Talking Nutrition
Talking Nutrition is the podcast for women who did everything right and stopped seeing results. Hosted by Johan Vesters, online nutrition and functional health coach, and founder of Odyssey Coaching Systems, the show digs into what is actually going on under the surface: metabolism, fat loss, thyroid, hormones, gut health, blood work, and the mindset and behavior change that makes results stick. No crash diets, no quick fixes, no fear-mongering. Just education, real client stories, and honest conversations, so you can understand your own body, ask better questions, and take ownership of your health.
Follow @johanvesters_ocs on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
For coaching applications: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application
Talking Nutrition
1- Introduction & Staying On Track During Summer
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Welcome to the Talking Nutrition Podcast! Today we quickly introduce ourselves, share our background, and talk about how we both ended up becoming nutrition coaches. We'll touch on what you can expect from our podcast, and finish off with some tips that can help you stay on track during summer.
Talking Nutrition is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.
- Website and free resources: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/
- Follow Johan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
- Apply for coaching: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application
0:30
hello hello welcome to the No Name podcast
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not yet we haven't picked up the first episode name yet so
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we're working on it yeah I think by the time we launched this we'll we'll actually have a name for it right this
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is a good little uh learning experience for newer coaches too is like just jump
0:53
in you don't need to have everything ready just do it yes you know not even just coaches like client's suit right
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like being okay with taking imperfect action like that's really what it comes down to you know right so here we are
1:06
taking imperfect action we're here the hardest part for us is the name we
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can't we can't figure one out hardest part is getting started we just did that already right right we'll think
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of a good one by the time this launches we'll actually have an actual name so right right so this is obviously our our
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intro um episode so we we're just going to tell you a little bit about who we are
1:32
um you know what to expect from this podcast and we'll finish off with
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some tips on how to handle you know the summer season and help you stay on track
1:43
a little bit better so if you don't know I'm Christina dally and this is Yo
1:50
investors I actually zoom in Johann started
1:55
talking we did a we did Sam Miller's mentorship together and I you know like
2:02
we had no idea who each other were we just oh well he knew who I was just from Crossfit right like the CrossFit stuff
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um and we just started chatting and you know we've gotten really close as far as like our businesses together helping
2:15
each other so we were like let's podcast yeah let's do it together yeah heck yeah
2:20
a little bit about me for those who don't know a little bit of a background sometimes I don't know where to start
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I'm like I could I could write it I could write a book um when I was younger you know I was a
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competitive Cross or competitive gymnast got into soccer Taekwondo I was always very very active as a as a youngin and
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then I found CrossFit and that took over my life for like 12 years
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and I got very competitive and CrossFit Games level but never actually made it
2:53
to the games there's just a bunch of stuff you know a lot of injury hormonal stuff I was about I was points away from
3:01
the games but just didn't get there um but throughout my CrossFit career
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like I said I went through a lot of injury blew my achilles then on the
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regional floor blew both my shoulders and that kind of took me down a really long recovery Road of you know
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recovering from that as well as a lot of hormonal stuff um and that kind of triggered me into
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what I do now you know helping people I
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thought I was going to help athletes you know get through injury you know all that kind of just just performance
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nutrition um but I ended up kind of going down this road of like
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helping women and men you know with hormonal Health um getting their Cycles back you know
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just optimizing their hormones um as well as you know helping people
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improve the relationship with food I have a diverse group of nutrition
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coaches or nutrition clients um but I find myself in that area the
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most so I've been a nutrition coach for about five years I think like I did it
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for free for a while and then I actually started the business um and it's been fantastic like I just
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love it and how how much I can help people and uh create you know a
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sustainable life as far as nutrition and training awesome it's a little bit about me I um
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so I actually also come from CrossFit in a way um CrossFit did a lot for me in terms of fat loss so for you were like into
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performance for me 10 years ago I was not working out at all you know I was about 110 kilos so like was that 230
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pounds I think not a lot of muscle so you know it's a little chunky but anyway
