Speaker 1: 0:34

What's up and welcome back to the talk nutrition podcast, today's episode 80, where we're once again going to share part of the Q and A's that we did during our step timer challenge. Again, like we had so many good questions, I had to share them with you. A lot of good stuff that we dove into. This last call was actually like an hour and 10 minutes, so we were once again breaking it up. This week you're going to hear part one and then, of course, next week, episode 82 will be the final half of the third Q and A following. So, of the step timer challenge Q and A calls Wanted to kind of give you a little bit of a yeah, look behind the scenes, if you will, and also going to show you like, hey, if you want to join us next time, which will be in Q one, likely January or March I do want to double check, maybe March now to think about it, but you'll hear about it anyway. But in case you're like, hey, you know what, like next time, I want to join, awesome. We're going to do these Q and A calls every single week and we actually include submitting questions for those Q and A's in the point system. So if you want to learn and you actually want to get points for learning and hey, like, basically it's free coaching advice, you know. So make sure to join our free group in the meantime, because we're not going to do any challenges until Q one of next year's to 2024. But I feel like I'm already rambling on, so let's get into the Q and A.

Speaker 1: 1:57

Part one of two of the third Q and A. Call for step timer, all things. We talked about supplements, we talked about smoothies, why I got into coaching. Actually, a whole bunch Like fasting came up a couple of times. Specific training, like if you have injuries, if you struggle, eating more, like there's a whole bunch in there. So let's get in and I'll talk to you very soon again.

Speaker 1: 2:19

First question from Sabrina Can I do some specific training to avoid shin splints? Very good question, and I do not know the answer to that question, unfortunately. I do know that a lot of runners get shin splints, so I would avoid running, but something to avoid it, or maybe I'm not sure if you mean avoid or recover from it. If it's avoiding, yeah, don't run, maybe If it's recovering from, I do not actually know, so that's not my expertise. Next one I do know some people, by the way, though, who I could ask. If you need help, let me know.

Speaker 1: 3:00

Robin says I have a hard time making food for myself and I really don't want to make the same food all the time. Do you have some tips or tricks to prep food for the week that let me eat more than, for example, chicken and rice a whole week? Really good question. So what I like to do is because I feel you like. Personally, I don't mind eating a lot of the same stuff. However, I do mix it up, because here's the thing we need variety from a micronutrient standpoint, not just that if we continue to eat the same shit over and over and over again, we can actually give ourselves food sensitivities and some other issues and micronutrient deficiencies too. So that's stuff that we don't want to happen, obviously.

Speaker 1: 3:43

So, that being said, I think we should look for a combination like maybe like the 50-50, right that basically the combination of being able to repeat stuff, have variety, and hey, if you want variety just from enjoyment standpoint, great. This is what I see with a lot of people. We want to repeat stuff. It actually helps If you think about it, if you're on a meal plan or if you repeat most of your meals or foods, tracking becomes super easy. Especially in that initial phase, I tell people, hey, let's repeat as much as we can and then, once you're consistent, okay, now we can add some variety. That's a better way to go about it. So I'm still going to encourage you to prep, but here's the way I do it, and I call this the salad bar concept basically and I did a reel about that too. So what I mean by that, you know in the supermarket there's a salad bar and you can basically mix and match. You pick whatever foods, you know, options that you like, you throw it together, you have your lunch. Similar idea Instead of having all these little containers, right, perfectly measured for the whole week which, by the way, guys like I wouldn't necessarily recommend prepping for the whole week I would go for a couple of days and then maybe do a prep on Sunday and Monday sorry, sunday and Wednesday.

Speaker 1: 5:08

Here's the thing food kind of goes a little soggy. You know it gets a little boring. Here's what I do Instead of doing the individual meals, I make my carbs and bulk and my proteins. If I feel like more variety, I'll do two of each. Recently I just haven't done that. I recently have gone with chicken rice.

