Weights and Plates Podcast - #92 - The Globo Gym To Starting Strength

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Coach and RDN Juliette Gonzalez joins Robert Santana to discuss her fitness journey from Globo Gyms to Starting Strength, becoming a dietician, working as a coach, beauty standards, and more. https://weightsandplates.com/online-coaching/ Follow Weights & Plates YouTube: https://youtube.com/@weights_and_plates?si=ebAS8sRtzsPmFQf- Instagram: @the_robert_santana Rumble: https://rumble.com/user/weightsandplates Web: https://weightsandplates.com

Welcome to the Weights and Plates podcast. I am Robert Santana. I am your host with a very special guest today. Do you want to introduce yourself? Yes. Hello everyone. I am Juliet Gonzalez, a registered dietitian. Yeah.

So today we have a very special guest. Name's Juliet Gonzalez, old friend of mine. Client now for about 10 years. What the fuck else do you do? Oh, you know, I'm a lifter, still. Guess I'm a dietitian. Specialized in eating disorders. Well, also to general nutrition, but... Yeah, why don't we...

...eat disorders. Why don't we just dive right into it? As my audience knows, I'm not the best interviewer, so we're just going to play this shit by ear. Tell us your background and how you got into all this and tell us your story. I mean, yeah, I grew up in Glendale, California. Pretty cool, small little town. It's gotten pretty big now, pretty popular area. But, yep, went through school, college. And at the time when I was working at 24 hour fitness,

that's when I met you. Just kind of jumping right into that. Yeah, lost my fucking that. Yeah. Lost my **** hoodie. Yeah. I mean, are we really gonna we're gonna talk about the hoodie out Ashley. I talked to you about whatever I talked to you about. We're talking about. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I was working at 24 fitness front desk going to school to become a dietitian. I remember I used to see you a

few times and I thought, huh, this guy seems interesting. Didn't really know you though. And then one morning, I think it was early, it was a morning shift. It was like seven a.m. I was opening the, well it was a 24 hour fitness, so it was open all day and night. But I was opening up my shift and I think you were coming out of the gym. You used to go in there early, right? That's super early.

Once upon a time I trained in the morning. Once upon a time. It seems like. You were the six hammer. Yeah, it seems like fantasy. Like, yeah, I can't imagine training at six in the morning now. Like when you say that, I'm thinking I'm like. That was you.

I actually fucking did that. Me too. Me and that really fucking jackal Armenian dude, you'm thinking, Mike, that was you. I actually fucking did that. And you too. Me and that really fucking Jack older Armenian dude, that you were friends with him, right? Remember the whole bunch? Yeah, like gray hair. He was like really fucking Jack. You know what I'm talking about.

Yeah. Yeah, and I think, well, the funny thing is, I remember seeing you, but I couldn't put the name to the face at the time. And I was closing, closing out. I was opening my shift and I remember getting a call. And I picked up and you called. They were not, I didn't know who you were.

And you asked me, hey, can you check to see if I left, you were particular, is you told me a specific sweater, how it looked, and I was doing other stuff, so it was on my lowest to do list. It was unimportant, exactly. How old were you at the time? Oh gosh, I was 22. Yeah, and you asked me to check in the weight room

to see if you could use your sweater there. And you know what, now that I remember, because it was a morning, you get the morning shifts, all the lifters coming in and I got busy and it just, I forgot. And then I think I was supposed to call you back. I think you asked me to call you back. Yeah, I was supposed to call you back.

And I didn't, right? Yeah, I did it. And then you called back or you just showed up. That's the part I can't remember. I showed up. You showed up. I was right where I left it. But you grabbed your sweater and you came out

and you were so mad at me. I think, no, you know what happened? I called and you said you looked. Oh no, and I didn't look. were so mad at me. I think, no, you know what happened? I called and you said you looked and. Oh no, and I didn't look, that's what it was. And I'm like, because of what I just described a few minutes ago, I'm like, I'm gonna go down there, I bet you it's still there. And that was right where I left it,

on the safety bar at the SWAT rack. Yeah, and then you walked away, well, you came in the front desk with your sweater and I forgot what you said, but you were pissed. And I felt bad, because I didn't look. I looked at you and I said, I found it, but the next guy might not be so nice. Stop.

You know, that's exactly what I said. You remember. I remember a few months ago. I have a memory for Brandon thing. You do. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, that was that.

And we didn't chat for a couple of years and what happened? I don't know the timeline but at some point in the next year or two, we come out. Right. Well, also too, because you found out that I was going to school to become a dietician. Yeah, that was funny story. Then you shared with me that you were a dietitian, and I thought that was rare because it's

hard to find dietitians. Well, at least at that time. I felt like the career wasn't as popular. You mean male? It always sounds. And that too, a male dietitian, very rare. We're still unicorns. You guys are unicorns.

Not too many of you, though. But yeah, I think that was what started our friendship. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And, you know, like, shortly after that, I think. So when I met you in 2011 2012, I started coaching 14. So shortly after that, I was trying to get my SSC, my starting strength coach, Prudential. And I think for those of you in the audience that aren't familiar, you have to demonstrate that you can coach. You have to demonstrate that you can lift.

And that is how they weed out people who want to consume content, memorize it, and try to get a certification, which is how most certifications work. So I needed live bodies. And how do you get live bodies when you don't work in the industry? Every time I tried to apply for a personal training job, I turned down because I wasn't enough of a cheerleader and an act like a high school girl enough for these LA gyms to hire me because I think as many people who listen to this know, most gym jobs want somebody who looks pretty, acts excited and keeps the client entertained, not somebody who knows how to do the actual job of training. And there's lots of reasons for that.

Maybe I'll do a monologue on that next week or two weeks for you guys. But I needed live bodies because rep was gonna fail my ass if I couldn't demonstrate that I knew how to coach a person. You can only demonstrate that you know how to coach a person by coaching people. So I just went to my immediate circle of people that were already going to the gym regularly doing something. So I was coaching my friend Audrey, she coaches people on my site, you coach people on my site. And I asked you, because you were at the gym on a pretty routine schedule. I mean, I saw you there several times a week, every single week. Right. Well, at the time I knew about powerlifting. I remember seeing a few lifters, rarely women, deadlifting, squatting.

