What is up and welcome back to Talk Nutrition. Today we have Lisa back. It's been a while Lisa, right? I think. It has been, I think maybe almost two years or year and a half. Cause yeah, last time when we spoke, I just started my lean gaining phase, which is what we're going to talk about in part here, but in a different way. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. I can't believe that's that actually is crazy. I think it is more than a year ago for sure. Yeah, because you were just starting that muscle gain phase and I want to bring you back home because I think it's really cool to speak to muscle gain for females because we have a lot of clients who do want to look like they work out, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions, I guess, around trading. There's a lot of, yeah, just not not the right way to do things, you know, and a lot of confusion just like it is with nutrition. same thing for training. And I feel like these days, especially among the females, it's common to have a goal to train a big booty, right? Exactly. Well, who doesn't want nice glutes, that's right. Fair enough. And that was your main goal, I think, too, right? Yes, exactly. So yeah, I mean, first of all, thank you so much for having me back on. I'm super excited to talk more about, about my lean gaining phase, but more specifically today from the angle of bringing up a particular lagging body part, which in my case was the glutes. and just to give people a little bit of a background. so I, come from a CrossFit background, which is also what we talked about a little bit last time. But I had an injury, not necessarily in a crazy workout or anything. It was just during, during squats, sumo squats, I suddenly, or yeah, suddenly I did feel like a sort of a sharper pain going down the right side of my leg, but I didn't really think much of it. And, you know, obviously like most people just kept training through it. But the next morning I woke up and I couldn't even tie my shoe because I couldn't bend forward that much. So essentially it turned out to be my sciatic nerve was squashed. So what people refer to as sciatica. And often that you get a little bit like numbness and tingling down the leg. But in many cases, it's something that just keeps coming back up and it doesn't have to be a lifting injury. Oftentimes it's also from sitting long periods of time. Or it's just the angle at which your hip is positioned for a longer time and that squashes this nerve. And so essentially I had to learn because I did still want to move. I mean, there's, and most physios will tell you that nowadays also that complete rest and stillness for months and months is obviously not a great idea. So I just learned to adapt to it and really. it kind of coincided with the pandemic to my fortune in this particular case, because of course, like most people, I just had dumbbells, kettlebells, et cetera, available. And so a lot lighter loads for my lower body. And with that, I did still try to have a higher range, tried to focus on my muscle connection. But nonetheless, with two years or so of really trying to manage the sciatic pain, and it kept improving, kept improving, my glutes did shrink quite a bit, at least noticeably to me anyway. And most people would not have necessarily said anything. But yeah, so after two years, I felt like, hey, okay, I feel now like I can tackle this again. I had switched from like a three -day lower, a program to a two day in order to reduce the overall volume. But with this, I brought it back up to three days and the important other things that I wanted to make sure in order to bring up that lagging body part was I decided to actually go to a proper gym as opposed to just free weights and a CrossFit box or anything like that. And That's not to say that that is a prerequisite for really enhancing glute development. However, in my case, and I would say in most cases, it can really help because the other thing I was struggling with, aside from the managing the sciatica, was simply connecting to my glutes. And I don't know if you have a particular body part that you feel like it's really difficult to create that connection with. I just never, even though like I thought I was activating my glutes, you know, I was always doing certain... banded walks or whatever particular exercises prior to the workout, but truly having like a glute pump or feeling like whatever. I cannot say that I had had that before. And so just switching to more isolation work, for instance, abductions or just having machines where you can, where I could also make sure that my back was supported and therefore I was preventing the sciatica from flaring up. head squat machine or leg presses instead of just a regular free weight squat. That was something very, very helpful. So just to, I guess, give a little bit of an introduction to this already. But yeah, I guess it could also be, do you have a body part that you used to or perhaps still struggle activating mentally when you think of, like, my lats or my rhomboids or whatever? I would say when it comes to like connecting with the muscle, like that's really been like a thing for me, like the last year plus maybe like, let's say the last year or so where I really started to pay attention to that, to where, Hey, like we're always, always learning, right? So for me, that was, okay, like I'm lifting, I paid more and more and more attention to technique. And then I'm like, Hey, now I actually feel this. Okay. Let me pay more attention to this. So for me, it wasn't necessarily one muscle in particular, but just all across the board. Like I've been way more intentional, way more focused on that connection. And it's funny too, because you're talking about like lagging body parts. So I'm currently being coached by Cody again, and we've wrapped up a cut, we're reverse dining now. And I actually hit