The Nick Bare Podcast - 185: Answering Your Nutrition and Training Questions

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

I’m answering common questions on how to balance running, strength training, nutrition, habits, HYROX prep, and making fitness work in a busy season of life. This episode is about training hard without being reckless, building systems that support your goals, and staying consistent when life, fatigue, and responsibilities get real.CHAPTERS:00:00 Intro00:58 Running + Leg Day09:29 Keeping Muscle While Running17:59 Breaking Bad Habits28:41 Portion Control With Scale34:24 New Dad Workout Time37:53 Why Use The Ergs?41:23 Bodybuilding In Hyrox Prep46:20 Carbs Before Training49:21 Best For Fat Loss53:06 Weekly Strength Volume59:09 Tracking Macros BasicsORDER MY BOOK HERE: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210FOLLOW:Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 25% off FOR LIFE ⁠https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/collections/performance-nutritionIG: ⁠instagram.com/nickbarefitness/⁠YT: ⁠youtube.com/@nickbarefitnessThis podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal [health or profession] advice. Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) is not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice.This podcast may not be republished without the written consent of Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN)MB01LJSD0G4H9DD

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today is a question and answer that I opened up on Instagram all around nutrition, training, habits, consistency, and hundreds of questions came in through the Instagram option of submitting what you want to know. And I've chosen a few that were asked multiple times by multiple different people. So I'm going to make my way through some of these training and nutrition questions in this episode. Diving into the first one. This is one that I get all the time.

The first two that I'm going to answer all the time every single day. How to balance high volume running in a consistent lower, body strength training routine. So there are a few things, a few notes to share. One, plan appropriately. Allow yourself time between training lower body strength, resistance training, and your quality run workouts and or your long runs. So for me right now, the way that I'm structuring this, and I have in the past, Wednesday is my lower body. strength training heavy day. This is when I'm coming into the gym and I'm barbell squatting, I'm belt squatting, I'm walking barbell lunge, I'm doing stiff leg deadlifts, split squats,

all of the heavy compound movements. And this day doesn't just tax me muscularly, but also nervous system-wise, CNS, central nervous system gets taxed on this day as well. I do my high rocks training workouts Tuesdays and Fridays and I have my long run

on Saturday. So that's kind of the way I have some of my lower body stimulus training sessions schedule right now. I'm running every morning Monday through Saturday. Sunday is off from training completely.

Monday to Friday, it's six miles every morning. Easy runs. I want to say easy runs. This is a comfortable pace. It's conversational. High zone two, zone three. It's something that I can sustain. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, even Saturday.

I'm not doing much structured. workout training runs right now outside of my high rock sessions. Again, my high rock sessions, more interval running Tuesdays and Fridays. Saturday is my long run. So this is anywhere from 8 to 10 to 12 miles, 8 plus miles right now. So with all that being said, I know Wednesday I'm coming into the gym and taxing my lower body. I'm throwing down, resistance training, weights. And based off my experience in knowing my body at this point,

I will wake up Thursday morning and I will feel that workout. I will feel my muscles, but I will also feel it in my central nervous system, just a little drained and fatigued. Waking up Thursdays is a little harder than waking up really any of the other days throughout the week because of the stimulus of what that workout does to my body on Wednesdays. When I'm hitting legs, I'm hitting legs hard. Thursday, I know my central nervous system

is going to be pretty taxed when I wake up, but Friday, when I wake up, my central nervous system is recovering my muscles feel it the most. My legs, my lower body. And then by the afternoon, Friday, I'm feeling a little bit better. That's Dom's. D-O-M-S. delayed onset muscle

soreness. If you've been training for any extent of time, you probably have experienced DOMs before where there's a delayed muscle soreness, maybe not 24 hours after the workout, maybe it's 48 hours after the workout. I know Friday is going to be pretty

uncomfortable running in the morning. So my first tip on how to balance high volume running and consistent lower body strength training is to plan appropriately space out your quality runs, whether this is a tempo workout, intervals, a track workout, or enough away from that lower body strength day.

So you can still get the quality from that quality session. And then space your long run out as far as possible from your lower body strength day. And that's why I have my lower body strength, resistance workout Wednesday, long run Saturday. I find that that spacing works really well for me. Come Saturday, my central nervous system is recovered. My lower body muscles are recovered. And just having a plan in place that spaces these big workouts and then your easier workouts in between appropriately makes the biggest difference.