But most men are focusing on bench, right? Like upper body. Arms and chest. Arms and chest. Every day. Upper body. Nope. No light day.

I used to see you at the dumbbell rack yourself. Right. Well, also too at the time I was still learning. I you at the dumbbell rack yourself. Right. Well, also too, at the time, I was still learning. I worked at the gym. A lot of the trainers there taught me bodybuilding, right? So isolating movements, more so hit type cardio, cardio bunny. I mean, I did quite the cycle

of typical bodybuilding workout. And also too, I loved, at the time, I did quite the cycle of typical bodybuilding workout. Also too, I loved, at the time I was obsessed with the way a lot of these fitness models looked. So I always thought, well, if I download the workout, right, because at the time we didn't really have apps yet. Right? And I used to download workouts through like Women's Health magazine. You would go on their site, you can

download workouts. And that's how I followed my workout routines at the time. And I just assumed that as long as I followed the workout, I would look like these fitness models. Sounds rather similar to. Right, to men. Right, when you're following a lot of these men's health magazines, right?

For fitness magazines, like you see these fitness models and they look perfect, right? You just follow the diet, you do the workout, and somehow you're gonna look exactly... Just like them. Just like that. And you take this supplement out of this can. And the supplement, and the protein powder, and the creatine, and I had that false assumption, right?

What shit were you taking? Were you taking like pre-workouts and shit? Right, at the time, yeah. I was taking all the pre-workouts. I didn't take creatine, just protein powders, pre-workouts. All right, I'm trying to remember one of the popular ones back then. You took something that you said made you real jittery. Oh no, what was it called? It was called Jack 3D, that one. Jack 3D.

Was it Jack 3D? I don't know, is that so exist? I think you have to Google that, but I remember those were really popular back in the day. It is still here. It is 37.95. Not bad. They could have made this label a lot cooler. It's the same label. They haven't changed a damn... You know, they put like lightning or like an explosion in the background or something, make it look more intense. You said it fucked you up, right?

Yeah, so it cracked out. It's freaking workouts. And then on top of that, I would work, right? So I would do an early workout and then I would work from, you know, seven to two, three o'clock and that would be my routine. So why'd you start lifting weights? Well for that reason I remember seeing a lot of these fitness models, trainers. I loved the physique. I loved the the body composition, the muscular look. I was never into

I was never into the super small, lean, slender look. And I just knew that lifting weights clearly does something to you, positive. At the time, I didn't understand, right, what I know now as far as like starting strength, right? You wanna know, we'll get into that. But it was such a good feeling to go into the gym and feel strong and confident. I think for most women, it's extremely discouraging

to walk into a weight room, or there's all men, and you're just walking in there not knowing what to pick up, where to start. And so that was the introduction for me. There's not a whole lot of guidance at commercial jobs, right? No, zero. I mean, you sign up and you figure it out

or you hire a trainer. I mean, they teach you how to use the machines, but this is where they get you right. It's like they're trying to sell their they're doing their business too. So it's understandable. Right. So but most of it was weights. And even then, I remember working with a trainer and I still wasn't getting the results that I wanted. Right. Yeah, that's wanted. Right.

Yeah, that's an interesting thing. So you got me thinking about something. So when I was coming up, we had one of these muscle magazines. They have Muscle and Fitness, Muscular Development, then the Men's Fitness, Men's Health stuff became really popular in the late 90s, early 2000s. But you think about what you said, a lot of the time, I don't know about now. I mean, I go to a commercial gym every so often now.

And there's more women in there now. And I think CrossFit is in part responsible for that because they have like these quote unquote CrossFit areas now have different names scored. I think Lifetime calls it Alpha. I just learned that from Gretchen in my last episode. Alpha, that's just fake CrossFit. But Africa, there's a global gym here that's 10 bucks a month for a single location.

It's called EOS here in Europe. Oh yeah, there's one. That El Chihuahua now too, yeah. So I think I found one when I was in Orlando? Yeah, I found one in Orlando, so I'm one of those servers. But they have a section, there's like turf and there's actual rigs there, you know.

So a couple things have happened in the last 15 years. Barbells have become more popular, kettlebells are more popular, just doing things without machines has become more popular and I think CrossFit has a lot to do with that. In CrossFit, Showcase showcased a lot of female athletes, so having muscle on a female has become more popular, a little bit more mainstream, you know. Not totally, I still get women that say, oh, I don't want to get huge.

But back then, when I met you, it was still part of the old status quo of mostly men, mostly machines, not a whole lot of barbell work other than bench press. You know, you see guys bashing. You might see guys curling, but usually it was with an easy curl bar. A lot of the arm stuff was being done with dumbbells. But you know, the racks were usually available. You didn't have to wait for a rack. Now you have to wait for a rack at a commercial gym, which is new.

I mean, the guys are still squatting eight inches high. Definitely. But at least they're in there, I suppose, you know? But I think about if you went further back, and I'm probably asking my mother this, she'd probably attest to this, but I'm curious to what you have to say. I think when I was a child,

a lot of the stuff being targeted at women had to do with fashion, diet, and then of course, plastic surgery, which is still being targeted today. But not really weightlifting. Maybe running in the 80s, running was popular, I think, across both sexes. But I think that's part of why you didn't see a lot of women in the weight room because a lot of the look-good information that was being channeled at women in the 80s and early 90s had to do with diet, fashion, and probably medical slash plastic

surgery. Is that what you're... That's true. And also just the expectations of beauty in each decade, right? 90s was heroin decade, right? 90s was heroin chic, right? So, I wouldn't know. Right? Women wouldn't, women wouldn't eat.

It was, the look was model, right? All the women wanted to look like models. The thing is most women are not five, nine, five, eight, five, nine, as far as height goes. Most women are petite or average size, but also women come in all shapes and sizes, right? So you have women in larger bodies or more curvier or petite, small.

So it was extremely difficult to try to achieve this look unless you start to start yourself. Right? And that's where the fad dieting came in restriction. I mean, fad diets have always been around. But like you mentioned, right, with plastic surgery, more so now. Well, even 200 years ago. I mean, definitely.

