Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1210: How to Eat to Lose Fat & Build Muscle With Jason Phillips

Episode Date: January 20, 2020

In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin speak with Jason Phillips about all things nutrition when it comes to losing fat, building muscle and avoiding diet pitfalls. Is it possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time? (5:58) Which should you focus on first? (11:49) How the physical follows the physiological. (15:12) Why you can’t implement a shitty diet and get results. Teaching a connection-based model for successful coaches. (17:20) Reverse vs recovery diets: Debating the two different schools of thought. (23:17) The value and dark side of cheat meals. (27:24) What is better for fat loss, low carb or low-fat diet? (31:55) Training fighters, weight cutting and the delicate balance involved. (37:28) Protein 101: The value, proper intake, why context matters & MORE. (43:21) What is the RIGHT approach to building muscle and bulking? (53:01) What are the ideal carb sources for his athletes? Ideal protein sources? (57:14) Getting the ‘itch’ to get back into the game training clients. (1:04:47) The problem is not knowing enough, but focusing on the human being. (1:08:18) How did NCI come to be and how have they evolved? (1:09:40) What is his feeling of potentially having national standards on coaches? (1:12:53) Special discount for Mind Pump listeners ONLY!! Impact over everything! (1:14:15) Featured Guest/People Mentioned Jason Phillips (@jasonphillipsisnutrition)  Instagram Coach Scott Abel (@coachscottabel)  Instagram Luke Sanders (@coolhandmma)  Instagram Andy Galpin (@drandygalpin)  Instagram Ben Pakulski (@bpakfitness)  Instagram George Kittle (@gkittle46)  Instagram Dan Henry - Entrepreneur (@danhenry)  Instagram   Related Links/Products Mentioned January Promotion: MAPS HIIT ½ off! **Code “HIIT50” at checkout** NCI x Mind Pump Media – Level 1 Certification Are you a Mind Pump Listener? Get NCI’s Top Selling Thyroid MASTERCLASS…for free! Study estimates that half of US adults will be obese by 2030 Mind Pump 664: Jason Phillips The Myth of Optimal Protein Intake - Mind Pump Muscle Intelligence Podcast: 082 – Talking Training, Nutrition, and Hard Work with Bodybuilding Legend Milos Sarcev Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of MIND Pump, we wanted to talk all about nutrition in regards to fat loss, muscle building, nutrition for performance and athletes. And so we brought on our good friend, Jason Phillips. He's actually one of our favorite people to talk about when it comes to nutrition and macros.

He's the founder of the Nutritional Coaching Institute. The dude really knows this stuff. His certification course is one of the best for online fitness coaches that we we found ever. And this guy communicates it very, very well. He knows because of his experience working with lots of people now, as when he was younger, he himself suffered from body image issues like anorexia recovered. And then really that drove him to really learn how to apply nutrition the right way. And he personally has worked with big time athletes, UFC fighters, WWE wrestlers, fitness

celebrities, and a lot of everyday people. And of course, I told you, he is the founder of NCI. They are what we consider to be one of the premier online nutrition court coaching courses that you can find anywhere. Now, in this episode, we talked about a few different things. We talked about refeeding, you know, what that means, yo-yo dieting, fat hyperplasia, this is when you actually add fat cells.

We talked about the value and the bad side of cheat meals. We talked about training fighters, fat versus carbs. You know, it's two main ways people like to diet, either lowering fat or lowering carbs. We talk about the pluses and minuses there. Talk about protein. When is it appropriate to lower protein? Is high protein always a good thing?

Ideal carb sources, we talk about that. We mentioned even ideal protein sources. So we think you're gonna love this episode. Now I also wanna let you know that March 21st of this year, Mind Pump headquarters will be hosting a level one nutrition coaching specialist certification from NCI, so it's gonna be here in our headquarters. And you're gonna love this.

So before we start the episode, we were talking to Jason and we convinced him to give us a phenomenal discounted hookup for mind pump listeners only. And we went back and forth and I think we might have pushed him a little bit, but we got what we wanted. So check this out. If you go to ncimindpump.com you're going to get a full 70% off.

All of the certifications, some massive, massive discount. Again, if you're a fitness trainer, a coach, especially if you work with people online, we find this certification to be one of the most valuable ones you can get for nutrition. Now before the episode starts, I also wanna let you know that maps hit is 50% off. Now, hit stands for high intensity interval training that's H-I-I-T. Now, this style of training has had a lot of press

in the last 10 years because studies show hit style training to burn more body fat in shorter periods of time. So they'll have studies that'll compare like a 20 minute hit session to a 60 minute traditional workout session. And the hit workout will burn as much or more body fat. So it's pretty crazy, got popular really, really fast.

Now unfortunately when things get popular in the fitness space, you start to get a lot of bad information as well. So there's a lot of hit workouts out there that are terrible, terribly written, programmed, high risks of injury, the workouts aren't programmed with, you know, trying to preserve muscle as one of the number one goals. So we set out to create a hit program that was done the right way. We wrote Maps Hit. So this is a phenomenal workout.

It utilizes the concept of high-intensity level training, but it's done the right way. We've included three levels in this program, so you can be a beginner, intermediate, or advanced. Of course, every exercise is shown on video. We tell you how to do it the right way. We write everything out in a blueprint for you. So you get everything that you need to follow. The most effective, hit style workout,

you'll find anywhere for maximum fat loss in the shortest period of time. And that program's 50% off. Here's how you get the discount. Go to mapshit.coms. That's M-A-P-S-H-I-I-T dot com and use the code hit 50. That's H-I-I-T five zero no space for the discount. What do you want to talk about?

Well, I was thinking we covered that topic up there. How to lose fat and build muscle. I think most of the questions we get surrounding nutrition are around those two things right there. And maybe we can kind of break down how somebody can figure this out for themselves. You know, everything from macros, calories, and programming. Programming, low carb versus low fat, you know what the differences between the two that kind of stuff. Would you say this is one of the number one things you get asked for? I definitely think so. I mean I think it's fat losses, I think it's a multi-billion dollar industry for a reason. Yeah. I mean when you

look at the stats, I actually had them on like a webinar. It did recently. It was like a six billion dollar or there's like six billion overweight people in the world. And then there's like several million that are classified as obese. So I mean, like when we look at stats in the country, it's fucking. Yeah. And in the US, I think we've already hit a majority overweight in 40% obese. So you're looking at almost half of the whole country is considered obese.

Yeah, I share that graph that by 2030, they predict that if we stay on the same trend, that over 50% will be considered obese. Yeah. Now, first thing I'd like to maybe tackle with this, Jason, is the whole, you know, changing, you know, losing fat and building muscle at the same time. Right. This is like the super goal, like the ultimate goal, right? How possible is this?

What does this look like? What is a diet that does this? How many people do you know that have done this? So, I mean, I, before, so I know we're gonna get flamed, right? And there's gonna be all the, there's gonna be all the marketers in the world that are gonna come to me and they're gonna be like, Jason's wrong, but, you know, if you can show me peer reviewed

studies that I'm wrong, I'll gladly admit that I am. But you know, just simple science, to lose weight or to lose body thought, you need to be in a calorie deficit, to gain lean tissue, you need to be in a calorie surplus. I mean, physiology hasn't changed. The only exception that I really ever see to the rule is a really low training age. I'll even tack on to that completely off the wall training stimulus, a low training age in a new stimulus. Somebody that is an experienced bodybuilder or they've done high-perturty style or global gymsyle training for quite some time, right? And all of a sudden they go to CrossFit.

Like the volume completely changes, like the metabolic stimulus changes, like I've actually seen some recomp there. Well, they're getting the same benefits that we talk about a lot in the show, and the debate or the argument that I'd have with you is that we're, I think you're alluding to right now, is kind of that those beginner lucky results results that everybody kind of gets like the newbie games. Exactly, the newbie games. You could be, if you come in, you've never really weight-trained before in your life, and you come in the gym, and your goal, too, is fat loss. So, let's say your main goal, I want to lose 30 pounds of fat, but your method of doing so, you've

listened to mind-bump you know, that building muscle or lifting weights is the most ideal way. So you start lifting weights. What happens a lot of times, even in a caloric deficit, is because this person's never touched any weights, they also build a little bit of muscle on them. I think you have to have a really, really loud muscle building signal and a very, very responsive adaptation process at the same time. And so that usually happens with beginners, with a lot of novelty, right?

