Transcript 0:00 Welcome back to the Iron Sights Podcast. Got the whole crew in here today. We're talking about why meal plans don't work. Not nutrition coaching, but an actual meal plan template. 0:08 We go through a lot of detail on our experiences there, some of the pitfalls, and why we know they don't work. So you're gonna hear Steven, Ryan, and Cece and I go through a few things. 0:17 You're also gonna hear us talk about two of our programs here. One is our personalized nutrition coaching program. That's something you might be doing with Steven. 0:23 And the other one's gonna be our FuelYou program, which is our online nutrition education and success program. 0:29 [fire swooshes] So while we're on that topic, I might as well remind you, all of these episodes are brought to you by Red Dot Finish training products and programs. 0:37 And as I just mentioned, a couple of those programs are our nutrition coaching program or our FuelYou program. If you're interested in checking those out, you can go to rdftrainonline.com. 0:45 If you're interested in the nutrition coaching program, simply go to the nutrition coaching page, hit the contact form. 0:51 You can schedule an appointment that's most convenient for you, and Steven will provide you, and one of our coaches, most likely Steven, is gonna provide you with a complimentary consultation. 0:59 Hopefully steer you or point you in the right direction. 1:02 If you're not sure you're quite ready for that, or maybe you've had a little bit more experience in kind of the dietary world, in your own nutrition journey, and you're looking for maybe some answers in between and you don't think nutrition coaching's the right thing for you, well, then check out FuelYou. 1:15 Super easy. Go to rdffuelyou.com. That's rdffuelyou.com. And when you get there, you can get 25% off that program by using FuelYou25. That's FuelYou25. 1:29 [rock music] Welcome to Iron Sights. 1:34 This podcast candidly seeks to create opportunities and deliver impact by sharing the experiences and wisdom of successful entrepreneurs and thought leaders who unapologetically aim to win in health, fitness, business, and life. 1:48 I'm your host, Scott Howell. Welcome to old school meets new school, tradition meets innovation, and imperfection meets excellence. Thanks for listening, and enjoy the show. 2:00 I had a couple of conversations in the last week, and one people, one person straight up reached out to me and said, "Hey, you guys have meal plans for me to follow." Uh, uh, here's the... I hate meal plans. Mm-hmm. 2:11 Me too. Uh, for a lot of reasons. I wanna talk about meal plans more specifically. I wanna talk to the fact that they don't work, and that's a big blanket statement. 2:20 I think the re- reality of it is, is they will for a period of time until they don't. And, uh, I think there are meal... 2:28 There's maybe a, a, a place and time to give somebody very specific instruction on exactly what to eat, what foods to eat, timing, and all of those things. 2:37 But I think that is a very, very, very s- I'll say it again, very small percentage of the population. And so for that matter, uh, I'll go ahead and say I don't think they work for most people. 2:47 I think they're, uh, they're not a great practice to get into. 2:50 And any coach that's handing you a meal plan, that is something that is completely dictated, "Eat this for this result," uh, there's being, a lot's being left off, off the table. 3:00 Uh, speaking of table, something sounds like it's having an earthquake. Rue's, um- [laughs]... readjusting underneath. Mm-hmm. 3:06 So, uh, uh, we've got the whole crew in here today, and, uh, I know this will be a, a favorite topic of Steven, because I'm sure he gets really annoyed by that question, too. 3:14 So I'll try not to be more annoyed or talk about too much negative, but let's talk about why they don't work. So I think it comes down to the whole, you know, teach a man, teach a woman to fish type of thing. 3:27 There's a few reasons why meal plans don't work. I'll start off by saying, because this happens all the time, um, with, like, online coaches and things like that. 3:36 If a coach is not a dietician or a clinical nutritionist and they hand you a meal prescription, "Eat this for breakfast," "Eat this many ounces of chicken, this one cup of rice," 3:48 in some states, that is literally illegal. You cannot do that. That is a meal prescription. It's like prescribing drugs when you are not a physician. So not only is it dumb, it's also technically illegal. 