Some people may say, I know a man who did this. Oh, I mean, you swore the corsets. Of course. That goes back to the treasonry, beauty. The standard of beauty has always been in the forefront. And it's quite fascinating because of the competition between women, but also wanting to be seen by men. And so it is competitive.

What is more important, being seen by men or beating the other woman? Well, I mean, that can be pretty toxic in itself. All right. Now that we're trying to work towards supporting one another, right, which is a battlefield in itself. We'll leave that for a different podcast show. But go on. Well, now it's the it's quite the opposite.

Now the expectation is, oh, we don't want women to look small or thin. Now we want women to look curvy, right? Or voluptuous. So you have women going to get plastic surgery, getting Brazilian butt lifts, you know, all that. Yeah. First of all, I mean, no judgment, but it's that's that's where the beauty standards are right now.

The beauty standards expectation for women is different than that. Yes. We just had a conversation about this, right? With men, it's the right you're trying to have that alpha presence, the muscular composition. Well we used to. She has changed. Oh yeah, she has changed. Me and Trenton.

I rammed this topic to hell on this show. Well, I'll take that. My turn's coming. Go ahead. I know, I know. But, and the reason why I say this is because of the work that I do. Yeah, let's talk about that. Or how I got into eating disorders.

Yeah, so you didn't even say you did that. What kind of work do you do? Oh, what kind of work? You haven't. I kinda did a little bit. You haven't even introduced your work. So let's work our way there. So we met.

There is the co-chairs. Yeah, there's a reason why I got into the field of eating disorders. So at the time that I was, well, we would have to go even way back because you started to talk about starting strength. So I mentioned that I coached you. Correct. And I came up to you and I'm like, I'm trying this new shit. And you know, sometimes I accidentally get things right.

I didn't really go into a lot of detail and I tend to like to explain things, but I was like, oh, I'm trying something new. Come give it a shot. Oh yeah. And they trusted you. And I'm like, yeah, five exercises, you know? And I trained you probably for about 20 months straight. And you were trying to lose some weight to that in retrospect you

didn't really need to lose, you just needed to get strong. I was obsessed with wanting to lose weight. Yeah. Almost. And you don't talk about that because Trent and I have talked about on the show what that's like when you're a person who's of a normal body composition trying to get leaner. What was that like? That was the first time you did that because you had told me you're like, I've just done

workouts and supplements. I've never dieted. That's what you told me back then. Yeah, I think I just did the typical dieting. I would, I wouldn't restrict myself. So I didn't understand calorie deficit to that degree. I just knew, okay, well, I'm replacing this meal with a salad, right? Or I would eat a salad, I used to buy salads at Subway after my workout.

You know, they've gotten better. Oh God, no. I can never go to Subway again. So we started working together. I gave you some macros. This was, what, 2014? So the IIFYM thing was big. Right, everybody fits your macros.

That and also, this was before my first competition. Slow it down, you're jumping here. So I put you on a diet for the first time. So talk about that. And you were training, you were doing the linear progression. There was no competitive stuff at the time. You were just lifting weights, getting stronger, trying to see if that helped you look the way you wanted to look. So you were just adding a, getting stronger, trying to see if that helped you look the way you wanted to look.

So you were just adding a few pounds of bar each time, you were learning the technique, and you were being a young girl on top of it all. So there were some interesting Saturday morning workouts. I loved it. Trucking macros for the first time, it was challenging because it's a whole new tool, right, that you're learning how to use. And one of the apps that I still, to this day, I sometimes will recommend it for certain clients

that are trying to lose some healthy weight, or is it like my not diary or right, like a my fitness pal? Like training wheels, like training wheels, right. And so training wheels with tracking means having a food scale, measuring cups, measuring spoons, understanding what a serving size is, what three ounces of protein, four ounces of protein looks like per meal. And then you realize, oh, I'm not having this much protein in my diet. And that was actually the first shift towards.

I think some of the benefits that I've got out of increasing my protein intake and how that helped my lifting. Yeah, especially linear progression. And and so that's how it started out. It was just learning how to use the app, learning how to use this tool, measuring. So the dieting didn't, I feel like it didn't affect me right away, it was over time. Right. Right.

And so I was under the impression that as long as I follow this specific macros, that I would lose all this weight. Which yes, but also I was impatient and I didn't understand that it's a process. It's not like a weight loss program where you're eating under 1,000, I mean under 1,200 calories

and losing a bunch of weight in a short amount of time. And so that was the expectation that I had. And as you mentioned earlier, I was already fairly small frame, but in my view, already fairly small frame, but in my view, my body composition wasn't enough. I wanted to look lean, I wanted to look like these fitness models,

but I didn't understand that in order to look like that, or the version of myself, it would require for me to really do the work and be extremely uncomfortable in the phases of dieting. And you know, we've talked about this multiple times. And I was, I just, I couldn't understand why I wasn't able to lose weight quickly, right? Or the fact that my body composition was different than other women, right? Or the expectation of these fitness models, right? I'm not taking drugs.

I'm not doing any of that stuff. So the, yeah, the expectation was confusing. I was conflicted most of the time. I remember I used to complain to you. Did you? A lot. Yeah. Yeah.

A little toxic. Complaining. Well, it was something that you're very familiar with now having Yerpton weight management and eating disorders, which we're going to get to. You know, one a week, drop pounds. The next week you gain a pound. One week you drop, then you drop two, three pounds over a course of three weeks and you

gain it all back. And that's how I saw it, just looking at broad data. I understood human behavior, so I kind of would look at that and I'd say, this is probably what's happening. What was going on there when you got to that point, you know, where you lost, I think you lost a few pounds right away. Then it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom.

It was up and down. Well, the way I like to view that now, just going through that experience, it's that, it's right, it's like that dopamine. So the reward center of the brain, I felt elated by the results of weight loss, right? So I would lose a pound, two pounds, right? I would weigh myself on the scale and that was success.

And that was deeply embedded to my version of success, which was to be enough to be successful. At the same time, I love food. I was definitely a foodie. And so it was almost like this rebellious or not even rebellious, it almost felt very secretive to, oh, like I can get away with I almost felt very secretive to, oh, like I can get away with this one meal or I can, so that's where the mentality, that restricted mentality started to evolve. And it's interesting, and this kind of speaks to your work,

you were in your mid-20s at the time. This was not something that you fucked with when you were a kid or a teen. No, I've never died as a, I came from a loving, supportive family. My mom never died it in her life. Right. She, even when it came to beauty standards,

there wasn't this high expectation that I had to look a certain way. So my upbringing was fairly supportive in terms of body image. Yeah. Yeah. And food was a big part of the culture. Food was a big part of my culture, right? My dad's a chef, so I always ate very well.