him up. I was like in my check -in, I was like, I never ever expected to request this in my programming. but I actually think we got to train glutes because that's definitely lagging for me currently because I was like, yo, my quads are big, hamstrings too, but it's like out of proportion, you know? So we're actually adding that for me now as well. even for non -aesthetic reasons, there is so much benefit in having strong glutes, like even just from a posture or power perspective. Like if you're someone who does do explosive sports and just having like a few months or weeks where you really particularly focus on glute development, I don't think it would hurt anybody's. performance on the contrary. So yeah, some things that I specifically did for that, aside from just switching to a gym, was also the exercise selection, like really fine tuning that. Again, coming from more of a functional perspective and always thinking like, hey, the more muscles involved, the better, the more quote unquote functional it is. And then realizing, hey, overall, especially with that kind of volume, you know, training legs three times a week, that is a lot, even though we know or kind of find out more and more through science that generally speaking, women can probably tolerate a little bit more volume than men. But nonetheless, every man that I tell I'm doing legs three times a week, they want to throw up because many of them don't even want to do it once. So, you know, Yeah, really learning that within that frequency in order to recover properly, we need to make sure we can't do really heavy deadlifts every single time, maybe not even once a week, right? Like focusing on the exercise selection. So incorporating more things like hip thrusts, like even like kneeling hip extensions on the Smith machine, for instance. Again, more isolation work like on the abductions or more sumo stance things in particular. That really was something that I wanted to focus on because for me particularly the glute medius, which if people don't know, so we have the glute maximus, the big, big glute muscle, and then we have the glute medius, which is a little bit higher up to the outside. So if... People want to feel that you kind of go to your lower back and then tracing your fingers more to the outside a little bit lower down. And often we can even feel that there's like, it's, you can feel that it's not part of the other muscle so to speak. So that's the glute medius in particular. And yeah, that was specifically lagging for me. And what that also helps with just aesthetically is it creates a little bit more of a rounder shape as opposed to. where it's like a little bit wider on the bottom, so to speak. So if you want to have like nice, more like a pear shape, glute appearance, then focusing on that glute medius can be really helpful. We also have a glute minimus, which is below that. And so specific exercises for the medius are generally abductions, any kind, you know, it doesn't have to be on a machine. It can also be, you know, you hold a plate on the side of your leg and you lift your leg up sideways. Those things that look super silly but are great, like clams, like frog pump type things. And again, anything in a sumo stance, if done correctly, many people just do a sumo stance thinking it means wide. But really what we want to focus on is like pushing the knees out, out, out so that we're getting that full glute medius activation and involvement as well. So those were some things. But then of course, the additional supplementary things like. kickbacks or like leg curls and those kinds of things also really helped me just focusing on the overall lower body volume or making sure that that's correct. And on top of that, I was no longer doing anything in a very low rep range. So again, to give your listeners context, and I don't know how much you have spoken here about hypertrophy versus strength recently, but generally speaking, when we're really wanting to focus on strength. We're talking more lower rep ranges, so like eight and below perhaps. And then if we're focusing on more hypertrophy, we would be saying eight and up to like 20 type of thing. And of course there's overlap, particularly if people are just starting out, they're going to gain muscle even if they are only doing one to three reps. And likewise, if you just do higher reps, you're going to get stronger also as a novice, but nonetheless. So again, coming from CrossFit. I was also still doing, oftentimes, you know, five reps or three, three rep max testing kind of thing. And I completely cut that out also because they tend to be more stressful for the nervous system. So again, talking about overall recovery and, I really made sure that almost everything that I was doing was in the higher rep ranges. on top of that, another tool, which I had never expected to incorporate. that much of anyway, was using a weight belt. So I had always used a weight belt for very heavy lifts, but apart from that, I actually thought I don't want to use a weight belt that often because I do want to have a strong core. And yeah, I still want to have a strong core. But what was happening in my case also was that my core was taking over or making up for the lack of activation and strengthen my legs. So in order to isolate my legs more and specifically the glutes, I actually started using a weight belt for most things. So even if I was doing my warm -up sets in the squats or even if it was 15 reps or whatever, always a weight belt. And I do have to say that my core is down a little bit. The strength is still there and I like, it's not like I'm suddenly. I suddenly have a super tiny middle, but again, from a female perspective, and I was just sort of shifting more into the direction of what is a bikini type of figure. In CrossFit, we often see most women have just straight up and down. There's not that much curvature