Talking Nutrition

19 - Objective Eating with Aaron Straker

November 28, 2022 Aaron Straker
Talking Nutrition
19 - Objective Eating with Aaron Straker
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

The better data you have, the more objective decision you can make, and the better your results will be.

This week we are joined by our first ever guest and good friend Aaron Straker  (@aaron_straker). Aaron is a nutrition coach who uses a data-driven approach to help experienced male lifters and coaches level up their physiques, education, and health.

In this episode you get to know Aaron, his nomadic lifestyle, and how he runs his nutrition coaching company. You'll learn why the data is so-so important, and how the right periodization can help you create more structure, and build better habits.


You can find more from Aaron here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aaron_straker/

Straker Nutrition Company: https://strakernutritionco.com/

Eat Train Prosper Podcast: https://www.eattrainprosper.com/


Timestamps:

00:00 - Introduction and what led to Aaron becoming a coach

08:44 - The pros and cons of group vs one-on-one nutrition coaching

19:46 - How using objective data can lead to better decisions and results

36:03 - Creating structure, building better habits, and getting a better understanding of nutrition

43:56 - Chasing summer and living a nomadic lifestyle

55:00 - Outro: Where to find Aaron



More from Talking Nutrition and Odyssey Coaching Systems 👇🏼

Follow @johanvesters_ocs on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
Read the blog - https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/blog/
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Coaching applications - https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/online-nutrition-coaching

0:02

do you want to learn how to get healthy perform at your best and create body composition changes that lasts in this


0:07

podcast we're going to talk about all things Fitness Nutrition health and mindset you're going to learn how to create real results and most importantly


0:14

how to maintain those results in the long run I'm your investors I'm Kristine Andali and you're listening


0:19

to talking nutrition [Music]


0:29

welcome back to talking nutrition today we have a very special guest our very first ever guests Aaron Striker with us


0:37

we're going to talk about objective eating and how Aaron uses data driven


0:42

and the data-driven approach basically to his nutrition to create


0:47

some pretty awesome results I gotta say with this clients he uh yeah so Aaron's a nutrition coach


0:54

he travels the world could we call it that like digital Nomad or do you have like a different word for


1:00

yourself like I mean like on textbook that is what that is what I do


1:06

um I don't like to use it I feel because I feel like kind of like douchey using it yeah it's not like I'm bouncing


1:11

around and like cafes working and like that like it's no it's a lot of me sitting at a at a kitchen table in a


1:19

small apartment somewhere you know working at odd hours and being like oh I didn't leave the apartment today


1:25

so it's it's honestly a lot less glorious than it than a lot of people


1:30

make it seem like I'm not like Drop Shipping and doing anything like that no it's like a lot of client work and stuff


1:36

in by myself in an apartment um but yes technically that is what I do


1:41

on paper sounds pretty sad compared to the uh the thing we would imagine you know on the beach you know he's sitting


1:47

in the sun like with your laptop yeah nah that's uh that's cool man I'm


1:54

jealous I gotta say like we uh we're nearing polar night here I think it's just about a couple of


2:00

weeks left and then there was no sunlight for two months so you going to like Balian like it


2:07

makes me jealous but anyway back to uh back to the introduction so


2:13

as always guys before we get into the podcast um make sure to screenshot and share this episode in your stores it's the


2:20

best way for us to to kind of get the word out you know and uh yeah to to get it to other people


2:26

basically so first of all thanks for coming on Aaron thank you for having me


2:33

I'm honored yeah cool so let's just start with a quick introduction like so


2:39

who are you what do you do right how did you get into coaching and then we'll get into like your approach and stuff but


2:44

yeah basically tell us about yourself first yeah so my name is obviously Aaron


2:50

straker I own and operate a nutrition coaching lifestyle optimization company called Striker Nutrition Company a


2:57

little bit of a point of advice for any people who are interested in entering the space I


3:03

personally would not recommend naming the company after yourself but yeah yeah and I think that all three of us are in


3:10

that boat I don't change again next year yeah yeah it's just like the hindsight when I started I remember I was like


3:16

literally filling out my um um my escort paperwork which is like my


3:21

legal structure here in the United States and I was like oh like I need a name and I was like oh okay whatever and now like years later I'm


3:27

like why exactly what happened to me I was like okay A nutrition


3:34

um I feel like it not to Sidetrack us but it just kind of it makes it


3:40

I feel like it's hard to like detach your ego from things you know and that's also kind of led me into how I


3:48

look at in my structuring my business that I've been like very very incredibly hesitant to like ever bring on assistant


3:54

coaches or anything of that matter because I'm like that's my name at the end of the day you know and and I don't


4:00

I can't make someone else care as much as I care sort of thing and that's really messed with me a little bit but


4:06

to to get back on track um I've gotten into nutrition coaching just through I used to be a software


4:12

engineer um and uh fortunately I was found myself in the like the burgeoning Southern


4:19

California CrossFit scene in like the early 2010s um and that was like that was actually


4:25

life and you know writing code was just how I paid rent and and paid my bills so I could go hang out at the gym and stuff


4:30

and I just got to a point where like I gave it like the good old post College try I'm like this this world isn't for


4:38

me sort of thing and then I had always kind of known that um and I wanted to go to school for like um


4:45

exercise phase in the beginning but a family member talked me out of it because there's no money in that


4:51

um here we are you know like 18 years later but I I did that and then I was I had been


4:57

looking for something else and I had a very good friend Jen Ryan who's pretty big in the CrossFit space


5:04

and I was helping her do some business stuff and then just through that we would have like weekly meetings and I


5:09

was getting to see like a lot of the applications and inquiries coming in and I had just assumed that because like I