So new, new stimulus, and, or hormonus stimulus, like anabolic steroids. Otherwise, it's really hard because building muscle is hard to begin with, try building muscle while eating low enough calories to also lose body fat. It's just, it seems to be kind of competing. So I don't want to use the word like optimized, but like what you just described,

I also think comes back to, but I would say like for a client having them at like a homeostatic balance, or having them at homeostasis, right? And I think that when we look at this, we look at fat loss, we look at muscle building in general, so many people are already doing it from a compromise state,

like think of all the different things they've tried, all the potential metabolic adaptations from the things that they've tried. So they've tried keto, they've tried carnivore, they've tried fasting, and they've gone extreme calorie deficit, extreme calorie deficit, extreme calorie deficit. And now, even if they got on an appropriate macro plan,

they're so metabolically adapted, they're not going to adapt the same way as somebody who has tried nothing, who has no hormonal issues, has no internal physiological issues. They're working closer from homeostatic balance, and therefore the results are going to happen faster. But to your point, Sal,

I used to get, I was so hated on the CrossFit world in the beginning before I got loved by the CrossFit world, right? But I was one of the ones that came in in the beginning and I said, fuck paleo. And I was like, this is ridiculous that you guys think paleo is actually going to work long term in this extreme setting. Or it's ideal, right? Yeah. It's just because it works for some people, doesn't it? But it didn't work. And that's the like so what Sal saying is is a hundred percent true like people were seeing results despite what they were doing not because of what they were doing. And so like you said when you go in the CrossFit gym and the first time I went

to a CrossFit gym, I had never barbell snatched. I had never clean and jerked right. I had never front squatted like I didn't even have the fucking mobility to get in a front rack. And so sure, perfect. You know, two and a half, three months in, I can front squat 400 pounds because I could back squat 500 at that time, right? So like ratio wise, it worked out. I could all of a sudden power clean,

AKA reverse curl, you know, 255. I could somehow heave 150 pounds over my head and try to, you know, overhead squat it. And those weren't because of anything I was doing, nutrition wise or recovery wise or performance wise. That's just exposure to the movements. So when I used to give seminars, I would say you could achieve the same results

in your first eight to nine months of CrossFit on Paleo, on Fasting, on Keto, on High Carb, on LowCorp. But I would also go so far as to say, you could achieve the same results on 500 calories or 5,000 calories. And I always reference that as a neurological adaptation phase. You're just creating neurological adaptations. You're learning the movements, right?

It's all brain. It's all connection in your brain. But at some point, you have to begin physically adapting. And when you start physically adapting, you require fuel and recovery. Like you have to have the proper fuel substrates for the stimulus that you're providing to your body. Well, when you're trying to add tissue, that requires a certain amount of energy. Absolutely.

Now, I'll argue that neurological adaptations also require energy, but not nearly to the same extent. Yeah. I don't think you could go in with zero calories, but I think that your average on I mean, we live in an obese world, right? It's an extreme outage. D-trained person. I really like I see people that don't eat until dinner and they're like, I'm fucking

PRing everything. And they would be like, it's gotta be paleo. Well, no, actually, you started eating whole foods. Like you have less inflammation and you have exposure to new movements. Yeah, and you just started working out. Exactly. So, okay, so let's say someone says, I wanna build muscle and burn body fat

and you're saying, look, under most circumstances in most situations, probably not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen at the same time. What should they focus on first? If I wanna lose fat and build muscle, which one should I aim for first? So I'm a big believer and like your body's most efficient in like the 8% to 12% body fat range, right?

So if you're coming to me and you're shredded and you're 6%, right? Hey, I hope you don't want to lose fat, but listen, like anyone that heard our first podcast, I started as an anorexic, so I get it. You know, but like your average anyone that heard our first podcast, I started as an anorexic, so I get it. But like your average person that's coming to you, if they're in that like eight to 12% and they're actually like tracking macros, I'd say, hey, like assuming you don't want to

look a certain way on a beach or you don't have any physical things coming up, cool, like we could jump into that. Most people are going to be outside of that scope. They're going to be in the 13, 14, 15, probably 20% and higher. I'm gonna advise that you actually get healthy and get your body fat under control and carrying around excess body fat. There's a host of health issues coming with that, right?

I mean, increased inflammation, then we start looking at the quality of your sleep, then we look at gut health, and then we just start going down the rabbit hole of all the things that that's causing in the body. So now, I know what that looks like for me. I'm curious to what how you do it. So share how I would do that because I agree.

It's like the first week I'm having them track all their foods and I can see what it looks like. And so, and I actually don't reduce calories, right? I think a lot of people think you're gonna be careful of not to. Especially when you start getting rid of shitty food, that's super calorie dense. Like now I wanna make sure I replace it with a food

that is also nutritious, but then I know that that's probably gonna be a lot less calories too. So yeah, my goal is actually to kind of keep them the same caloricly and just start to make healthier, better choices that's going to serve their body more. Healthy. I think we have to look at it too. So one of the things we were talking about off the air

before we started is I always live inside of nutritional periodization. Like that's my big thing. And I think 99.9% of people that come to me want to lose fat first. But a lot of people have done such extreme things that they've almost, I don't wanna say this in like the wrong way, but I wanna say in a way

that it comes across. They've almost lost the right to loose fat. They've become so metabolically adapted. They, their mental issues with food, like their relationship with food, the way that they handle dieting, the process in general. If I allow them to undertake those things, I'm only going to do them more harm than good.

Now, you know, Sal, to go to your point, we could look at the physique and we could say, hey, maybe it is proper for them to lose fat first and then gain muscle, but if I get to know the person and I see where this is going and I know I'm setting them up for disaster, I can't ethically as a coach do that. Yeah. You know, I talk in the certifications,

I talk that my results with a client are defined 10 years from now, not 10 weeks from now. And if I didn't give you the tools to be successful for the next decade, I failed you as a coach. And so really like the legacy in everything of Jason Phillips will be written 10 years from now. It won't be written in 10 weeks or 10 months, right? It's going to be written in 10 years. Did I have the impact on the industry that I want to have and did I have the impact on the 10,000 people that I've helped?

Did I really actually help them or did I give them a bandaid like the rest of the assholes in the end? What are some of those questions that you're going to ask that client coming in first in terms of like being able to evaluate what needs to be addressed and finding that homeostasis is where you can even get there.

Sure, so I mean, I think everybody in our space looks at nutrition and training in general, purely physical. And I always say that the physical follow is the physiological. Right, so you're not gonna create physical change without physiology being super dialed in. And so I love to look at things like biofeedback, right? I mean, we could start with just a simple list of questions.

How's your sleep, how's your energy, how's your mood, how's your focus, how's your sex drive. And we could start there, right? And all of a sudden, you're talking to a male, he's 27, he's got no sex drive. Like, clearly that's a problem. You know, that's a sign testosterone levels are probably low.

Like, we can't 100% create correlation, but we can draw some clinical correlation and at least go down the rabbit hole of investigating testosterone. And we all know if testosterone levels are sub-adequate, well good luck losing fat and good luck gaining results. Then you also can probably assume that he's maybe on the end of not getting very good quality sleep also as we know how much that affects that. Or it could just like, let's be honest, as a 27 year old male, if your testosterone levels

are sub-adequate, you know, or sub-optimal, something happened, right? Either you've got a pituitary issue, either you were born like hypo-ganadal, or you did something to trigger like hypo-ganadism, right? And so now I need to do like a lifestyle investigation. Is there anorexia in your past? Is there depression in your past?

Is there overtraining in your past? Is there a lack of sleep? Are you abusing your body? Are you constantly on alcohol and drugs? Like what are the things that you didn't put in your intake that you actually need to tell me so that we can have a real working relationship? Like I'm not here to judge.

You wanna do drugs, dope, like do drugs, like that's one you. I'm not going to recommend it. I don't think it's great. Like, but I need to know it, but I need to fucking know it. Right. If I'm going to put together a diet and a program with competitors. Yeah. If they were on steroids, you got to fucking know they're on steroids.

Yeah. Like, it kind of changes how you prescribe. Yeah. So, and how important are these conversations in training successful or working with clients successfully? Because I noticed through the people that you coach, the trainers that take your courses, they come out and they place more of an emphasis on communicating these things than other courses. How important do you think that is versus what's your goal, let's find what your metabolic rate is, here's your calories,

it's figure out proteins, fats, carbs, what works best for you. How important is the other stuff that you were just talking about? I would say it's probably the most important. I mean, listen, when looking at fat loss and muscle gain, the diet itself is most important. Like, you can't implement a shitty diet and expect results.

You also can't have a perfect diet and not implement it and expect results, right? And unfortunately, what I saw, like when I came to the space, was there's a lot of people not getting results, but there's a lot of really intelligent people in the world, like a lot of really good, like, you know, they knew biology, they knew metabolism, they knew physiology, they knew strength training, yet their clients still weren't getting results.

