What's up and welcome back to Talk Nutrition. As always, I'm your host, Johan Vesters. And today I wanted to dive into the biggest mistake I see people make when it comes to eating for their goals, whether that's fat loss, muscle gain, health, combination thereof. I know it's tricky sometimes. It's confusing to kind of figure that out, especially if you've tried all these different diets. Okay. Now, the whole reason I kind of wanted to start a new podcast series here is an event I did back in in February, just about a month ago at the time of this recording. So late February, I was invited to speak at an event by my good friend P.S. Sabag. I had a blast. We had 200 people who are already active, who are already training. They had a whole bunch of workshops and workouts together. And I was invited to talk nutrition. Okay. And the main thing I loved about this event was the setup because it wasn't necessarily a seminar kind of setup with slides and more like a presentation format. This was a lot more casual. So P and I talked for just about 45 minutes about all things nutrition and questions she had, and also from her audience. The cool thing with in-person events, like I love this stuff, right? Is to connect with these people, but also just have the conversation. Okay. Whether it's at a gym or like a seminar, kind of right, or an event like this one, you really get to talk to the person and also understand, hey, this is what these people are dealing with, and these are the questions that are being asked. That really gives me a very good idea, too, of hey, this needs to be like a podcast, right? This should be something we discuss or create a resource for. And it's just so cool to kind of step away from that online, going into that in person, and it's definitely something I'm gonna do a lot more of this year and moving forward. Let's kick off this podcast series with this episode. So the question was what is the biggest mistake I see people make when it comes to eating for their fat loss and body composition, muscle gain kind of goals? Okay, instead of one thing, I actually kind of gave her two answers. But the first one being that people think of this whole eating healthy thing as if it's a short term or like an on-or-off diet or on or off plan kind of thing, right? Instead of living a healthy lifestyle that you can keep up that sticks with you, this is what habits are, okay? It's part of who we are, it's it's the way we do things, that is a true habit. Anything that you do for just a period of time is not a habit, it's not a lifestyle thing. Even fat loss, by the way, okay. And I've ranted on this on social media too, sometimes where I personally think that, oh, I almost knocked over my my microphone. I personally think that um this whole statement of it needs to be a lifestyle is a little bit of a bullshit statement in that no, so fat loss is not a lifestyle thing, okay? And the things we need to do to achieve a certain result are going to be short-term, right? Protocols, plans, whatever. But then the lifestyle comes afterwards, after creating that result, okay. And of course, along the way, don't get me wrong either, along the way, we are building the habits, we are building the lifestyle, but we gotta understand that fat loss is a temporary kind of season, okay? Short-lived, a couple months, muscle gain, same type of thing. We don't want to stay there either. We don't just eat one way to reach our goals, okay? There's different seasons within nutrition. But let's go to the actual question of what's that biggest mistake. The first one being, like I said, on or off plan. Okay, we do this now and then we do whatever the hell we want once you go on vacation. We get super strict before summer vacation. You get super strict to get ready for your wedding and look good for your wedding, which is, by the way, a valid point. Okay, we all want to look good, right? It's fine. We jump into a new year's challenge because we over ate and gain a whole bunch of weight over Christmas, and then we do this thing for a few weeks to reverse the damage, right? 12 weeks and then, and that's the whole setup with most coaching programs here in Norway. It's you come in and you have a fat loss goal, and then you get a 12-week fat loss meal plan, a training plan, whatever. And that is just the wrong way to go about this. You are never taught the lifestyle for maintaining your results, you are never prepped for going into fat loss. Okay. Many women I talk to who I coach every single week have already tried all these different diets. Sometimes, many times, starting with a fat loss phase is the actual worst thing to do. Okay. But before we get into, because that's my second part of this answer. Before we get into that, I want you to stop thinking on or off. I want you to stop thinking of health as being on a diet and fuck what your colleagues might say. Okay. No, I'm very direct here, but look, it is not restrictive to eat healthy, it is not taking it too far to go to the gym a bunch of times, or or you know, you're not boring for saying, hey, you know what, I'm not gonna drink tonight, or going to bed on time, right? We just gotta understand that society sees a healthy lifestyle as restrictive and weird and too much and whatever it is. Don't worry about what other people might think or say, okay? But we gotta start with you. You need to start thinking of nutrition as