5:15

was super into CrossFit like I got into nutrition as a byproduct of that I assumed all these other people would as


5:21

well and that was a very large like oversight on my standpoint I think I was


5:27

just really fortunate that I had a really good kind of resources around me as friends like Jen Ryan who's now gone


5:33

on to be like a six times you know CrossFit Games athlete um Brian Borstein who hosts who's the


5:39

co-host of my podcast now um and then Anders Varner who now runs barbell shrunk like those are my friends


5:45

in the gym you know and I think I really just got lucky with that Network around


5:50

me of having really good influences so my level of knowledge just that I picked


5:55

up from people like that was higher um and they kind of saw a position I I knew


6:01

that I didn't I knew I was ready to get out of the software World um it was just like what else could I do


6:07

sort of thing and the gym in in eating and like healthy were my hobbies really


6:12

and there was a lot of people doing um like the fitness side of things


6:18

programming that side of thing but outside of like bodybuilding competitions I didn't


6:24

really see like many males in the nutrition space it was overwhelmingly like female dominant and I found I was


6:31

like well here I am I don't necessarily want to get into like bodybuilding like that was my thought back then


6:38

um I see like a market thing here there's guys who want to look better they want that you know superhero-esque type


6:45

physique they want to be happy with their body composition but there's like there's a gap here it's either like you know you're either overweight and


6:51

unhealthy or you're trying to get on a bodybuilding stage like that's from the two kind of avenues I saw him and I was like here's the space that where this is


6:58

where I'm existing and like I don't want to necessarily get on stage I'm not overweight and unhealthy technically


7:05

um this is where I am and that's really where I found that's what kick-started everything for me and just a desire to


7:11

do something that I spend my time doing something that I wanted to spend my time doing and not just you know writing code


7:17

for a paycheck anymore makes sense so that all started in 2010 you started coaching so you've been


7:23

coaching since then no no that was in like


7:29

2017 was when I started spending like a lot more time around Jen Ryan with her


7:34

business and stuff like that and what really was a catalyst for this and I know both of you guys have been in the


7:40

CrossFit space in years prior and stuff so Jen used to be the nutrition coach for


7:46

um uh Lauren Fisher and one day Lauren posted about her and


7:51

within a 48 hour period over 500 client inquiries oh my gosh she like called me


7:57

like crying was like can you help me so we I I this is like I just wrote some


8:04

code to like parse her email into like um spreadsheets and stuff so that we could start like filtering it and


8:10

actually like going through it um so that was like the real Catalyst of me actually having like uh hands into a


8:17

business seeing inquiries coming in and like reading them and that was like what really really kick-started everything


8:23

for me and then I had to do some certifications and you know different things down that road right cool yeah I


8:30

did a i mentored under Cody McBroom and Jen was in that uh mentorship with me so


8:38

I know her through that yeah she's awesome yeah yeah she is


8:45

um so with your nutrition coaching do you do mostly one-on-ones and is it it's


8:52

just men right so for the longest time it was only men I do have a very small number of female


9:01

clients now again uh four I I specialize in men right it's where a


9:08

lot of what's where I'm best right and if I'm being super transparent there the straightforward answer is like women's


9:16

um endocrine system metabolism so just it's harder it's hard to be very you know I'm not one to try to cut around


9:23

that right so I just stick to what I'm good at for right now and then I'm sure eventually like I'll want like more


9:30

challenges or just as you go on you learn more and it will be as challenging but I'm not


9:36

I also know enough to where so I'm not gonna make well here's your Macros if it's not working for you you must not be


9:42

following it like right I know that there's more under that and then you know with with any kind of client like


9:47

that I'm going to get labs and stuff and then you see totally cover things kind of quite regularly but yeah mostly men


9:54

um I am doing mostly like one-on-one now I did have kind of a program that I ran


9:59

in the past uh and if I'm being again super transparent I wasn't delivering


10:05

the caliber of results that I wanted to personally deliver with my coaching


10:12

um with that program and the reasons for that is there was just too many


10:17

assumptions I had to make at the program level and by its design so it was like a


10:23

24 weeks long so essentially six months by me framing it as such I was selling a


10:30

result at 26 months the 26 week Mark and that makes a lot of assumptions around each


10:37

client some would do fantastic but then others like really wouldn't get the ball


10:43

rolling they couldn't really be consistent tracking and stuff until like week 15


10:48

and then it's like we got nine weeks right you not lose right in nine weeks


10:54

you know and that I just kind of realized that if I want to deliver the true caliber you know quality that I


11:01

want to be known for I I can't set this pre-frame of four months five months six


11:08

months sort of thing um right there so were you taking like a


11:13

group of people on at once like everyone's starting at the same time and then finishing got it yeah that's


11:19

definitely hard considering all the different situations that come to you know yeah and it was it was


11:27

nice in that it helped me plan from a business totally a little bit better so


11:32

I'd be like okay I opened my coaching at five times per year sort of thing the


11:37

price is X prices paid up front right and I know like okay I just started 20


11:43

new clients that's x amount of dollars it can I can plan I know I'm gonna launch again here


11:49

um but it really it I just I just didn't love it you know and I know people like


11:54

my girlfriend runs a program that is her style of program she loves it everyone's


12:00

going to be you know different and I just found that it just didn't work great for me and I got a lot of anxiety


12:06

around those launches and like selling and stuff like that like I hate selling oh so yeah I know me too so it


12:15

in this what I've moved to has been much easier there and then like whenever I do put on like my stories or the occasional


12:22

post about like coaching or an email it's not like the pressure is on because what I found now is now my clients


12:30

stay with me like significantly longer like the last time I launched that you


12:35

know my my MPP which is what it was called before um was


12:41

Black Friday last Black Friday so that's coming up on this month you know yeah and