And so, what you referenced, the coaches that go through our stuff, I teach what I call a connection-based model. And I came in and I was like, man, it has nothing to do with the fact that your macros are wrong. Because when's the last time you actually fucking hit them? And they're like, oh, it's probably been a week or two, because stress, or I stress eight, or I missed my macros, or I got caught out. And it's like, oh, it's probably been a week or two because, you know, stress or I stress eight or I missed my macros or I got caught out and it's like cool So a really good coach

Doesn't just prescribe macros a really good coach has to understand these things And it goes back to like, okay, well, what's first do we lose fat or do we build muscle? Well, are you even in the lifestyle position to start losing fat? Like do you know what it takes to to get to super low levels of body fat? I think a lot of people underestimate, you know, there's so much sexy marketing right now around. And actually, I saw a really good post on Instagram yesterday. I forget who it was. It was like Jeremy Mullins or something and he talked it like he got this dude who was pretty overweight. I mean, he was at least 26270, and he got him shredded to the bone. And he was like, this shit's hard. Like anybody that tells you it's not, it's completely full

of shit. And I think that a lot of people have to be ready for a journey where there is some sacrifice. And there is. But to get there can take a while, like, actually, I noticed that I'd say probably eight or nine out of ten clients that I'd work with, the easier strategy. And when I say easier, I mean, the strategy strategy, and when I say easier, I mean that the strategy was most successful, okay? The most successful strategy was rather than restricting food with actually add food. So they'd come and see me and they'd say, okay, you're not eating vegetables. Let's have you start eating more vegetables. Okay,

your protein intake is low. Don't change anything else about your diet, but I want you to hit this protein goal. And then through that, they would naturally change the other parts of their diet as well. Well, by proxy, right? Like, what are you doing? You're increasing satiety and now, of something they want less of the shit. And so, you know, it makes sense

and that all goes back to, you're a good coach, right? Like, you're, we could all sit here and we're all of the same level of intelligence and like, we all see the industry at the same way. And we all understand how to build a right diet, the proper diet. And we could all come to that same conclusion. But the reason our clients are successful isn't because we came to that conclusion. It's what you just said.

It's how do you walk them there. I always say in physique transformation, it's like a Mount Everest analogy. The pinnacle of Everest is macros. It has to be. Quantity matters the end. Anybody that says otherwise completely full of shit. That doesn't mean that you're going to. Yeah, you just, you can't. If you're trying to achieve optimal physique transformation,

you'd damn well better have, you better know what your quantity of intake is. The end, that being said, when you better know what your quantity of intake is, the end. That being said, like when you look at Mount Everest in the real world, like you don't go to the pinnacle of Mount Everest and fucking stay there. And I don't really believe that every single person should be tracking macros the rest of their life or should be like held to that extreme the rest of their life. And so like what happens when you go summit Everest, you get a Sherpo, they lead you up,

and they also fucking lead you down, right? There's checkpoints on the way up. And when you get there, cool, like you take your picture, you play your flag, you do the damn thing, but they're not like, hey, motherfucker, see you later, right? There's like, there's a way down from this that's not gonna kill you. And I think so many coaches are getting people,

they're like, well, I'm gonna live at the pinnacle. I'm gonna just talk about the pinnacle. I'm gonna talk about the pinnacle. I'm gonna just talk about the pinnacle. I'm gonna talk about quantity control. And now I'm gonna get sexy because the industry's changing. And I'm gonna talk about quality too. But I'm still gonna live inside this pinnacle. And what most people need is they need the journey to that pinnacle. They need to experience the pinnacle.

And then they also need to experience the journey down. And there might be multiple journeys inside of this fat loss and muscle gain kind of like paradigm that we're talking about. And that might be multiple journeys inside of this fat loss and muscle gain kind of like paradigm that we're talking about. And that's life long. You're talking about life long success within this rather than short term intense. Well, I think there's an application to short term too. I think that if we could use physique competition, but we could use any kind of fat loss. I think that I'm a big believer every dose of stress requires a dose of recovery. And if you're putting somebody in a prolonged calorie deficit

10, 12, 18 weeks, that's a large dose of stress. There has to be a large dose of recovery that comes on the back end of that. And so, I talk about a periodized model, that large dose of stress we could call that season or active pursuit of goals. You have to bring yourself back to a homeostatic balance, right?

Like, if we did blood work after an 18 week diet, we're gonna see suboptimal thyroid function, right? It might be subclinical, it might not be clinically deficient, but we are absolutely going to see a change. We're gonna see changes in the HPA axis. So in that postseason phase, we need to bring people back to a homeostatic balance. Now, what are your next set of goals, right? We can have an off season, So in that postseason phase, we need to bring people back to a homeostatic balance.

Now, what are your next set of goals? Right? We can have an offseason, we can talk about building muscle, we can talk about whatever. And then whatever that next pursuit is, we can jump into that active pursuit of goals. Now, what does that look like? You did 10 weeks of being in a calorie deficit, you want to come out of it? You just come out of it? I think that there's two really big schools of thought right now

and they're clashing hard. Oh really? And I'm not taking sides, man, because I tell us I want to hear this too. I go back to the individual website. Well, you know, there's the reverse diet of the world, where it's like, hey, you know, and it's a pretty standard protocol, right?

Come out of your diet, add 20-ish percent calories and then add small increments. And then there's the recovery diet crowd where it's like, you know, fuck that, that's too slow. You're spending way too much time, suboptimal, hormone, suboptimal thyroid. You need to add a significant amount of calories. You need to get over the mental shit of looking in the mirror and you just need to accept the fact that you're going gonna add some body fat pretty quickly and get it back up now. There's some people that are well equipped with that and from physiology I can I can understand sure I can make the case for both people I think I think it would depend on the person. It has to depend on the individual that's why I said I'm not gonna take sides the wrong the wrong person on either side like for example the slow backing out right the wrong person

For that would be the person that's obsessed with their body. They're so obsessed with looking a certain way and they're afraid They're afraid to get out of the super shredded condition that could be a problem and in the reverse diet And I would I would argue that I I chose one way out of body building I would not guide another client the same way I did That's because I had a discipline because I surged right back. So I gave myself a good solid week of very high calorie post being deprived for so long because I knew I needed it, but I also had the mental awareness and discipline to know what the fuck I was doing and then go switch back down to a more balanced, closer to where

my calorie maintenance certainly was. The wrong person to go into the other option, which is the strong recovery, would be the person that has a tendency to binge, that has a tendency to just go off the rails where it's on or off, type of deal. Now, there are studies that show that really, really high amounts of calories

post being in a calorie deficit, improves or increases your body's ability to store body fat, as if your body is trying to capture capture or improve its ability to capture fat, you know, it's funny in bodybuilding for, this is something that's happened for, as long as I can remember, bodybuilders that would diet and bulk, diet and bulk, diet and bulk, they started to come into shows. Soft and soft. It was harder and harder to get lean, and it may be because they were adding fat cells.

Yeah, then that's what I was going to say. It becomes hyperplasia, right? Like, it's, you're no longer just getting bigger fat cells. You're getting more fat cells. Yeah. Because of this yo-yo. I remember, um, do you guys remember Scott Abel? Yeah. Like, okay. So Scott Abel, like, one of the, he used to say, like, you can starve yourself and like, it's one of the worst things you can do. But the single worst thing you can do is yo-yo diet. It's like, that will lead to more long-term disaster. And when he said it, I didn't understand context. Like, I mean, I was young in a game, but I always thought he was pretty ahead

of the bodybuilding world with his knowledge. And so I studied a lot of his stuff. And as I've really understood more, and exactly like you were talking about, adding more fat cells, I always go back to that statement from him. And really, if you want a mimic evolution, yeah, I'm sure humans went through periods

of feast and famine, but it wasn't famine, that was 12 weeks and then feast, that was 12 weeks. Well, it wasn't famine and then feast for like two days, like extreme and then sustain indeed. That's it. It was probably like one day of, we got a hunt, let's eat all this food so they overfed for a day or two

and they were right back down and on. Which by the way, when we look at physiology, it's actually a good thing. It works great. When we start looking at refeeds or periodic overfeeding or periodic diet breaks, that should actually work. The problem is now we live in a world where it's very easy to go find that feast.

That's it. And this is the reason why for most clients, I never recommended that come out of a calorie deficit all at once. It was mainly because of the psychological piece because you're already in a deficit, you start to come out. As soon as you start your extra calories, your appetite, it's ramped the hell up. You already feel like you've been restricting yourself.

So psychologically speaking, you feel like the chains are off of you. And then you just go overboard. And then it's this heavy, bolder going down a hill. It's very, it's very versatile. Where do you stand, Jason, on cheat meals? Like, define a cheat meal, right? Because I have a polyamorous diet. They're in there cheating.

Don't define it. I think that the industry connotation of a cheat meal is like, hey, on Sunday night, you're gonna go just completely gorge yourself and eat whatever you want. And I just think that's irresponsible to ever tell a client like, hey, there's no limitations and you can do it every one. And I think that if you're setting someone else,

if you're setting someone up for that, like you're irresponsible with the rest of your approach. Honestly, the emphasis on the cheat meal is indifferent. It's what you're doing the other six and a half days that completely needs to be changed. Like, I'll reference Scott again, right? He had a diet called the cycle diet and it was basically starved your asshole for six days

and literally eat whatever you want for a day. Like, and he would, he had like a forum and I was like active on it and he would have crazy people, gaining like 18 pounds a day. And he would, he had like a forum and I was like active on it and he would have like crazy people, gaining like 18 pounds a day. And so I did the diet. And like, so you know what it takes to get to like shredded glute status. I walked around with shredded glutes. Like day to day, like I was fucking peeled. I had Just stretching chairs with your credit glue. But I had no sex drive, and it was the emotional part was what fucked me up. I didn't care about training anymore. I really had no interest in life.