4:02 Even though it happens all the time, there's not a lot of enforcement there. If you're not a dietician, you're really not supposed to do that. It's technically against the law in some states. In other states, it's not. 4:12 Anyways, um, why they don't work, only... Well, for certain populations, they may work. 4:19 I'll say this, if you are, like, a physique competitor, a bodybuilder, that's probably where the meal plan is going to be the most successful, but that is a special population. That is a very short-term goal. 4:32 It is not sustainable being in, you know, a physique, uh, you know, a stage ready. That is not sustainable in, in really any shape or form. Scott? No. I just agree with, agree with you 100%. 4:44 I, I would a- also say the other caveat is if you're some type, if you're under some type of clinical supervision, going back to what you just said, the caveat there is, is, you know, clinical supervision for, like, medical weight loss program, or you are, you have a, uh, you know, a diagnosed, um, medical disorder for whatever the reasons are. 5:03 This could be a metabolic disorder. This could be a psychological or emotional disorder, things like that, and they're doing that. Then, then, then, then maybe it, it fits in here. 5:10 But again, that's not who we're talking to. And so when we say work, you know, when, how I would define work is, you just said one of those words, is it's not sustainable. But I guess goals are important here, too. 5:20 Like, and generally speaking, it's mostly weight loss. There's, there's a, there is a percentage of people that wanna gain weight. 5:26 Um, but, uh, to, to your point, like, if I'm handing you, like, "Eat these things, uh, in these amounts," uh, that gets problematic real quick. I think that's where you're going with that. Yeah. It's problematic. 5:37 It is, [laughs] on the coach's side, for me, like, I would never do that. So tedious. Like, that's way too much work. Yeah. [laughs] That's abso- that's way too much work. 5:45 So because it's too much work, what you see in, you know, in the field is cookie cutter meal plans that really aren't an appropriate fit for the individual. 5:54 Maybe the coach has found out some way to kind of, "Well, since you're a male, you're gonna do one more ounce of animal protein," or, you know, the, maybe the, the calories are somewhat adjusted. 6:04 But it's miserable for the client. That's, that's, you know, first and foremost, it's feels restrictive. It's miserable. Maybe there's some way that some type of flexibility is built into it. 6:16 But again, it is a situation where you're handing someone instructions. And maybe they do just, they're that type of person that you just, you know, uh, hand them the sheet and they execute it blow by blow. 6:28 Number one, that person is very rare. It's very rare I'll run into that type of person that can sustain that for more than maybe a couple of weeks at a time. 6:37 Secondly, then when the instructions are removed, the person was never really building any awareness or any intuition throughout the process. They're just following these black and white instructions. Yeah. 6:47 Now, the plan is removed. Maybe they try to recreate this plan that wasn't sustainable to begin with, and it falls apart really quickly. So it's, it's just really not... 6:59 I mean, again, it comes back to the whole, like, being a transformation coach versus being a lifestyle coach. 7:05 Like, if your goal is to try to achieve a very specific outcome as quickly as possible, and you are willing to go to more or less extreme lengths to do that, like, you know, a bodybuilder or a physique show, where th- I consider that going to extreme lengths that m- majority of people are not gonna go to. 7:25 Then, yeah, maybe a meal plan might work for you. But as far as who we work with here, the majority of them are just looking to be a little bit healthier. They're looking to gain a little bit of muscle. 7:34 They're looking to lose a little bit of fat. They're looking for longevity, general health, and wellness. 7:39 Like, if I told you, "All right, for your general health and wellness, you're gonna eat what this piece of paper says for the rest of your life," like, how, how realistic does that sound? 7:48 [laughs] I mean, we just talked about this a lot in our, one of our fat loss episodes. We were talking about, like, we're not robots. You can try to calculate the 500 calories- Mm-hmm... 7:56 over the week that you'll lose a pound of fat and all those different things, but wait until you have a family function, or wait until you have- Yeah, yeah... something more- Wait until a social event comes up... 8:03 social event. Yeah. Or you're feeling a little down, and you want a cookie or whatever. Mm-hmm. Like, the, we're, we're not robots. We don't fit into this puzzle. Um, we don't fit into this w- uh, this canister, right? 8:13 Mm-hmm. So y- I mean, at this point, this is the where we talked about in that, of the difference of having a coach, a, like, a lifestyle coach versus... 