12:47

I would say like I still have I think like nine or 12 clients that are still with me from last November oh that's


12:54

great nice awesome yeah


12:59

um one question because I know you know you work with predominantly men and


13:05

something I was really curious to ask you about was men in their relationships with food and


13:13

body image and how much of this do you see because like in my coaching I notice


13:21

it a lot more with women you know struggling with with issues like this


13:26

um I mean I do see it in men sometimes but do you think that's like a pretty


13:32

big issue with men that's not talked about a lot I think so I think I think it's probably


13:39

not quite as large because there isn't the like societal pressure right for men


13:44

to like look a certain way nearly as it has historically been with like women


13:49

um but I I think like growing up you know especially what if you're into sports or


13:55

whatever or even things like you know I was just having this conversation the other day like superheroes right you never see like a superhero that's like a


14:01

regular ass looking dude right everyone's like like on paper superheroes are all roided out like you


14:08

have to be completely transparent and like there's no kids at all where he's like okay there's this like five foot


14:13

eight hundred and sixty five pound superhero you know what I mean so I think like it's kind of like


14:18

conditioning as you grow up of just not necessarily unattainable


14:24

standards of like manly hood or whatever you want to frame that as it's just


14:30

um not unattainable it's just unrealistic for the majority of people right for that so I think you it's not


14:39

as big and I don't think men are as transparent or openly communicate about it yet but I I do have


14:46

um one of the biggest things that I change with my coaching this year was just getting like really really effective at


14:53

communication and establishing like transparent lines of communication and that sort of thing and I do get more of


14:59

it now with guys who are like I I do want like I do want to be lean I do want


15:06

to feel I do want my wife to be like happy she's with me when we go to the beach for our family vacation and they


15:11

take my shirt off sort of thing um and that took like prying from me because I'm sure you guys experience too


15:18

you you onboard a new client you talk about goals and their goals are like be healthy and you know get good at Fitness


15:26

and then like you quantify that or like what does that mean right right like


15:31

those those are not uh objectable like quantifiable metrics we can work towards


15:36

right um so oftentimes you'll hear like you'll say like oh look I don't really want to lose fat but like I want abs and like


15:45

yeah that the scale needs to go down for that to happen you know what I mean so I think there's just it's just better open


15:52

communication around it but yeah I would say to kind of circle back to the beginning of the question it's not as


15:58

large but it is there still right yeah got it that makes sense


16:04

well Johan your turn ask some questions sure sure


16:10

where do I begin no that's that's cool I think in a way it is also really cool that you


16:16

are mostly working with men because then you you just get really solid at like delivering solid results like with dudes


16:23

you know and like you said hey with women's hormones it's definitely a different story you know


16:30

and we I mean we can still create awesome results but still you know like it is it is much different for sure I


16:37

was actually wondering already if you were still doing doing the uh the group thing but uh that makes sense yeah I


16:43

kind of like quietly folded it in um at the beginning of the year yeah and


16:50

it's it's been like and it hasn't been I'm still doing pretty much the same


16:55

thing right it's still a lot of the same periodization a prove it to me model that you're ready to go through a


17:01

calorie deficit by thriving and being able to be consistent with more calories and that sort of thing so I still use


17:07

the same kind of sequencing of nutritional periodization um but it's just like I've opened I've


17:13

opened the business structure up because another thing that would happen to me is like six weeks into a new program


17:19

someone would reach out like hey Aaron I want to sign up and I'm like ah you know reach out in in May right that person


17:25

never reaches out in May and I was like there's this person who wants to sign up with me and I'm saying hey no come back


17:32

in like four months like from a business standpoint that's just not really smart


17:37

when you have people that want to give you their money and sign up for coaching I actually have a question so do you are


17:45

you finding that you've been able to connect more with clients with this


17:50

structure versus that old structure it's hard to say because in in not in


17:57

the best fashion I changed multiple variables at the same time so I changed that fashion and then I had one thing I


18:06

would do at the end of that program is I would have like an exit survey thing and I got a lot of you know overwhelmingly


18:12

overwhelmingly it positive feedback I got one negative feedback last year and


18:17

that changed how I approached my coaching because like let's face it everyone's like oh yeah you're great this is awesome like you're not going to


18:23

change anything but then when someone comes through and they're like I'm not happy with the money I spent you know blah blah blah like you're like oh


18:29

like I need to change something and that was the biggest change to my coaching was just being like brutally transparent


18:37

in in communicating that and that was the biggest thing that really helped create like Foster that better coaching


18:43

relationship um and I do it from the onset because I'm you're gonna get people who want to


18:49

like clients want to impress you right yeah so they'll like kind of not like cook the books but but they'll make it


18:54

seem like oh no I'm not hungry or I'll be like well you're like six foot five you're 255 pounds and you're eating like


19:02

1900 calories you should be absolutely starving and then be like okay like I'm


19:07

really really hungry but I can I can deal with it I'm like no we don't want to deal with it you know what I mean like we want to find that threshold of


19:14

what you should be eating to upregulate things to make you feel you know what I mean so I'm obviously preaching to the


19:19

choir with you guys but yeah you it's just establishing the clear and


19:24

transparent communication on the front end has been a game changer in my coaching and like in the likes that


19:30

people stay the clients the more effective we can be um when we need to like pivot or take


19:36

diet breaks or things like that it's just like it's just a much more open transparent coaching relationship


19:43

because of that like that I think too with and this is actually a question that I had and


19:50

deleted because you already kind of answered it like throughout the the sort


19:55

of metabolic performance protocol you would have people go through that you know periodization model


20:01

as you mentioned already okay some people would be very good at tracking other people would have a hard time getting into it which makes total sense