All I thought about was like, man, what am I going to eat on this? That's just it, man. It's a psychological piece because when you have an all-out day and you ever observe, of course you have, you've worked with tons of clients. When you observe somebody who's going through that period of like, oh, it's an all-out day, I can eat whatever I want. The binge mentality is not about the food, actually. Not even the behavior of what that promotes.

You're not even enjoying the food. You're trying to get it now. It's about the food it hasn't even gotten your mouth yet. That's the first reason. That's where I was trying to get, like when you say, define a cheat meal, do I think that the act of allowing somebody to eat without any sort of mindfulness or restriction is a bad thing inherently I don't like I honestly don't think it's the end of the world. I just like to. But I think if somebody's

really desiring that you need to take a step back and look at like what is the overall protocol that you're giving them that's asking for that now. Are you asking me in a competition prep setting or are you asking me in like real life setting? Cause it's a top prep setting. Listen, you're the one that decided to get on a stage in very little clothing and you need to look a certain way. And by the way, you're telling the world that I'm the one doing your diet.

So, sorry, you're gonna be a little bit restricted. But if you're just here and you're saying, I wanna lose some weight and this is a lifelong thing and we're genuinely trying to create transformation and again, I'll reference the 10 years versus 10 weeks. Like if I'm setting you up to where you feel like you need that, I'm fucking up, not you. Well, the name itself, cheat day, implies you're doing something wrong.

Dead Nation. Yeah, exactly. But like to your point, do I think that having a surplus day of calories, no, it's actually great and smart thing to do. Yeah. And I do that with any clients that I have in a caloric deficit, especially when I'm running them on a caloric deficit for weeks at a time. I will insert a high calorie day.

I'll say, hey, Friday, you know, because we've been running now for four days in a row of, you know, 1700 calories, I want you to have between 22 and 2500 calories. So, and I'll give that as a goal, you know? I think I'm, and I'm super neurotic, like when I work with clients, and I only work with a handful of clients anymore. I'll literally, when they're six to eight weeks out from whatever their peak is, like if it's a physique show or like, dude, I'm looking at pictures and weight every day. And I'm calling these audibles, like what you're show or like dude I'm looking at pictures and weight every day and I'm calling these audibles like what you're just describing like I'm looking and I'm like right you're a little flat We can push a little harder and like so I'm working with a WWE guy right now and for the first time

I can't say who because what I'm gonna tell you but for the first time looks like he's gonna make the main card on WrestleMania which is a huge accomplishment Yeah, right? I was just a a grave digger, but that's the other takeer. The other takeer. I did work with his wife this year. Oh, no way. Yeah, I love that game. But no, it looks like he's actually Bailey from WWE lives up here.

And we were going to connect later today. I just started working with her. Oh, we're cool. But yeah, I mean, but with him, the same deal, as it gets closer, we're looking every day. And I'm calling that audible, right? But I mean, that's such a neuroses, and so then we got to take a step back, and it's like, all right, what is the personality of this individual that's taking on this endeavor? Well, here, along those lines, I think this is a good question to ask.

And we know that one thing that all diets that cause you to lose weight, having common, is that they're all lower calories than you're burning. That's what they all have to be, regardless of the... Now, there's always been this debate, it's been around for a long time. What's better for fat loss, low carb or low fat? Now, both same calories, not stuff, ultimately up to the individual, my question is this, how do you determine, or how do you help the client determine if they're going to do better with a lower calorie low fat diet versus a low carb low calorie diet?

So there's a lot to be considered here and I think this is where, in my opinion, the industry is still fucking up, but from a science perspective, right? Pure reviewed research, it says, assuming calories are controlled for properly and assuming proteins controlled for properly, the ratio of carbs to fat is indifferent when it comes to fat. Doesn't matter. Like, that's what science tells us now. On a physiological level, doesn't matter.

Correct. Now, that's assuming, and I have to look at what the control variables were, and assume like, there's no adaptations, there's no histories, like, I don't know what the training stressor or life stressor was, but that to me is what's overlooked. We're looking so myopically at the diet that we're now taking out all the other things that go into building a diet.

What is life stress like? What is previous dietary attempts and stressors look like? What is your training stimulus? We could look at just an everyday person and draw two extreme examples. We could have a stay-at-home house mom, very low stress, right? She doesn't even have kids, stay-at-home wife. And she's like, I just get to chill,

I get to go run up my husband's credit card, and life is fucking gold, right? Zero stress. She would be just fine on a low carb diet, right? There's no need for that carbohydrate. There's no extreme sympathetic response. She's probably not doing super intense weight training. And even if she is that dose of intensity, that sympathetic response that you're going to get, it's really not that it's negligible in the

grand scheme of things. Now, we look at that completely different. We say, okay, that same person is a Fortune 500 CEO, and they go to work every day, and they're in the fucking fire, from six in the morning until 11 p.m., and they're putting out fires, and they're responsible for all sorts of money, and they're basically living in their sympathetic nervous system all day. Well, I would argue they should be a slightly higher carbohydrate diet, right?

Because what's gonna happen, like we know, and this goes back to when, I'm gonna say the words car back loading, but like when that whole thing was completely bastardized, right? And the whole premise of it was, well, you wake up with elevated cortisol and elevated growth hormone. And so if you don't eat carbohydrates

and you don't create an insulin spike, you're gonna keep carbohydrates, or you're gonna keep that cortisol hot, right? Cortisol is a catabolic hormone, it's non-selective, so it will break down some fat tissue in conjunction with muscle tissue. Well, so if you eat your protein, it's non-selective, so it will break down some fat tissue in conjunction with muscle tissue. Well, so if you eat your protein, it'll offset that muscle breakdown and now it's going to have this environment for fat loss.

That was the premise of it. But if we look at that, we apply it to this super high sympathetic nervous system state and cortisol is already through the roof, and now you're not having any carbs to create that insulin spike to potentially shut off that cortisol in the morning, then you walk in an environment, cortisol continues to shoot up all day, then you go in a training environment, you train with an extreme amount of stress, right, and you go like balls to the wall, you fucking do crossfit or some stupid shit, right. All of a sudden, now you're creating an environment where if you don't have carbohydrates, you are asking even in an adequate caloric state to start messing with the HPA access. Because you don't have, because carbohydrates will raise insulin a little bit

and that insulin is inversely related with cortisol, right? So insulin goes up, cortisol goes down. So if you're a high, so what you're saying is you have clients that want a burn body fat, the high stress ones typically do better with more carbs, the low stress ones typically do better with more carbs, the low stress ones typically do better with low carb.

I also think there's value too to assessing stool, hair, hormones, and then knowing what foods correlate with that the most, right? What does that come back to though? Exactly, it's something that's so interesting. Right, right, right. And or knowing that, okay, I know that this person based off of these things that I'm getting from feedback from them, maybe deficient. And I know that this is a fat. I need to get more

fat in their diet. So that person, I would definitely not recommend a lower fat, higher carbohydrate diet because of those reasons. So I think that gets brought into a count also, right? And sometimes, too, you know, I've noticed this, and I've noticed this with clients, I've also noticed this with myself, when I am stressed, I do tend to crave more carbohydrates. Now the problem is when I eat them, I tend to want more of them.

And so then there's that factor too. What are your trigger foods? And maybe low carb works better for you because carbohydrates make you want to eat. Well, I mean, maybe it's not, maybe it's not low car, maybe now you're messing with carb timing. Okay, good idea.

So now maybe, now maybe we're optimizing carbon take. So if you're 200 grams, you might have to have 50 grams pre-workout, 50 intro, 50 posts, and then 50 before bed. So you don't have, right? Like you don't have the option. That's why you don't have,

you're not gonna eat a bunch. You're not gonna get up in the middle of the night and if you do, like, that's a whole another set of problems that we can do address. Yeah. So I do think there's ways to circumvent that, but like, when I start looking at the physiological adaptations, because again, I believe the physical follows,

the physiological, and so if I'm setting you up to physiologically fail, then physically we're not going to be able to create what you want. And we could use an extreme example too, like a UFC fighter. Like, you know, I worked with, like I had three knockouts last year, which was awesome, right? Like three people that I work with. And ultimately, like when they're in their hydration, it's gonna matter most,

like the ability to rehydrate, but the ability to make weight on the scale is, eh, that whole industry is fucking it up. Is it insane? It's absurd. The shit that would come my way. Is it a real game trying to be able to maintain like whatever weight that they're at, you know, going into the weight?