My mom didn't cook as much. She she always depended on my data. And I love food. What can I say? So when I started to do this dieting stuff with you, I was also in my 20s. I wanted to go out with my friends, I wanted to go out drinking, I wanted to do all these things, but I couldn't understand why I could do both. Why I couldn't do both, right? Yeah. So the dieting plus going out every weekend, drinking, having a good time, being in my

twenties, being in college. And you can't see what other people are doing that are at the gym. And this is something that I had to really keep talking to you about over and over again. Because, you know, I had the same problem in a chiropractor. Actually, it said something to me that resonated. It was something I had heard before, but just the way he said it, you know, and that's where I always tell people that are trying to get into making content and teaching people things, the same exact message from 10 people.

You only understand it from one. And I was in there and we were talking about, I think low bar squats or pull ups or something. And he was just saying, no, the trade off is could fish your shoulders off. And that's true. Some people can't get into a low bar position because their shoulders.

And that's, you know, he was thinking about it as a chiropractor, but he said, I said, well, you know, these guys are doing, I said something about people at the gym doing something. I don't know if it had to do with the chin up or the low bar squat. I can't remember which one. And he's like, never make assumptions about other people's bodies.

You don't know what they're feeling or not feeling. And I remembered that. I'm like, you know, it could look good. Some guy might be doing behind the neck presses and not feel anything. And some another guy might be doing it and be in excruciating pain. And I'm just an innocent bystander watching it, assuming that everything's okay because he keeps doing it. You know, my favorite Olympian was Pyrros Dimas. In his fourth Olympics, he was injecting painkillers in the back. And I mean, he had a shit performance compared to his previous three,

but he still got the bronze fucking medal, you know, which is a big deal. Fourth in the world after getting first in the world, you know, 12 years prior. I remember you used to talk about him a lot. Yeah, he was a great Olympian You know, he's you know, he's charismatic and entertaining too, you know, so that's that's part of it You know his whole he holds a bar up there nods his head, you know the crowd But uh, I read up later that you know He had knee surgery wrist surgery and he was an excruciating pain Injecting painkillers before the performance and I'm sure this happens at that level because to be an Olympian, A, you're born that way,

and B, now you're lifting at a level that is so high and you have time constraints. I'm gonna do an entire episode on this with Buddy. So if you have to go to the Olympics, you're going to the Olympics. It doesn't matter if you're hurt or not. You're gonna find a way to perform even if you're hurt. So that conversation with the chiropractor

just sat in my head. I'm like, okay, no matter, I don't know what the fuck people are thinking or how they got to the place they got to. And then the other thing was too, that I learned that some people are born that way. And I've talked about it on this show. My stepbrother was born that way. He's naturally lean and muscular.

He starts lifting weights and you'd think he got on a cycle of steroids. My stepbrother was born that way. He's naturally lean and muscular. He starts lifting weights, and you'd think he got on a cycle of steroids, but he's just fucking built that way. And I had to explain that to you about the women that were at your gym that you worked at. Right. Well, also, too, and we'll get into this with eating disorders, it's almost like the perfect storm, right, when you develop one.

Real quick. Yeah. So, the reason I kind of went on that sidebar was you started to see yourself change psychologically as an adult, you know? Right. And a lot of the people you've worked with, you say it goes way back. And that's what I learned as a student not being in the field was a lot of that stuff starts young.

Groundhog trauma. Well, you were going through it as an adult. Right. And also at the same time recognizing something was fucked up, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So talk about that. Going back to the dieting, right?

So the goal was, I think my goal at the time was, I thought of it as pounds, right? I thought for whatever reason, being under 130 pounds was good. I didn't understand why. And your how tall. And I'm 5'3", right? Now, getting into BMI, I mean, we can get into that later. It's not a fan of it. Everybody listening and watching, Getting into BMI, we can get into that later.

I'm not a fan of it. Everybody listening and watching, we're on YouTube now. So if you like what we're saying, smash that subscribe button. But keep forgetting where I'm fucking YouTube. But for our audience, we all know BMI is bullshit. I've talked about it, I've written about it. It applies in general, but once you get to things that fit outside that, once you get into situations that are outside the assumptions of BMI, and this goes for a lot

of things that come out of academia, anytime you set a standard, the way you want to look at a standard, people, and I'm telling you this too in real time, is a standard is something that applies most of the time. Nothing applies all of the time. So that's how you gotta think about it. Now, you'll run into another problem where everybody thinks you're a special snowflake. And that's where you kind of end up wrestling with that.

Am I being a special snowflake or do I just don't fit into that standard? I'm one of those people where some of the time it's different, right? So with BMI, the easiest ones are the tall guys and the short guys. So the guy who's 6'7", the BMI is complete bullshit for the guy who's 6'7", just like it is for the Galbous 4'10".

Go ahead. And going back to what I was mentioning earlier, so we'll talk, we'll revisit BMI again. But going back with the macro county, with the weight loss, so right, I mean, that stretched out for, I think, over like a year, right? 20 months, so a year and a half, and some change, almost two years. To try and lose, I don't, I can't even remember, it wasn't even that much. It was like a total of 15 pounds, but really like the last.

But it was excruciating because I could not follow the expectations of the macros, right? I couldn't follow for more than three weeks, four weeks. And that's where I started to notice, oh, this is much deeper, the expectations that I have for myself. And also I think the expectations that I thought maybe you have for me. And I know you did it, but that's what I assumed. And the thing is, and this is important

because with eating disorders too, personality characteristics can play a huge role in eating disorders and professionism is one of them. So I was never a type A type personality. I think I'm kind of in between, I'm a type A type B, but I always joke around until people, I'm only type A for things that don't really matter, which is true, that sounds accurate.

Very true. But for the most part, I just, I grew up struggling with school. I had many challenges. School did not come easy for me. So, it's, if I had to fade back on my life and how that created my own disordered eating. I don't think I ever had a full eating disorder, but if I continue that path, I would have.

