What is up and welcome back to Talking Nutrition. Today is a very special episode, big announcement. Then there were three. Today we are joined by our third Odyssey coaching systems, Coach Lin. What's up Lin, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm great. I'm stoked. I'm very proud of what we're building. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited that you're back. We did a podcast a while ago and maybe our listeners haven't even checked out one out. It's been a while. I want to say that was over a year ago, but we talked about your journey and how you kind of went from making all the typical mistakes, right? All the mistakes in a book, basically. Spinning your wheels. Yeah, all or nothing. That was a big one for you. But like going from that to overcoming that, you know, going into first, of course, fat loss, but then... going into that long -term maintenance phase, them being like, hey, you know, I want to build some muscle now and then I'm going to do a cut. I'm going to do it myself. And then, then you're like, Hey, I want to help other people to do the same thing too. So I'm just, I'm just proud of you. I'm just stoked to have you. And yeah, thanks for joining again. I'm very excited to be here and I can't believe like I think it's a 10 months since I had that coffee with you in Tromsø where I was like hey you know do you think I could like be a coach? What do you think? And here we are. You definitely have that drive. And I want to just start with that because I think to a listener, right? So Lin is the perfect example of a hard worker and someone who just not only set the goal, but actually did the work, but kept going through the ups and downs. I think that's one thing that we need to just mention right off the bat. It's like, you can change your whole life, literally, you know, for the better. But it's hard work. That's like, that's the only thing that can get you there. know. So I actually wanted to kind of revisit your journey. We have a lot of new listeners from all over the world. And it's like, it's cool to speak to that. Because one thing I will say is that just from having the phone calls, and you know, speaking to so many clients and followers, it's like, the things that you went through, they're actually super common. And I don't think people understand how common it is, because it's like, it must be me, right? I just can't stick to it. I don't have the willpower, but it's like there's so many common issues among people who just want to be confident and, you know, lose some weight and just look lean. That I think this is a story that we want to speak to. But before we jump in, I did want to mention that obviously, right, we're celebrating. So Lin is not officially a coach on our team and we are actually only opening up 10 spots. And I know you might've heard this online, you know, in people's posts and all that. And we were talking about this offline, but it's like, no, it's actually 10 spots and only 10 people will get the opportunity with us to join Lyn. And what we want to do to celebrate, right? And we want to give you more. We always want to over -deliver is we want to basically give you a free bonus month. If you commit to three months or two free bonus months when you commit to six months. So I just wanted to drop that one right away. I'll link that in the show notes. Just mention, right, hey, I checked out the podcast and would love to coach with Lin. And yeah, without further ado, let's actually just explore your journey again, because I mean, I've seen that transformation from the sidelines. It's just been so cool, you know? But let's take it back to where you were before all of this started, right? When you were, you know, it's 2021, we're about to have that chat basically where, hey, you know, let's hop on the phone. Let's talk about this stuff. Like how did you feel at that moment and what kind of yeah, space were you in like had space? Honestly, it was the most shitty place I have ever been. And that was not only because of sort of the lifestyle that I had ended up in. It had to do with the pandemic as well. I know we want to forget that that happened, but I was having like really dark thoughts and I was feeling a bit low. But because of all of these things, you know, my lifestyle changed. I had like... very little activity in my daily life. Training wasn't going well since all the gyms was closed. And I did have some really bad habits with my nutrition that sort of, the pandemic triggered them. So they became even worse. It was all or nothing, you know, and I didn't know how to eat healthy. So I tried to do that during the week. and I restricted a lot. I had a lot of like food rules and I was afraid of this and I was afraid of that. And then when the weekend came, of course, I binged. I really binged. And I did also have a couple of bad habits with emotional eating and like I was eating when I was sad. I was eating when I was happy. I was eating when I was bored. I was eating when I was, you know, eating was my go to. So all of this. sort of accumulated and I ended up gaining nine kilos over a very short period of time and that's when I contacted you because I was just in a place where I cannot do this anymore I am not happy I am not comfortable in my own body and this is just not working out for me. Did you try any other like diets and stuff before that? Because the emotional eating, that's one thing, of course, and you know, the weekends. Did you try any, I don't know, meal plans, programs, like whatever diets before that? pick one and I tried it. I've done keto, I've done low carb, I've actually had a coach before. I actually lost eight kilos while having another coach, but I didn't, like I got a meal plan, so I didn't know how to do it on my own. That's what I