8:20 I mean, there's some AI thing you could just go plug in what you want for a meal plan- Oh, 100%. Exactly. Yeah. So why are you wa- why are you paying a coach for that then? Yeah, there's an app for that if you want. 8:27 It's not coaching. Exactly. Yeah. It's not coaching. If you want just, like, a meal instructions, yeah, you just find that on the internet. That's not- Yeah... coaching. Yeah, it's, it's not coaching at all. Uh, the... 8:36 Let me tell you my experience with this and how I know, uh, how I know they don't work, and the things that I've done, including giving people meal plans- Mm... uh, and what happened. 8:46 So first off, going back to what St- what Steven was saying about handing a meal plan and what legalities might actually lie in that, so there are ways around that. 8:54 If you are a coach that's working underneath what's, quote-unquote, "a supervised program," right? 9:00 That's supervised by a clinical dietician, a registered dietician, or some type of a medical doctor, you would have the, the ability, or the liability would be waived, so to speak, for you to be able to give this prescription out. 9:14 Um, so there are programs, and there's been software over the years that has, you know, touted, "Hey, we are licensed for you to create these meal plans." 9:22 And when we say meal plan, not m- not a framework, an actual plan where you are, "This is what you're doing on Monday for breakfast. This is what you're doing Monday [laughs] for your snack, lunch, dinner. 9:31 This is what you're doing on Tuesday," all the way through the week, and you're programming it, programming in the exact food, the weight, and whatever else. So I've worked with those. 9:39 Um, in fact, I worked, I was in charge of rolling that out to an, an entire company. 9:44 And, you know, that software company got paid a lot of money, and then we, we incurred a lot of expense and a lot of time to try to get this program out. And guess what happens? 9:55 Number one, those meal plans never fit people the way they need to fit people, because people are individuals, and there's a lot of nuance. There's way too much variability. 10:03 It's too much to, to, to, for that to be successful in, again, going back to the 99% of cases. And again, we're talking about health clubs, right? So there's, y- that's, that's a, that's, there's context to that. 10:16 The second thing that happened was, is the amount of work that it takes for a coach to do that, they should be be- being paid triple the amount- Oh, yeah... to, to put all that stuff together. So you know what? 10:27 They recognize this. Coaches recognize this. So guess what they do? They just come up with the basic 1,500 calories, 1,750 calorie, 2,000 calorie, 2,250, 2,500. And guess what you get? You didn't get a customized plan. 10:42 You got the thing that anybody else that may happen to fall in the similar, uh, caloric needs category got the exact same plan. And then they said, "Well, we'll make adjustments for it." Okay, so I don't eat chicken. 10:54 Okay, cool, so we change that to beef. But now you're eating beef every day, right? They just, all they did was they swapped it out, and the software actually does that. 11:01 If I replace the chicken with the beef, it's sirloin steak, or it's, you know, it's ribeye steak or whatever else, then it adjusts the macros for you. And does, does that sound like coaching? 11:11 That's not c- that's not coaching at all. You just mentioned it. Nowadays, it's AI. Like, just plug it in there, and tell, tell, tell the ChatGPT what to give you, and it'll give you. 11:19 But it never takes into account your personal preferences. So here's the other point with that. It never, it, those plans never account for the changes or the things that come up, right? 11:28 So we just talked about the general person that just wants to improve their physique a little bit, be a little healthier, be a little stronger, lose a little body fat, all that kind of stuff. 11:36 Well, what about the performance athlete? Tell me that a template's gonna work for them, too. It won't. It, it won't. I know it because I seent it. [laughs] It doesn't work. I seent it. [laughs] Why, and why? 11:48 Because you cannot account for the variability that happens in an athlete's training program, in their game schedule. If they're student athletes, what happens there? 11:57 Travel, the things they'll have access to, the things they won't have access to. 12:00 You have left them with a, if you're guaranteeing them some type of a plan, it's gonna work because it meets macronutrient levels, it meets, it meets caloric intake levels, it meets your vitamin and mineral profiles. 