something that will last, okay? The skills you're gonna learn throughout my process, the things you need to do to achieve certain goals and keep your results, especially. That's the biggest part, okay? I'll always tell people look, we're not a weight loss program. If that's all you want, we're just I'm just not the coach for you, and that's okay. But I'm just not gonna give you like a 12-week fat loss thing and then be over with it. Hell no. We do a six-month minimum with our clients for a reason. I want this to be something you walk away with just knowing, hey, I I got these results, I was held accountable, I learned, I made the mistakes, learned from my mistakes, but I'm pretty good now. Okay, it's never on or off. I'm recording this leading up to Easter week, which it's gonna be when you're listening to this. My clients don't have this on and off mindset around Easter either. Most of my clients are Norwegian, most of them are going to their cabins, they're gonna have family time, they're gonna have big dinners, big breakfasts. Yeah, we're gonna be a bit more flexible here, but also within reason. But it's not on or off. It's not that we stop checking in or that we stop, you know, we just drop all of our healthy habits all of a sudden because it's Easter. No, we live the lifestyle, okay? So this is actually a perfect example week. My clients don't gain a whole bunch of weight throughout holidays, like Christmas, like Easter, or on vacations, okay? Now, short-term fluctuations, they happen. I just had a client who came back from a trip, she was almost two kilos heavier, but she also lost that same weight within three days, not by doing anything, just by following her normal routines. And while you're listening to this, I might actually have a post up today or at least within these first couple days of the week, exactly talking about that. Where she came home, her weight was way up. I said, Hey, look, just go back to your normal routines, and that weight came right back down. Okay, which maybe should be another podcast by itself. But back to the topic. Stop thinking on or off plan. And start thinking how can we create something that we can continue to live, okay? And like I did say, the fat loss, that's a temporary season. That is not the lifestyle thing. The muscle gain phases, etc. Right? These are going to be seasons we walk through. But stop thinking that once you've gotten a result, you'll just go back to whatever normal is. No, we're creating a new normal, okay? And that's really my best way to just sum this this first part of is we're creating the new normal so that you don't have to be on or off. It's just the way you do things. And that's going to include how we handle vacations, how we handle Easter weeks, how you handle social settings. This is all part of it, which is why most of my clients are not on a meal plan because I teach them how to be in control. I teach them with my guidelines how to build our meals, but also how to do this without tracking, how to do this in social settings. Most of my clients are parents, have kids, I coach single moms. All these people still know exactly what to do during family dinner without eating from a separate Tupperware, also, you know what I mean? But the biggest mistake, other than thinking on or off plan, is too much dieting all the time. And as you really say too much dieting and or just not eating enough in general, but knowing that most people at least have, you know, fat loss as their priority goal or it's part of the goal. Because look, listen, you might think, yeah, I just want to look leaner, I want to look more defined, I want body recomposition, I want to build muscle and lose fat. I don't really care too much about the skill. Those are all great, but fat loss is going to be part of that. We're not just gonna magically lose the body fat by eating one certain way for many, many months, okay? There are seasons to this. We have muscle gain, fat loss, and we we transition in between those phases. We have breaks, of course, right? And with every single season comes a different set of tools we want to use and maybe different kind of mindset obstacles and shifts that we need to go through and new lessons, which is super cool. And that's where the growth happens, okay? But there's so much focus on fat loss because people have that as their main goal, or at least as part of their goal, that usually when I get people on calls with me to learn about coaching or to start coaching with me, it's almost the exact same conversation. It's I've tried this diet, this diet, this diet, this diet, this diet. I've yo-yo dieted for many, many years, sometimes decades. And it's always like one of those where I've tried it all, right? I've tried this and that, I've also had coaches, I've also had meal plans, and people are still stuck. I don't know what to eat, I don't know how much to eat, right? Years of trying hard, I gotta give it to these people. Like they keep trying, and that's the beautiful thing here. You keep showing up for your goals, but we're still stuck. But here's the thing I know for a fact that if you tell me I've tried it all, that you have not done this one thing, and that is eating enough purposely, like being in a dedicated phase of multiple months fueling, nourishing, while building healthy habits and actually feeling good for once. So you're not dealing with the hunger and cravings, so