going on, and there's nothing wrong with that. I loved my body back then also, and I still love my body, and it's not like there is a huge, huge, huge change from three, four years ago, perhaps. but I did want to move more into the direction of wider shoulders, a little bit more narrow in the middle and then wider glutes. So just creating a tiny bit more of an hourglass figure. I will never have the body of a Latina. That's like a super nice and, and curvy in that way. That is just not my frame. That's not how my anatomy is set up. but I wanted to do from a muscular perspective, anything that I could in order to move a little bit more towards that. And that also meant a little bit more shoulder work and actually less arms. So I truly, I haven't trained arms per se. So like biceps, triceps, chest also in like a year and a half, which at first was hard because I actually liked it. Most women don't like doing like pushups and bench presses and whatever, but that was one of my favorite training days. So now I mostly just do back and shoulders. Cool. A lot of good things to unpack there. I think it really speaks to as well to like different approaches when it comes to your goals, because like you said, you know, there's CrossFit, there's like more functional stuff. You have machines, freeways, like all so many different things. I think it's smart also to have seasons like that where, hey, okay, now we're going to build strength. Now we're going to build muscle. Hey, you know what? Let me actually focus on this lagging body part because... I still think, I mean, this is the case with fat loss, it's with everything, but we kind of want it all like all at the same time. But you just mentioned like, Hey, I do lags three times a week. I actually don't do, you know, arms, you know, chest or shoulders. It's like, Hey, like, it's not like you're never going to do them anymore, but it's like a season. And I think that's probably one of the harder things for a lot of people when it comes to their programming, because we have this goal. hard and I think what it all comes back down to is having clarity, clarity about like what you actually want because that allows you to make the best possible decision. So for me, I was like, okay, my clear goal is to bring up my glutes full stop. So what does that mean? Even if it's uncomfortable, it means I'm going to switch from a three days upper body and two days lower body to vice versa. Even if it's uncomfortable, I'm going to do all those machines at the gym that I thought looked silly and now I actually love. Even though it's uncomfortable and I felt like, my gosh, my upper body is going to shrink. I'm no longer going to do arm days for a little while. Right. And so often it's that fear of letting go of our comfort zone that we're currently in, in addition to not really having that clarity. Cause if you, like you say, If you want everything, if you're like, yeah, I do want to have nice arms and yeah, I do want to have a nice glutes also like what is most important to you and figuring out what the priorities are in that because I mean, going from the word priority and you're as much of a stoicism lover as I am and priority like it comes from the Latin word. primos and that means like first you need to you need to have one can only have one priority hypothetically speaking yeah of course nowadays we are saying like i've got five priorities they're all my priorities but generally speaking we should have that one priority and have been clear on that can help us or can make it so much easier making all these other decisions like if you have the priority of making going to bed and time you know that if your friends invite you out at 9 p you're gonna say no, even though you kind of want to, but you're gonna say no or ask if they can meet up at 6 p perhaps. It just, it actually, I think it makes it easier once you are aware of that. And yeah, like you mentioned too, like that fear of missing out on the other things if you say yes to one thing. It's, it's, it's, I think within all of us, for me, it was also not like an easy decision at first. And I'm someone who needs baby steps with everything. So I like gradually also worked my way into a surplus as I was like talking about last time when we spoke, it wasn't a 500 calorie increase from one day to another, because that would have freaked me out. And I would have been convinced I was going to get fat overnight, essentially. So, you know, if you know what kind of pace you're good with. Maybe don't completely cut your training program from one day to another in a different way. Maybe just start swapping certain things like, okay, I usually do some Olympic lifts in my training. I'm going to cancel those out and include more isolation work for my glutes in those days. Of course, the smaller changes we make often, the slower we're going to see the progress in that area. So if you do switch completely to a different training program, you might benefit from seeing, feeling, noticing the difference a lot quicker. But yeah, I think it's very important to know what kind of person you are. How would you rate your rate in this? Someone who needs big changes to see motivation or also someone who's preferring a bit of transition time. I think, I mean, first of all, I'm definitely someone who needs change. I do well with that. But that's like, it's every now and then. It doesn't have to be changed up weekly or something, but, you know, like maybe every two months or so, right? I'm kind of feeling it, you know? And then I'm happy to jump into something new. It's always like that first week is always a little, I get a little annoyed sometimes at the gym. when I'm supposed to follow a program like the first time and then I'm like finding my groove again and like sometimes I'm not necessarily great at a certain technique and then that first session is always