But if you hit lower body strength Friday afternoon and then Saturday morning you're going for your long run your long run might be a little trash and for me I only get a lot out of that long run I want to enjoy the long run so I space my lower body strength day away from my long run

appropriately. My second tip is to have realistic expectations you know if you still want to hit the gym hard and you still want to run significant amount of miles some of those runs are just going to be uncomfortable. And if you have those realistic expectations,

I think when you wake up and you realize your legs don't feel as fresh as they have days prior, that's okay. That's just part of it. Maybe those are the days where you take your easy runs a little easier, pull back pace a little bit, pull back effort a little bit, maybe even pull back mileage and distance a little bit to allow yourself to recover. So I like to have realistic expectations knowing that the two days after my lower body strength day, that run is probably going to be a little uncomfortable.

And I just know that at this point. And the third tip is to train smart. And this is paired with having realistic expectations. There are days where you might wake up and you hit a really big workout and your body is just not recovering as it normally does or should. Your central nervous system is fried. Maybe you have additional life stressors. Your kids aren't sleeping. There's stress at work.

You're coming off of a sickness. You are ill. You're recovering. If you're not recovering like you normally would, and some of these workouts are taxing you more than they typically do. Your central nervous system is fried. Your muscles are aching and hurt. There is a time to push and drive through that discomfort.

But there's also a time to be smart and say, hey, let's not run today. Let's pull back effort. Let's pull back mileage. It's pull back distance. let's supplement our cardiovascular conditioning with a less impactful source of cardio, like the ergs, skier, rower, concept two bike, and allow our body to recover, reset, readjust for the next couple days, the next week. So how to balance high volume running in a consistent lower body strength training routine?

plan appropriately, have realistic expectations, and train smart. Don't try to be a hero. Set yourself up to improve, recover well, and continue training. As I've said before, quoted from my good friend and running coach, Jeff Cunningham, it's better to be consistently good than occasionally great. A second question that is asked quite frequently is how, to maintain muscle mass while also running. A few points here. Myself, as an example, I built my body, I built my physique, my frame, my muscles, my strength. Because the first decade of my life,

training life, if you will. And I started training seriously when I was about 17 years old. And then when I transitioned out of the Army in 2017, I was 27 years old. That is when I first started taking running serious. So from 17 years old to 27 years old, the foundation of my training was in the gym. it was strength training, resistance training, hypertrophy, bodybuilding. I didn't care about getting faster. I didn't care about building endurance.

I wanted to get as big and strong as possible. I was in the gym. I was accumulating volume. I was consuming so much food, just packing on as much size and strength as I could. And I loved every part of it. So then when I started running when I was 27 years old and I transitioned out of the military and started training for marathons and triathlons and ultras as you've seen the last 10 years of my life, I then started to lean out a little bit, lost some size, some strength. You know, at the peak of my strength training and bodybuilding era, I deadlifted 700. pounds. There's no way I'm getting back to 700 pounds on the deadlift anytime soon.

So when I started running, I did lose some size. I did lose some strength, but I had that foundation from 10 years of bodybuilding and strength training prior to beginning to run. So I wanted to share that context before I go a little bit further. But there's a few things that are going to determine how much muscle you can gain and then how much muscle you maintain while also incorporating different styles of training like running and a heavy emphasis of cardiovascular conditioning. Genetics are a big part of that. Genetics have a large rule in how strong you can get, how much muscle you can develop, how quickly you can build muscle. how easily you hold on to and maintain muscle.

So genetics do play a large role in that. But what also matters is your training. How to maintain muscle mass while also running. Well, if you start running a lot and you stop training or you reduce your strength training significantly, you will lose muscle mass. if you're not consuming enough nutrition, calories, protein, carbohydrates to fuel the lean mass you have on your body, and then the added amount of energy expenditure that running brings, you will lose size. You will lose muscle.

If you're not fueling your training appropriately, your workouts, your training sessions, That will affect lean muscle tissue, lean mass. But also what I found is that the longer you run, the longer you perform the same type of repetitive movements and exercises, like running, your body becomes more efficient. And over time, your body burns fewer calories at the same effort. What do I mean by that?

I would argue, and I don't have data in front of me to support this. So I could be very far off. But when I first started running seriously in 2017, 2018, when I started training for my first marathon, my running form was very inefficient. I was much heavier. my biomechanics weren't fluid or efficient to be a runner. So when I would run back then, I burned significantly more calories because I was not efficient at what I was doing or performing.