you're not always running on fumes and low energy and no sex drive, and your hormones are all over the place. When I hear I've tried it all, I know for a fact you haven't done my first phase of the OCS process, and that is the O, right? Optimizing not just your your routines and habits, but also your health, fueling your body, giving it what it truly needs, nourishing, right? We're also talking if you've been on dyes forever, like we're talking micronutrient deficiencies too. We got to reverse those kind of things, okay? So we first feed you up, we first built the habits of routines. We get rid of hunger and energy crashes and all that, and we just make sure that you actually can live your life, we'll put it that way, because I know you're busy, you probably have work and kids and all these other responsibilities, and maybe also studying and your social life. No diet teaches you how to manage just life in general, which goes back to the on or off plan. It's almost like uh, this is my life, but to be healthy, I need to be on this plan. No, we need to create a lifestyle that fits into your life. We need to create a plan based on you. You should not have to flip around your whole life in order to somehow try to live this crazy strict diet to where it's it's not gonna last, other than maybe those first few weeks where you're fired up. Because look, we're now moving into April. Most people who had a new year's resolution already gave up in January, February. And probably those people are now thinking, ah, it's so close to summer, right? Either maybe they'll they'll try another strict thing and crash diet before summer, or they're already like, you know what, uh, never mind. I don't want you to be this person. Look, if you've truly tried it all fat loss-wise, then we gotta put a break on that and we gotta fuel the body first. We gotta fuel you up, nourish and get you feeling good. No more hunger, no more cravings. Yes, you can still be flexible, yes, you can still go out, but we gotta live that healthy lifestyle. That's where we start. We fuel you up, we get you feeling good, we we create these healthy habits and routines, and then yeah, sure. If I see as your coach that you can stick with a plan, meaning your lifestyle, right? You eat consistently throughout the day or week, and you're able to keep up with that, and your body is in a good place, then I'm gonna say, you know what? Yes, let's go for fat loss because I know we will finally respond. You gotta be consistent first before chasing fat loss. You gotta get your body responding first before trying fat loss, and this can take time, and there's no diet that will you know unlock this. You gotta give the body time to get back to to what's called homeostasis, a state of balance. Okay. Now, I have to say this too. There's people too who don't just want to lose body fat, and that's great. But also for those people, I see the same mistake, and then we're not talking, we're not talking intentional undereating because of a fat loss goal. We're just looking at you're not eating in enough in general. Like your lunch might be a slice of bread with a bit of salami and and a bit of cheese. If we're lucky, maybe a piece of fruit, or you skip lunch. I see most people, women in particular, undereat, even if they're not even trying to lose body fat. Okay, but I'll put it this way if your goal is not fat loss, then it's especially important to fuel. And no diet, once again, no diet teaches you this, which is going back to the on or off. Like, there's not like one thing, like, hey, just do this now. I would start with fuel, I would start with nourishment, I would get you to a good spot first before considering fat loss. If you truly feel stuck, then you don't need a diet, you need a dedicated period where you're fueling. And let's get a bit practical here because I do want you to have something to walk away with. Okay. If you are listening to this and you are unclear in terms of what, how much to eat, etc., if you can honestly look in the mirror and say, you know what, let me reflect on my week. Let's do this right now. You're listening to this on Monday or maybe early in the week. Let's think back on last week and how that went. Did we have any structure in place? Yes or no? Meaning we had a set amount of daily meals, we had a way of structuring those meals. Of hey, I know how to build these meals. Okay, I'm gonna put together the protein, carbs, the fat, the color. I know that every single meal is roughly kind of mapped out, whether you track or not. Then I want you to look at how well did you stick with it if you did plan, right? I want you to consider things like feeling like there's not enough hours in a day, and why that is, and then especially food-wise, because a lot of people will say food noise, whatever, and then I'm thinking about everything food. Okay, it probably starts with your plan that you may or may not have. Planning your meals, sitting down on a Sunday and just thinking, what are my main meals are gonna be, and what days are gonna be different to where, yeah, sure, maybe you're going to go out for food on Saturday. Perfect, then let's plan for that. And I'm not saying it has to be matched by the calorie, but I just want you to start thinking like, okay, what am I gonna do this week with my meals? This will now allow you to create a shopping list. Whether you meal prep or not, create a