And it was the core belief of not being good enough. Yeah. Very, extremely embedded. You said that's consistent with a lot of people. Yeah. With core beliefs, it's right not being good enough. They're extremely embedded. You said that's consistent with love. Consistent, yeah. Recurred beliefs, it's right not being good enough, successful, being loved, no compassion, right? So you mix that with dieting, with feeling accepted,

feeling seen, then your brain, right? The way your brain works is, oh, okay, I need to keep doing this thing in order to receive this kind of affection or being noticed. And so for me, it was the trying to achieve success It was the trying to achieve success because I had an extremely tough time achieving it as a kid. School, I dealt with a lot of anxiety in school,

anxiety with test taking, studying was extremely hard for me. It was not easy. I mean, you remember. And when I, I remember I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life as far as like career-wise. And I took, well, you know, one of those personality tests that you take in college, right?

Like Myers-Briggs or something. Exactly, the Myers-Briggs. And I remember taking it and dietitian came up. I think it was in my top 10 or something. And I remember looking into that. I was like, oh, I look like a dietitian, what is that? And I thought it was cool because you're talking about food, it's culinary. And I thought I wanted to be a chef at one point.

I thought I wanted to follow the same steps as my dad or work in hotel and management. I mean, I've always loved speaking to people that's always been my personality tied, very friendly. And so I knew that that was the career I wanted to move towards, but I loved nutrition and I wanted to learn about food. I wanted to understand why, what food can do for your body, right?

The benefits of nutrition. But in order to become a dietitian, the requirements were extensive. You had to take chemistry courses, biology courses, organic chemistry, biochemistry. I mean, I've never taken a chemistry class in my life prior to becoming a dietitian. So in high school, I just did the bare minimum just to get through.

I wasn't a high achiever. In high school, I just cared about being with my friends and not really thinking about my future. Although my parents would always push me and say, hey, like, you need to figure something out. You have your shit together. But that just wasn't my mindset at the time. And so when I started looking into becoming a dietician,

I saw all of these prerequisites. As you have the sciences, trying to remember what else, other prerequisites. The sciences was the main one. Look, chemistry, biochemistry. Oh yeah. There wasn't a big math requirement from our- No, not too much.

No. In the standards, like the science, yeah. Biology, anatomy. Right, well, and you know, I never really studied. And so I didn't understand how to study. I didn't understand the amount of time and the requirement. And I had difficulty paying attention. I honestly think I probably have ADHD.

Not as bad as a minute. But no, your ears is pretty bad. So researching all of those things, I remember going to my school counselor and she said, I told her, look, like I'm thinking about becoming a dietitian, what do I need to do? And so she asked, one of the first questions she asked me was, well, are you good at, are you good in the sciences?

And I said, well, I don't know. I'm never really taking a science class other than standard like bio, right, in high school. I didn't take chemistry. And she said well are you someone that understands the sciences because if you don't she said you should pick another major. So if you're not good at if you're not good at science or not good at math I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend this career for you.

And so you didn't take a high school chemistry class? I think I skipped it. Somehow I skipped it. I don't remember why or how. That was optional for me. I think it was optional. I didn't take it anyway, but yeah. Yeah, I didn't. Well, and here's the thing.

The reason why I didn't take it was because it was hard. So I avoided hard things most of my life, at least when I was young. And so now I have to do all these hard things and I don't know how to do it. And I would say that was like the beginning of what I went through. Right.

Right, and I'll go back into the dieting stuff because it was really hard. I had to start from the bottom, writing stuff because it was really hard. I had to start from the bottom, from the bottom to work all the way up. I retook chemistry, I kid you not, I think like three or four times. Was it four or three?

I don't know, I can't remember. I thought it was three, but it might've been four. But it was in different, oh, sorry. It was in different times, right? Because you had your general chemistry. And then in Gen Chem, it was two different parts to Gen Chem, and then it was O Chem. And I remember when I took my first O Chem class,

I was scared shitless. That first class, I remember looking at the whiteboard and thinking, how am I gonna get through this? And I quit, I dropped the class. Well, I dropped the class because I was terrified. And I dropped it and I waited like a whole month or two months or something like that to take it again. And I dropped it and I waited like a whole month or two months or something like that to take it again.

Actually start the class this time. Yeah. And that's why I think I took so much. It took me forever to finish college. Yeah, I get it. Because I was extremely terrified the whole time, a fear of failing. So it's almost like, let's not fail. Let's not experience failure by avoiding it.

Right. And so when you introduced starting strength to me, that was the hardest thing I ever did in my life. And I say to Liz, stay starting strength, save my life, in many ways. And when you introduced LP, it's exciting, right? Because it's new, it's a new movement. And I it's exciting, right? Cause it's new, it's a new movement.

And I think over time, right, you just, you taught me form and you were learning too. So we were both way up from each other, right? And at that time, starting strength didn't have courses. You just had the blue book. You had the blue book, you have the forums and the gray book and the gray book. You had the blue book, you had the forums. And the gray book. And the gray book.

And you talk amongst your peers. And that's how you became a starting straight coach in the 2000s, early 2000s. It's not a get book. And then it was a 2010s. 2010s, sorry, excuse me, 2010s. Well, or the time that you, right, became a starting straight coach.

So jumping into the dieting, the fear of failure. And so I kept failing at the macro counting, I kept failing at sticking to the diet. So now it became, and now it was more rooted in my core belief of failure, I can't do this. And so I remember the first week, you signed me up for the first weightlifting meat. Yes. Well, let's, let's back up there because you're leading that career component here. So you're fucking all this up with a diet in your own head,

you know, and you're not getting to where you want to get, this thing's dragging you out as a result, right? And as we know now, and I mean, I knew it at the time, I kept trying to talk to you about it, you definitely know it now, the longer you try to stay on a diet, the more your mind and body fight it. Right?