learned with you, was like how to do this on my own, how to reverse diet, how to maintenance, the importance of maintenance. So I did lose eight kilos and then I gained nine kilos. But with you I lost it again and it stayed off. But yeah, in the past I've been a yo -yo dieter for as long as I can remember because my main goal was to become as skinny as possible. But my focus now is completely different. It's about muscle, it's about health, it's about regulating my hormones and just living a balanced, happy, healthy life. But yeah, I've pretty much tried every powder and pill and diet on the market in the past. All of the tricks, all the tricks in the book, you know. Yeah, it's sad too, because like I said before, it is very common and a lot of our female clients have gone through this. And I'm saying that because I mean, just about 75 % of our clients are females. And as much as I do feel like there is a change going on currently, where more people are getting into muscle gain, more... People in general, girls too, are willing to go into muscle gain phases, building some muscle. I think it's a good change. But there's still a lot of pressure, almost, sort of like an expectation from society, right? With too much focus on those kind of things, where you see it in the magazines, and you see all these diets, and it's almost like this thing that you're supposed to do. Yet people aren't taught how to do things yourself. And that's something that you just mentioned, right? Because when you had the meal plan, obviously, right, you can get the results, but did you have any alternatives or what did you do when you were not able to stick to the meal plan? I stuck to it. That's how I lost eight kilos. But then the coaching was over and what do you do then? You can't eat the same four breakfasts for the rest of your life or the same five lunches. So I did stuck to my plan, but... But what about after? What about after those three months or four months or however long you have a coach? That's when you run into issues. So when you stopped and you were like, okay, I lost the weight, right? Was there any transition or recommendations or being like, hey, you know, you should go to maintenance or here's how you do that? Or was it just kind of like, I quit, boom, like now I'm on my own. I remember I actually had to ask for maintenance. because I was just not feeling well. So I emailed my coach and I said, you know, I think I need to eat more. I think I want to go to maintenance and we did that. So I did do maintenance for a while before I quit the coaching, but that was also with like a meal plan. So it's just like very sudden transitions like from being on my own, going straight into a hard deficit, going straight into that maintenance and then after a short period of time, the coaching was sort of over. So I didn't really know how to do the stuff on my own. like when I didn't have a coach giving me meals. With you, I learned how to build my meals myself. So I can now go on vacation, which I did when I had coaching with you. I went on vacation for a week and I gained, what, 300 grams? I knew what to do. Yeah. So yeah. because let's be honest, it is easier to follow a meal plan, right? Of course. It's like a recipe. It's eat - It's like, hey, it's kind of unpopular, but listen, like, hey, if you work with us, you're gonna have to do more work. Which is true, right? Yeah. It was harder and it was more work, but I'm better off from it. Now. And that's a hard thing to translate sometimes as a coach. I will say that because it is easier to have someone who just tells you. And of course, you know, we are guiding. I guide my clients. I help them. I make suggestions when they would want that, you know, but it's like long -term, if we can push you to really become resourceful. Basically in plain English, like figuring shit out, right? Being able to do that long -term, that's going to always pay off more in my opinion, because I'm not against meal plans. Definitely not. I mean, I do it even with some clients, which is something people also don't know necessarily, but like when the time is right, when it's needed and when the person can stick to it, like yourself, for example, there's a time and place for it, but then I'm still going to push that person. to become autonomous and being able to put together their own meals and understanding what we are doing. Because if you only know, hey, this was on the plan. So I guess I'm just going to eat those meals. There's no there's no actual understanding, right? To why and how to make changes. I'm thinking if you're gonna take your money and invest in your own health, which is what you do when you sign up with a coach. You take a chunk of your money and you invest it in yourself and your own health. Do you wanna invest in something that will work really well short term or do you wanna invest in something that will give you the knowledge that you need to make this work forever? And you know, I have a career behind me in, in bank and finance. So you can compare it with like investing your money. Do you want to invest in like the stock market where there's like this one share that is doing really well at the moment, but it's going to plummet in six months and it's going to be a shit show. Or do you want to invest in like an index fund that's going to do law well, long-term and make your money grow long -term. It's the same thing. Do something now that will give you benefits. long term. I mean, that's why crypto is so popular. People don't want to do the long -term stuff. And of course, people get lucky, of course. But if you want to do it long term, most don't. And that's the reality. And it's the exact same with health and fitness. There are some people, I'm going to say this to you, Red, because you always hear me hate