From that moment until today, if you look at even my run form, my body looks so much more comfortable running. my form is much more efficient than it was 10 years ago. And that efficiency means less effort. And less effort means less calories, less energy expended and burned. So as you gain more experience with training, your body adapts. It becomes more efficient. It utilizes less energy than it used to.

because of that efficiency. So how do you maintain muscle mass while also running? Don't stop strength training. It depends on genetics. It depends on your previous experience of training. Did you build a foundation of strength in muscle prior to starting a serious running journey? And then what does your nutrition look like? What does your caloric intake look like?

How efficient are you at the movements? So I would seriously say that when you first start running, if you are a historical strength athlete bodybuilder, fitness to you was spent in a gym, and then you start running, you will probably immediately feel like you are losing strength in size and muscle. But I believe that over time,

weeks, months, years, as your body becomes more efficient at that movement pattern, it is easier to maintain and build muscle while also running. But probably what happens with a lot of people is they first start running

and they are inefficient and they're not keeping up with a nutrition, demands and they feel like they're losing size and strength and muscle right away, your body will adapt over time. But that initial shock to the body, mentally and physically, is probably quite alarming for a lot of people. But the longer you stick with it, the more efficient your body becomes, you learn how to coordinate. these multiple different styles of training, you can continue building and maintaining muscle

the longer you do it. The third question is how to break bad habits. This is something I'm really intrigued by right now. I've been surveying my audience, you guys, primarily on Instagram a lot recently, because I'm trying to learn and understand what you guys are struggling with. and how I can best support and help.

One of the things I'm doing right now is rebuilding my training app. I've had a training app for almost six years now, and I have a lot of my old training programs within that training app. And I'm rebuilding that app right now, where every Sunday I will release a new week of workouts. And it's going to be a six-day. training split, one workout per day. It's going to be a hybrid model, a balance of strength training and running and functional movements. And I'm relaunching that app here in the next

couple weeks. And the daily workout will be called G1M Daily. And my goal with relaunching the app is one to provide you guys consistent workouts and programming that you can easily follow to reach your goals, get fitter, get stronger, build muscle, build endurance, get faster, and then create a resource within the app, a community where I can answer questions on a regular basis, engage with you guys, but really help you reach your goals, get healthier, be more consistent. So I've been asking a lot of questions on social lately to learn what you struggle with. And it's interesting that this was one of the questions that popped up multiple times.

How do I break bad habits? Because I asked this question last week, what habits are you struggling with that are holding you back from your health, your fitness, your performance, improvement, betterment of your life. And majority of the responses, I mean, overwhelming majority of the responses were addiction to devices, your phone, doom scrolling, specifically, binge eating, overeating, snacking, and staying up too late and sleeping in and pressing snooze on your alarm. Those are the three responses that were overwhelming from the thousands of responses.

So how do you break a bad habit? This could be a podcast episode on its own, but I have a few tips. One, eliminate the source that's caused in the bad habit. If you have a problem in the evening of binging and snacking, and I know for a lot of people, they might have chips or cookies or crackers or some sort of treat in their pantry or their fridge. What happens in the evening is you're winding down, you might be a little bored. You walk over the fridge or the pantry. you grab one or two pieces of something you enjoy,

you go to do something else, you walk by the fridge again, you open up, you grab one or two more pieces, you walk around, you do something else, you walk back by the pantry of the fridge again, you grab another one or two pieces or a handful of something. That stuff adds up, and it will throw you off track so quickly.

I even think of something that is healthy. Nuts, for example. Peanuts. cashews, macadamia nuts, you can pretty quickly and easily consume a thousand plus calories from nuts or seeds and not even think anything of it. I would encourage you, if you haven't done this before, if you have a food scale at home, which after this episode, you'll probably want to go buy a food scale, buy a bag of nuts, any kind of nuts. And then on a food scale, weigh out one serving, which is typically one ounce or 28 grams.

After doing this for so long, you just know what serving sizes look like. Like a half a cup of oats is 40 grams. Way out 28 grams of nuts, like 28 grams or an ounce of macadamia nuts, which is 200,000. calories is depressing to look at or granola. Way out one serving of your favorite granola. And you will be mind-blown. You'll probably quickly realize that you've been consuming five, six, seven servings of granola or nuts when you consume these type of items. So if there's something that is a trigger for a habit, a bad habit, eliminate the source.

if you are a sucker for chips, don't have chips in your house. If you're a sucker for trail mix, don't have trail mix in your house. Eliminate the source of the bad habit. If you have problems with alcohol, beer, wine, liquor, don't have it in the house. Just don't. That's the best way to break a bad habit or start breaking a bad habit. Just don't have it in your environment. Eliminate the source.