Speaker 1: 5:36

But here's the cool thing we can always change it up. But for this example, let's say we're going to go with ground beef and sweet potato instead, or we could even do both. Let's do that. For this example, let's say we're going to prep our ground beef and chicken on Sunday, and then we are going to cook a whole bunch of rice together and we're going to throw in a bunch of sweet potatoes in the oven Cool. This way, we have a bunch of chicken, a bunch of ground beef in the fridge, a bunch of sweet potatoes and a bunch of rice Cool, what we can now do. Like I said, that's a Celebi idea. We can now make some match and make different combinations throughout the week. So where, maybe on Monday, I want to go with the chicken and rice? And, by the way, we're still going to add our healthy fats and vegetables, or maybe even a piece of fruit on the side. Let's say veggies Cool, we can now go and add that later on With veggies.

Speaker 1: 6:36

Guys, you could prep it if you wanted to, and it would really work well in a stir fry. But what I prefer is I'll just decide which veggie I want in the moment and that's a quick add, it doesn't take any time. Healthy fats is usually any kind of nuts or seeds or extra virgin olive oil, maybe avocado. But OK, like I said, we have maybe chicken and rice. One day we add some right olive oil and a bell pepper. Boom, there you go.

Speaker 1: 7:08

Ok, next day, guess what I actually feel more like ground beef, ok, ground beef and rice. Ok, cool, let's have a different vegetable with that. Hey, maybe I'm just going to have a side salad. I'm going to throw lettuce together with onion, carrots, a whole bunch of stuffed tomatoes, whatever I feel like, and I'll add some extra virgin olive oil Next day. Ok, remember, we have sweet potatoes. Well, ok, let's make a combination of sweet potato and chicken. Cool, we add whatever veggies and whatever fats we want. Next day we can do a sweet potato with ground beef and you get it right. So we still prep, we still make a whole bunch ahead of time, but we can mix and match for a little bit more variety. Plus, you still save yourself a lot of time.

Speaker 1: 7:53

Now, in this example, I'm using two of each. What I like to do is I'll just go with one. I recently cooked a whole bunch of chicken and I have shredded chicken or pulled chicken, which is great, super simple. And also, there, guys, you can have different spices, et cetera. There's so many combinations. But we want to think out the box, right. If we don't have the or if we don't feel like having the same food all the time, then let's not have the same food all the time. But let's also make sure that you do save time and effort, because here's the thing the more you meal prep, the more time you're going to save, the easier it becomes. So there's a few ways you can do it, right, but I highly recommend at least making some type of protein in bulk and some type of carbohydrate. Have bread ready to go. Have, for example, I use tortilla wraps a lot and they just stay well, just keep it in the package. Those are super easy. Same kind of thing like even there right, have tortilla wraps in your cupboard, great, ok. Maybe the next day, the third day, you want to change up again and you go for those, and then you throw in whatever protein source you want, again, veggies, you can add. Simple as that Now, and just like that we can get variety.

Speaker 1: 9:20

Next question from Teri says my question of the week. I've been on a diet a few weeks now. I can feel it on my bottom that the trousers are starting to get loose. But why does the fat disappear on the bottom before on the stomach? Is this a man thing? Yes and no. Yes, us men, we mostly store body fat around there. And let me tell you this is the downside, I guess, of fat loss the area that you want to see go, the area that you hate the most, is usually the last to go, and that's unfortunately how the body works. That's where we store body fat. From an evolutionary standpoint it also makes sense. But hey, okay, cool. So for men, we mostly store our body fat around the waist, and we all hate the love handles. We don't like the spare tire, guess what. It's the last to go.