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so 10 years ago I started working out you know ended up having this moment where I was like I gotta do something
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like I felt like [ __ ] I looked like [ __ ] I thought and I just had to do something so I
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really started to figure out my nutrition for myself which I mean
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was not easy in the beginning I tried a bunch of stuff that you know I usually call [ __ ] in these cases same you
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know anything from like the I did like this juice cleanse like the the supplements like the fat burners like
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all the stuff you know that we talk a lot about I tried all that to just you know figure out like how can I actually
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lose weight and keep it off too you know right did like my fitness pal I was like hey you know what maximum weight loss
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great 1200 calories cool oh my gosh didn't last for very long you know but
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um so I tried a lot of stuff and then eventually I figured it out and that was really when I started doing CrossFit in
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2014 I think my coach back then was great he really helped me actually get
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into nutrition really dialed in a little and started tracking and then over time it really figured out like how to do
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that so fast forward to 2018 I think it was I actually became across the coach
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which is how I got into actual coaching before that I did a whole bunch of other stuff I was a Northern Lights guide for
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a little while I've been in music so I use a tour a lot as well but eventually became a coach you got to
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check out his Instagram I just started doing that again too I just rejoined the band actually which
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we'll talk about in an episode I think but um yeah so that's what led to me becoming a coach I was really into
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training right I really liked CrossFit and the community aspect and getting healthier getting fitter
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and what was cool is that at least most people don't really care about the
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weight or the looks or maybe to a certain extent but it's really about like getting healthy getting fit getting
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strong performance focus and that's really what I think is super cool but I
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also saw a huge gap between still like compared to 10 years ago when I tried to figure it out there's nothing
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that has changed it means social media has changed but the shitty information that's out there is the exact same yep
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and as nuts because with so much information right now we should kind of know how to do this right now right so I
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saw people like myself trying all this stuff that doesn't really work in the long run and then you know what they
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should be doing and there's a huge gap between that and because I know that nutrition just that's so much for me
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personally I was like hey you know what I want to do this I want to help people get healthy so just like you I got into
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this because I'm passionate about that right I want to get people healthy fit Etc and this is really where I think
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it's kind of cool and we're pretty similar sure like you kind of work with more performance kind of focused clients
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sometimes right there in general even though it's mixed for me it's kind of more Jam Pop I guess in general you know
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I have some like Jiu Jitsu people as well and cross videos but in general it's mostly weight loss yeah
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so the the clients we work with are maybe a little different but our approaches are very similar I think very
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and that's really why we we click I think right because we really want to work on sustainable results like yes not
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just getting someone to a lower weight but actually teaching them how to keep this off in the long run right or to get
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strong Etc yeah which is also how we met you know with that mentorship so here we are yeah yeah like my journey with
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Crossfit I mean when I was in that I I guess you could say like I had some knowledge I mean I
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had the the tail end of my CrossFit career I had a nutrition coach who was fantastic I was with him for a long long
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time but prior to that it was a disaster
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um you know and like under eating significantly you know there was that
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paleo time you know all that which you just don't yeah I did the Zone yeah me
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too um I did paleo I did the Zone um and we know that paleo doesn't mix
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well with Crossfit type training uh but I also got wound up with just some
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different companies that um don't feed their athletes essentially
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um and so I was under eating significantly um over training like
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to a pretty big degree you know like I was in the gym um six hours you know a day doing two
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sessions like it was stupid but like I thought that's what I had to do and I got you know
