What's up and welcome back to Talk Nutrition. Today is another mini episode. I wanted to just kind of riff for just about 15 minutes about one of the most important phases you can ever move into. And your journey should actually really start here. And we do this with every single client. We briefly talked about it in the previous episode. But I wanted to dedicate this specific episode to it because a lot of people, this being still the second week of January, basically the second week of, you know, 2024. I feel like a lot of people are here or gonna be here or maybe hopefully will be here after listening to this episode because we talked about this last week or sorry last Monday, this Monday. But a lot of people jump in with no strategy in place. They kind of try to do everything all at once. There's no planning, there's no structure. They kind of don't know what to do really. There's this cold but it's like too vague and there's no action plan and we got to do something about that. our clients journey with them. We really go through three distinct phases. And if you've ever seen our logo, like that's what it stands for. The Honesty Coaching System logo. It's the three phases, but it's also repeatable. That's what we stand for. The initial phase is what we're gonna talk about today. I like to call that prepare. What we're doing here is really a few things. First of all, we're gonna learn. Second, we're gonna fuel. A third. We're gonna build. Starting with learn. I think most importantly, if you are listening to this and you're doing this on your own, you're going to have to do the learning on your own, but look to get educated so that you fully understand nutrition. And by the way, that is not through social media. You know what? In a way, which kind of it's a bit double because I'm also teaching you about nutrition here. But I even think that at least for you to get a baseline understanding about nutrition. you should not even start a podcast. Because here's the thing, I really do my best to provide you with quality content and education and stuff that's true, or you know. As we should really say, most likely to be true based on the latest research. Because there are things that sometimes change here and there, but you know what though? Not that much. Get a baseline understanding through maybe getting coached or maybe even doing a course or maybe getting a good book. When you get a book, I would even ask a coach or professional in this space or someone who knows to maybe recommend some books because even there, this is the tricky part with nutrition to be honest with you. There is so much misinformation, so much confusing information, so much conflicting data, so much cherry picking and then there's the Netflix documentaries, which by the way are also not your best move Because that's entertainment and if we go to what was that? Game-changers documentary Yes, sure. It's entertaining and you feel like oh shit. I had no idea Turns out it was all bullshit. It's all cherry picked but I'm not gonna break that down here because there was actually a really good video on YouTube by Lane Norton who took the time to fully just debunk that whole documentary. So you can look that up. But it just goes to show that it's difficult to learn about nutrition, which is why I think it's good to go with a coach or at least get a book recommendation from a coach or do a course or something so that you understand the fundamentals. Now, to give you a couple tips here, since you're listening anyway, you can first of all download my free e-book. which is on our website, I'll make sure to link that in the description. You can buy Metabolism Made Simple by Sam Miller. You could get EAT IT by Jordan Seid and Mike Fucanti. You can get Flexible Dieting by Alan Aragon. And you know what, I think those are going to be a really good start for me. And you know what, not a diet book by James Smith. Start there. To be honest with you. If you read those books, you will understand nutrition. You will get the basics. If you don't want to buy a book, you can download my ebook for free. It's maybe not a full book, but it's still 80 pages full of information. A lot of good stuff in there. It's the stuff that you need to get results. Whether that's fat loss, just health goals, performance, muscle gain, all that good stuff. I basically put you back in control. But okay, learning, like that's what we start with. Now, if it means coaching, then I'm going to have to learn about you. And we're really trying to get a gauge on, okay, what, like, what do you struggle with? What's your history? What have you tried in the past? Because in the meantime, right, we're not just going to jump into fat loss. We're going to fuel your body. We're going to nourish the body. We're going to make sure you get enough energy. When was the last time you actually ate enough and you just focus on being like in a good spot, you know? This is what we see with a lot of people who try to lose weight. They always tell me like, hey, I, I tried to lose weight all year. Okay. That usually tells me like, Hey, either they, this, this is not common by the way. So I do want to kind of like mention this with a, right. Either they're very metabolically adapted, which sounds very fancy, but your metabolism slows down from dieting. If you really push that too far, you're going to not be able to lose weight at very low calories. However, here's the thing. That's why I need to mention both. That's only a fraction of people. Most times, people think they've been dieting all the time, but they keep making the mistakes we talked about in the previous episode. They can't sustain it. They binge every weekend. They drink a lot of alcohol, whatever it is, they can't stick to their diet. So they think that they try really hard, but because they fall off consistently, it kind of, it looks like they don't, they don't lose weight because, you know, even though they're on a deficit. Here's the thing too. Once we do that, we really get a basic understanding of nutrition and you really know how to build meals and we're feeling good, we're getting the energy, we're building habits, which I also mentioned, we got to build, we're building habits, we're building momentum so that you are actually good to go once you go into fat loss. I'm even just recording this podcast, this mini episode for you, because I want you to start here if you are at the very beginning of your journey. Reality is that this is a podcast and I'm not coaching you and I'm not there with you to guide you, which makes it even more difficult because you have this big goal and you want to jump in. But if this is your actual beginning of your journey, I'm going to advise you to probably wait and keep in mind too that this is, I'm talking to, you know, sometimes thousands of people, depending on, you know, how long of a timeframe you want to think about it. But we talked to a lot of people here and everyone