20:07

like we all have people like that where you know one person starts tracking and it's just spotted right away you know


20:14

and we're just good and then for someone else it might be months and that's that people don't really think about or expect you know it's like oh yeah like


20:21

we'll get started right away we'll start losing fat right away but reality is like there's a lot of stuff that we


20:26

actually have to get into um but I actually want to go back a little to the periodization model


20:33

and kind of like talk about your objective approach so first of all of course with the tracking with the data


20:39

and all that but then also kind of how you structure those different phases because as we know like you don't just


20:46

want to be dieting you don't just want to be bulking all the time you know it needs to be like a plan I think


20:52

especially this time of the year it's good to talk about this stuff you know so let's get into that basically your


20:57

approach with your clients so with with that data and how you periodize that


21:03

yeah so I I think this is where my background comes comes in a little bit like I I previously mentioned that I had


21:10

a prior career as a software engineer I'm very like data and analytics heavy because it helps us make more informed


21:18

decisions right because especially when it comes to like your appearance and


21:24

hunger and satiety cues and feelings right these are things that are largely subjective and as a coach who we're


21:32

obviously coaching online and were not like in person asking you know a lot of questions or seeing these people daily


21:38

the better data you have the more objective decisions you can make and that helps you make the right call more


21:45

over a long enough time Horizon um because oftentimes like there's


21:51

obviously I have like a very objective part of my check and then I have like the subjective part like a questionnaire and clients be like well I'm feeling


21:57

fluffy I feel like it's not working right they'll say things like that and I'm like well


22:03

we're down like 1.4 pounds on average over last week so you know your feelings


22:08

you can feel those feelings all you want but the scale and all of our other important metrics of tracking fat loss


22:13

are telling us that things are going well so we're gonna you know we're gonna keep doing that


22:19

um and it just helps you combat those fears and subjectivities of clients as


22:26

opposed to like my opinion versus your opinion you can be like well this is what the data is saying the data says


22:33

that we are leaner our weights are lower like training is progressing right especially and then the same thing with


22:39

the opposite right when when um the scale is going up or when we're gaining phase clients I don't know I I


22:45

don't think I I don't think I should eat this much I'm like well or up like six tenths of a pound on average over the


22:52

past two weeks that's well within our upper and lower bounds of the muscle gain model your lifts are progressing


22:58

like sleep is good stress is low like things are working right like it's okay


23:03

to get scared sometimes but like over a long enough time Horizon with enough like uh repeated bouts of reinforcement


23:11

that things are positively working it's gonna be fine so it really just helps to


23:16

combat fears and subjectivities at a level that's you know more profound


23:23

than my opinion versus your feelings or my opinion versus your opinion or whatever because it it removes the like


23:28

hey you just need to trust me because I'm your coach like that is you never want that to be the only card you have


23:35

to pull and then also as a coach we're going to be wrong sometimes right


23:40

we're human that's that that's human nature and the the more information that


23:46

I have that helps me not have to rely on like my Intuition or call that could be


23:52

wrong sometimes the more confident I am in the more you know convincingly I can


23:59

speak to my client which then helps them feel like well he's super assured I should feel assured if I'm like going in


24:04

sort of shaking I'm like I don't know it might not be working like it might be working let's see what happens they're


24:10

not going to feel very comfortable with that but when I do not have that when I go in confident because the data in


24:16

metrics that I'm that we're tracking and I'm reading I'm very confident and it just really helps that conversation


24:22

delivery like across the board yeah and so many people need that


24:27

objective part of it right like that's like me myself I just hired a coach


24:33

because I need that person that can look at things objectively because we just


24:38

get so easily tied up in our own emotions and like how we feel and so


24:44

data is so so important for that yeah and and that's one thing like I I


24:50

don't have a coach right now because I just have a lot of business stuff going on but I do not do well without a coach


24:57

I kind of will just like kind of transition back to like my default you


25:03

know or my habits and I love having a coach and because it removes the decision-making process for


25:09

me like I make decisions for people all week long on training and nutrition is


25:14

of the last person I want to do it for is myself and I'll go through periods right where like I'm in a I'm in like a


25:21

heavy program building phase so like I'm testing everything on myself so I I can't have a coach right now or the


25:29

quality of things that I would deliver to my clients right now would suffer but when that's over I'm gonna go right back


25:35

to having a coach too yeah yeah love it yeah me we similar to like your tracking


25:42

um your metric tracker we have the same thing we're like you know so much data averages you know I work we work with


25:50

more females so we have like menstrual cycle on there which is like a really powerful thing because we could really


25:56

start to correlate different stuff and then there's lots of emotion and it can be lots of emotion around that so it's


26:02

so helpful yep it really really is yeah I swear I had to sorry go ahead no no you go ahead


26:09

okay I had a conversation yesterday and I literally told the dude like this is


26:15

why we have the data you know because he's like I don't feel good you know I feel like I messed up


26:21

completely last week or last weekend I had cookies and


26:26

all this other like his words actually I had all this stuff and I don't feel good about it I did really bad


26:33

so I looked at the data and I looked at this week I was like okay cool so we have two weigh-ins only now it's Tuesday


26:40

yesterday so we have two weigh-ins that are just about a kilo higher right


26:46

first of all we never go off to weigh-ins so we're good we'll wait until your check-in because we use the average you know


26:53

let's actually zoom out so I went to chronometer I zoom out the graph you know from one week to two it's like okay it's pretty stable so we're actually


26:59

reversing right now you know now let's actually go back to the like the all time graph and I showed him the


27:05

thing and it shows like his 25 kilo weight loss phase you know I was


27:11

like look you're fine you know we just lost 25 kilos we just bumped up like


27:17

half a kilo on like a weekly you know one week to the other plus these are your photos