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really lost in the hype and it Came Crashing Down on Me and and
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it it sucked like it was like really hard for me for a lot of years
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um but I certain certainly wouldn't be where I am today without going through all that you know like for real
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it's like the foundation of why I do what I do um
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so yeah I'm very passionate about helping yeah I do help athletes but the
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thing is is it's not just athletes like top athletes that are in that position
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actually it's usually not they're actually smarter these days it's like
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Jen pop who thinks that they have to be like eating 1200 calories and training today right so it ended up being I'm
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like oh my gosh like this this isn't just you know these top athletes like myself back then going through stuff
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like this it's just like the Gen pop who just have such a distorted um
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I guess view on what they think they need to be doing um and so that's
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again like a lot of people that I help even people not in CrossFit like I was
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thinking about this the other day it's almost like the people with uh you
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know unhack as you say unhealthy relationships with food are in the fitness industry which you would think
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it would be the opposite like yeah there are people outside the fitness industry that don't that you know need some help
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in that area but a lot of it is in the fitness industry because there's so many
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opinions out there um and then influencers you know all of that it's just an abundance of
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information um and it's just crazy to think like most of it to me I see with people in
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the fitness industry which is yeah yeah it's which is a good point because I do
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see the same thing as well and it's really worldwide right like you live in Canada I'm in Norway it's the
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same [ __ ] oh yeah it's everywhere it's everywhere and I just want to go back a little because you mentioned hey you
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know over training doing too much I feel like like every crossover kind of goes
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through that you know where you get really into it you get really passionate you really want like you think you know
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games and [ __ ] which you know you actually got close I never did but I still had that idea like hey maybe one
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day you know and what do you do you start to train more and more and you
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want to do like the second session and the third one and you're gonna do the pre-work and the after you know whatever
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you know but people don't look at the sleep and the food and the boring stuff
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that will actually let them recover yes and I see that everywhere and honestly
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when I was starting my coaching business and this is a couple of years ago now like two or two and a half once I started that I was very busy you know I
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was pretty stressed in general I was working hard I was doing a lot of training but I didn't necessarily take
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care of myself which is kind of funny because I'm like here I am like helping people get healthy you know you know lose weight Etc but my own health kind
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of suffers no I was doing a lot of work not sleeping enough generally you know more stressed and I would work all day
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go to CrossFit go as hard as I could coach CrossFit and then sleep do little
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and then again and at some point it just burned out it just ended up being too much and I really hit a wall and this
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one I remember that moment too we're doing like heavy cleaning jerks and I just everything hurt
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and my body was just messed up you know and I just had to stop I told the coach like yo I gotta I'm good for today and
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then I didn't train for two months straight I just really got in a weird spot but anyway my point here being like
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a lot of people go through that where it's like you get very excited you end up doing too much at one point honestly
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I was going over at the gym and saying hi to people and it wasn't like hey you know how are we doing like yeah I'm good
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it was always like hey how are you and I was like yeah I'm good but my shoulder's messed up hey I'm good but my back is a
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whole mess you know right and you start to see people are under recovering just time time again well what the thing is
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is is that people so you someone like yourself you have a job you know right
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these other people have children they have babies they have all of these other
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life stressors happening and they forget that these games athletes that's all
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they do their life is revolved around that