on fat diets and stuff. But there are cases where people... do something very restrictive, let's call it a crash site, whatever it is, and they go to maintenance, they just keep it off, of course, there's always exceptions to the rule, but that is not the case for most people. Most people get sucked. for like, there's nothing special about me. The reason I was successful in my lifestyle change was because I did the work. And like you mentioned earlier, I had some pretty like, there's always going to be highs and lows and ups and downs, whatever. But my... ups and downs was pretty far down. Like I actually had to like pause coaching with you for a while because there was some other stuff going on. But once I sort of got that under control, I came back to you and I picked up where I left and I kept going. And that's how I succeeded because I didn't give up. I gave it time. I think my lifestyle change was like a two year thing basically. I mean, it's always it's an ongoing thing, right? We're never done. But the majority yeah, 100 % because it was it was late 2021 Then we coached into like 2023 So we coached for like two years which to also give the listener an idea of How long these kind of things take it might just take one or two years now maybe not necessarily to lose all the weight and write You can achieve that pretty quickly, relatively speaking. If we compare that to how long people struggle with their weight and stuff, sometimes for decades, you can actually reverse that pretty, like in comparison to that pretty quickly. But the real change and going through those difficult periods, like it's gonna be, I mean, it is a lifelong thing, like I said. But speaking to that, right, because obviously you had your ups and downs. We pause it for a little bit. Over those two years, and I would actually have to go in and check, but you probably notice from those two years, like how much time was actually spent dieting. I think we did. two or three different faces with 12 weeks. But I actually think two of them was 12 weeks and then there was like a mini cut of five weeks and then I had a break because I went on vacation and then I did another five weeks. I think it's actually less than I think it was two times 12 weeks and then a mini cut in there. Yeah. The rest was maintenance and of course the bulk. or calorie surplus. Yeah, but that's just to put things in perspective because things take time and people think I want to lose the weight and they only just focus on that. And we talked about this before we hit record. It's like the calorie deficit coaches, you know, if that's if that's all you hear. And there's no context around that, right? It's actually going to set you up for failure. It's like, no, what happens before and after and even during because you mentioned, hey, you went on a trip in the middle of that cut. I made it work by the way, right? You maintained through that. You did enjoy flexibility. You didn't restrict yourself. It wasn't like before. It wasn't like, now I'm on a trip. Like now I get to, you know, like now like you, you did both the enjoying and keeping up your healthy habits, but it's just to put things in perspective. It takes a long time, but like that maintenance phase is so important. I don't think people will be successful. Most people are not going to be right. if they don't actually take that phase series. It's like what I told you earlier today, like the maintenance phase is what's going to be your lifestyle. That's what, like you do the deficit to lose the body fat, but the maintenance phase is what's gonna teach you the stuff that you're gonna do for the rest of your life. How do you train? How is your activity levels? How do you eat? Do you manage your stress? How's your sleeping? Are you hydrated? The maintenance phase is gonna be the most important one because that's gonna be what you do for the rest of your life. Let me now ask you this. Coming from a long time of just wanting to diet the whole time, then joining us, doing a fat loss phase, those kinds of things. How did that then feel for you to actually go into, like having to go into maintenance? Especially like early on, like that first time basically, like how was that at that moment? I think my first reverse into maintenance was a bit more difficult because... You do the fat loss phase for a period of time and it's actually quite easy because you sort of repeat a lot of stuff. But when you go back to maintenance, that's when you have to like do the flexible dieting and it's a lifestyle and you don't do it anymore to lose weight. You do it because this is what you do now. So it's a bit more adjustment actually, but it's so much more to learn. and you feel so much better because you're feeding your body what it needs and you're trying to find your way, your new lifestyle, how do I make it work, how does my day look like, what does my new weekends look like. But at the same time, it was really nice because what happens is when you've been in a deficit and you start eating more is your training is just so much more fun. You have so much more to give in your training and you start to feel like really strong and kick ass in the gym. So that was awesome. But it was an adjustment to make for sure. It's difficult to actually go back up to maintenance after having, I mean, still having that goal, because you still want to lose weight. It's a huge mindset shift, but I love that you brought up the workouts and how good that felt, because that is what you want to focus on. It's not a break. It's not like, hey, nothing is happening at maintenance. Like, no, absolutely not. Like you're solidifying the result you've already created. It's like, that's, that's the keeping it off part, being able to go to maintenance, fueling, but without that weight