My second tip is to set boundaries. So I've talked about this one before, but Steph and I have this app on our phone. It's called App Block, App, B-L-O-C-K. And you can create schedules and boundaries in this app, and then you can put it on a lock mode, where even if you want to turn the app off, you can't because it's locked.

You can set it to schedules where you can't get on social media within certain windows. Say at 7 p.m. And that's when you struggle with doom scrolling from 7 and 9 p.m. Set a schedule within this app that says all of your social media apps are blocked from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. until 7 a.m. the next morning. you physically can't get into it. If doom scrolling is a problem for you on the weekends or the evenings, set boundaries,

set schedules so you can't access those devices or those applications during certain windows when you struggle the most. Eliminate the source, set boundaries, create new habits, create healthy habits that keep you occupied and distracted from the bad habits. You got to ask yourself, what is the habit? What's the purpose and why that habit?

When will you perform that habit? And how will you execute that habit? Example, I run six days a week, Monday through Saturday. I set my alarm for 5 a.m. The first thing I do when that alarm goes off, I pop out of bed. I don't allow myself to snooze. At this point, because it's so routine, I typically wake up five to ten minutes before the alarm even goes off. I rarely make it to my alarm.

I pop out of bed. The first thing I do, because I've built this system and now it's a habit that is ingrained in me. I could do it in my sleep. I go to the pantry. I mix up my run fuel, which is one scoop of G1M Sport, one scoop of G1M Sport Plus. I mix it up. I slug that. I chug it. Then I go into our closet and I do red light therapy for 15 to 20 minutes.

At that point, the fuel is in my bloodstream. It's consumed. It's ready to go. It's digested. I make my way into the garage. I put my running shoes on and by 5.30 a.m. I am out the door running. That habit, the run every morning, there's all these things that are built to prime that habit, the alarm, the red light, the running fuel.

I lay out my run shoes, socks, shorts, the night before. I prime that habit to set myself up for success. There's a what, there's a why, there's a purpose, there's a when, there's a how. Priming the habit makes a big difference. It's one of the things I talked about in my previous podcasts about how to be more consistent. And a lot of what I shared was from James Clear's book called Atomic Habits.

Highly recommend if you haven't read that book or if you haven't listened to that podcast, how to be more consistent. I recommend it. And he talks about priming your habits. There's many different methods to prime a habit. I just shared one, the habit being running and how I prime it with the alarm and my running fuel

and the red light therapy and laying my clothes out the night before, it facilitates the ease and discipline of executing on that habit. Here's an example for you when it comes to eating and nutrition. If you struggle overeating, let's say at dinner, I am a big fan of food scales. I don't track my nutrition very frequently anymore because my meals, my nutrition on a daily basis,

are pretty consistent. My breakfast, my lunch, what I eat before going to bed is almost the same day to day. dinner is where we have the most variation just based off of what the family's hungry for, what foods we have available in the house, what we picked up at the grocery store or the farmer's market that week prior. I still use a food scale every day for everything.

I don't even think about it anymore. I just, I pull a food scale out for portion control. So here's an example that you can implement that I find works really well. This is a pretty typical dinner for us in the evening. We'll grill up some chicken thighs on the trigger. We'll make either rice in the rice cooker or we'll dice up some potatoes, throw them in the oven.

We dice them up, shake them in some olive oil, some seasonings, then throw them in the oven at 425 degrees for 45 minutes. And then we'll make a vegetable on the side. Broccoli, zucchini, zucchini, asparagus. There's always a protein source. There's always a carb source. There's always a vegetable source.

And we'll mix it up. We'll do steak. We'll do ground beef. We'll do salmon. We'll do fish. We'll do chicken, chicken thighs, chicken breasts. We just protein, carbs, vegetables. And we'll make all of this.

And then as I'm putting food on my plate, Steph does the same thing, my wife. We get the food scale out, put my plate on the food scale. And if I'm adding a meat, chicken, or a steak, I add eight to nine ounces of meat, which is getting me around 50 grams of protein. If I'm adding rice, I will add 250 to 300 grams of rice. If I'm adding potatoes, it's 8 to 10 ounces of potatoes. And I don't weigh my vegetables, I just throw a bunch of vegetables on the plate.