like, fuck and then you get into it and then it's like great again, you know? But I feel like I need that. I think that's a good thing, you know what I mean? And I've seen this a lot of times. Yeah, I've seen this a lot of times with clients who... want to make their own program, which is cool, right? I have some people try it out and it's like, hey, if it looks decent, sure, why not? But a lot of times you'll see just chair picking things that we are already good at, that we already like, and then very little focus on things we may actually benefit from adding. And then for example, this was recently, someone had a program, they wanted to do a new block, because I was like, hey, you've been doing the same stuff for a long time, like we should actually switch. And then it kept the exact same, but you just change up the rep ranges. So I was like, Hey, you know what, actually we need a little bit more variety here. Do you think that's, that's a common tendency? I guess it is right. Like we tend to think like that where it's like, Hey, I'm going to focus on the things that I'm already kind of good at and kind of like kind of ignore the things that I'm, you know, just not that great at, or maybe I don't like a certain exercise. starting this. And during that time, it was a good thing because like I mentioned, only I could feel my sciatica. So anyone giving me a program for that probably wouldn't have been able to gauge that. But I also was very like, I hate 20 reps for any exercise. So I don't want to add program that for myself. yes, the coach that I had programmed for me, she did. And I was like, damn, this sucks. But then when you get into it and you see the benefits, you do gain that motivation from it. The other thing I was going to say specifically with other clients, or I don't know what it's currently like with you and Cody also, but I also have some clients that are coaches themselves or perhaps have been training for, I don't know. 10, 20 years even, if they're a little bit older. So many of them say, and yes they are, but many of them say, hey, I have a lot of experience when I offer them, do you want to send me a video for your program, for your training? And quite often they're like, no, no, I'm good. I know what I'm doing, blah, blah. And especially if they're not feeling any discomfort with anything or any pain. And that's all good, but I would highly... highly, highly, one. If you have a coach, send them training videos, even if you think you're doing it right, because they might be seeing something, even if it's just, hey, drive out your knee just a tiny bit more and suddenly you feel your glutes or I can see your ankle caving in on that one or like anything. Four eyes always see more than two. And, you know, if they get back to you and they're like, this looks awesome. which if they're a good coach, they probably shouldn't. If you send them 20 videos, they probably should find one or two where you can do something better. But, you know, generally speaking, do it. That feedback is so helpful. And again, like with my coach too, I sent her videos and I will be completely honest. I thought like, no, you know, I'm good at this. Like deadlifts, no problem whatsoever. I can do 15 pull -ups at the time. Like... no worries, I don't need to send her back day videos. And then she was like, Lisa, you're only using your biceps for your pull ups. Lisa, you're only using your neck, like your trapezius for your pull downs. And I was like, holy crap. Okay. And then suddenly, for instance, what in regards to the, the pull up thing, I always had after upper body day, I always had neck tension and I just thought I trained hard as part of it, you know, a second up. Don't complain or anything. That's just part of training. And then until she said to me, you're pulling with your trapezius on everything, I was like, suddenly my neck pain is gone. Or at least it's less so. Yeah, the encouragement here to really send through videos if you have the opportunity. I don't know, do you send Cody videos regularly, or have you done that in the past? In the beginning, recently I haven't, but I probably should. Because this is one thing too, because I fully agree with you. I have some coaches also as my clients and I've had them in the past also. A lot of times us coaches are not fully open to feedback. But I'm always like, hey, like we're coaches, like we gotta do the thing ourselves. We need to be coachable ourselves too. And one thing I got really good at myself is just accepting that, hey, you know, I don't know everything. Let me be the learner in this situation and let me just take it all in, right? Because yes, sure, we can have experience. And this might even go for just, you know, non -coach clients. Like, hey, maybe you've been at the gym like 10 years. Guess what? Like you're still going to have stuff to learn. The best in the game still have stuff to learn, you know? They're still looking for little things. much harder sometimes than if you're newer in the game. But yeah, going back to your previous point, of course it is uncomfortable at first. Like if someone tells you, you're doing this all wrong. And I think I'm the queen of pull -ups. I'm like... you know, right? Like that was my my initial first reaction where I was just thinking, Shut up, you have no idea. And then I was like, Well, hang on, she is, you know, an IFBB prone has been to the Olympia twice, she probably kind of knows what she's talking about. So I should just take that on and see if there's perhaps some truth to that. The other thing I wanted to touch on that you mentioned earlier with regards to the season, or seasons in general, and what I would caution people of as the only thing would be not to make those seasons too short and expect too much out of them. So for instance, I'm going to do a three month glute gaining phase. Probably not going to see