And it drives you crazy. That's why we don't recommend people cut more than three or four months at a time, even if it's being done healthy. Because the longer you're restricting, the more wear it has on you. And you know, I've seen it with other things, you know, like, you know, I had to get talked about this in the last episode. I'm not going to dive too deep into this, but paying off debt. I took a large percentage of my income to pay my student loans off over the last four

years and there were periods where I'd end up spending more than usual because the amount of restriction in my spending habits was so great that I guess I would do an equivalent to a binge and I wouldn't end up getting myself into more depth, but I'd slow down when I was trying to do. And I think after the first year of doing that, this was a multi-year effort, and I think after the first year, I would have to intentionally go out and do things, because then it was a little bit more controlled that way.

But yeah, I've seen this with anything. When you try to restrict, your brain kind of swings you the other way if it goes on for too long. But to the point that I was trying to get to, in your mind, all this bad stuff is happening over here with the diet. Right. But then at the same time, what was happening in the weight room? Oh, I was doing really well. But did you care about that as much? I didn't. So I didn't care about the, well, I did to a degree, but I was just so hyper-focused on the dieting.

But I wasn't taking into account the gains that I was making or the progress that I was making in the gym. Because I eventually figured out, Oh, I'm actually really good at this. You've got me really strong. I mean, you probably don't remember your numbers. This is where I'm, this is where you're good. I always forget the numbers because I never care for the numbers. Remember?

I used to always tell you, Oh, you, you will, you used to ask me, well, what, do you have a goal? And I said, I don't know. So you just kept adding weight and I just kept lifting. Yeah, I think your LP, your novice on your progression, your squat got over 200, I think it was like 210. Your press, I remember when you first started this, I do remember you showed me a video of some girl on Instagram pressing 90 or 95 for five.

They were like, dude, she's strong. I think you did close to that at the end of your linear progression. Your deadlift was well into the twos, mid twos. You got three later at me, but you were well into the 200s with that like 250 ish, 240 maybe something around there. And I think you benched a decent amount. Like I know you didn't hit a plate too much, but you were getting close to 135. You were benching like 115, 125, something like that.

And this was all happening while you're dieting restricted restrictively. And you popped up 10 chin-ups also and I remember when you started There were some girl at 24 that would do them and you're like fuck she's strong I thought okay I could do that enough. So all this is happening and you're just oblivious to it. Yeah, completely oblivious And you know to finish that thought we shed on BMI a little bit. I'll bring it back here. I talked about outliers. It doesn't apply. And I talked about height outliers.

Well, muscle mass outliers too. The average person's not really that muscular, but some people are born muscular. Would you say that you're one of those people you had some muscle mass on you going in? Because you said it to me. A little bit. Because you were worried you gained too much.

I think I can gain it dude. You know? Yeah. Well I did. I did because I, prior to LP, I was bodybuilding. So what's the muscle mass? When you say bodybuilding, not getting on stage, you were doing... Definitely. Let's not, let's not go that far.

Yeah. I was definitely not prepping for stage. I never went that far. Yeah, I was definitely not prepping for stage. I never went that rock. But I was starting to learn all the different movements. Lifting weights without barbells. Lots of reps, short vespers, circus. And you respond to it. And a lot of people don't.

They do that shit, nothing happens. No, my body did respond to it fairly quickly. And you told me you're like, I'm going to put on, I'm going to put shoulders on dude, you know, right. And he did, you know, behind. Yeah. Well, and then with LP, that's when it really started to notice the change in body composition.

That was funny. Cause you thought your back was fat and then the bed lift went up and all your back muscles popped out. You were just, I was just a hyper focused on my body mm-hmm I didn't I really wasn't focusing on the progress right like I've mentioned earlier where do we leave off the diet you know yeah well that does go into the first me, right? Because I was still sort of, and that's the thing, that the dieting just, I prolonged the diet for so long

because I kept going back and forth. Like I would follow it, I wouldn't follow it, I would follow it, I wouldn't follow it, and then I think eventually, and I wasn't honest with you, actually this is where a lot of the lying came in, which is very common in eating disorders, right? There's that fear that you're gonna get caught. So you start to, right?

Things become secretive. So for me, my secret at the time was, okay, I'm not gonna really tell you everything I ate, right? But then this is where the anxiety around weighing myself came in. Because I had to email you my data, my progress numbers, my weight, my measurements. And I remember by the time it would be a Saturday or Sunday,

because I think I used to send them to you on a Monday. And if my weight wasn't going down, I would start to have panic attacks. That's- It's like failing a test. Like failing a test. And terrified of you not seeing progress because it's not showing in the numbers. Right. Right. So this is where a lot of my maladaptive behaviors became part of my way of

manipulating weight, which was doing a ton of cardio the day before I had to weigh in, right? Doing a ton of cardio or restricting food. So it was, and these are very common behaviors in EU disorders. You start to find ways to manipulate your weight. I didn't go extremely far with it, like other individuals that I work with, but it was enough to create this vicious cycle.

And I dealt with that for months, months. And so, and at times it would show in my training, right? Like if I failed a PR and you would ask me, well, did you eat? Did you this? Did you that? And I would lie to you. Lie about your lifestyle, yeah. Right, I would.

And so that was the beginning of this fixation with weight, body image, and overall fear versus failure. And that just exacerbated over time. Yeah. And it was interesting because even in spite of all that, you hit some pretty good PRs. Yeah, both the first meet you, I think you PR'd the deadlift.

Something didn't go right. You didn't like it. You didn't like the first meet. The second meet you took it a little bit more seriously and it went well and you pulled 315 for the first time and it was good. And then pretty much after that, I remember you had rebounded. You gained some weight. You ran Texas Method. You put it to good use.

I cannot believe I did Texas Method. You did Texas Method. She gained body weight. Partially, all the restriction led to a rebound. Well, and that's important to talk about. So the first meet wasn't too bad. It was the second meat because that I did later that year. I think it was in October of 2015. And I worked my butt off for that meat. Oh yeah. You're about a buck 28 there. Uh huh. And I got down to,

about a buck 28 there. Uh-huh. And I got down to, for weight, like I got down to a fairly low number considering for my body. Oh yeah, you normally sit from 140 to 150. Yeah, and I went down to 127. I mean, that's pretty gnarly. Yeah. I was, I wasn't sick looking, but I was extremely

lean and I was very hungry. Yeah, I was starving. And this is where this is common with lung carries of restriction, where you start to gain obsession with food. I mean, we can jump into the whole Minnesota study, maybe later, who knows, we'll get there, but these are common symptoms of long periods of restriction. Great. And I started to fantasize about food. I started to think about peanut butter.