Speaker 1: 10:19

So it's going to be a matter of just keep going, just be patient, just be patient. I mean, I know that you're because, yeah, as a client, I know he's been doing very well we just focus on the process and then the outcome. Right, the weight loss it'll come, it's just going to be a matter of time. But yeah, it kind of sucks. And then, for females, you'll see a little bit more body fat stored around the waist and thighs. But then again, even from one person to the next, it's going to be slightly different. To give you guys an example for me it's definitely around my waist and then my face, like right away, like when I gain weight, like you can see it in my face, like instantly, and I can't. I hate it. You know what I mean, but I'm going to have to deal with it if I go into a muscle bale in a building phase, okay. So yeah, keep at it, terri. I know that it's like we want, like, if anything, like we want that area to go first, but it doesn't work that way. It's usually last. So keep going, man.

Speaker 1: 11:20

And Giro says I've also been on a cut for a few weeks, doing well, right, giro is doing super well. So what I've been doing with her is actually increased food, and we've done that twice now because she actually lost weight so fast that I was like, hey, you know we actually need to pump the brakes here. So you see, guys, like we try to get away with as much food as possible for as long as possible. And I see that Danny wants to join us. While I accept him, there we go Cool.

Speaker 1: 11:46

Next question oh sorry, let me follow up with her because it didn't finish the question. So she's been cutting is going super well. And she says for the last two weeks I've followed the three day full body workout program and today is sort of week three. The first exercise is squat and my body did not respond very well at the last set, so I just stopped the squat but did the rest of the workout. Okay, had it just been better to stop the whole workout and done it another day, or was it okay to just finish the workout? No, I think you did the right thing. If because, of course, like I'm not fully sure what you mean by it didn't respond well, I'm not sure what happened. Maybe something hurt, maybe it was just muscles, maybe a little, I don't know. Maybe a bit of diet fatigue could be the case. Right, remember to like we're cutting, so there's not that much fuel. Yeah, I mean I feel like you did the right thing. I, of course I wasn't there, but sounds good. I mean you still finished the workout, you know. So if you skip the last set of squats, that's all good.

Speaker 1: 12:49

Hey guys, also for everyone, like I always tell people okay, in a fat loss phase. It's not a performance phase. We train to maintain. We hold on to the muscle that we've already built. We maintain our fitness. Can some people see some muscle gain or some improvements in performance during a cut? Yeah, it's possible, but it's unlikely and it's not something that we're going to expect or aim for.

Speaker 1: 13:15

So I had a chat with someone once and he's like yo, I was, was trying to do, you know, heavy deadlifts, but I couldn't, you know, go as heavy. I was like dude, you're like fucking, like 14 weeks into your cut, like I don't even want you to try and PR here. You know what I mean. I always tell people like, during a cut, just try to chill a little bit. When it comes to training, if you notice like hey, right, hey, and, by the way, I still want you to train, right. But if you notice, hey, it feels a little much, take it down a notch. You're good, you know you're good, but of course, don't take it out of context. Let's also make sure that we don't just skip a workout, because this becomes a thing for some people. Then too, it's like oh, I heard that during a fat loss phase, I train to maintain. Okay, I can get away with me like not really doing my best. No, we still want to do a rest. But long story short, girl, you did the right thing.

Speaker 1: 14:09

Jessica says what supplements do you recommend? So a couple of days ago I went live in our client community to talk about supplements and I went on a little bit of a mini rant, I guess, about people just recommending supplements on social media and being like you need this and that, whatever. And there's definitely a time and place that I will give you guys a couple of basics For supplementation. I just reviewed someone's blood work today and we talked about a couple things that were very low and we're like, okay, cool. In this case, we're going to target those values and we're going to look at hey, what can you do in terms of your lifestyle? What can you do in terms of nutrition? We have chronometers so we can see micronutrients too right To write in quotes. Fix that, because we can learn a lot, especially from blood work.

Speaker 1: 15:04

So, with supplements guys, I even tell my clients this. I'm like, hey, right, I have some recommendations based on the research that seems totally safe. But I mean, it's your responsibility to look into this. You know what I mean To make an educated decision but especially to not go online and, you know, be like, oh shit, I heard this influencer or whoever who just happens to have a very big following. Right, I recommend this supplement. I need to get it to you. Guess what, 99% of the time these people post something and it's especially with athletic greens that you see a lot of these days which they give you a big cut, so, like, that's what people you know. That's why people share that shit. They might be using it, sure, because they get it for free, but it's mostly because they get you know that much of a kickback. But okay.