27:23

these are your centimeters you're feeling great your workouts are awesome that's why we have the data that's why


27:29

we do this stuff you know right and then he's like oh yeah you're right


27:34

yeah that's usually the response and that's that's why I think


27:40

as much as some people have a little bit of pushback towards that you know like


27:46

people say things like you know tracking is obsessive and calories and you know all this stuff and macros and it doesn't


27:52

work for me but it's like well it does work


27:57

we just need to like learn how to like apply it to you and actually what like how do you think about that


28:03

pushback actually so yeah I I get what you're saying the thing that I really


28:09

love I love the parallels between tracking your food and tracking your finances right yeah it's the same


28:16

thing yeah um and it's really the people who are


28:22

like tracking doesn't work for me right there could be people whose like schedules are so insanely erratic or


28:27

like the thing that comes to mind like you're like on the road salesman sort of thing sales person


28:33

you're estimating so much of your food like it's a crap shoot you know right principles are going to be better for you in that regard because you're


28:40

probably going to be just as accurate with principles than you would be when you're estimating 95 of your weekly meals right that one I


28:48

totally get um but it it works like tracking tracking your finances work like you can't if you


28:55

want to like intuitively spend don't be mad when you don't have any money at the end of the month sort of thing and it's


29:01

the same thing like human intuition is Created from like our upbringing maybe


29:07

parents or something like that there's like really great example my girlfriends


29:13

Finance habits are just like they're they're tier one they're very very


29:18

uncommon and when we all have conversations about it I'm like no one no one else grows up like that you know


29:24

what I mean like I was someone who's horrible with my finances literally until I met her


29:29

um and she sat me down and like showed me like I forget like a cost to spend


29:34

analysis sort of thing well long story short I was eating all of my money um but it's probably not surprising but


29:42

um there was a real quick uh side note there was this place in we used to live in San Diego that I loved called um


29:48

Flame Broiler it was literally just like little Teriyaki rice bowls right like steamed vegetables white rice you know a


29:55

mix of like um flank and like chicken thigh right and it was literally like a block across the street like up the


30:02

block from the CrossFit gym so we went it was January 17th when we


30:08

did this you know spend analysis and I already I had already been to Flame Broiler 21 times that month


30:13

so there are some days I was going multiple times and I was literally like eating all of


30:21

my money and I was like okay this is why I don't have any money because I'm just literally eating so much freaking food


30:26

right um but to take it back to the tracking yeah it's it's it helps


30:33

put data and numbers in front of you that will inform your decision making and then over a long enough time doing


30:41

that you kind of like reformat your intuition like let's say you had a


30:46

budget that you followed like religiously for like 15 months you're going to reframe some of your


30:52

spending habits maybe you go from getting take out nine times per week like I was to like maybe just Friday


31:00

night you know you do that for 15 months if you stop tracking those finances you're probably not going to go back to


31:06

having it nine times per week you're probably gonna consistently stick with that Friday night the same thing happens


31:11

with tracking like we end up you know I call it a meal uh sorry a feeding


31:17

framework right we're going to eat X number of meals per day eventually you're going to start getting hungry at those times and you're not going to get


31:24

hungry at like 10 p.m at night or whatever when you if you have a meal at 7 30 or whatever like that and then when


31:31

you track your food over a long enough time Horizon you're probably going to find yourself in a new body weight body fat settling Point


31:38

based off of these new habits and the types of foods you're eating and stuff and then let's say you don't have any goals anymore you just hey I'm at a


31:45

healthy body weight you know my priorities my family and my kids I train three times per week just to for for


31:52

General Health um I you don't need to track your food anymore if you're like hey I'm at whatever my 135 pounds 175 pounds I just


32:01

I just want to be happy here and stay here and prioritize family time you can do that without tracking but when you


32:07

have goals and you're not tracking them I I find it very


32:12

short-sighted to think that it's not going to work for you or anything like that just if you wanted to save


32:19

ten thousand dollars for a down payment on a house or whatever like you're not just gonna like I'm Gonna intuitively


32:25

Save this month like no I'm gonna put a plan together right exactly on


32:30

that what are your thoughts on um the pushback with that tracking


32:37

macros leads to disordered eating I think it can if you do not pair


32:44

tracking macros with a fundamental understanding of food Sciences yeah like if you're just playing macro


32:51

Tetris all the time and you're just playing like iifym or not understanding


32:57

like periodization in times of eating more when you want to gain muscle times of eating less when you want to lose fat


33:03

like if you're always just trying to lose fat right your plan probably isn't very good


33:09

because it shouldn't take unless let's say you're I mean unless you're starting at like you know very very considerable


33:14

overweight then you have a very large you know Gap to cover but aside from from something


33:21

like that it shouldn't be you know eight months every year or something like that because you're not


33:28

you're not actually doing it yeah right yeah it's tricky


33:33

yeah I mean me too like it is tricky when people try to do that on their own you know and I'm like I've I've done


33:40

that you know a decade ago like I was telling I think a couple episodes ago I was talking


33:46

about that where I had these like tiny mints or like one gram each you know like just like for fresh breath whatever


33:52

I would like track them like each and I had like no idea and I was getting


33:57

like super caught up in logging all of that stuff and I had no actual


34:02

understanding of the categories of the macros you know so I can see when people


34:09

try it out incorrectly that it can lead to some issues but you


34:15

know as you said already like if you get educated on it if you're shown how to do it


34:21

and if you're not just going into it with like I've got to do this for fat loss and


34:27

then after that I'm just gonna let it go I think you know it's probably not going to lead to that


34:34

and I love the finance example because if you would tell someone like hey you


34:39

know like you know track your finances and that person becomes better at spending everyone will be like oh good for him