And I mean, I just could not wait to be done with the meat so I can eat all the food. Yeah. And at the time, you know, like, what was on Instagram, it was, right, food porn, hashtag good porn. I would look at all that stuff. I would look at food.

I would just- Like it was porn. Right, and you're, and just seeing this food and thinking, oh gosh, like, I can't wait to eat all of this stuff. Yeah. And I did very well on that second meat. And as soon as that was over,

that's where I started to develop binging behavior. And I never binged in my entire life. And the crazy thing about binging is that it is highly addictive, especially when you've been restricting for a long period of time. Right. And so I started to binge on anything and everything.

I mean, it got so bad that we, I didn't know the severity of it because you weren't telling me everything, but I remember going into that meat, or maybe it was, yeah, I was going into that meat. We put the Oreo cookies in front of the the in front of the squat rack to get you to look down. Yeah. Yeah. Like a joke. That's a terrible joke. Yeah, I wouldn't never do that now. Yes. I don't starve people anymore. Yeah. Lesson learned. Yeah. Yeah. So from all the binging over time, I gained weight and decided okay, well, I

might as well use that in Texas method training. Yeah. Right. Which I, it did pretty well. Snap. Texas net is a grueling fucking program. It was, yeah. Usually you want to be young and very committed to do that. And I was.

And eating a lot of food too. And you were doing all your life. And yeah, you push your weight up heavier and you have you know, I was the highest weight I ever was a strong spark I got very strong But eventually It started to You know the way on me And then you said you started substituting the lifting for what used to be the, I guess, the body composition.

Right. Because then you got wrapped up and will not have to hit these numbers or else. Right. So then again, the fixation of. The transverse is what you were. Right. So again, the fixation of success. And if I'm not succeeding with the diet, then I'm going to have to succeed with these numbers by writing. If I'm not succeeding with the diet, then I'm gonna have to succeed with these numbers by writing. And that, I say that that was also the beginning of,

or well, how my relationship to food became extremely unhealthy. I would be extremely uncomfortable going to restaurants, ordering food. I always had to order the healthy thing on the menu. This is when you were dieting, not during Texas Method. Well, no, because I will continue to. So, I was eating the large,

but when I was eating more, I was still trying to opt for the healthier option. And so, it became an obsession. And I just had so it became an obsession. And I just had so much anxiety around food. I didn't enjoy gatherings. I avoided them as much as possible if I could. But if I had to be present, there was no control, right?

And that's a very big piece in eating disorders is you are trying to find a way to create control. You want to control your environment so that you don't have to deal with the anxiety. Right. And that's what it is, right? And with anything in life, right? We use that as a coping mechanism.

Yeah. So yeah, so let's bring it home then so He went extreme with the diet. Hey, we're done with that For the most part you weren't eating low calories, but you still had issues there. Then you went extreme with the training and then at some point after that you realize it wasn't about either and point after that, you realize it wasn't about either. And from someone looking in from the outside,

I've associated with you the entire time, I was living here, so I moved here and ended up in Arizona in 2015. You still live in Southern California. So we'd talk and I just started to see it without knowing all of the details, become less of a big deal. All of it. You still showed up.

You still worked out. Eh, you know, I don't want to add weight this week or I'll skip a workout this week, but you got enough done to stay productive. You figured out what that was. Right. You started coaching at the Strength Coat out in Orange County. Where was that? 2019? You started going in? Co. out in Orange County. Roll with that, 2019 you started going in?

Started 2019, yeah. And none of this stuff was present by then, you know? No, no because I did the work. So I think it's important to bring this up because this is how I got into becoming an eating disorder or specializing in eating disorders, I started to go to therapy. And that's when I remember the therapist mentioned to me, oh, okay, like we need to talk about this

because this is a problem, pretty much. And I didn't think it was. And this is very common. One thing is being diagnosed with an eating disorder. Another thing is there's many people that are living their life with disordered eating or have never been properly diagnosed with an eating disorder. And, you know, that's what happened to me at the time.

And I did the work, I did lots of therapy, I finished school, succeeded, became a dietitian, did the whole internship, you know, and I had two options as far as a job. you know, and I had two options as far as a job. So right when I finished and passed and got my registration, I could either work in a hospital, which is very common for new dieticians to gain the clinical experience,

usually recommended to start that way. Yeah, typically. Or I had the opportunity to work as in eating disorders, inpatient level of care, lockdown facility type of place. Yep. Something about it was intriguing. Right. Considering.

And something told me, it was my intuition told me, you should go this route and you should really learn something about this, considering the things I went through. And I did. It was, I did not understand, I did not understand anything about eating disorders. I didn't know anything about eating disorders.

In school, you only learn one chapter of eating disorder. Right, because you can't, yeah. It's just a whole other field. And so, and you're learning the most common eating disorders, which is anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge eating. There's a multitude of other. And they teach you more about the symptoms, not so much about the underlying... The trauma.

Yeah, the psychology. Yeah, you don't go into that. And we don't address that directly, but I think it's important to understand it because you're dealing with these people and they are master manipulators. Yeah, it's part of their way of... And I don't say that as a negative either. Yeah. It's a symptom of the... It's the symptom of the illness.

Yeah. Right? There you go. Right. It's the symptom of the illness. And when I went into this field, I saw it for the first time. I said, oh, wow, this is real. This isn't the stuff you see in, right, in books or TV shows, right, wow, this is real. This isn't the stuff you see in writing books or TV shows, right? We might hear about an

eating disorder, but you don't really see it. Right. And the individuals I worked with are severely ill, severe trauma, mental, physical, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, very common, and eating disorders, and their upbringing, right? And it doesn't judge the person or your financial background. It can happen to anyone. Anyone, yeah.