regain, your habits, like you just mentioned, it's like, you're also there, you're solidifying your, your new lifestyle. It's really becoming part of who you are because when you hear that statement, right, diet's on work and it should be a lifestyle. I get where they're coming from. But the fat loss phase is a temporary tool that's not supposed to be a lifestyle thing. And that's what we don't understand, generally speaking. And people need to know this. It's like, you will have to restrict your calories. There will be periods where, hey, maybe we're not going to be that flexible. We're always going to preach flexible dieting. Absolutely. You know, I'll keep saying 80 -20 until I'm blue in the face. But it's like, but still, like... Maybe we shouldn't do 80 -20 in the middle of a cut. Maybe it's gonna be like 90 -10. Where hey, you can still have some flexible stuff, but we gotta dial that in. And that's by definition not a lifestyle thing, but it's a temporary tool. What do you do, going back to your financial example, what do you do if you wanna save up for, I don't know, a new house? You're probably gonna watch your spending for a little bit. You don't buy a fancy Starbucks cappuccino every day when you do that. You put that money into the savings. Yes. it's a temporary trade off. Like, hey, you know, I'm not going to go to Starbucks. I'm going to get the shitty supermarket ground coffee, which, you know, sometimes we just have to do, you know, but I feel like that's almost like a thing you're not allowed to say anymore these days, you know, it's like, no, like you're, you know, the trade off, the sacrifices that you're supposed to make. Like, you know, good things come from making trade offs and sacrifices. Well, look at it this way, you can do short term sacrifices for great results in a period of maybe 12 weeks, or you can continue your all or nothing yo -yo dieting lifestyle until you're 60. Choose your hard. Yeah, which sounds very direct, but it is true. And I tell people this too, it's like, hey, look, it's not you. Like people have done this. People, sometimes the worst places that you currently are have done this and made it work. But at the end of the day, it's like you do actually just have to start doing the thing and decide. I think it's just a decision even. Because you're not going to try reaching your goals. You're going to reach your goals. That's the mindset you've got to have going in. yeah. I actually loved all the mindset changes I did when I had my coaching with you because it's all about, I remember I had a couple of check -ins where I was like, all drama queen. felt like so bad, I did a bad job and you know life was hard and work was crazy and someone did this or someone did that and whatever and you were like but what can you control? What can you do? What do you need to do to achieve your goal? You need to hit your protein, you need to stick to your calories and you need to get your steps in. and you sort of just brought it down again so that I could focus on, okay, yeah, the things that I need to focus on right now is actually the things that I can control. And it helped me so much. And I think that's part of what actually, I didn't just change my body doing the coaching with you. I changed almost my personality and my mindset. And my sister actually told me this, this, I was in Spain a couple of weeks ago and she was like, you are so different. The way you handle life and obstacles and the way you the way you think about yourself and challenges. It's like you have changed so much in that area and that's the biggest change in you since you did your lifestyle change. And that has been the biggest change. Because obviously, yes, sure. Yeah, which is, I mean, that's been the coolest stuff. And you can even see it in the before and after photos, you know? It's like, yeah, yeah, I mean, of course, but it's also the expression and it's the energy, you know? And I know we talked about this too last time, because I remember telling you also that, right? Hey, it's like a different person. And one of the check -ins and then... I remember that you brought that up and then I think it was your dad who actually confirmed that he's like, yeah, you are kind of like a different person now, you know? Yeah, and I think that's such a cool thing that people sometimes don't believe they can achieve. But you can through the things that allow you to reach your fitness goals. Because it's not that number on the scale, but it's like you showing yourself that you can do the thing and that you can go through hard times and then actually seeing the results and right. That's what builds self confidence. It's crazy how doing things within nutrition and training... You start doing things, you start doing changes. And then you see that, hey, I can actually do this. And then your confidence goes up. And then you start believing in yourself more. And then you start thinking, I can actually do pretty much anything if I just do it enough and practice and do the reps. And then it starts to sort of, I don't know what to say, drizzle on the rest of your life. Because then you think, maybe if I can do that, I can apply for that job, or I can get out of that bad relationship, or I can go on that trip that I've been dreaming of for the last 10 years, or I can change city, I can move to somewhere else that I've been thinking about for the last couple of years. So actually, the confidence and the belief you have in yourself when it comes to your nutrition and your training starts to appear in other areas of your life. And it's awesome. That being said, because now you decided like, Hey, I actually want to help other people do the same thing. So that's a perfect example of that, right? Yeah. That's even just that it's like, you didn't need a bit