Or this last, so I worked with Luke Sanders when he knocked out Hen and Brawl last year, right? And that was, those are big deal because he had just come off a cut. Those are third camp together. And right before that, he had worked with perfecting athletes who is the ones that like Yoana hates because that's when she got knocked out by Rose.

Right? And I remember actually Andy Galpin was texting me as Luke was going through it because I've been friends with him for a long time. He's like, your boy's getting fucked over. Like he's just kind of like, he's hurting. Like and then the next night he fought. And whatever they do in terms of rehydration

It was terrible because he got clipped with like a looping punch that probably wouldn't knock down He lost out and it fucking sent him down and the ref called the fight and it was a shitty lost for him He shouldn't have lost that guy. I'm sure that guy's probably lost his contract by now looks way better than that and Like so we did it and so this last one was great, right? We worked with the UMet Josh Cuthbert. Josh did the strength and conditioning for him. I did the way, and then neuroforce one in Scottsdale did some of his conditioning. And it was beautiful, but neuroforce came to me like three weeks out, and they're like,

hey, don't you think his weight's a little high? And I'm like, no. I'm like, I need Luke training at the same weight as he's going to be in the cage. And he likes to fight at 54, he has to weigh in at 35. And so I keep him as close to like 52 to 54 as I can, and then the last three weeks I'll start bringing him down. But this was the first time I was able to go

to his strength coaches and his conditioning people and say, hey, listen, I'm gonna bring his carbohydrates down for two to three days. I need you to back the fuck off the training intensity. Because if they're ready to put their foot on the gas and I'm ready to pull my foot off, that's a real bad feeling. It's a recipe for disaster, but these fighters,

they don't know any better. They're trained to fucking run through a great fall. Right? So all of a sudden, their strength was like, more, more, like getting the sweat suit, like run, run, and it's like, no, like go fucking slow. Now they took the rehydrating with the IVs. They took that out. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it's made weight cutting a little safer. You still, just nature of the industry man, like somebody, you know, gets knocked out of a fight like two weeks out and they're like, they call someone and they're like, hey, can you make weight? Well, hey, can you make weight? Well, yeah, you can make weight. Like, you can suffer it.

If people saw some of the shit that happens, they'd be blown away. Well, I've seen guys, these 20 pounds. Yeah, I've seen people lose 20 pounds in one day. Yeah, in a summer. One day? Yeah. No way. Dude, we purposefully.

And so you could probably do it, it would kill you, but you could do it. Yeah, you could do it easy. So, you're sweating, you're not drinking, it would kill you, but you could do it. You could do it. Yeah, you could do it easy. So you're sweating, you're not drinking, you're pissing, you're talking to somebody who's manipulated, wait like crazy, and know that I could gain 20 in a day, but the problem with it is like a lot of these idiot people

that come into the space that think, oh wait, cutting is super simple. They look at like water, my off the, like water in, water out, right? Not what I'm doing, you're only waiting for that. Not a long term for this person. Well yeah, but there's four ways to like water in water out, right? Not what I'm doing. You only want to get that long term for this person. Well, yeah, but there's four ways to manipulate water in the body too.

Like, you don't have to just go start sweating, right? There's four different, like, I mean, there's four pathways that I use. Yeah, I use, I use total intake, I use carbohydrate, I use total water intake, I use electrolytes, and then I use sweat. And if you do it right, like this last camp dude, we cut in 90 minutes, we cut

seven pounds the night before the fight in 90 minutes. And 30 90 minutes. 90 minutes. Wow. Wow. That's great. I mean, the fucking week was, I mean, the stars a lot. But he's you figure for every carbohydrate, your body, for every three grams of carbs, your body holds on to three ounces of water. It's every gram of carbs is 2.7 water. Right. So if you've, if you've done, if you've actually done a really good job of keeping it's water up high and it's carbohydrate and take it well good, I used to be able to move my weight like that because I would keep it really good and healthy

all the way so then when I wanted to throttle down that last week, I can make just a few adjustments and it removes like that for sure. So we're certain 10 days out, right? Like we're water loading, we're shutting off a dostron, we're shutting off 88, right? Then we're moving carbs, like we pull the carbs're shutting off a dostron, we're shutting off 88, right? Then we're moving carbs, like we pull the carbs out because when a dostron 88 or shut off,

you're not reabsorbing, right? You're not reabsorbing water. So now you then you pull the carbs out, right? You pull the carbs out, there's no water reabsorption. So when the carbs are out, any water they were holding moves with it, that's the initial drop, right? Then you still got the super high water, now we remove the electrolytes, right? So any sodium that was holding the water, now more waters out. Then like now we remove the electrolytes, right? So any sodium that was holding the water, now more water's out. Then like last, like the day before,

we bring the water out, like Audosteron ADH are still out, so you're not reabsorbing, but nothing's coming in, so now you're dropping more water. And then finally, because you're fucking hydrated, right? Like your body, you know, you're, you still had water coming in, so you still have water to sweat out, you'll crack instantly in the sauna.

So if you ever watch those guys, like they're rubbing sweet sweat everywhere. They can't, they can't sweat. They can't crack. And it's because they cut their fucking water 48 to 72 hours out. And it's like, you ain't got no fucking water in you to move. Like you've sent signals to your body not to sweat

for natural survival. No, danger status to you. You're going to a sauna and not sweat. I don't care how much Abilene you got the shit Ain't coming out now What does that stuff do by the way? What is that that man? I wish I knew the mech Can't be good. I know that like you rub it on especially when you're already you're sending a Conflicting signal internally to your body saying don't fucking sweat exactly you're trying to rub the shit

Well, I mean ask the bikini girls they fucking rub it on their abs like every day. And then they put the little waist trainer on and they look how much water it can fall. Is mine pumped not helping? Are we not, we haven't made that much space. Not getting better at all. They're not listening. They're obviously thinking of our bullshit and something. Oh my god.

That's the face. Now, the one macro nutrient that seems to be consistent regardless of fat loss or muscle gain is protein. I mean, studies show be consistent regardless of fat loss or muscle gain is protein. I mean studies show high protein levels for fat loss diets. It's better for satiety. So you're full. It preserves more muscle. It seems to reduce the metabolic adaptation that happens when you reduce calories. When you're bulking high protein builds more muscle. Are there ever cases where that's not good?

Is there ever situations where you're working with clients and you're like, look, I know typically we want high protein, but for you, I think we should probably cut it down. I think that you always have a goal of where you want protein and then you gotta look at how life gets in the way, or you gotta look at where they're coming from. Like, I'm not gonna take someone that comes to me and you'd be shocked, well, or you got to look at where they're coming from. Like, I'm not going to take someone that comes to me and you'd be shocked.

Well, maybe you wouldn't be, but like some of the intakes I get, it's 30 grams of protein. Like, people are like, they 30 grams of protein. That's actually way more, we still have this debate on mind pump a lot because we talked about the bodybuilding space, which I think is way different mentality than the average consumer. And I, most my female clients were grossly under any pretty much this reminds me to of another point we were talking about being able to burn fat and build muscle and how rare it is. This is another case where sometimes you

see this if somebody was grossly under eating protein for a long period of time and just simply by bumping their protein intake and the fact that you're adding weights into the routine. You see this kind of bump of muscle. And I mean, you know, then we could go down that rabbit hole deeper and obviously we're living in the game changers time right now where, you know, veganism and vegetarianism is being really promoted, right? So a lot of people are really, if they're following that, and unfortunately, I have seen a lot of people in the space jump on that bandwagon and, um, I don't, it might have

been you guys, like, the one benefit that I think actually came from that was like at least people are eating plants again. Yeah, I think style used to it. There was a benefit, right? I mean, at the end of the day, like we can say here and we can all get on our high horse and be like, and we know veganism is not the way, but like at the end of the day,

there's more emphasis on people eating quality foods. I don't think it's that bad, right? But like we look at these people and it's like, if I could get you to consume 15 to 20 grams of essential aminos and maybe like five to 10 grams of branch chains, with that diet, I bet you'd start to see, even a small calorie does it. I think you'd start to see some leafy.

So that is the one population that benefits from branching amino acids and essential amino acids. Exactly. People who are in the low protein, exactly, diet community. So if you're vegan, vegetarian, if you're protein intake is not, maybe half a gram per pound a body weight at least, that's when you see the benefit.

In fact, that's the only time that I ever really prescribe it. And studies actually show it. Studies show you give BCAAs to somebody as low protein intake and they get great results. You give it to a guy with high protein and take it as low. It doesn't do shit. It doesn't do shit.