Speaker 1: 15:59

So Jessica's question what supplements do you recommend? Generally speaking, a few that I do usually recommend to virtually everyone or that I usually say and I don't even say, hey, you need this, I say like, hey, look into this. I think this is likely a good idea to take and this is what I personally would take. So, first of all, protein, right, protein powder usually your weight isolate come to be best, simply for convenience. It's going to help you get your proteins very high quality protein option there. And yeah, I mean that's my number one. Creatine also virtually everyone can benefit from it.

Speaker 1: 16:38

Most research sports supplement out there. I mean the more they study it and they have for many, many years, the more reason they find to take it anywhere from muscle gain to endurance, to bone health, to offsetting sleep deprivation and, by the way, danny, I do think that would be higher doses. So I think offset the setting sleep deprivation was maybe 10 grams I would have to look that up. Typically, like five grams is like the you know usual recommendation there, not saying that it's going to fix things, but it could at least help a little bit potentially. And then also cognitive performance, so being able to like, basically work through difficult tasks. We have to do a lot of thinking, a lot of cool stuff there. Jack routine definitely recommend that as well.

Speaker 1: 17:31

So we have protein so far, we have preteen and then a fish oil. If we don't eat cold water fish like fatty fish, like salmon, couple times week, maybe two or three times, it's likely a good idea to have our omega threes and then what you want to look for is EPA and DHA. Those are the omega three fatty acids that we won't get Usually, like two to three grams of those combined. So what else? Vitamin D I actually got a question from Celia today for this Q&A about vitamin D.

Speaker 1: 18:06

Almost. I mean, it's difficult to say, but maybe not almost everyone, but a lot of people are deficient. A lot of people are deficient and I'm like, I'm fucking like every time I'm surprised by the amount of people I know up here where I live, where we don't get any sunlight for multiple months in a row, where also the rest of the year the weather is not that great, we don't get that much sun. We wear a lot of the clothing like we don't get that much sunlight on our skin, aka we're not getting a lot of vitamin D from the sun or through the sun right through the process. We need to be supplementing this shit for health for many reasons and like it's almost like a, rarely anyone does that here, barely anyone. So now going back down into Europe and our friends across the US, canada, let's think about how much time do we spend outside directly in actual sunlight? Likely very little.

Speaker 1: 19:10

I've seen blood work of a bunch of people recently and vitamin D is almost like the one that's, if it's tested, it's almost always low for so many people. So I would almost be like, hey, like we should just be taking it anyway because we spent so much time inside. I need to be looking for 4,000 up to 5,000 Internet, sorry, international units. So that's I use. You don't really have to go higher. Like lower could be okay if you live somewhere where you get a little bit of sunlight, but usually 45,000 and then 10,000 is like the upper safe limit. You do not have to go that high, just so you know. So there's no point. But like 45 usually does a trick, and then I think those are the ones. So we covered protein, we did, we said vitamin D, creatine, fish oil, and I am a big fan of magnesium as well. Magnesium would be my last kind of like fifth one that I think everyone can benefit off.

Speaker 1: 20:13

See a lot of people being deficient there as well. We don't get as much through food anymore. Used to be more in the soil and Ben in the meantime was asking vitamin D, yeah, no, so you actually want to get 4000 per day? 2000 would be like the lower end, but that would be if you actually get some sunlight in as well. I would say usually, if we want to be on a safe side, 4000, maybe 5000. I take 5000 every single day and actually have normal, normal levels now. So where was I again? Yeah, magnesium, sorry guys, the user. We used to have more in the soil, which would then go into our food, which of course, would end up in us, but it's a little bit less now.

