it and everybody you know they're like oh i know you wish you could eat this but like we

totally get like and obviously i was with other competitors so they totally understand but it's you know you just have to you can be a part of things and be doing it differently you know you're sacrificing for something in the future, which is exciting. Yeah, and it's... Any goal... You have a commitment. Why is that up there? Squirrel?

That's our show. Oh, my God. I just wanted to bring it up so you guys can talk about it. I still think this is the funniest thing that we're doing the same show. I don't think it's that funny. It's pretty ironic. Yeah. I know.

Yeah, I think... Yeah, I mean, mine was weird just because Honey kind of picked it for me. Just a local show, and it's kind of a smaller show, and that's kind of why he wanted me to do it. Oh, it is? And so, boom. There I am. I'm in it. You're going to be on the poster next year?

Is that the plan? I hope not. I hope not. For the love of God. But I'm bigger than that guy, I think. Yeah. Got him by a few LBs at least, right? Just a few. Never mind.

Because you saw him take his shorts off in the middle of nowhere. I mean, things got pretty intense in the workout. Pose in session. Any advice for after the show for Mark? off in the middle of nowhere. I mean, that was, things got pretty intense in the workout. Just pose in session. Yeah. Any advice for after the show for Mark? Especially like, literally like,

right after the show. Right after the show. Baby wipes. Yeah, what do we got? First, shower. Because you'll want to get the nasty ass tan off of you. Oh, yeah.

Put on some deodorant because you won't have worn that for like a whole day. So that's pretty gross also. Really? Yeah, you can't wear deodorant. I don't know if they told you that. Like, I'm not kidding.

Don't put it on. Your armpits will turn green. Oh. And it's very, it like bleeds out. Like, you'll have green armpits. It's very obvious. So once you shower on Friday.

I didn't get around to even shaving my armpits but they're not very hairy. No, you don't have to shave them. Oh, okay. I mean, you can if you want but actually, I don't know if that them. I mean, you can if you want. Actually, I don't know if that's a thing.

Whatever. It's fine. Yeah, once you shower Friday, and then if you're going to shave certain areas, shave. And then you go into the tan. You have no deodorant on, and you can't wear any. And then the day of the show, they're also tanning you. And then they're going to glaze you, and you're going to be sweating. It's going to be really kind of gross.

It's very unglamorous. Everybody smells really good on stage. Oh, yeah. Under the lights. Yeah, it's awesome. So first things first, shower, deodorant. For the actual show, do I need like lip balm or something? Everybody said your face is going to crack apart.

I would say that that's probably just, well, some people dehydrate super heavy, so that could be part of it. And then just in general, like standing under like hot lights and like smiling and like doing, you know, like you're not used to that. You're going to feel like your whole face is shaking. I mean, maybe not. Maybe you're not going to smile. You're going to blue steal it. I don't know.

But if you're generally, there's going to be a lot of, I say the word anxiety, but it's an exciting anxiety. You're just going to feel like this rush before you go on. So you're going to feel like your whole body's like just hyped up and nobody's really going to notice. But like sometimes you're like, oh my God, my whole face was like going crazy. Right. And everybody's like, no, you were fine.

But I would say the lip cracking is probably a few of who have really dehydrated, which I would not recommend if you're doing a competition. Especially with your first show. Take it easy. Yeah. yeah i mean have some fun if you're not ready dehydrating is not going to help yeah so um all the all the diuretics in the world are not going to help you if you're fat just being honest um and then after the show uh well after the show you have to watch me do finals because we're after you so that's after the shower then you can watch finals um and then i don't know go out to eat and like do the whole like post-show thing with like your family and i'll be out of there i'll be out of there yeah

i'll be getting the hell out of there as soon as i see like oh yeah yeah no like yeah don't hang around but go you know go have like enjoy a a meal. I don't know. Have you been craving anything? No, there hasn't been anything. It's weird because you deprive so much of stuff. All I really care about is just a cheeseburger. I don't even really care that much about that. But I'm going to eat.

There's going to be a group of people. It's just kind of fun. Have a glass, like have a glass of wine or like whatever you want and just kind of like celebrate. But definitely shower and deodorant first would be like the number one tip. So that people want to hang out with me. Yeah. Otherwise, you're going to be going to eat by yourself. Anyway, yeah, it'd be fun. It's going to be fun to do this show with you.

I know. I can't wait. And we have to find a good spot for afterwards. How can people, you know, get a hold of you? How can people get help from you? And you have your own podcast. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You're giving out information all the time. Yeah. So I co-host two podcasts. One is Redefine Healthy Radio, and that's with Paul Ravella. And then the other one is The Unglamorous Life, and that's with Celeste Bunn.

So they're both pretty fun. And sometimes, you know, sometimes it's just us and then sometimes it's us and guests. Um, we just have a really good time with it. So that would be the two podcasts. Um, my website is just my name, laurenconlon.com. All my social media is at Lauren Conlon. It's Lauren with an I. So if you spell it right, you will find everything. Very cool. Any other questions over there, buddy? That's all I got. All right. Well that it was uh lauren conlon we had a good time and uh excited to hit up this bodybuilding show thank you guys for watching strength is never weakness weakness never strength see you later