is their own individual. So I also can't necessarily say, Hey, you got to be doing this because that also wouldn't be right. But that's why I'm saying like, if you are at the beginning of your journey, try to start here. Try to figure out which habits you've got to create first. And we can keep this super simple. Let's start naming a few. Let's just do that to give you an idea. First of all, you know what? Let's even start with activity. Do you already go to the gym? Yes or no? If not, let's start lifting weights. Three to four times a week. Great start. Get a program. Don't try to figure this out on your own. If you're new, get a program. Just about every gym out there gives you a free introduction PT session. Ask questions. Like I said last week, sorry, last episode, ask for help, it's okay. But get someone to give you your first workout program. It can be super simple. It can be 20 minutes. It could be body weight stuff. It could be, you know, it needs to be tailored to you, but get started. Then also let's look at your daily step count. Can we bring that up? That's already two things, potential things you got to work on. Are you eating at maintenance? Hey, do you know what that really means? Are you eating enough protein? Good chance you're not, because I mean, quite literally, let's call like 95% of people who come to us under eat protein and then we fix that, you know? A lot of times we're bringing that up. So that could be a good one for you too. Are you getting enough protein in? What about your fruits and vegetables? Are you eating one to three servings of fruit per day? two to four veggies and by serving, I mean like a fist sized portion, fist sized, sorry, portion. If you're not getting that in, probably not worth even just thinking about dieting. If you're not eating the stuff that's actually gonna keep you full, actually gonna make you feel healthy, I feel good. Again, like that initial stage, the first phase, prepare, like this is like, it's like feel good season, you know? We're not dieting right away. We're getting you ready for the road ahead. Cause think about it this way, like as much as I know that you want to get started, I know you want to dive in. I know you're excited, but think about it this way. If you have a goal and you're going to work on that, let's say six to 12 months, and then you're going to have new goals and you get into this new identity, you're going to become the stronger, healthier, leaner version of your current self. What's the rush? Wouldn't it be worth like spending a couple of weeks even getting ready so that you know, hey, I actually have the tools and skills in place to be able to stick to all this stuff? Or do you just want to jump in like most other people, which we talked about on Monday and fill within the next couple of weeks and give up? I've seen this happen over and over again until people join us. And then we. say you know what you've tried just about every diet under the sun let's not start there and guess what we start feeling good we build muscle we take that break we feel way better sleep improves mood sex drive gut health like all this good stuff right and then we can dive into your transformation maybe we'll just talk about that next thursday because there's always going to be other people who are ready to go And hey, maybe let's say you're not a beginner, but you're maybe a little bit more advanced or hey, you know what, you've gone through different phases already. Okay, cool. Then either way, I want you to show yourself that you can be consistent with your food, that most of the bigger roadblocks are covered, and that you can actually just start. And you know what, like I'm going to decide it right now. Next Thursday, we'll talk about the actual transformation phase. But I want you to really think about those habits. And what you really think is it really smart now to just jump in and say, I have this goal, even though I know my habits are not in good place, even though I know I stress eat, my sleep sucks, my like I emotional eat, I binge eat over the weekend. I'm not able to include. Drinks with the girls, beers with the dudes. I don't know how to be flexible yet healthy. I need to learn how to flexibly diet. A lot of good stuff to work on guys. So let's start there. Let's not jump in because it will be worth it. It will definitely be worth it if you invest a couple of weeks getting ready. So that you are good to go, so that when you are in... let's call it your fat loss phase, or even if it's like muscle gain followed by fat loss or performance, right? Once you go into that, it's go time and you can actually focus on executing because that's the main goal then. You don't want to be messing around in a fat loss phase. You don't want to be like many others where it's like, I tried to diet all year. No, when you go in, we make it work. We make it count so that we can get the hell out of that calorie deficit again to go back to fueling, nourishing the body, building muscle. Feeling good. If you are in a muscle gain phase, or you want to be, it's going to be even more important for you to be consistent, because you're just going to gain a whole bunch of body fat if you gain too fast. So also there it's even more important to track and weigh your food and stay consistent and lift weights and sleep well and manage stress. You see? So either way, whatever your goals are, let's start there. Let's start by preparing your body, preparing you in terms of like your habits, your routines, your rituals, whatever you want to call them. So that when you're good to go, you are actually good to go. You're not just telling yourself that you're good because you want to. Make sense? I know this is for some people may be like, ah, you know, like, fuck it. I'll just get started. But I'm going to advise you to really think about this stuff. And then of course, decide based on your experience and where you're at in your journey. So I think that's, that is going to be it for today. If you have any questions about what this would look like for you and you kind of listen to it as, and you feel like, Hey, it kind of makes sense, but I don't really know which habits I got to build. Feel free to reach out. You can DM me via Instagram. So your investors underscore. OCS, you can go to YouTube, comment there, that'll make sure to record a future Q&A episode as well. Or of course we do have our consultation calls as well, which are free. So if you want, go to the description, book your free call, you can apply for free and it doesn't have to be binding, right? So you only decide right there on the phone after we've talked about you. I want to learn about you first, right? Then we talk about your struggles, your goals, coaching, what that would look like. And then if you want to move ahead, awesome. If not, awesome. Either way, I'm going to help you move forward. Cool. Have a great rest of your week and then we'll chat on Monday again.