And I've dealt with all walks of life. And you're working through your own shit. I was working through my own stuff. So part of it, I remember you telling me, part of it, you have to eat with them because if you demonstrate any of that. Right, you're a pro-dilner. Yeah, so part of what a day in the life of a, right,

eating disorder dietitian does is your job is, right, you're working with the client or patient, you are understanding what their eating disorder is, their trauma, you work very closely with a therapist, because that's where you're getting a lot of the support, and you're creating meal plans for your patients, but you're also providing meal support. That's a big part of the job as an eating disorder dietitian and you are eating with the patients

because you are showing them what an ideal relationship with food looks like, right? And so I feel like there's an art to knowing how to eat with them, right? Lots of patients, it? Lots of patience. It can be very challenging and depending on the patient that you're working with. And so at the time, I still had my stuff with food,

but I had to eat with them. And that was very triggering for me. Right. And I had to work through that, which was the best thing I could have ever done for myself because it actually made me heal my relationship with food. And it's very common. A lot of dieticians that go into this field

is because they also struggled with an eating disorder or they're completely in remission or recovered, right? Or even therapists have their own stuff from trauma. As lifting coaches, we always tell people, and there's limits to this statement, obviously, but we say that you can't effectively teach somebody how to do something you haven't troubleshooted yourself. And of course, you're not gonna give yourself cancer

and figure out how to beat cancer, or put yourself in dangerous situations. You know, there's, there's limits to that statement, of course, but I feel like with some of these psychological things, uh, I think that holds true, you know, with, there's a, with limits, of course, you know, and I think that's probably what makes you affected at it is you see them doing it, you get it. You've been on that side of this, you know, and they probably are receptive to you as a result.

Um, yeah. You know, just in the interest of time, we'll do another one. Of course we'll do a part two. There's a lot of things you can cover. But, uh, would you say that when you started coaching people under barbell and you saw, cause you know, I've been to grants gym, you know, I know kind of people who in there, you saw, because I've been to Grant's Gym, I know kind of people who are in there, like most of the starting strength gyms, affiliate gyms,

and you see all this assortment of people and I'd say a minority of them are competitive with it. So did that help you with that, like did it help reinforce the idea that it doesn't have to be extreme all the time? Because what I've noticed, and that's a question, but what I've noticed with you is you either turn it on and you want to do a meet or you just show up and take what's there. That's how you've been the last few years.

Oh yeah, with lifting. And I think that's a positive thing and you think that's a positive thing. No, it doesn't affect you. When you're just plucking off, you're like, that's just where I'm at in my life, you know? And it doesn't affect me in any way because unlike before, you're not telling me I want to do A and then you're doing B. You're like, no, I'm doing B and that's where I'm at. Well, the last meet that I did was in what was it? 2022. And that's what I'm thinking. I was a successful me because I put my entire focus, my entire dedication,

and I also was in a much better place with my relationship with food, and I wasn't dying. I wasn't trying to die. And if anything, I was trying to do the opposite. I was trying to eat in order to recover and become strong. Yeah, you'd great eat. Stress recovery adaptation. Yeah, PR two out of three lifts.

Yeah, I PR my press and the press and my deadlift. You were deadlift was the most I've ever. 363. 363. Yeah. That was 360. That's in kilos. So that's 363. 663. The press was it was a 110. 110. It was 110. The squat was in a PR squat.

My PR squat was in the was a 110, 110. It was 110. The squat wasn't a PR squat. My PR squat was in the gym and that was 270. I did like 280. You hit 280, then you did 270 at that meet. No. You've hit 280 before. I don't remember. Yeah, you hit 280 before.

Because that's what I was hoping you'd do. But then when I saw the temps and the warm up, I'm like 270, that's what's there. But it was a good meet. And I think the thing that I saw watching it was that you just been fucking off you know she's doing your work I was coaching your lifters you know we were at strength toe at the time yeah and then you just can't turn it on you're like I'm yeah and then you turn it back off and I turned it back off

it's okay I'm gonna turn back on again but I think it's important to talk about because I think that you working there with those people, I could be wrong, but I think that working in that environment where, you know, it's not a powerlifting gym, it's not a global gym. You got people in there that are, it's routine maintenance, you know? And I think seeing that, you realize,

well, it doesn't have to be extreme all the time. It doesn't. But I need to do it. Right. You know, whereas before that, it was always about some winning something. Right? Right.

And I, again, that experience was repairing. You see the old guy coming in, shit hurts, has to modify his lifts. It's very different than working in 24 hour fitness or training with me at a power lifting gym, right? Right. You know, how would you describe that? You know, briefly. What part?

Speed around normal people that are just lifting weights as routine maintenance versus. Oh yeah, I mean, you're just trying to, you're just, you're working with average individuals who have either never lifted before or have done some lifting, right? And they just, they just want to get strong, right? And be able to do things outside of the gym where they're not hurting all the time. And so that was a good experience for me coaching there and gaining a lot of knowledge from all the coaches is that also helped me with my lifting

when I was ready to prepare for that meet. Yeah. And, you know, you use the, it's all really because of the plates, you know? Oh yeah, the plates are- That's all- The plates are beautiful. That's why I have Brahms here, you know? That's why this gym sucks, you know? Yeah, we don't have strength. No, I don't have the plates are that's all that's all these are beautiful. That's why I have Brahms here

You know, that's why this gym sucks, you know, yeah, we don't have strength. Oh, they know I don't shrink So that's why we got these May and shy more. That's why I did so well that healed that healed everything So go buy your shrink coat plates people All right, we're gonna close out because Jules has to catch a plane and I don't want her to be late We're gonna close out because Jules has to catch a plane and I don't want her to be late. Where can they find you at? Where can everybody find you at? During my Instagram account, Jules, Gonzalez,

you can just find me under Juliet Gonzalez. Not as active on Instagram, but I try to be. I also do private practice as well, so you can reach out to me there. Where? Through my Instagram account. Oh, got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And you're also on my website. That's right. If you want to hire her on my website, she is, well, Nista is one of our coaches. Well, I'm going to close out now. I'm going gonna sign off. Thanks, Robert. You could find me at weightsandplates.com or on Instagram at the underscore Robert underscore

Santana. If you're in Metro Phoenix, my gym is located just south of Sky Harbor Airport, between 32nd and 40th and Broadway. And the gym has an Instagram page that my page now collaborates with, so it's actually updating finally. It's weights double underscore and double underscore place.

And we are now on YouTube where you need to smash that subscribe button. I really suck at that, but you need to subscribe on YouTube if you like what you're hearing and seeing. It's youtube.com slash at weights underscore and underscore place. Thank you and we'll do this again.