all that much difference unless you are completely new to training and this is the first time you're ever doing hip thrust or whatever. Again, I started this in September 2022. with bringing up my glutes and I would say like up until five or six months into it I felt like not much was happening at all and like now absolutely I can I can see and feel a difference but you know realistically speaking give your goals particularly as it pertains to muscle gain give yourself time and don't rush it like the worst thing and you I know you see this too with your clients. The worst thing is if we're just having way too high expectations and for a short amount of time. And then basically you go into maybe a small surplus for those three months and then you're wanting to cut for six months. You're probably going to almost lose all your gains again. And then doing something else, a strength phase for three months. You're really not that getting that much out of it. Again, choose your priority, commit to it like a year. You can achieve a lot in a year in terms of differences. So that would be the only thing patience and. Again, it's something we all struggle with and we want results like yesterday, but it just is what it is. It's hard to also because we want to see the fast results like you said. But this people might not notice but muscle gain is way slower if you want to do it right at least way slower than fat loss. Like just I don't want to give it necessarily like a percentage or a number but let's say like with fat loss you can go about twice as fast. Of course it depends on the scenario whatever but just about you know like muscle gain is a lot that's a long game. And I want to share this too because first of all. We haven't talked about this in a long time. A second, we have a lot of new listeners, but Lisa was actually my coach back in 2021. And we actually, the building phase, like pretty much all year. So that was a long period of bulking. It paid off, but it was a very long time. do believe. And, yeah, I think that was, that's awesome. I mean, it just showed that before even heading into it, you really thought about this too, but yeah, giving your yourself time with that. And as you mentioned, muscle gain. especially for someone who has been strength training a little bit longer is so much slower. Like as an advanced athlete, you know, going at a weight gain rate of, like for women of my size, maybe like half a kilo a month. And of that, not all of it is going to be muscle either. That's, that's, that's a decent rate and that's maybe even, you know, expecting a little bit too much almost. So. giving yourself time and heading into that with the right expectation. And the other thing with that in terms of expectation would be to anticipate that you're gonna be uncomfortable for at least a few days of those months. And, you know, for us women, we also have our cycle playing into that. So regardless of what phase you're in, you're probably uncomfortable like five, six, seven days of the month, if not more. And, but in a gaining phase or in a surplus, even worse on your instincts where you want to go back into a deficit. And so there it can be so helpful having that coach having that other person that just says, you committed, you know, we're only two and a half months into this. I know you're feeling fluffy. It's probably around your ovulation period is coming up or whatever. Give your like, let's wait it out and see how we go through this. The thing with long, long gaining phase was I think we might've done if I remember correctly, like a week or two here and there, which sometimes can, like if you're really feeling uncomfortable and you, let's say you go on vacation next week or in two weeks time and you're like, I just want to be like a little, little bit more comfortable in my swimsuit, you know, doing a mini cut here and there over the course of a year. that's fine, but not heading right back into a cut and then out again. And yeah, just spinning your wheels like that. Yeah. I think it's important to play the long game there. And I think to your point as well, we kind of all need that. We kind of all need to have that accountability. And at the end of the day, that's the most important thing, you know? Yes, the program is important and the nutrition and the sleep and all of that, but it's like the actual sticking to it and having that second set of eyes and ears and you know, someone who actually can motivate you, but also call you on in your shit. And, you know, who you can communicate with. And I think too, I think it's a very important lesson for people to go through dedicated muscle gain phases, getting more fluffier, which is part of the game. Like it kind of sucks. No one likes it. I didn't like it, but that experience, I think is one of the most valuable ones. Because yes, we talk about, you know, fat loss and all that stuff, but if you see that also, but I would say even less so with women. Men, probably even more, they're like, you know, I want to get, put more mass on, but we're always afraid of having that extra little fluff or if that pant size goes up, for some reason we identify with a particular number on the scale or I'm a size two with my pants or whatever. Like what's the harm in having various where you're like, these are my summer pants and these are my winter pants. In many countries, We do have the beauty of seasons where we could just say, hey, it's not that big of a deal if every year we're essentially focusing on gating from September through March, and then we're going to do a little bit of a cut for eight weeks or for four weeks, and then you maintain over the summer, and then you gain again. You can build a beautiful physique over the course of three, four, five years by doing that. But yeah, like you say, unfortunately, and I don't know if it's the education around it or if it's just