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that's all they're doing they're usually they're you know they're not working right they've got these sponsors that
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are paying them and all of that and people forget that they just forget that they have you know a handful of
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stressors um and it just compiles and compiles and compiles and that's when you get injured
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yeah so I feel like we should touch back on this as well and really talk about Stress Management and the other things
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really that play a role and are sometimes even more important than food and exercise right so let's
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actually go back a little and let's actually tell people what to expect from this podcast I'm just going to say this
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it's a good segue into Expressions what to expect yeah so yeah main topics
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right fat loss muscle gain uh Performance Health really anything
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health and fitness right so Stress Management um hormones sleep yeah a couple tips and
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tricks like we'll be bringing guests on in the future doing Q and A's anything else you want to add there well I was
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saying nothing is really off the table you know we're gonna have like a cute we're gonna have a question box where
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you guys can put topics in um that you want to hear us touch on
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I mean I'm always down to talk about whatever doesn't have to it doesn't yeah we're we're you know Fitness and
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Nutrition um focused but we can always add in some other stuff yeah whatever you know
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definitely I think it'd be cool to just talk about some personal stuff too anyway you know so people know who we
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are yeah I'd love to share some stuff about music because that's really changed my life like as much as
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nutrition you know so cool and uh yeah just in general like we'll kind of see you know we'll wing it in
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the beginning we'll see what resonates with us the most and uh until the sick and also what people think is important to learn about right so
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to cap things off we will talk a little bit we'll touch on some
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things that we think can help you stay on track a little bit better during
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this summer season kind of because it can be a little bit tough so I think one
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of the most important things is having some sort of plan some sort of plan
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even in the summer weeks or summer season
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people typically have structure you know during the week because they're working right so that's normally not like a huge
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issue but again it's like the weekends or like barbecues pop up or events or like Fourth of July have just happened
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you know things like that so my advice is to have some non-negotiables and
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create some sort of plan to have some sort of structure right I have a few
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written down here so one workout session on the weekend just do what like you
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don't have to do two do one um you know starting your day with a
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healthy breakfast right A lot of people tend to like want to skip meals or skip breakfast and then that ends up
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backfiring at the end of the day you know if they're if they have an event or something now they're like ravaging
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they're like so hungry they want to eat everything so start your you start your day with a good healthy breakfast
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um both of those things so like movement and that and not breakfast just you know can put you in a good mindset for the
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rest of the day right um or you know just focus on if you're not
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going to work out have a non-negotiable of you know eight to tenk steps a day that way you're
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getting in some movement uh that way like even if you have one or you have
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three you can walk away from the the weekend feeling like you know you you win you
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win right you stuck to your goal you stuck to your non-negotiables you feel good you can just get back into uh you
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know the week easily um so yeah having some sort of plan
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doesn't have to be anything crazy um but it's gonna help with that structure
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totally I think it's just good to remember too like stuff that we brought up in the beginning like taking imperfect action yeah
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summer and this you know like it's mentioned you know Fourth of July Christmas like you know over here on
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Easter is pretty big in Norway like there's always going to be those moments where people struggle and why is that
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well the lack of structure or all of a sudden it's different and that's the thing right what do people worry about
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meals that are not in control because someone else is cooking yeah um you don't know what's on the menu you go to
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a different place you don't know what's going on this is something I went through last month right I'm still in a weight loss
18:53