Speaker 1: 20:59

A lot of people are also deficient. If you ever struggle with restless leg syndrome which, by the way, is something I'm currently feeling now, and I also recently ran out of magnesium. I'm not sure if that's possible or real thing, but like magnesium, right, that is one that helps there and it can definitely help with sleep as well. So when I look for a magnesium glycinate or bis glycinate If you get other, you know forms like magnesium oxide or chloride, those kind of things usually a little bit less quality and will often cause digestive upset 400 milligrams I like a little bit, a little bit more, 400, 500, but Right, depends, depends on the person, how much you weigh, how tall you are, how big the body is, basically. But check examinecom and that's going to be my last little thing here for supplements, examinecom, whatever supplement you hear about, you type it in there, you look it up first and then you make your decision. There's a lot of stuff you can learn there. It's really cool, it's a really good database.

Speaker 1: 22:36

A little bit of water, okay, kerry says. Here's my question for the week what do you do when you don't feel hungry? Sometimes I struggle without feeling hungry and I need some tips on what to do to finish out my day when I'm just not hungry. Okay, good point. I like to look at your meal frequency. How often are we eating? How structured is it? What foods are we eating? Can we maybe include some that are less filling? Can we have a glass of orange juice that's like a glass of 30 carbs, I think like 120 calories, those kind of things? Right? Can we identify the moment where we end up often? Right, because you mentioned not being able to finish out my day? Okay, so it sounds like we may have to catch up on calories sometimes. Okay, let's avoid that by being proactive and let's maybe have a little bit more where we can actually have it. But this is where we need to pay attention to those things. A lot of times it's going to come down to we're just busy. We forget those kind of things. A lot of things is going to be structured type of foods.

Speaker 1: 23:50

Actually having that 80, 20, like actually having that 20% can help when it comes to hunger, I hate to say this, but especially during specific phases like fat loss, like reverse dieting, hey, I get so many people who are under eating, who have a hard time getting to maintenance, which is literally just like eating enough for what you actually need. Sometimes we just have to suck it up and work through that and I'm not saying that that's the case here, but sometimes we have to suck it up. We need to accept that the body is currently not in a great spot where, hey, hunger, satiety, like those hormones are all out of whack. I've seen people be on 1200 calories and not be hungry at all. That's not a good thing. Guess what happens? We slowly increase food. They have a hard time eating more. We stick to it, we stick to it, we stick to it. And then all of a sudden, I get a check in and it's like, hey, you know what, my appetite is coming back. I'm actually more hungry now, and then we're like creating more momentum there. So, carrie, we can talk more about this in your check-in, because I do need a little bit more context, but I would look at those options.

Speaker 1: 25:06

And a second she says what about motivation? Any tips to keep your head in the game, on hard days or when you're drained. I'm on the rebound now from the last weeks, but I know it won't be my last rough day in my journey. I mean, let's be honest, guys, life sucks sometimes and sometimes it's really fucking cool. Right, we have amazing days and we have days where it just kind of sucks. They both happen and they both never last. Usually it's anywhere in between on the spectrum in between amazing and life sucks.

Speaker 1: 25:48

I mean, first of all, we just need to accept that that's a big one. First of all, we need to do the thing. That's sometimes uncomfortable, but in a way, sometimes it's good news, right, it's like, hey, life sucks sometimes, but we always know what comes after rain sunshine. All joking aside, though it's true, right, I guarantee that there's a bunch of hard times that you can think of in your life in the past, right, that you also overcame that were followed up by amazing times. Now, on the other hand and this is where maybe it's a little bit of bad news that also means that when we are on a roll and we feel great and we're excited and life is fucking cool, there's also going to be time, probably soon, whether it's not going to be the case anymore, and that's kind of something we need to accept first of all.