If I'm really hungry that day, I'll add more vegetables to help fill me up. Using a food scale can be extremely beneficial for portion control. The opposite of what you might do is you get to dinner, you're starving. And I can relate to this, and this is why. use a food scale. My eyes are typically hunger than my stomach is. And I will fill that plate. I'll put 20 ounces of meat. I'll put 20 ounces of potatoes. I'll just fill it up. I'm starving. I need so much food. And then by the time I'm done eating, because if I put it on my plate, I'm eating it. When I go to a restaurant, whatever you put on that plate, I'm eating all of it. I'm sending that plate back to the kitchen.

in cleared, clean. I've never been someone to leave food on a plate. And this is why, this is a boundary for me. This is one of the reasons I use the food scale. Because if I put it on my plate, I'm eating it. I will overeat if I allow myself to build my plate without portion control. And maybe you struggle with the same thing. Or maybe you make a plate, you eat everything that's on the plate and you back for seconds in thirds. And then 30 minutes later, after you're done eating all of food, you are stuffed, uncomfortably full. It takes some time for your stomach and your body to tell you yourself you are satisfied. You are no longer hungry before your mind does. So what I would encourage people to do if you have a problem where you struggle overeating at a meal, use a food scale, weigh out appropriate portions, make your plate, eat your food slow.

When you're done eating all your food, wait 20 to 30 minutes after you are done eating to decide if you are still hungry. Because if you're anything like me, as soon as I finish eating that plate of food, I'm talking to you. typically still hungry. But if I wait 20 to 30 minutes, I allow my body to catch up with the signals that my mind is telling me, eat more, eat more, eat more. If I wait 20 to 30 minutes, I realize I'm actually not hungry anymore. I am comfortably full. And I don't want that second or third plate. So prime the habit that you are struggling with or that you want to improve or master. As a new dad, how do I find time to work out? There's something I said a few years ago that really resonated with people, really connected with people. I said, if it matters to you,

you will make time. Make time. The question was, as a new dad, how do I find time to work out? Now, this might seem insignificant, but if you try to find time, you might find this more challenging. But if you make time, you might find that this comes easier. Before I had kids, I had all the time in world relatively to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. I could train at 5 a.m. if I wanted to. I could train at 8 a.m. if I wanted to. I could train at 4 p.m. if I wanted to. I could train at 7 p.m. if I wanted to. After having a kid, Charlie four years ago and then our second child, Nico, two years ago, I found out that if you wait to find the time, you're going to run out of time.

You have to allocate and make the time. That's why I wake up at 5 a.m. every day. I'm running by 5.30. I'm back by 6.15. And I'm done with my morning run in my morning routine, typically before the kids wake up. Unless we're in some sort of sleep progression, I'm always back for my morning run, done with my morning routine, before the family is up.

I make that time. I sacrifice some sleep and some rest so I can make the time to do the things that I want and need to do for myself so that it doesn't take time away from my family. And I don't have to try to find that time later in the day. but it's also important that once you become a dad and your mission in life is to serve your family, to serve your children, to serve your spouse, your partner, it's really important to understand that responsibilities are prioritized over routines. I love my morning routine. I love my morning run.

But I love my family. I love my children. I love my wife more than that morning routine and more than that morning run. So my responsibilities will always come first. My routines will always come second. But I can still do my best to make the time for myself so that the things that I want to do don't affect the people I love. Question five. What is the purpose?

of incorporating the ergs into your training routine right now. The ergs are the skier, the rower, the concept to bike. Why do I incorporate these into my training routine? Well, first off, I'm training for a high rocks right now. So I'm doing high rocks Dallas in November and then a high rocks Nashville in December. and the skier, the rower, these ergs are part of the movements in high rocks. If you're not familiar with high rocks is, to eight stations, each station is a 1K run followed by a functional movement.

Some of those functional movements are the skier, rower, sandbag lunges, sled push, sled pull, burpee broad jumps, wall balls. Farmers carry. So why am I incorporating the ergs into my training routine right now? For one, they are movements in high rocks, so I want to improve on them. But they are also a great way to get additional cardiovascular and aerobic stimulus benefits without running. You might be asking yourself, well, why would I not want to run? Running itself is a very taxing movement.