phase currently week 16. I came home lighter and I was on tour for three weeks
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so for three weeks no days off like just shows different cities different countries not a single meal was within my control
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right like I just had to see what was it available so what I did do uh was just rely on my
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habits and that's my first point a lot of the stuff that you are going to have to rely on is the stuff that you've
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been doing at home there's the the easy stuff you know that's when you're sticking to your usual schedule and
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whatever that's when you can really learn new habits then when you're away in the summer or
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whatever you're gonna have to rely on those habits that you've been creating so a couple habits there protein I made
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sure that I always had some protein sources whether that was protein powder bars Etc or at least protein with every meal
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right yeah that's also something that you wrote down I think right that's okay because that's really that's that's both
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sageated micronutrients yeah it's just gonna say that before yeah the other one I had so I had I did have protein at
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every meal like he just said it's going to help keep you full right so if you're having just like a carb Source you're
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gonna be you're going to be hungry pretty soon after right and then this can lead to over consumption overall
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whereas like if you focus on protein at every meal you're just gonna be full longer it's going to help keep those
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calories in check for my people who do track their calories I have two
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so there's something called calorie cycling where you can essentially have a
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higher if you have an event you can have a higher day or two depends where like you would drop
20:38
your calories during the week um and then that would leave you more room for extra calories on the weekend
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there's some people I don't suggest doing this but it just you know something I did want to bring up because
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it can help just have a little bit more flexibility when you do have an event like that
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um another thing that I do personally uh when I do know I'm going to be going out for dinner or I like have an event there
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is an option in chronometer where you can quick at right so I will sit down in
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the morning and I will you you type in um quick ad in the search menu and it'll
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come up calories protein carbs fats um and I put in say 1000 calories 1200
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calories for that specific meal that I'm gonna have out because we know restaurant
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meals are a lot of calories usually so I'll put that in at the beginning of the
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day and then I will eat around that so I will you know so I'm keeping my
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calories way more in control that way versus eating you know throughout the day and then leave then all of a sudden
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I have like no calories left right so it can just be helpful for those who are tracking to essentially pre-log that
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um that way you're counting for it at the beginning of the day you can eat around it love it I think that's huge I think the
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pre-planning is so big because that's really when you don't run into that right where you have to make up for
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your calories or yeah eventually like at the end of the day like you're way over your fats but no protein yeah if you do
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it beforehand you know what's going to come up you know how to plan your day around it and it's even going to just give you
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that feeling of being in control knowing how to be flexible yes and I think that
22:25
planning aspect is something that we should all just kind of like try to learn at least yeah because that's going
22:31
to be huge for those moments definitely yeah which really comes down to those habits as well that's what I was doing
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you know I start my day with the breakfast like you said you know start with a good breakfast I get the protein
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in what I also wanted to add was those you know fruits and veggies I made sure that I had two of each every single day
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you know non-negotiable two pieces of fruit two servings of veggies like you know
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fish size portions it's pretty simple like I think we sometimes like over complicate things
22:59
but it's pretty easy to interfer the veggies right yeah other than that this is a big one too is I stuck to no
23:05
calorie or you know low calorie drinks and then preferably carbonated drinks yes there's a lot of [ __ ] on you know
23:13
like artificial sweeteners and stuff but diet sodas are totally cool to drink
23:18
unless you drink like liters a day you know yeah but those really kept me on track you know like I said I lost weight
23:25
even though it was difficult you know social settings to give you an idea like on tour
23:30
there's something called the after show pizza that's when the show is done backstage there's a stack of pizza
23:37
that's hard I bet yeah but I did pretty good you know like sometimes I went for
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it but I was a conscious decision and that's my next Point as well attract my
23:47
calories on most days and protein most days and then on the days that didn't I
23:53