34:46

you know but then when it's food related it's like no that's obsessive it's the same the same thing and another


34:54

thing that I will use with with like newer clients and stuff I'm like okay we are whatever we're 34 years old we have


35:02

been eating three meals a day for the last 34 years and we know nothing about the food that


35:08

we put into our our bodies you know I mean like How how Wild is that there's like nothing else in our lives that we


35:13

do every single day for the entirety of Our Lives that we've you know fundamentally as a society know all


35:20

about I know it's mind-blowing yeah that's a problem


35:27

that being said with that period of periodization model sorry uh which I saw for the first time


35:35

in your MPP in 2020 I remember that I just become a coach I just started


35:41

I think I heard about your coaching through


35:46

what's it called again marble Shrugged okay and uh I checked out your


35:51

website that I remember watching that video of the MVP where you go through those different phases where you talk


35:58

about reverse dieting talk about building muscle Etc then a little bit more and explain to


36:06

The Listener like why those phases are there and why you go through that with your clients and then ultimately like


36:12

that's how you teach them how to do better on their own right yeah so I mean from a from a textbook or


36:20

and this is this is actually a fantastic uh type of conversation there was a


36:25

Stronger by Science episode that came out like about a month ago and unfortunately they do not number their


36:31

episodes so it's like it's something in the beginning and then like reverse dieting is at the end um and then subsequently uh my podcast


36:38

which is called heat train Prosper we just released I think it was episode 92 a conversation with uh fellow coach


36:44

Jeremiah bear about this like last week there is nothing like fundamentally


36:49

revolutionary about reverse dieting the the or really any of the periodization


36:56

phases what it does is it gives clients especially newer people practice in a


37:03

much simpler and less sorry more forgiving an environment to achieve


37:09

success so like we come in we start at we need to find what maintenance is at


37:15

your current body weight and that's going to fluctuate from person to person but generally there's about like a


37:23

15 like ballpark for most people if the same types of food are being eaten the


37:30

reason I say that is when different types of foods are being eaten your accuracy your margin of error just goes


37:36

up considerably simple as that um so we want to be like okay if we just


37:42

want to keep your body weight the same let's let's get some framework around this is the bounds that we can do that


37:47

okay let's start titrating that up a little bit because it's rare as a coach that someone's going to come


37:54

to you and they're like Aaron I want to sign up for coaching I sleep great I feel great my energy level is fantastic


37:59

my sex drive is through the roof my food log the quality of my foods are great these are the types of foods that I eat


38:05

I recover well from from the gym I'm following like a great training program not overdoing it and it's just I just


38:12

want to you know lose fat that's going to be one in 60 coins yeah you know what I mean yeah


38:19

people come because no one's like I think my life is great I'm gonna hire a nutrition coach right I mean people come


38:25

to you when they've already tried things they've beaten their head against the wall and they just don't feel good and


38:32

it is very short-sighted to be like okay person whose sleep is awful if you're a


38:38

if you're a woman you may have like secondary amenorrhea and not have a cycle if you're a male sex drive is is


38:44

considerably low stress is very very high they're probably doing like orange


38:50

theory or something like no offense um and there the quality they might be


38:56

like I eat a salad for lunch and apple cider vinegar and a lemon for breakfast


39:02

and then dinner is like Papa John's or something like that because I was good on my first two meals good air


39:08

quotes here right when that client signs up and you're like okay a client who doesn't have habits and the your bio


39:15

feedback's terrible less let's restrict your food right right it doesn't work


39:20

well and what the the the Beauty and the periodization is we're spending time


39:25

giving you wins in a much more forgiving environment so that we can build the


39:31

necessary understanding habits and foundations that you are going to need to rely on for successful and effective


39:38

fat loss when that time comes yep so I mean that's really the periodization in


39:43

a nutshell and then hey we've we've lost this fat we're down 15 kilos or


39:49

something like that 10 of 10 to 15 percent of of total body mass now we


39:55

want to be intelligent around finding what our new maintenance is because it is going to be different than that first


40:01

one because we are at 10 to 15 percent total body mass loss there's going to be


40:07

depending on how lean we get how long we've had to diet some degree of metabolic adaptation some degree of uh


40:13

endocrine system down regulation from us in of being in a constrained energy environment now let's titrate out of


40:21

that and discover what is you know that maintenance again and doing the best we can to mitigate unnecessary body fat


40:29

accumulation in effort of doing so there will always be some that comes back up


40:34

especially depending on how lean you get but what we really want to mitigate is unnecessary amounts


40:41

yep same deal over here love it


40:47

do you think that would you say that one of the number one


40:52

reasons why people end up with the weight regain is because of the lack of


40:57

extra strategy like a reverse diet I think I think it's the strategy in


41:03

this psychologic understanding like the psychological aspect of understanding like if you go back to what you did


41:10

before you will have the results that you had before right over a long enough


41:16

time Horizon like that's something that I think people in in coaches especially do not do a not


41:24

all coaches of course a adequate job of explaining like in order to maintain


41:29

this you need a new identity yeah the I do need to take on the identity of the


41:35

version of yourself at this like body composition body weight etc etc now does


41:42

that mean like you can never drink or eat out or anything like that again like no but if you go back to what you were


41:48

doing before even though you've lost the weight over a long enough time Horizon that wait we'll just you'll end up right


41:54

back where you were yeah yeah and something that I've I haven't personally


42:00

experienced because I just never did it but like I've had some clients who like didn't


42:05

want to take the reverse dieting approach and just like go back to maintenance and I I don't think there's


42:12

anything like physiologically that is worse it's a psychological and accuracy


42:19

standpoint that people can't control it whereas like with the reverse diet if if


42:24

I is the coach frame it is like we are not out of the woods yet but the hardest part of dieting is over we're still