of, you know, extra confirmation, I guess, you know, when we met, but it's like, you know, step you're, you're used to stepping outside of your comfort zone to achieve growth. And you know how that journey is going from. a lot of friction to a little bit less and then running into issues with so keep, you know, to ultimately getting to growth. Like you've seen that and you're now also like, Hey, I can do this. So let me now help other people. Like what, what was the main thing that drove you to make that decision? It was honestly, I was like, I learned so much when I changed my lifestyle about how it actually works and how I'm not going to say that changing your lifestyle is easy because it's not. You have to work a lot with your own issues, but it's simple. It's not the fad diets or that magical pill or that perfect workout plan or whatever. It's actually quite simple. And I was like, if I can do this. Anyone can do this and I wanna I Want to teach other people what I've learned because it really is so much simpler than you think and I I don't want other people to have to go through all that crap that I did like all the diets and all the supplements and All the money you spent on God knows what to get to your goal And I just started feeling this passion about talking about it, learning more, teaching others. That's why I started my Instagram account. Started sharing from my own journey. And I was amazed about all the messages I got from people that were like, thank you for inspiring me. I've struggled with this as well. Thank you for being so open and honest about how it really is and how it really works. And then I started thinking like, hmm, like maybe I could do more. And that's when I reached out to you and had that coffee with you and was like, do you think maybe I could be like a good coach for people? Because, you know, I feel like I want to do more than just share Instagram posts. And here we are, certified, ready to be a coach. Yeah. Same kind of thing. You made that decision. You're like, Hey, you know, and of course this evolves. It's not just like one day, but it's like, I remember there was a check -in at some point where you mentioned, Hey, I would love to be able to, you know, or like the idea of helping other people. I remember you mentioning that once, but like it goes from like this. Yeah. Yeah. about it a couple of times a week to thinking about it every single day and I knew that okay this is my passion and people around me started saying it you're so passionate about this like you glow up when you talk about this stuff and that's when I thought okay I actually need to jump in and try this. Yeah. It's a great transformation from seeing you go going from your own pain to like finding that passion, which is then it then turns into like your purpose, you know, and being able to, you know, put it forward. And I think that's important because like you said as well, like you don't want other people to go through the same. I mean, that's honestly why I even just started this company, you know, in 2020 is like, I can't stand it because there's so much misinformation still. There's so many fat diets and people are making the same mistakes still that we've been making for the longest time. And something needs to change. And I feel like in general, it's pretty bad. Like the standard when it comes to coaching and the things that are not being taught to people, like the importance of maintenance and actually showing you how to do this on your own. It's really cool to see that you've made that decision and that it's something you're now. You know, like you said, you're certified, you made that decision. You're both certified in training and nutrition. You were like, hey, I'm going to do both. And it's so cool to see that. So congrats, first of all. And I'm, I'm really excited. So that being said, I want to be respectful of your time. And I want to do actually wrap up for today because we have a lot of things to chat about. Still, plus of course, I want to kind of stick to the 30 minutes. We've, we've been pretty good with that recently. I feel like. But first of all, thank you so much for your time. Once again, thanks for joining. And to our listener, as I mentioned earlier on, we are actually only allowing 10 spots for Lynn's current roster. And you can get either one or two free bonus months on the house, depending on how long you commit to three or six months, that's up to you. I'm always gonna recommend the six just from experience. I know it's gonna take longer, but you know, The option is there. So I'm going to link that in the show notes. Make sure to follow Lynn. We're going to link that in the show notes as well. And any final words for today, Lynn? Yes, join the Odyssey. I will promise you it's gonna be the best decisions of your life. Just do it. That's our promise, definitely. Yeah. Like you said before, if you can do it, other people can do it. I mean, if I can do it, yeah, yeah. If I can do it, I'll do a podcast. We should maybe just do one where we kind of flip it, where we talk about my journey as well. Like when I was overweight and stuff, I think that would be fun. So we'll do that next time. But again, we're also just normal people. You know? Yeah, I ain't nothing special. I just did the work and you can too. Yeah. course it's the guidance and the accountability and having someone on your team and actually having someone to go to and be like, hey, you know what? I feel like crap. Hey, these are the kind of the things and having someone to vent to and to go to for support, you know? And that's why we're here. That's what we're here for. So if you're interested, check out the link in the show notes, one or two free bonus months on the house. And then we'll talk to you very soon. Thanks then. Thanks, bye.