a stigma where we are truly afraid of gaining more weight. So for me, it was a combination of things that prevented me from doing that prior. Again, like before my injury also, I really was just more focused on performance, on lifting heavy and what I looked like didn't really matter all that much to me. And then is that... sort of shifted a little bit more. I was like, yeah, definitely afraid of gaining weight. And that's why, why I really needed to go at my pace and order to make sure I wasn't terrified because I think some people have also very negative experiences with certain coaches that do put them regardless of how they feel. They might be terrified of carbs and then the The coach is like, from tomorrow onwards, you're going to eat 350 grams of carbs every day. That is terrifying for someone who might be used to eating 150. So if you land with the wrong coach, that's always unfortunate and really making sure that you're clicking with that accountability person first would be my recommendation for sure. But yeah, like you were saying, like sticking with something and pushing through something, I mean, consistency. That is the thing that sets successful people apart from everything else. It's not talent, it's not genetics, it's not even a certain business idea. Yeah, okay, sometimes people go viral with something, of course, sure. But on average, the most successful people, they're just freaking consistent with everything that they do. And that is why it's so important to determine that long -term vision instead of... from zero training sessions, going to five every week as your goal. Okay, maybe we'll just do two or three and stick with that, even if it's not optimal, but confidence within yourself that you can actually do that. I think that's so, so big and often where people really struggle. And I think you do that so well that like with your system and your nutrition coaching, that you are focused on sleep and all these other things around it to make sure that that person. can stay consistent and doesn't have the feeling of crash diet and this is all overwhelming and I can only handle it for six weeks and then you're quote unquote back to where you were before you started. So yeah, I love that you and your company overall embodies that so nicely as well. It's important. And I think, again, like I think about this more and more. It's really the coaching that makes a difference because you get to be held accountable, right? Like that's because there are so many hacks and secrets and all this stuff online, you know, but it's all bullshit. We know that. But I will say this too, there's like, there's nothing new. We know what works, you know, and the things that work have worked for a very long time. It's just that the hard part is actually doing those things consistently. That's where I think that accountability comes in. The coaching comes in. Mentorship, right? That's why I've had mentors since the very beginning. I mean, same for you. You work with coaches, mentors, like it's so important. I guess what? Like those people all have coaches and mentors and they probably do as well, you know? So like, I think that is really the actual, like not a secret, but you know, like that's the key, I think. happening? And then we go through their food log and they're tracking like three, four days a week. I'm like, well, where's the rest? You know, yeah, I was. I was eating mindful, I made good choices the other days. Well, that means shit, I'm sorry, but it doesn't mean anything. It could be 2 ,500 calories and it could be a thousand calories if you say, I just made good choices. So please, yeah, people do still need to take accountability or responsibility for their own actions as well. And the other thing that I do think is still very much on the person and I heard this interesting. study on a podcast the other day where they were talking about the number one skill when it comes to hire ability or like people wanting to be hired and also being kept by a company. The number one skill is resourcefulness. So basically you encounter an issue and instead of saying, I don't know how to do that. Or can someone help me? I have no idea. Instead of that, you're like, Let me just Google that or let me just give that a try and then you you learn from that That's not to say you shouldn't be asking for help. No, no, that's not what I'm saying at all But it's simply like the client that's like I couldn't track that because I couldn't find it in my fitness pal Or I couldn't track that because I didn't have a scale with me or I couldn't track that Because it was finger food and I had three of this three of that three of that That's not being resourceful. It's not that difficult in the worst case scenario, take a picture of your plate, send it to me and I'll help you with that. But you know, that, that, that victimized or not necessarily victim, but that helplessness that trans and transfers into every single area of life. That means next time you do your workout and the machine that's supposed to be, that you're supposed to do next is occupied. you're going to be like, I can't do my workout today. I'm sorry. So like, you know, be resourceful, have some ideas. I would, I would still say ownership and resourcefulness that is a hundred percent on the client. Exactly. 