shopping list. Go grocery shopping for a full week or maybe half the week, whatever you prefer. I like a Saturday, I like a once-a-week load up the fridge, load up the freezer, let's get to it. Okay, plan your meals, then get your shopping list in check and go shopping. Because how many times are you randomly picking up things from the grocery store? And how many times will you go into the store without really knowing, okay, these are the things I need? And I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, but it's the case for the vast majority of people. We gotta have a plan. We gotta go to the store with a plan, with a list, and get everything we need so that you have your proteins, your carbs, your fats, and your fruits and veggies, so that on Monday you can wake up just knowing, hey, at least I got all the foods I need. At least I know what most of my meals are gonna look like. At least I've prepped a few of those meals. And look, meal prepping doesn't all have to look like containers. Look, whenever I make any dinner, I will just make two, three, four times as much as I would need for that one portion. Why? Well, I'm already cooking, might as well make dinner for the next three days instead of just today. And guess what? If you don't feel like having the same dinner, now this can be your lunch and just do that. You know what I mean? It's that simple sometimes. But we gotta start with structure, okay? We cannot build on a shaky foundation of random meals by random, meaning sometimes it's whole food-based, and sometimes it's it's just whatever from the from the vending machine. Sometimes we just run into the store because we forgot again, and then we run on on protein milks and bars and whatever, or candy, or really anything, really. You barely eat throughout the day, and then when you come home, you're drained, you're like, Well, I want to finally just wind down and chill on the couch, and then we end up snacking because we have those cravings, which we'll talk about too. But cravings, like that's that's really a reflection of what you're not getting throughout the day. But let's start with structure, okay? If you need help with this, you can always DM me on Instagram, DM me the word meals to get my free meal plan training, the five-minute meal plan. But start here, okay. It's so key to make sure we feel properly. It is so key to actually eat enough, even if your goal is fat loss. So much so that the people I coach who've lost 20, 30, 40 kilos, even or more, spend most of their time not dieting, but fueling. So we gotta start there. We gotta learn how to properly eat enough most of the time, and then we will go into a fat loss phase where maybe two to three months, maybe four, which would be the exception to the rule. I'm gonna say three max for most people, where you lose up to maybe 10% of your current body weight, then you do a reverse diet, which we will do in episode about two. A reverse diet, meaning you're not done with the diet, and then you do whatever. No, you are going to go step by step back to maintenance, and then you will have a dedicated period of either maintenance or muscle gain. If it's muscle gain, perfect. I would say do that if you're already relatively lean. Then I would say go into a lean gaining phase, which we can expand on. Lean gaining, right? So we are building, yes, we are in a calorie surplus, yes, but we're not gaining a whole bunch of body fat. You got to do this right, and I'll teach you how. If you have a weight loss goal mostly and you go through a fat loss phase, I'm gonna say, you know what, let's do part one. You know, lose maybe five to ten percent of your current weight, kind of depending on how the body responds and how well you stick with the plan and all that. Then we do maintenance for two to three months, kind of depends. Uh, it needs to be at least two-thirds of the length of the or the two-thirds of the time spent in a deficit, okay. And don't worry about memorizing this, like we'll expand on this, but stay maintenance for two to three months and then maybe do round two. So it depends on the timeline, but right now it's April almost. I want you to start thinking, okay, so what's going to be the thing that makes most sense for me now for the rest of this year? And this is where I need you to be really real with yourself, okay? Whether your goal is fat loss or you just want to build muscle, whatever it is. If we look back at January, February, March of 2026, how consistent were we with our meals? Were we truly fueled and nourished? And if we tried for fat loss, what worked and what didn't work? But let's give ourselves a few weeks at least to dial in those routines. And look, not everyone needs to spend multiple months at maintenance before doing fat loss. I will say that. But it depends on the client, okay? And this is where I can see that with the client and I know what's the best. Then maybe let's say we got fat loss or at least a little bit of fat loss before summer. We maintain through summer, and then after summer, you can do a fat loss round. You could do a reverse diet, maybe around October, November, or maybe just November just by itself. Be back at maintenance before the holidays, maintain or build through December, January, February, whatever it is, or even longer if you want to build more muscle. Do a fat loss phase, which brings us into you know, like spring ish reverse diet