It's really hard in the body. It is high cortisol producing. It is just impactful. And even as much as I love running, you can overdo it. And it's easy to get overuse injuries from running. And it just taxes the central nervous system significantly. So one of the ways to keep improving your cardiovascular conditioning, health and get additional aerobic benefits is to adding in different movements like the ergs

skier, rower, concept two bike, where I'm still getting my heart rate into a certain zone. I'm still getting that aerobic conditioning benefit without the taxing impact from running. I think they are extremely beneficial to incorporate into your training. similar to triathlon training. Three disciplines. Swimming, cycling, running. When I was training for my Iron Man, it was the best aerobic conditioning shape

I've ever been in my life. And it's not just because I was running more, but I was cycling multiple hours a week. I was swimming multiple hours a week. Cycling and swimming are low impact. compared to running. But all this added volume in aerobic conditioning benefit,

it just builds that base, that foundation, your engine without overtaxing the body. Why are you incorporating bodybuilding style training into your hierox prep? It seems unnecessary. Specific goals require specific training practices.

And I've said this many, many times before. If you are training for an Ironman, triathlon, your training practices have to reflect swimming, cycling, running. Different techniques and intervals for swimming, different thresholds when it comes to cycling and distances and durations. when it comes to running, you're manipulating volume over time and speed sessions. That's how you improve. Specificity.

But I also believe that you have to love the training itself. It's not just the goal that we're focused on, but it's also the process, the systems that we put in place that have to be sustainable and joy-filled. So if I wanted to be the best high rocks athlete in the world, I would change all of my training for the next couple of months to just be focused on getting better at high rocks. Sometimes I like putting these competitions and races on the schedule, on my calendar,

as a directional goal. This is what I'm working towards. It's going to force me to change my training a little bit, my nutrition, it gives me a target to aim for, a new mission that I'm working towards. But I have to be very honest with myself, if I was going to shift all of my training to just be the best at high rocks possible, I would start to hate my training. That's just like the reality of it. When it comes to training, I love running.

I love traditional bodybuilding and strength training. I do. traditional bodybuilding, resistance training, being in a gym, getting a pump, that will forever be my favorite style of training. I love it. I do. I love it. And I also love these high rocks circuits. I'm incorporating into my training twice a week right now.

I would easily say right now, this is some of the most fun I've had training for a goal. on a mission for a target in a long time. It's a perfect blend. It's fun. It's engaging. There's variation. I can come in and hit bicep curls and pull-ups and lap pull-downs and barbell rows and deadlifts on a Thursday. Knowing that Friday, I'm going to wake up early and log a six-mile run

and then in the afternoon do a nasty high rock circuit and just get cooked. And then Saturday morning, wake up and do a long run. And then after a day off Sunday, come back into the gym Monday and hit dumbbell chest press and body weight dips and tricep pushdowns and barbell overhead press. I love the training that I'm doing right now. And I don't want to lose the love for it. So why am I incorporating bodybuilding style training into my high. Rocks prep, it's because I love it. Is it optimal? Maybe not. But I'm enjoying it. It's effective. But what if that means it's going to hurt my progress in my final time in the high rocks?

That's okay. I'm all right with that. But if I fall in love with the training that I'm doing in preparation for the goal, that means more to me than being optimized for the target. I thought this was a really good question. If carbohydrates take 24 plus hours

to be stored as glycogen, why do you fuel with them before and during a training session? So it's called assimilation. From the time that you consume carbohydrates, your body digest them, breaks them down and can then store them as glycogen, primarily in the muscles, but some in the liver.

It takes 24 plus hours. That's why this classic scene from the office with Michael Scott, where he's consuming chicken pasta alfredo at the starting line of his 5K to carve up is so wrong and funny and unrealistic. So we have glycogen, which are carbohydrates that our body stores, like I said, primarily in the muscle, but also the liver. And then we have carbohydrates in our bloodstream. So this is why you consume simple carbohydrates,

before a training session and during a training session. Simple carbohydrates that are digested very quickly and easily. They can enter the bloodstream as glucose within five to 15 minutes. So when I wake up at 5 a.m. And I drink my G1M sport, two scoops, 40 grams carbs, 700 milligrams of sodium, and I wait about 30 minutes to go run, those carbs that I consume because they are simple,

carbohydrate sources and they digest very quickly, they are in my bloodstream as glucose, and my body can use that glucose as fuel. And it doesn't have to tap into and break down glycogen that is stored for longer term use. So that's why I consume carbohydrates or we consume carbohydrates before a workout or a race and then during simple carbohydrates. easily fast digesting carbohydrates because our body can use them as glucose that's circulating in the bloodstream as they are digested quickly and readily available. Eating simple carbohydrates replenishes blood sugar during training to maintain energy levels, mental mobility capacity. It spares stored muscle glycogen and it fuels performance.