100%. I 100 % agree with that. I love that you brought it up because yes, it needs to be said too, because you at the end of the day have to do the thing with all the guidance and mentorship. Like the reason that is there is so that you can actually take action consistently because you will allow yourself to get away with more stuff. We do this as coaches too, right? If we don't have coaches, but it's like, you got to do. the workout, you got to actually prep your meals, eat meals, track. And I understand that's a lot of work also. That is a lot of work. But being resourceful, like I love that you said that because that's really the key. Because it's really not about the weekend being a problem. It's not. If the weekend is a problem and we're stressing about it, either we didn't go in with a plan or we just haven't learned yet, but also there, it's like... Hey, let's not just say, okay, we'll just try and get a Monday. Like, no, like what did we learn here? Where did we go wrong? You know, like let's actually have this conversation and turn it into something actionable so that next time we can do something and then we'll see, you know, but it needs to be this, this action-based approach where like we actually do something with it and we keep working on it, you know, and that is also something that, I mean, I do feel like people talk about it these days, but maybe in a different way. they might be struggling to get to the gym, but for me, making sure I do take all my rest days, I do my mobility work, I do my recovery work, that is difficult. So like, yeah, like you're saying, like, what is the hard part? Because just saying it needs to be quote unquote hard. Like, what does that mean for... Go ahead. very, very, very good point. And in the sense of the weekends or having that conversation and action forward, I love that word, like action forward based approach. But just in general, oftentimes those people, like you mentioned, like they follow up on the weekend and they don't even reach out until their check -in or maybe even their check -in is late. And like we were saying, like, and what would be a resourcefulness or an action? forward -based approach would even just be, even if you don't plan ahead, if it might have been a spontaneous event, like the next day or even on that evening saying like, hey, that didn't go so well, what could I have done differently? Like communication is huge and that's what your coach is there for. I often say that especially if people are new, like I wanna have more conversations or more communication than necessary, than you think initially. Yeah. That is huge. And I do get it also, because a lot of times it almost comes from a feeling guilty or like a bit of shame, maybe, you know, being like, well, I'm supposed to do this stuff, but now I'm letting my coach on. And that's also not what it is. Like we're here to work with them, of course. But I do get that because of course, hey, people are people. We do get those kinds of feelings. So yeah, absolutely. But it's, again, you said this earlier, like could... forward five days of the week is enough or should be enough. But, you know, if we're way over calories or it doesn't even have to be way over, but if we're a bit over over calories, two days of the week, that's still. next week. You know? percentage and can be a good reason why you might be spinning in circles, why it might be stagnating. And then you get frustrated, you get demotivated. So accuracy and consistency are so big in a way. Maintenance in a surplus, you know, a little, we can be a little bit looser, but just also, I guess, going to the point of the surplus, expect that if you are not very accurate in a surplus, you're probably going to feel fluffier more often. than necessary or than you should perhaps and that's of course not the goal either. Yeah. That's such a good point. Yeah, I guess I never looked at it from that perspective, but no, you're totally right. Very, very good point. I mean, it's always worse to overeat in a surplus compared to a deficit because in a fat loss phase, you just lose less weight. In a surplus, you gain more body fat, you know? Yeah, I tell people that sometimes it's like, well, it's actually worse to do that compared to the fat loss because in a fat loss phase, it's like, hey, maybe we're just stable for the week. Okay, cool. Well, no damage done if you think about it, you know, unless, yeah, unless we think about it from like, hey, now we have to add another fat loss week or something, but accuracy is important. That needs to be set too, because you mentioned training, you know, a lagging body part, it already takes a long time. for me, it was increasing the volume in that particular body part. So switching to three lower body days from, from two. But more importantly, also still making sure that we're not overstressing the nervous system. So when it comes to exercise selection, I think so, so, so important for a lagging body part that you really fine tune that and really isolating more than anything. So for me, it was including more things like kickbacks, like abductions, like sumo things, hip thrusts and so on. And then on top of that, of course, That meant reducing my upper body volume. And, with that also even more so to isolate my using a weight belt more. And actually I also didn't mean to, I also started using wrist straps more, in CrossFit I always having good strength and yeah, it is. but it often also limited the amount of weight that I was able to pull. And so again, to isolate the glutes more, it was very helpful to have those wrist straps. And yeah, in addition to that, just make sure that we're really working in a hypertrophy range and that you feel the muscle that you want to pop, that you learn to feel that. So another example could be lats. A lot of people want to bring up lats or so, or delts. Making sure that you learn to feel that and working with various cues, whether that's tactile or using videos like we mentioned and that you send to your coach. And... Often also, if you feel like you're not making progress, those videos can help as well because just a picture or just looking in the mirror, especially if it's a body part that's on your posterior back or glutes, you get a very skewed vision, right? But if you take videos and you move and you see the muscle moving, it can often be a lot more indicative of any progress. So yeah, and I guess the thing that we didn't talk that much