before summer next year. And that's how I want you to start thinking about this. We're talking like more than half a year, we're talking a year plus, you know. That's how I want you to start mapping these things out. Stop thinking a 12 week this, a 12 week that, a fat loss. Challenge a transformation challenge, those will never last, those will never teach you the healthy habits. Okay, start with this eating enough. And if you're really unsure, message me on Instagram. I can help you with this, okay? But message me, we'll figure this out together. But start by eating enough. Start by creating an eating plan that you can follow. And once again, you can message meals on Instagram, and you will get my free meal plan training, the five-minute meal plan. You decide how many meals you want per day, meaning, let's say three meals and a snack. Let's go with that first. For each of those, you're gonna then uh decide your protein, carbs, fats, color. And then what I want you to do is repeat as much as possible in the beginning until you're consistent. I want you to have food variety and diversity, but we need to build this, okay? So we start with a little bit more of those guardrails that we do need. And I even use this example on uh at the talk at the event, too, of when you learn how to cycle, right? We had those little side wheels. Use those side wheels here, okay? Have more systems in place. That's why we're called Odyssey Coaching Systems, okay. We need to create structure first to build on, and then once those habits start to evolve and and truly become actual habits, now we can add more because it becomes more intuitive, more natural, and we know how to build these meals. So, amount of meals first, go shopping with a list, make sure you got all your protein, scarves, fats, and colors in the fridge andor freezer. Do some type of meal prep if you want to. I really do recommend it because most people listening are going to be super busy. So give yourself that win and make a few meals, even if you don't sit down for a full meal prep on Sunday. Like when you make dinner, just make more. When you make breakfast, just make more. And you know, like just repeat the same snack, whether that's before training or after or between lunch and dinner or after dinner. Just choose what you want to do and stick with that first. Now you can start to pay attention to hunger, energy, cravings, performance at the gym, recovery, sleep. Now you can start to look at your trends when it comes to your average weight. Is it going up, down, or staying stable on an average basis? I'm not saying daily fluctuations, I'm saying average. Pull your weekly average, look at your measurements. Now that we have a few weeks of you doing something structured, now we can tweak it. And the biggest thing I would say, if you want to truly take this to the next level, then let's just go over this whole thing of tracking macros. Is no, you've just never done it properly yet. Give yourself a chance for anything new. Let's open up our eyes and then you know, let's let's be open for some some new tools here that we might have not used in a bit in the past or not properly. Figure out your maintenance calories, work towards that, keep your protein anywhere between like you know, like uh 1.8 up to 2.2 grams per kilo of body weight. Again, this needs to be personalized, but that's a good kind of range, it's a bit higher, but I like that for most people to stay full. Uh, fats at least 50 to 60. I like a 60 baseline if you're going for maintenance for most women. Um, the rest you can fill out with carbs, but if you want to do that, you can truly get a grip on how much you truly should eat and how you can puzzle those meals together. And it takes a bit of time to get into, I will say that. But it will also truly teach you portion control and the actual amount you would need for you currently, right now, which could be another episode. You know what? Let's just do that as well. Okay, we will also, by the way, dive into a question I got at the event about tracking macros, so stay tuned. And of course, if you're here for the first time, you're listening to my podcast for the very first time, welcome. I'm so free to be here. And of course, if you're a returning listener, even more. Now, that being said, if you are a returning listener and you've been here for a minute, do me a massive favor. You know, we don't do ads and stuff, drop me a quick rating on Spotify or Apple. That would actually mean the world. Because here's the thing: look, I'm just a one-man show here, and I'm just trying to help people, and it's for free. So if there's one thing you could do to help me, help more people like yourself, it would be a quick rating. You can do it right now. And of course, we will be back. So, what I'm gonna be doing is I'm gonna probably alternate between the questions I got from the event and then some other topics because we're diving deep into gut health and those kind of things these days. So, I want to, of course, also spend a lot of time there. So, every other episode for I mean the foreseeable future is going to be based on a talk I did with PSA Berk in Oslo. Once again, thank you so much for listening. I hope to see you next time. And of course, if you haven't yet, drop me a quick rating or review on Spotify, Apple. And lastly, if you need more help, just DM me on Instagram. Cool. I'll talk to you soon.