Here's a good one. Is strength training or running best for weight and fat loss? I'd be curious what most people think and believe. Because strength training, building muscle, is far superior for long-term fat loss and body composition improvement compared to running and cardiovascular conditioning. why? So cardiovascular conditioning or running relies on acute calorie burn. So when I'm running,

or I'm on the bike, I'm swimming, I'm performing a high effort exercise. I am burning calories. I'm expending energy while I'm performing that exercise. And really only then. It acutely burns a lot of calories. Running, an hour of running versus an hour of strength training. You are burning more calories during one hour of running than you are from one hour of strength training. Typically, depends on what that strength training workout looks like.

But generally, you are burning more calories. during cardiovascular conditioning, then typical traditional strength and resistance training. But, and here's the but, strength training, resistance training, it builds muscle. Muscle being lean tissue. Muscle and lean tissue is metabolically expensive. This means the more muscle and lean tissue have, the higher your B.Strechtic, M.R. Basal metabolic rate. This is the number of calories your body burns each day to just stay alive at complete rest. So when you strength train, you resistance train, you build muscle, you build lean tissue. Your body having more lean tissue and more muscle will burn more calories at rest than the person who has less lean tissue and muscle. muscle is metabolically expensive.

Your body has to work hard to maintain more mass, more muscle, more lean tissue. So if you want to lose weight and you want to lose fat for the long term, I'm not talking 30 days you want to drop 15 pounds and then gain it all back. No, if you want to consistently improve your body composition over years and years in a lifetime, you're going to do this by building more muscle, more lean tissue, as opposed to having to rely on the acute calorie burn of just running and expending energy, exercising every single day. How much strength training or resistance training do you need to be doing weekly to build muscle and get stronger.

There's so many nuances to this question. And the easiest, unfortunately, best answer is it depends. It depends on a lot of things. It depends on your genetic potential. It depends on your experience of training, how long you've been training,

what type of training you've been doing. It depends on the experience of the athlete that we're talking about. Are you training properly? You know, we lump strength training into this one bucket. There's training to get stronger. There's training to get and build more muscle, hypertrophy. It's different approaches. to training. A lot of people think they are strength training. And they're trying to build strength,

but they're actually, the way they're walking into the gym and training, they're building muscular endurance. They're not actually training hard and intense and heavy enough. So there's a difference between strength training, strength endurance, and muscular endurance. Strength training is like the one to five rep range. This is 80 to 100% of your one rep max. And the primary adaptation with strength training, it's neural, nervous system. You get better motor unit recruitment, coordination, and rate of force production. So when you get stronger, it's not necessarily that you're building more muscle. I mean, that is a byproduct of getting stronger. When you're building strength. You know, if we're talking about getting a bigger and stronger deadlift or barbell squat

or bench press, this isn't just because you're building more muscle, but your nervous system, your motor unit recruitment and coordination and rate of force production improves and gets better. You're building muscle as a byproduct of those adaptations. Strength endurance. is typically, and there's no black or white to this, but it's typically like 8 to 12 rep range. This is where you maintain a significant percentage of your max strength across many reps for longer efforts. So think of strength endurance where it's a few more reps than that 1 to 5 rep range.

And it's a little bit lighter weight. but there's still a large stimulus on the muscular system, as well as essential nervous system. And then you have muscular endurance. This is 12 plus reps, much lighter weight, lots of reps, lighter loads in sub-maximal force production. There's less benefit to muscular endurance for building muscle, building lean tissue, improving body composition.

It's kind of like this gray area. So one, how much strength training do you need to do on a weekly basis to build muscle and get stronger? You got to ask yourself, are you training properly? Are you training in the appropriate rep ranges with the appropriate loads? is the weight you're using heavy enough to provide and facilitate the response to get stronger, to build muscle.

And it depends on the experience of the athlete being trained, but I would say that anywhere from 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle group per week is an appropriate amount of training volume. 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle group per week. This doesn't include warm up or back off sets. So say you have for barbell squats programmed a 5 by 5, you might do eight total sets.