about this time, which is fine, just being in a, in a small surplus, I mean, most of the time, if we want to bring up a lagging body part, we do need to be in a surplus. If that's a body part that's lagging behind because of a previous injury or so, you can probably get away with, maintenance or maybe even in a small deficit, if you're really new, but most people should be in a small surplus if they want to bring up a particular body part. Great question. So basically I did last, when I started, I did seven months in a small surplus. So it's basically September through to what was that May or whatever. And then I maintained over the summer, just, I didn't really want to gain much more because I was also on vacation in Germany and wasn't a bathing suit a lot and so on. So, you know, you want to feel good. And then when I returned to South America, I went back into a surplus. Same training program. So I would say since I started with this, my cycle or my training cycle really has changed twice or maybe three times a little bit. So really doing the same thing for several, several, several weeks, whereas I was used to a program changing maybe every eight weeks or six weeks. But yeah, basically still doing the same split, same target and now going back into maintenance for the summer. So. I haven't done a cut since I started this. I'm so far feeling good, but oftentimes even just by going into a warmer temperature, sweating a lot and so on, I feel a lot lighter right away. Yeah, that's great. It's nice too. And it's also nice to not focus on fat loss so much. And I think this is where ultimately we would want to get to. And I also want to, I want the listeners to notice too, like Lisa and I both come from being heavier, going through our own fitness journey, losing a whole bunch of weight, right? So that's where we started. So I also don't want to be like, Hey, were these fitness people just telling you to, you know, like, no, like once you've gone through that big weight loss phase. maintenance life is like the greatest life. I love it. Seriously. And not, not just, with regards to the weight loss background, but, I've also come from a background of trying all kinds of stupid diets. Like most of my clients. that people don't really focus on. You're going to need it when you get old, even when you lift heavy, right? It's bone health. It's so much more. That's the place ultimately where you want to get to where, hey, like now we don't have to do these kind of things. travel. And then if you travel around and I remember standing in this food court and started crying because I couldn't find anything that I was quote unquote allowing myself to eat. And like memories like that where I'm like, what the hell? I don't want to look back at my travel and this being the outstanding memory. I want to look back in my time in Thailand and think that was awesome. I saw a gazillion amazing samples or whatever it is. So nowadays with that flexibility and also with having maintenance calories or even a small surplus, travel is so much more enjoyable than if you're constantly year round dieting and restricting yourself. Yeah, here and there a small cut or so is fine, but if people cut for more than six months of the year on a regular basis, it's just for me, it is sad because it's taking away so much of the quality of life as well. yeah. Well, totally. And I think what you and I see more and more of also is like the people heading into perimenopause, menopause, or struggling with hormonal health in general. And that often is just exacerbated by all these years of dieting and dieting and dieting. And again, I totally understand the fear of eating more, especially if you have only been eating 12, 1400 calories for, I don't know how many years. And just the prospect of, your maintenance calories are supposed to be 1900 is like, what? No, that can't be. But learning that and practicing the maintenance life. And I have specifically say practicing because I like, like, like you said, it is actually worse if you like way overeat in maintenance or in a surplus because. Then afterwards you're inclined again to cut again. And so then you're back into that circle. And so I personally love to track even when I'm at maintenance, I do have clients that transition more into like an, a tracking intuitive eating hybrid. And I know that you sometimes don't track for just a short while or historically anyway, I don't know what it's like in the last couple of years. And I think that's awesome. Yeah. I think it's awesome. Cause you have built that skill of like, Hey, I roughly know what my portion size should look like. Hey, I roughly know what 200 grams of protein look like. And so that's absolutely fine. but that is something that needs to be learned at first. Yes, thank you so much. Well, I mean, being a digital nomad, I do still have my regular quote unquote work schedule that sometimes I think people, of course, I mostly share like beautiful beach stories and whatever I don't share like, here's me again, sitting in my Airbnb working for six hours straight. But yeah, I mean, it's absolutely my pleasure. I love anywhere in the world. And so I do have a little bit more work to go for a few hours here. Over here, it's only 10 a So I think we have a seven -hour time difference at the moment, right? But thank you so much for having me back on. I love speaking about all of this and also just witnessing your journey and success with your company and with your podcast as well. So thank you truly. of the day? Mostly on Instagram, nutrition coaching and life is the handle. Same name for websites, same name on YouTube or anywhere else also. But yeah, mostly Instagram is a good place to find me. See you soon. Awesome. Thanks so much. Now, last but not least, where can people find you? Before we go. LinkedIn and showed us. Thanks again and I'll talk to you soon.