just aimed for more like an intuitive maintenance kind of day where I said hey you know what I'm gonna go a little over
23:58
I'm gonna try to stick to maintenance and I'm pretty good with that because I've been tracking for so long and I'm just going to be okay with that
24:04
right but it's a decision you make because it could slow down your progress and
24:10
that's cool too because Summer is really not deep time to be very diligent but in my case like hey you know we do have to
24:17
rely on a bit of willpower and say hey you know what this is my goal this is
24:22
what I got to do to reach my goal and I'm going to just make the right decisions most of the time right
24:27
and then if it's slower that's okay that reminds me of one I wanted to touch on I'm kind of adding to this but that's
24:34
cool another one I see often and like this is for summer yeah I mean but these
24:39
can really go for any time to be honest yeah yeah um a big one again I see is
24:44
like people trying to be so perfect during the week they like don't have anything they enjoy they don't have any
24:50
fun Foods then the weekend comes and there's the barbecues and it's like ah like I want everything now because I've
24:57
just restricted so badly during the week right so you need to stop restricting so
25:03
badly during the week incorporate the some of those fun foods during the week and that comes down to you know
25:10
willpower too right like you're you enable yourself to actually use the willpower when you need it and Comey was
25:17
talking about this just recently on his Instagram um so yeah it you you have you'll have way
25:25
less desire to go crazy when these foods are in front of you if you
25:30
um are a little bit more flexible you know during the week and I work on this a lot with clients I see it all the time
25:38
um so that's a big one too is is stop restricting so much during the week and
25:43
trying to be perfect because it's only backfiring you know on the weekend when
25:48
you consume 4 000 calories oh yeah right
25:54
so which by the way four thousand is still an achievement too yeah you really have to do your best for that yeah yeah
25:59
it's it's very easy to consume a lot of calories and people don't realize that
26:05
they're like oh 3 000 calories that's a lot of food I'm like well you could get there really quickly oh yeah if you do
26:13
your best yeah yeah so I think uh we'll probably talk about that a lot too on this podcast because we're pretty big on
26:19
flexible dieting you me both [Music] um with that like 80 20 rule you know that we always follow it's really it's
26:26
much easier to kind of stick to it be flexible but still be consistent right yeah so not allow yourself to get too
26:33
flexible either but like that way we don't have to follow a strict diet or whatever you know and that's why I personally don't
26:39
do meal plans that's why I don't say hey these are the foods that you need to eat well guide people obviously and what guy
26:45
you know the listeners as well but we're not going to say hey you know what you need to eat these five fat loss Foods or
26:51
whatever no because it doesn't work that way no which is um also something I want to add maybe is that it's like why I
26:59
don't do like a day of eating you know maybe one day I will but like I kind of want to not do it just for the fact that
27:06
people might think hey this is like a special diet you know yeah or I have to eat these foods but like no you don't
27:12
have to right or you can include anything but the context always matters yeah
27:18
um those who enjoy you know some drinks I think this is a good one to touch on
27:23
this summer because usually drinks are flowing more um something I do with my clients is like
27:30
again we do like a non-negotiable of how many you're gonna have or like and and
27:36
what's realistic so like I have a client who you know he drinks quite a bit and
27:42
we're working on reducing that so if he has like 10 drinks he usually has 10 drinks and
27:50
he knocks that down in his non-negotiables too that's not going to be realistic for him right so knock it
27:58
down you know if you normally have 10 drinks make a non-negotiable of eight right if you're going to have two events
28:07
you know you have two um social gatherings in one weekend are you maybe non-negotiable okay I drink
28:13
one night I drink the other or you split the non-negotiable of drinks between the
28:18
two you know days so you're not it's not both days you know you're over consuming
28:24
um so these types of things can help as well again you're going in with some sort of plan
28:31
um it's also good to tell someone you know so that they can keep you accountable that you're going with you know your wife your partner whoever
28:38
um so that that one for Booze because those calories add up very very quickly
28:46
oh a lot and that's maybe something a lot of people don't know or I know that a lot of people don't write it know that
28:52
and that's a alcohol is seven calories per gram that's almost double compared to protein and carbs this is something I
28:59
hear a lot it's like oh I went for you know the whatever drink alcoholic drink but I went for a low carb option like
29:06
that's cool yeah it helps but the vast majority of those calories are gonna come from alcohol yeah right so it's
29:14
it's a very good point actually that you brought up alcohol because we do want to limit that hey it's cool to have a drink
29:20
100 yeah I have a lot of clients who drink every weekend or you know every other week or whatever
29:26
with its context right yeah like getting drunk every day probably not a good idea yeah every now and then hey it's fine
29:32
right yeah and and the the booze adds up but then you're like ooh I buzz and I
29:38
got the munchies oh yeah you're like food it's like a Cascade fact that sleep
29:44
this is we can oh yeah we should definitely but that's just something I think
29:50
that's important because people even myself like I like to enjoy you know a couple drinks here and there uh but you
29:56
gotta put a limit somewhere yeah fair enough cool what do you think love it I think that's the first one of
30:03
the books first one's in the books all right guys thanks thanks so much for uh
30:08
for listening um we plan on what one a week yeah let's do that so we're gonna be launching a new episode every Monday
30:14
morning probably Central European Time we'll figure it out yeah once every week
30:20
we're gonna think of a name if you have any suggestions let us know now this will already be off though yeah
30:27
oh true true so let's set that as our goal right this week we're gonna come up with a name new
30:33
episode every Monday see you guys next week all right all right see that peace