42:31

going to be in a calorie deficit but not as deep in a calorie deficit as we were and it helps like titrate your hunger


42:39

and stuff I guess would be back down as calories come up but if I'm just like you know okay Johan we've dieted we're


42:46

down you know 15 kilos we're at 1800 1800 calories now


42:52

boom tomorrow 3400 go right the first thing is like digestion is probably


42:58

going to be a mess yeah yeah because we're down regulating enzyme production HCL production those sorts of things and


43:04

then two people will just go they can't contain it in a in a super unconstrained


43:10

environment and that 3 400 calories turns into 4 000 4200 food quality drops and like the


43:18

next thing you know you're up like six seven kilos and like I've had that happen the few clients that I have


43:26

let do that because they were higher level clients we got leaner they were


43:31

like coaches and stuff themselves backfired and it's it's just like this


43:37

is one of the things and this is what we talked about on the episode that we did textbook yes reverse there's nothing


43:44

inherently you know magical about reverse dieting from a client psychology standpoint inaccuracy that is where the


43:52

magic actually lays in yeah for sure


43:57

okay let's switch over less about nutrition more about Aaron


44:05

um tell us about the lifestyle you're living where are you and you guys kind


44:11

of hop around and how you feel about that I want to hear more about that


44:17

so it's been man it's really crazy to think it's coming up on


44:22

four years in like two months that I haven't had a home like I was gonna ask like when did you start doing this


44:29

January 2019. okay so yeah um it's crazy to think it's been that


44:35

long like the last like five years of my life I feel like have been like it feels like it's been five months


44:42

um we are slowing down so we did take out a lease for the first time since 20


44:49

2017. wow and Bali in starting in you


44:54

know like four weeks or something like that um so we'll be in Bali for a year at least


45:01

um that's been my I will say favorite with like lifestyle everything I would


45:08

say of all the places I've been Vietnam I think has been my absolute favorite place I've ever been but


45:13

um not to like live really because the I mean just trying to communicate your


45:19

actions like you get you get crushed with a lot of that stuff but bali's like


45:24

really TurnKey for like the lifestyle that the three of us lead like super super Fitness focused healthy food


45:30

everywhere like the beaches is close by there's people from all over the world which is one of my favorite things you


45:37

know you just meet people from every corner of of the planet there which is super super cool locals are really


45:43

really friendly the local culture is really cool um and it's inexpensive which always helps um it's always always fun as well


45:49

so that's like kind of my favorite it started as literally a conversation with between my


45:55

girlfriend and I where I just said like it would be cool if we lived outside the country for like a couple months


46:00

and as we were you know the businesses were building and we transitioned out of our like previous you know full-time


46:06

roles we're like it was a perfect time right like we we have a bunch of money saved


46:11

um let's just do it now you know before we can't sort of thing and the original plan was to go away for like four or


46:18

five months and that turned into like seven eight months and then when we came


46:25

back we're like yeah we're just going to keep going so then like we sold what little left we


46:31

had I sold like my truck um that I had still in the states and that was like right before


46:37

that was like end of 2019 and then we were in Colombia in South America and the pandemic happened and that was very


46:43

very interesting um and then it's just we just keep going but I do think kind of slowing down


46:50

um some of that is as the business grows it does get hard and like I said I'm not sitting in cafes


46:56

you know walking or something the only time I'm like working in a cafe is if I'm like building something if I'm


47:02

working on a new feature from one of my like coaching models that you know I sell and that sort of thing or if I'm


47:08

like building a new training program those are like the only things that I can actually do in like a coffee shop or


47:13

anything or something like that um I have a podcast that I record weekly you know


47:19

that one's been interesting as as I travel um when I'm in Bali we record that at like 10 p.m my time because it's


47:26

6 a.m for for my podcast co-host in Colorado so those different things have


47:31

Have Wrinkles um I do you know client videos and stuff like that like it's it's not as glorious


47:38

as people make it think um for the type of business that we are


47:44

in uh business is my priority and that has like the traveling like the


47:50

the instagrammableness of the travel has like taken a back seat to that


47:55

um but it's I enjoy it I do like the option to be like well if we want to let's just go here and enjoy it for a


48:03

month or three months or something like that right how how do you when you're


48:09

you're traveling like that well I know you guys spend like a decent amount of time in each place but it's a big part


48:15

yeah is it do you find it easy to adjust in these different places or like how does that


48:22

how do you go about that when it nutrition and training yeah so that one


48:28

I always plan so like before we would go anywhere like I knew what gym we would be going to or I here's a short list of


48:35

the gyms we're going to take a look at yeah we know we want to live approximately in this area because it's


48:40

close enough to the gyms and that sort of thing um the availability of the local market


48:47

in like supermarkets and stuff that one was a bit of an eye-opener uh for me I


48:53

hadn't really done honestly much travel at all um before we took on this lifestyle and


49:00

probably one of the best parts about the United States is the supermarkets and you're not really prepared when you go


49:06

to other countries when you're like oh it's it's like there's not there's


49:11

not nearly as much I wasn't prepared for that okay um and it just like forces you to adapt


49:18

and like oh well yeah oh I have to go to this like market and then try and figure out what the word for spinach is and like Vietnamese and try and find spinach


49:26

and like oh spinach isn't a thing here like you know yeah there was some of that


49:31

um and then just like finding things like getting protein powder right here or


49:36

creatine and different things and you're like traveling to some strange part of town that you don't that is off the


49:42

tourist maps and you're like trying to be like yeah so like I mean they're funny stories


49:49

once you realize it like you're gonna get your ass kicked trying to do it right right after like the first like