Yeah. I mean, anytime I've ever prescribed it before, it's been more on the performance continuum because there were some studies that came out with like, like, with loose scene that showed like a reduction in rate of perceived exertion and an increase in time to exhaustion and had nothing to do with muscle, right? Like, it was never about lean tissue acquisition. It was just like, hey, there may be a small performance benefit. So like that's like when I used to dose leucine,

like via just BCAAs, like I never have people do leucine alone, but you know, what your question was like on the protein intake. Yeah, like, is it ever, do you ever have people taking less? I mean, I don't intentionally, yeah, I mean, if your guts fucked up, yeah, we're gonna have to back off. Also, I mean, if I've got somebody that's, and this is a rare population, but really pursuing a lot of muscle gain, and they're in an extended off season, and they've just got a super fast metabolism.

I mean, I just, I can't give a 200 pound or 600, 700 grams of protein. Now, ironically, like, I just, like, I literally just landed before this podcast. And on the way over here, I was listening to Ben Pax podcast with Milos. And they were talking about Milos' training journals. And Milos was talking about how he never, like, he's got it documented in journals. Never one day in his competitive career. Did he consume less than 450 grams of protein? And he was sitting down with Nasr.

The late Nasr? Yeah, the late Nasr, right? And Nasr was like, yeah, right, you're crazy, but he's like, if you're doing 450, I better do 550. And he actually, he thought Milos was bullshitting him. So Nasr only ended up eating 250 grams for a while, and he's like, oh, Milos, tell me all the wrong stuff to screw me over. But yeah, I mean, I've, you know, high protein got vilified for a little while and it's just

the nature of our industry. Like, I believe everything is cyclical. You know, right now, I think you're finally starting to see keto fade a little bit. It's finally moving through. There's an understanding around it. So, you know, what are we in 2020? In 2030, it's going to get hot again. Right?

It'll go away. High carbohydrate diets will get popular. Everyone's going to be like, I can eat my fucking carbs again. We also have to look at context because a high protein diet in the context of a lot of inflammation and a lot of calories. So let's say unhealthy diet, that's high calorie. High protein could be a cancer driver driver it could contribute to other health problems But so could carbohydrates in the same context or excess fats in the same context

So sometimes I look at studies and I read them and it's like people with high, you know fat intake have this this and that But then you notice that oh they're all high calorie consumers and And none of them are exercising, and they have a poor diet. And I could look at any macro in the circumstances. I think you bring up a really good point too, in the sense that anytime we bring up a dietary protocol, right? Anytime we talk about proteins, carbs, fats, calories, there's automatically this assumption that it applies to body composition, right? Everybody, like, you hear the word diet, you instantly think body composition,

body fat loss, muscle gain, and there's a whole continuum of things that we need to be looking at relative to our diets, how we feel, our health status, our longevity, all of these things that don't relate to just how you look. And so, you asked about protein, I mean, immediately my assumption went to lean tissue, right? And then you bring that up and it's like, no, you're 100% right?

Somebody that's potentially that has cancer or is going through treatments, like, no, I'd probably be back and off to be honest. And then you start looking at the types of protein inside of a specified situation like that. There's most common source of protein in Lafayette-Wool's chicken breast, and you start looking at, well, that's predominantly omega-6 fats. Now we're creating a pro-inflammatory effect and someone that's got cancer, and that's a pretty shitty way to prescribe to somebody. There's a lot of areas that have to be considered that I just, again, it's a much deeper investigation.

Well, I think we're somewhere where we all strongly agree is no matter what your goal is, whether it's fat loss or muscle pain, the first thing, and it's probably weeks, maybe months, which that's my question for you is how long you think it normally is, you should be focused mainly on getting healthy and figuring all that out before you go any direction or try to go any direction, and that should be your main focus. Now, to that point, and we all agree on that, what do you think is most common

and how long do you normally spend with somebody like this from taking them, and I know of course, this depends on, you know, how fucked up they were when you got them, you know, but what's kind of a range looked like normally? know of course this depends on how fucked up they were when you got them. But what's kind of a range looked like normally? Yeah, I mean, that's, I would love to give you like a typical range. Unfortunately for a long time, like I was, you know, you guys, like around the time I was talking about it and you guys, there was a couple other people in the industry that

were brave enough to actually say this shit. There's a marketing component that comes into this where trainers don't want to go to their clients that are overweight and say, hey, I can't help you lose weight yet because I need to fix you and they're afraid they're going to lose money, right? And new coaches can't afford to lose money. They got to take money. So I think it takes a coach that's really secure in who they are and really secure in like the big picture of business. First off, first off. That has to be acknowledged in this space. A person knows how fucked up they are. So if you really didn't know,

you were doing shit wrong by being an extreme calorie deficit and you really haven't seen the effects, a lot of times it's pretty quick, man. Couple weeks, four, six weeks, max. A lot of times there's no adaptation that's even been created and by actually providing, like what you said,

sell earlier, by providing the right amount of calories, which is an increase in calories, you actually start seeing results. I wrote a blog one time on reverse dieting and I was like, there's three responses. You know, you either gain weight because you're adding in calories and you've adapted to low calorie state.

You don't gain weight, but your biofeed calories and you've adapted to low calorie state. You don't gain weight but your biofeedback gets better. That's not terrible. Or you're the lucky one that makes your coach look really good, you're a hyper responder and you start losing weight right away. The law, that was written two, three years ago. The longer I've been around that, I realize it really comes down to two factors, duration and the degree of the adaptation.

So how long have you been in a metabolic adapted state and the adapted state, and what was the degree of what you were doing that got you to that adapted state? And really those are the two factors that are gonna mitigate the process of creating health status before we begin to die. And that goes into the whole like losing fat and building muscle.

It's like in an ideal scenario, if you came to me today and you're at ground zero, like we could probably get a significant amount of fat off in 12 weeks. And then we could probably reverse you out pretty quick and then focus on building muscle. I want to get back into like the muscle building component of this whole conversation. And like talk about, so you do bring somebody back to this home you'll stay, so they're in a healthy place. But now you're taking them through the bulking phase. What does that look like in terms of the amount of calories?

Something that typical client you have, trying to guide them through that, whether or not it's consistently throughout or you're doing it intermittently. Like, what does that look like? So I think this is again, it has to, you gotta look at what is the personality of the person. So initially, like Adam, when you came out of a competition prep and you're like going in the off season, like you're very strong mentally,

but the average person, they're like, oh, it's off season time, I get to fucking eat everything. And like you give them a protocol. And, and let's say it's a protocol that's like pretty colloquially in a surplus, but you also have to know that this person is probably going to have a propensity to eat off that plan. So let's just say you're estimating, you know, daily energy expenditure to be 3,000. You decide to put them in a calorie surplus of 1,000.

So you're giving them 4,000. You have to know that inherently this person's probably be going to be consuming closer to 5,000 right? Adjusted for weekly average intake based on how many times are gonna deviate I don't think that's advisable at all right That's the recipe for a lot of fat gain not a lot of muscle gain and remember your your body has a certain range where it's most efficient Right where once you step outside of that, you're gaining more fat than you're gaining muscle. So I'm a little bit of a slower approach guy myself, but I don't even wanna necessarily speak to speed

as much as it is sustainability. Like, I don't want, if you're a goal is to build muscle and then you're gonna look in the mirror two weeks later and be like, oh my god, I'm fat. And now you feel like you want to cut it. That's a problem in and of itself. So, you know, I guess the questions I would then turn around and ask are why, why are we building muscle, right?

Is it for a stage? Is it just for life? Is it for strength? What is the purpose? Is there a time that we need to have this muscle built? Say it's just this person that wants to go. Just wants to get bigger, right? We handle you at the same time.

Right, so then we're gonna put you on a super small surplus, or a super small surplus, which by the way, like longevity says, you should be in a super small deficit, but from a super small surplus, and then accounting for life, I'm talking like 200 to 300 calories surplus. Oh, so a real small deficit.

Very small surplus, right? Or a sub-surplus. Very small surplus, right? Or sub-surplus. Very small surplus. But then you factor in life, date, night happens, couple drinks happen, and now look at the weekly adjusted surplus. But you're going in there as a coach knowing that. I'm going in there knowing that.

That's not a prescription based on what's physiologically correct. Now is this something that you teach your coaches also? 100%. So this is part of the conversation. So it's why we like you guys because that makes perfect sense because if you don't account for what's probably gonna happen, then your recommendation plus life is gonna add up to

too big of a surplus. You don't get to live in a fantasy world, right? I mean, we can live in the lab all day. The lab isn't where life takes place, right? Like we step out of here and fucking life hits us and you never know what's gonna happen. Well, that's gonna be ready to account for. That's the problem of the coaches and trainers

and people that that purely speak from the scientific studies that are with these small control groups and then they, they get their direction purely from that. It's like there's so many of the things that you have to account for. That's nothing but to do with that. I mean, part of its experience, but luckily again,

you guys are teaching people the right way. It's like, hey, look, here's what it says on paper. You want them at a 400 to 500 calories surplus. But here's what happens in real life. You put them on a 200 calorie surplus because they're gonna mess up a few times during the week which is gonna come out to about a 500 calorie surplus? Yeah, like when you start creating that weekly adjustment

It does and yeah, it is experience man. I mean, I you know Again, like we can't expect the general population to act with the you know like the level of of being strict as like a Competitor would or as somebody of like a lab, right? You can't expect the general population to have their actions align with lab controlled settings. It's not going to ever happen. Like now, I want to talk to you about some of the athletes you've worked with because this gets real fun. Athletes are much more controlled, much more specific.