Or say you have two warm up sets and then you do your 5 by 5 and then you have a back off set. You're counting those five by five hard sets as working sets. The other three sets, the two warm up and the one back off, those are just to set you up for success for those movements. So 10 to 15 hard working sets per muscle group per week. I think it is an appropriate range to aim for on a weekly basis to build muscle, lean tissue, improve body composition, and get stronger.

And the last question I'm going to answer, how to start tracking nutrition, food, and macros. And I think if you were to ask me this question years ago, I would have answered it differently. And I'm excited to share this response. And I think this deserves probably a full YouTube video. which I'm going to start working on and planning. Because I've just found that so many people struggle with nutrition, consistency,

tracking, nowhere to start. Because what generally happens is someone goes zero to 100 really quick. They go all in. Super aggressive. And this is great. But the question is, is it a sustainable approach? approach and model. Maybe, maybe not, but I've seen a lot of people fall off just as fast and hard as they've

gotten started. So how to start tracking nutrition, food, and macros? This is what I would recommend. First, buy a food scale. Before you even start thinking about tracking any of your food in an application, your phone, and writing it down by a food scale. And start being more food conscious. What this means.

For the first week or two, or even month, eat as you normally would. But use your food scale. Get comfortable with it. Start weighing how much you're consuming. You know, put your, as I was previously describing when you're making your plate for dinner. put your plate on the food scale

and if you're weighing your meat tear it, set it to ounces put on that plate what you normally would consume don't look at the food scale until you put all the meat on that plate you normally would and then look at it I did this with someone recently

where they thought they were consuming enough this individual was under consuming and we had them put a plate on a food scale and we just said add how much protein, how much meat you normally would eat at dinner on this food scale. It was two ounces, two ounces of protein, not nearly enough. And we had them aim for four to five ounces.

It was a female portion size. And they were mind-blown by how little they were consuming. So you might learn in this process that you're underconsuming or you're over consuming, but just become more aware of what you're eating. When you add your potatoes or your rice or your pasta to your plate, just weigh it out. Add it to the plate as you normally would and then look how much you added. Write it down somewhere and you can reference it later. But don't get called up in all of how much should I be consuming, what should my macars,

be how many calories, how much protein, how many carbs, how much fat. Just start making notes. This is how much I consumed at dinner, this night of protein, of carbohydrates. Here's the extra sauces I added and condiments and all of those things. Start reading nutrition labels. As I mentioned previously, people think granola is healthy, which it can be. But maybe not when you're consuming 500 plus calories of granola in three to five to seven plus servings. Start looking at nutrition labels, looking at how much a serving size is, and then when you go to add that to your bowl, your plate, weigh it out. You'll learn a lot in that process. You're teaching yourself a level of self-awareness and wisdom and knowledge or

portions and food labels and learning how to use a food scale. Before you even start tracking anything, just become more food conscious. Buy the food scale, start reading nutrition labels, weigh serving sizes, learn what portion sizes look like. You know, you don't have to use a food scale every day for the rest of your life, but I know what 40 grams of oats, one serving looks like now. I know generally what eight ounces of protein looks like. I know what a cup and a half of white jasmine rice looks like.

I know what 28 grams or one ounce of nuts looks like or 150 grams of blueberries. After doing this for so long, I know what portion sizes look like. and then how many grams of protein or carbohydrates or fat is associated with that portion size. I've built this awareness around food and portions and calories and macronutrients over time to the point now where I really don't have to track anything. I'm just aware. And once you get comfortable with that, using a food scale, reading nutrition labels, understanding portion control and sizes,

then you can start logging your food. into an app on your phone online. You then can set up your calorie targets in macronutrient goals. You then can start making adjustments to your calories, your proteins, your fats, and carbs. And there's lots of different online calculators that can do this now. I'm sure AI can pretty accurately figure out your maintenance calories and your protein goals. and carbohydrate goals and dietary fat goals. But I think that the best thing you can do

to start track your nutrition, food, and macros is to just become more aware of what you're consuming, how much. Certain things add up too. You know, we typically add sauces and oils and condiments to a lot of our food, not even thinking about how much those calories can and do add up. very quickly. So that's where I would start to get better at tracking your nutrition, your food,

your macronutrients. I hope that these questions had strong answers that are helpful to you guys. I enjoy doing these because I know when there's a question that's asked multiple times by multiple different people, there's probably more people that will benefit from learning and understanding and hearing the way that I think about it. What I've learned, over my lifetime, especially focused much of my career on health and fitness and nutrition and training. So I hope it does help you guys. Thanks for the questions. Thank you for tuning in. And as always, go on more.