49:55

year I found like a much easier term like yeah when I when I'm on an


50:00

adventure right right when I traveled to Italy I was like and I was competing at


50:06

the time I was like oh my gosh I was in the grocery store like using Google


50:12

translate and trying to like figure out what everything was I was like this is crazy


50:18

yeah so um Johan you got any questions any last


50:24

questions are you avoiding summer on purpose sorry avoiding winter yeah well I can


50:33

kind of tell you're always in a hot place it's been it's been like a full well I shouldn't I shouldn't say it it's


50:38

been like a decade since I've I've lived in a winter when I I moved to Southern California in 2011 so it's been over uh


50:45

over um a decade your winter clothes are significantly larger than your summer


50:52

clothes yeah and when you're living at your life out of a suitcase that matters


50:58

that's totally yeah so like that's the real reason and then


51:04

like in um a lot of places like what's nice about like Bali in Vietnam is that you


51:09

could just rent a scooter so you're like super mobile you know pretty much just like everyone else is but like when we were in in South America that wasn't a


51:16

thing so you had to be in like walkable areas and then we did the digital Nomad


51:22

thing in the United States in like 2020 and 2021 um and it's hard


51:28

there you know with like just getting around and that sort of thing so it's just so much easier when you when it's


51:36

warm because it's like when you're carrying your groceries home like five right yeah these things you don't think


51:42

about yeah you don't want it to be in the wintertime oh dude tell me about it yeah yeah so


51:50

like that that's a that plays a big part but I do think when


51:55

when we do stop which I I we have maybe like two years left I think Max


52:01

um I'm getting older as is Jenny and that that place I mean


52:07

um so uh we do plan on settling somewhere with Seasons like I want the mountains like I've lived at the beach


52:12

for 10 years and what I've learned in those 10 years is like I don't give a about the beach so


52:20

um I'm ready for the mountains I think Salt Lake City is where I was just gonna say that


52:28

it's Salt Lake City it's the best yeah it was I never would have imagined we were literally like I said we did the


52:35

the digital Nomad thing inside the US in in 2021 we landed in Austin and bought a


52:42

car there because we learned the previous year can't really do the digital Nomad thing in the US without a car so we just like bought a car


52:49

and it got way too hot in Texas and I and then June and I was like there's no way I'm spending summer here this is


52:55

absolutely disgusting so we're like let's just let's go to Utah like the mountains are there we can go hiking I


53:01

think it's like a dry heat you know let's go and at the time like I just wanted somewhere that the gyms would be


53:06

open still because like some of that we were gonna go up to like the Pacific Northwest and the friend was like hey just so you know like the gyms are all


53:12

still like closed here and stuff and I was like oh because we had spent summer in Mexico or winter in Mexico for that


53:19

reason because I was like I just want to go somewhere where I can go to the gym you know like I'm done doing the gyms are closed thing like everyone just I'm


53:25

done I'm not doing it anymore yeah um so we went to Mexico because the gyms were open and then once Texas because


53:31

you know Texas and Florida were like yellow places um and then went to Salt Lake and I


53:37

absolutely loved it we extended the time there and I was like whoa Salt Lake is one of the only places I didn't want to


53:43

leave yeah winter was coming I didn't have clothes the winters are actually pretty mild


53:50

there and that's what I heard too and yeah man I absolutely loved it there are


53:55

mountains there just absolutely incredible like I found a super super awesome gym and like some cool people


54:01

and I was like I think this is it I think I think this is my spot did you ever go to excel


54:07

Fitness so what's funny is my girlfriend and I actually went to different gyms in Salt Lake so she went to Excel and then


54:14

I went to this um like bodybuilding Focus gym called Butler Pro gym


54:19

um but I had been to excel a couple times like uh when we were like testing them out and then when I would like the


54:25

one off time I would work out with her I would like to see you yeah I would see your stuff and there


54:31

was like trails that I'd hike and I was just like oh my gosh I miss it so much


54:36

yeah super cool yeah yeah all right


54:43

Johan cool we done I think we're pretty good we carve it a lot


54:49

so lastly where can people find you and what do you have coming up any announcements


54:56

um I have some questions yeah I have coaching spots open as we as we head into the new year um I always like to


55:01

kind of start filling them early before like the onslaught of January or I like


55:08

to frame it as like let's not take 10 steps back to try and you know right let's let's do some like


55:14

uh damage mitigation through the holidays while still like uh participating but not indulging so that


55:20

we're not like shooting ourselves in the foot and now trying to start from from the near so coaching spots open you can


55:26

always find that from my website which is straker nutritionco.com uh you can find me on Instagram at Aaron


55:34

underscore Striker and if you're interested I have a podcast that comes out called eat train prosper


55:41

and those are the announcements that I can share I have a really big cool one that will probably share hopefully


55:48

before the end of the year but we're kind of keeping that Under Wraps until everything is 100 complete


55:53

cool awesome dude thank you thanks for joining and uh let's do it again let's bring it


56:00

back home when Once the big announcement is out there yeah sure sure uh thank you guys so much for having me I do really


56:06

appreciate it of course man all right thank you for listening as


56:11

always make sure to screenshot this episode share to your episode to your story story and we will talk to you next


56:18

week see you guys


56:25

thank you for listening if you want to help us grow the show please make sure to leave the five star rating or share


56:30

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56:37

any of the links in our show notes because we're here to help thanks again and I'll talk to you in the next episode


56:42

[Music]

Introduction and what led to Aaron becoming a coach
The pros and cons of group vs one-on-one nutrition coaching
How using objective data can lead to better decisions and results
Creating structure, building better habits, and getting a better understanding of nutrition
Chasing summer and living a nomadic lifestyle
Outro - Where to find Aaron