They have to or they're going to get their butts kicked or whatever. What, what have you noticed? Because you've worked with quite a few at some of very, very high levels. What have you noticed tend to be like better sources of carbs in terms of performance? Because you can get carbohydrates, for example, from a lot of different sources. But are there sources that you find seem to just work better for most of your, your, your athletes? So, here's the crazy part that maybe a lot of people would never have considered.

The answer is yes, there are like, and they're all whole foods, right? So sweet potatoes, white rice, or staples, right? Like I live in those, but that being said, as the season wears on, I get a lot looser in terms of my, like what all alpha carbs? So let's use like George Kittle, right? He's an NC championship this weekend.

Yeah. Like when him and I first talked right before the season, it was like, I want a high molecular weight carbs post workout. He's an athlete, like I understand there's no like, benefit some muscle in that window. Like we could, let's just end that debate. Sure, it's a, it's a nervous system response. And now what, what is a high molecular weight carbohydrates?

So like, like something like rapidly absorbed carbs, right? It's a nervous system response. What is a high molecular weight carbohydrates? So like rapidly absorbed carbs. I'm talking about highly branched cyclic dextrin. And that's 100% a CNS issue, right? Like you're coming out of a sympathetic training session. I'm trying to create that parasympathetic shift and get you into that. Fast possible. It has absolutely nothing to do with the anabolic window,

like, the quake at end that, right? So, before people are like, oh, Jason talked about the anabolic window. No, I didn't say shit. No, what you're saying makes perfect sense. And these are carbs that just fast, gastric emptying, absorbed in the system very quickly. And especially for a guy like him,

where he struggles to eat anyway. And most athletes, you'd be surprised, struggle to eat enough. Maybe wouldn't, right? It's, especially especially like their needs. We're talking four, five thousand calories, sometimes more. What is a guy like him, like a pre, like what is he eating like before his main competition?

So my advice with somebody like him is three hours out of the competition. I'm getting in, like what I would I say to him is a complete meal, a protein source, a carbohydrate source, and like a vegetable and a fat source, right? source, and a vegetable and a fat source. That's what I want. Everything. Right.

Now, I don't want extreme hunger going in, but I want a little bit of hunger. Right. And so. Now, why do you want a little bit of hunger going into the... So when hunger starts to rise, it's a physiological signal that cortisol is starting to rise.

I want that slight cortisol elevation. Why? A trigger sympathetic nervous system. It gives you energy. I want that slight cortisol elevation. Why? A trigger sympathetic nervous system. It gives you energy. I want that fight or flight, right? And then this goes back to the whole dietary, like nutritional periodization. I know 100% that I'm intentionally leveraging cortisol

in a season. That shouldn't happen in like real life, real health scenario. Totally different. You don't want that, right? But I fucking want it. Like you're playing in the Super Bowl, I want you on a cortisol drip.

I want every ounce of nervous system strength and physical strength that you have for those three hours that you're playing the damn game. I like the game. I got it. Now I got three months. I'm assuming it's Super Bowl. So like, yeah, he is going to Super Bowl.

They're gonna destroy Green Bay. Yeah, I know. I'm betting that way. Yeah, I don't even think it's close. So why do you get looser with... So I get looser because quantity becomes even more important. Right? So we've done such a good job in the off season of making sure that you're at that homeostatic

balance. You're in a position to perform early in the season, but let's be honest athletes are a little lazy, right? Like when it comes to nutrition, they'll fucking train their asses off. They'll play their ass off. Yeah, and they think that they can get by without maximizing this. And so towards the end, it's like, Hey, you need a bowl of cereal at night. Like go ahead and have the right. Right. And you need, you know, you need some

cards for the morning, like you throw some honey in there and like you need to throw like a little extra sugar in there. Like go do what you got to do. And so as, as it gets on, like it's, it's, it's not health, right? Inflammation is already happening. Like, like those things are already to do what you got to do. And so as it gets on, it's not health, right? Inflammation's already happening. Like those things are already present. Of course we want to control them, but they're doing a lot of physical recovery modalities.

My whole goal at that point is performance and recovery. Nothing else. I don't give a fuck about your body fat levels. I don't give a fuck about your biomarkers. Like I don't give a shit about that. And that's what people don't understand. Like when I'm in season and I'm working with an athlete, whether it's an NFL player on the field, a UFC fighter in the cage, whatever your sport is, you paid me at the beginning

to make sure that you're using form. It's your best. The end. You didn't tell me you want to get on the podium with abs, right? You paid me to win. And that's what we do. Now afterwards, it's my obligation to say to you, hey, we made some health sacrifices along the way. We need to get healthy so that next year we can do this shit again. So you say sweet potatoes, white rice, you notice seem to be very, very good. Those are my staples, man.

Those are awesome. Yeah, honestly, like steel cut oats in the morning. Yeah. I love cream of rice, honestly. Like I like oat bran and cream of rice a little bit better. What about grits? I mean, I'll use them in a dietary thing and, like, in a dietary protocol, but I've not a fan of grits myself.

So, and I worked with clients and some athletes and I find it's just easier to digest, that makes them better sources. What about sources of protein? A bodybuilder's for a long time have said how red meat is phenomenal source of protein, especially in the off season, because on a gram for gram basis, they still get more strength gains. I think it has to do with the crating content of red meat. Or the cholesterol.

Yeah, have you noticed any differences between protein sources for athletes? When we start looking at the old school, like bodybuilders, it said, they get more strength from red meat. I think calorie for calorie, an ounce of red meat is just higher. And back in the day, how are diets set up? Well, in the VA, the diet, you eat more red meat,

you eat more carbohydrate, and then over the course of the diet, will you remove carbs from meal five? Or you switch your red meats to white meats, or you switch your white meats to white foods. That's how they got their calories. That's how they did it. that's how they did it there. Yeah, that's how they drop calories So I really think it was just a calorie for calories or a fat like a gram of fat per gram of fat thing I'm definitely a big fan of red meat. I mean honestly like when you start looking at the ratio of fats

The the fats in red meat are healthier We see less inflammation from red meat, better amino acid profile from red meat, and again, when we're looking at caloric density of a person who doesn't like to eat a lot, I'd love to use red meat. Do you ever use organ meats with your... I don't only because, and not because it wouldn't work, it wouldn't be a great source of protein, but I'm also talking to people who either are hiring a chef or who are literally like,

what is the minimal amount of time I can spend getting my shit together? And they're not gonna want to eat liver. They don't work. They don't get to fuck. No, they don't want burgers. I work with, I work with Solomon Hill, who I don't fucking know what team he's playing for now,

but I worked with him when he was with the Pelicans and he had a chef and his chef would be like tell me exactly like what's gonna be best and I'll put it together now He happened to be vegan, but so like we were always you know We're always trying to like circumvent that but that's cool. Yeah, every now and then actually do you guys know Dan Henry at the internet marketer? He's a big time internet marketer guy. He just reached out to me last week and he's like, I'll hire a chef and you tell that chef, like the best possible thing. He's like, all I want to be is jacked and ripped. And I'm like, cool, who would like we can do it.

Yeah, no, and like, any means got the money to be able to do it. So, yeah, so like we just can make it last. Yeah, like, I love this. Right, right. Cause then you could use it as a experiment. I get really excited on ones like that. But you know, it's, I don't know how you guys feel about this.

Like, you know, as you guys sort of, you were in the industry, like in the trenches for like a long time, now you're gonna get to observe the industry. Every now and then, I really get this itch to like, to get back in the industry and to like, to do it with like a small number of people. Well, I think that we all do that.

I've got, I've got two people I'm talking to that are family friends. I always train one client. I just reopened a coaching funnel to take on like 20 to 30 clients, like Max. Now I do everything through text message, right? So I work super close to my people. So like, you know, if you work with me, you're getting 100% of me. But I, yeah, like I just, I get these hits.

Well, it reminds for me too. It's about, because I do, I, nothing I love more than doing what we're do now I mean, I just I love the podcast and what it what it does, but Getting to train clients reminds me of the questions they ask and so that just makes better content here Just it's like let's your pulse on the industry. It keeps you grounded You know, if if I'm not working with people working out in gyms or managing gyms or working with trainers, I start to feel like I float off the ground. I'm speaking on this podcast out to the internet.

It's not the same thing. I think it's an important thing that you should do, especially if you're communicating it. Well, I mean, how do you know what the industry trends are? I mean, you could read the media. How do you know how clients are responding, how they're experiencing it, how it's affecting them? Because again, we go back to the scientific studies and the academia world. I love how you came out and you had issues

with the academia world. I actually, that's shit. And I know you got so much shit for that, but I loved when you came out, because you're one of the most intelligent, actually, you came to the event and everyone's like, Sal is really wise. Like that was the word everyone used for you, right?