Speaker 1: 26:44

Now to your point. Any tips for keeping your head in the game? It's that one. It's knowing that you can always do the things that are within your control, because here's the thing, and I also kind of know what Kerry's been going through but there's a lot of stuff outside of control and it's usually when we are having a hard time in quotes. Usually that ties back to things outside of her control which we cannot directly influence anyway, which means that we still control how we respond to the situation. Keeping our head up. I mean, it's hard, like I go through ups and downs as well. Sometimes you're super stressed, sometimes you feel amazing, sometimes you're anxious. We need to figure out and this is where there's no one right answer we need to figure out what helps you. Is it a right being motivated enough to stick to the plan situation? Okay, well, in that case, fuck motivation. Like let's just find out a system, let's create systems around the things we have a hard time with, so that when the time comes, when we are not motivated, we can still do it, the work that you do when you're not motivated. That's when you make the difference. That's when you really make a difference.

Speaker 1: 28:09

To be honest, guys, this health and fitness thing if you are on a roll and you're tracking your macros, and it's easy, and you're going to the gym and everything is great, that's the easiest shit. It's what happens when you're not motivated. It's what happens when you go through a period where, even though you want to lose weight, you still have to eat more and you have to go back to maintenance for multiple months, where we have to do something now to eventually see the results after multiple months of hard work. Right, it's not going to be easy and there will be many rough days on our journey. That goes for every single person in every single phase, and that is okay. So a lot is maybe acceptance and also learning how to catch ourselves.

Speaker 1: 28:56

Maybe when we notice, hey, we're being negative or maybe slow or whatever you want to call it right, or stress, or whatever it is. I think if we can create little like if done plans, right, hey, if I notice I feel like this, or if I have this feeling or thought, whatever, I'll do X and I have a few, you know methods like that for myself. Sometimes I have anxiety, right, or stress, or I'm trying to work through a project and I'm not getting there yet, or I'm doing something new that feels overwhelming. Well, I have two things that I do. First, I would just always meditate 10, 20 minutes. I try to do 20, usually Not even like because I won't even always call it meditation, I guess, because I'm not sure if it will be considered like being in like a meditative state. But even just sitting with your eyes closed and with your own thoughts and just kind of like working through shit and then thinking about stuff like that can really help. But then also putting it on paper, that's a big one, I think, when we can extract that from our brains and put it on paper and work through things, depending on the situation. And hey, what can we do? Right, brainstorm, do whatever you're gonna do, write shit down, right. I think we can figure a lot of things out, and that's a lot of what coaching is. Even. Do I have a lot of tips? Yeah, but if we know specifically what you're going through and we ask the right questions, you likely will be able to come up with the answer. So let's follow up about that too in your check-in. We'll talk soon.

Speaker 1: 30:45

Kaya says for overall health, is it better to do strength training or keep doing what we're currently doing, getting those steps in the long run? Both it's not an either, or it's we do both For overall health, steps are huge, as we talked about in the first Q&A. However, strength training building muscle is huge as well. Like for body composition, it's more important, obviously, for just overall health. I'm not gonna call either steps or training more healthy or more important. We need to be doing both. Eight to 10 K steps plenty. Feel free to stick to eight Like that's already great. But if you can do some weightlifting, build that muscle. Having that muscle, that's the biggest thing. We really need to invest in ourselves and build a good amount of muscle now that we can, so that when we're older, when it becomes more difficult, we're kind of good already and then we eat our protein. Like I said, we need to keep doing that as well If we're talking like long-term health. Now anything else yeah, you also wanna do cardio.

Speaker 1: 32:02

I think cardio is often demonized and I'm a little guilty of talking about the downsides of cardio a little too much, because I see a lot of people do cardio for fat loss and that is completely wrong and that's also why I talk about that a lot. But we should be doing cardio absolutely Like. We should be doing cardio Not all the time, not too much, but we should be doing it for sure. So ideally we're just active in general, which we can track by tracking steps right, which, by the way, we kind of use that measure to just become more active and then maybe one day it's just something that we do so we don't even have to track steps anymore. And maybe sometimes you wanna check and then you're like okay, I'm good, keep lifting weights, build that muscle, do some cardio For most people, maybe once a week, maybe a couple sessions, or 30 minute like zone two workout, boom, there you go.