But like, it's true. You can interpret scientific studies and extrapolate what you need, but you're also able to look at real life and say, okay, like, we don't live in a fucking incubator. Like, we don't live in a lab. Like, we live in this beautiful thing called a world where great things take place that are not always in line with scientific studies.

And I think you have to have the scientific knowledge, you have to know what's happening, but more importantly, you've got to understand the human being that you're trying to help, man, like at the end of the day, we could talk about any topic, and I'm going to still try and bring it back to the human being because the, I don't know, millions of people will download this episode of the podcast. But each one is gonna be in a car, in the gym. We have their headphones on, on a plane, right? And they're one person,

and they're listening to it with one application, and they're living their unique life, and their unique circumstances, and they want their unique result. And if you don't know how to take all this information in your head, and you don't know how to apply it to that situation or you can't help them apply it to that situation, like you as a coach, you suck.

Like bottom line, you suck. If you go back 100 years and you asked scientists then and you said, hey, what do you think would happen if all of us, all of a sudden had access to all of recorded human history, they would have said, oh, it would have been a utopia. All of our problems would have been solved. Well, here we are.

And the problems are still here. And so, and what we're realizing is it's not an information problem, it's a wisdom problem. And being able to communicate fitness and nutrition and health is extremely important. And nine at a 10 times, it's not your ability to recite factual information. Nine at a 10 times, it's not your ability to recite factual information. Nine at a 10 times, be able to relate

and be able to communicate the right information and communicate it the right way. And that took me 10 years. Took me 10 years as a personal trainer to figure out, took me a long time. And I knew these guys had the same thing. Well, it's funny, I had a conversation with a girl. One of my, like, the guy that does my email blast,

he sent me out yesterday and was like, hey, like, what do you want to know from me? And all these people responded and this one goes, like, I need to know how to get clients and do this. And I wrote her back and I told her about how we help businesses and I'm gonna be happy to get on the call and help you out. She's like, yeah, I just invested in this other mentorship,

which is all information. And I'm like, and there's this, these coaches, like listen, everyone needs a certification. Everyone needs to get certified and have their shit, right? The problem with you helping people isn't because you don't know enough. Either you're not confident enough in yourself, or you haven't figured out how to connect with the person,

understand what they truly need. And those are things that you have to get the trenches for. And you have to learn to live. And you gotta start looking at human beings and stop trying to look for like cases. And that's where I just, that's the separation between great coaches and good coaches. It's a difference, that's why we chose to work with you.

There's a lot of nutritional courses and certifications out there, but for us, they would leave, they would leave us thinking like, this is just not really giving people coaches the tools that they really need to be successful, and I think you guys focus on that. Yeah, there's- It's- Yeah, there's a priority. I mean, I share with you guys how the whole thing came to be, right?

How I built the nutritional coaching institute. So I was out in an event in Southern California, California. It was a, it was a mastermind and, uh, fuck your mastermind, by the way, right? Like, I got to get you guys to like wear those shirts out. I gave those guys a warm today. I don't know. I thought about wearing mine here. And I was like, uh, that's going to look weird going through the airport. But yeah, I know. So it's, uh, I was out of the event and this really well-known internet marketer was like, dude, you're helping so many people, but it's your method that's really good, right?

It's not just you and he's like, you need to, you need to build a certification and I was like, oh, it's the nutrition industry. Everyone knows who the gold standard nutrition certification is, I'm like, I can't compete with them. And he's like, no, like, you have something special. You need to find it and you need to do it. And he was like, adamant.

And somebody I really respected. And I was like, okay, so I got my car and I was driving from SoCal at the time I was living in Arizona and I got halfway home and it hit me. Like it was like a ton of bricks hit me right in the face and I was like, it's like you're really good at connection and application. And like everything got so clear in that instant,

I drove the rest of the way home, left my shit in my car, ran to my desk, opened up a journal, rode out the whole outline of what the course was. It was like part one, science, all the topics, part two, application, all the topics, and I never deviated. Like that was the shit we put in version one of the course, and like that's the shit that we continue to teach.

And like I knew right then, that's why I was successful, that's why we had built what we had built, but also how literally millions of people can become successful with it. And how many coaches have you guys certified? Man we've put over 3000 through at this point. We're free. And we'll be three years old in July.

Wow, that's great. Yeah, so we're pretty young in the space, but I think that you're starting, my favorite part is we're getting a lot of people from our competitor, and they're coming and they're saying you filled in the gap. And that was exactly what we aim to do. Right? Like we, like you said, people finish the certification and they feel like they don't have exactly what they need. And we said not like we we're gonna give you what you need to go out. And, you know, our models evolved, right? Like in the beginning, it was like,

I have a level one course and then I'm like, cool, like if you want, you can take these other courses. Now I look at what we do a little more as a trade school, right? If you don't need to go to college and pay for extra science degree and you certainly don't need to become an RD, right? But you don't need to be 50, 60, 70,000 dollars in debt, right? We have an institute.

It is designed to take you from zero knowledge to like scaling a business, because we do have a business course as well, right? Like I'm sorry, coaches out there. If you don't understand business, you're not gonna have impact on the school. Oh my gosh, you could be the best trainer coach in the world. If you don't understand how to run your business,

you're screwed. So we have all those, man, it's literally designed to take you from that startup how to run your business, you're screwed. So we have all those, man, it's literally designed to take you from that start-up to ultimately scaling your business. And, man, we've got some dope stories. I'm doing a webinar tonight, and one of the testimonials I use, she sat in the very first cert ever in Chicago. And her second year, so last year, it was the second year that we were live, she made

a quarter million dollars as a coach. She had no fucking traditional knowledge. Well good for her. That's exceptional. It was unreal man and like those are the stories that just get me super hyped. What do you think about, I know some countries are talking about regulating coaches and trainers through the government. And I know there's been some talk about that here in the US, which I think would be a complete disaster. That's my own opinion. What do you think about that? What do you think about a federal, kind of nationalized standards for coaches and trainers? I mean, I guess we kind of have one in the RD sense, like you can't

write a diet of your RD. Yeah, I've had RD's come through my course and say they learn more 48 hours about really helping people than they did in four years of an internship. and say they learn more than 48 hours about really helping people than they did in four years of an internship. I think it would give a lot, it would, there's obviously benefits to it and I understand why, but in typical like bureaucratic fashion,

we're gonna fuck up, like they're gonna fuck up the application, right? And they're gonna end up hurting a lot more people than they are helping people. So I don't welcome it. That being said, I mean, if we're looking at it, do you really need to be certified to give advice? And at the end of the day as a coach,

we can't put a gun to a client's head. We're just giving our best advice. As coaches, we're becoming advocates for our clients and we're looking out for their best interests and laying out what we believe to be the best route to success. The end of the the day they have to follow it. And I don't think that the government is ever gonna be able to regulate that.

So. Now, you're hooking up our listeners special right now with this episode. I'm gonna put you on the spot here. So what are they getting? What are they getting? This is not our normal NCI. No, so what we've done before for your listeners is

we've done, you know listeners is we've done, we did a scholarship, we selected somebody, we gave away all of our courses, which is a $10,000 value. And we've given away some of our master classes, which are $600 a piece. But I wanted to do something special in me. And like, I came here like two years ago, and I was early in the evolution of my career.

And you, you guys supported me, and I'm still fortunate enough to text you guys, you just came to the event. That's super cool, it means more to me than you guys know. Now I want to pay that forward to the millions of people that listen to you guys. Like I said, all of our courses, if somebody wants to do the institute, it's a $10,000 investment,

I'm just going to wipe 70% for your followers and your listeners. I don't want to misquote the link, so I don't wanna miss quote the link. So I won't say it, but I'll let you guys put it in the show notes. Because I need to check with my team. But it's literally, there's one link you have to go. Like if you go to my normal site, NCIcertifications.com, everything's full price on there. But if you guys go through the Mind Pump link,

which you guys can post. We'll do it in the intro, I think. All right, yeah, do it in the intro, that'll be dope. But if you guys go through that link, there's a video, you just simply, you apply, you tell me, like, hey, I heard this on MindPump, within a day, my team will reach out to you and instantly give you 70% off,

and they'll do a payment plan, they'll work with you, like we treat it like college, like if you need to pay it over time, pay it over time, we really believe that this is the key to if you want to create help, and you really want to increase your knowledge, but really have that application to actually go out and create impact, like we say, impact over everything.

If you really want to go out and have that impact, man, we know we have the resources. And so I'm super humbled to do that for you guys. Excellent, thank you, man. Appreciate it. And thanks for coming on the show, brother. Absolutely appreciate you guys having here today. Oh, it was a great time.

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Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support, and until next time, this is MindPump.

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