12:12 And, I mean, this software did everything. Yeah. Right? And it would give you these huge readouts and graphs and things, and guess what? That shit's easy to sell 'cause it looks important, and it's super fancy. 12:20 There's colored charts and everything else. 12:22 But what it does, it, in, in terms of giving this guarantee of results or whatever else, which a lot of other coaches and trainers will stamp on their programs You know, money back guarantee and everything. 12:32 They know they've sold you a guaranteed piece of shit, which is to the, in the immortal words of Tommy Boy, right? Mm-hmm. They know that when they've given it to you. 12:40 They haven't given you anything that they haven't given anybody else, and their hope is, number one, that it's gonna work for you. Like, I, I believe that. 12:47 They hope it's gonna work for you, and maybe they even believe that it will. That's another problem. So you get people coming in that are prescribing meal plans and f- and, and, and templates and that sort of... 12:57 Because that's what they've been told works. 12:59 That's what they've, that's what the certification company told them, that's what the software company told them, that's what the internet marketing and the webinar and the whole thing they went through to buy all the solutions. 13:08 "We're gonna give you everything." 'Cause they don't have to do work. They don't have to know a lot of things, right? 13:13 So they take what they think they know, right, and they give that thinking that it's gonna work, and they're gonna find out eventually that it doesn't. So again, I know this 'cause I've seen it. 13:23 Now, here's the other thing. So at first for me as a coach, like, I recognized, like, this is smart. Like, this is easy. It's not easy, but it takes a lot of the work and the guesswork out, and I don't wanna guess. 13:33 Like, I wanna be right. I wanna be right for my client. I want them to get the, the best result in the fastest time possible. So there's a, there's, there's that piece of it, too. 13:42 That's the same thing the client wants, right? The reality of it is, is it doesn't match up, right? It never does. 13:48 Uh, so the, the, the o- other part of that is, is like, okay, when you start to recognize this is a problem because people are coming back like, "Dude, I can't eat this," like, "This sucks," like, uh, "You put this thing on here, I can't find it at my store," you know, or, "I have to go to 10 different stores to get all the pro-" Yeah, it's just, it's too rigid. 14:04 It, it's way too rigid. It, it, it, there's no person- there's no personalization to it whatsoever or account for this is not the real world. This looks great on paper, but beyond that, it sucks. Yeah. Right? 14:15 There's, there's no accounting for that. So and you end up going back in there and doing even more work to try, like, "Well, let me get this right for you because I want it to be right." Mm-hmm. Right? 14:23 And you do it, and guess what? It's still not right. Because again, you started with a piece of shit. Y- y- you can polish that turd as much as you want, and it's never gonna be right. So that, that's the other piece. 14:33 So I recognized, like, this is a problem. But I do like the idea of giving somebody kind of a, a, a visual of what their day or week might want to look like. 14:43 So then I kind of moved, and we even did this at Red Dot a couple of times, where we provided people meal plan samples, and that's what I'll s- that's what I'll call it. I'll call it a sample. 14:50 Like, "Hey, here's what your, here's what a couple of days might look like." And, and then when... The first thing people say when they look at it is, is like, "Oh, I don't eat that." Right? 14:59 Or, or like, "Where do these numbers come from?" Right? It's like, they, they go, like, "1,750 calories?" No way. "Uh, what?" 15:08 I says, "Well, we did your BM- I mean, we, we took our little device and, you know, we plugged you into it, and this is what it kicked out, and then this is what the software kicked out. It's right, trust me. 15:16 Because the software people told me it is, the gadgets tell me it is, and this is gonna be right for you." Guess what? 15:21 That doesn't work out, 'cause they're looking at it going, "W- I don't under- where did this come from?" The numbers. The numbers. Like, "Well, 1,750, that seems like so much. Like, why is it so high?" Right? 15:32 And then the protein number, like, "Oh my God." Like, even if, even if the coach got that right, like, they're looking at this going like, "That's so much protein. Like, I don't eat that much protein in a week. 15:40 I'm supposed to eat that right now?" And you're giving it to them right out of the gate. Exactly. Because- "Starting tomorrow, this is what you're gonna do." "This is the right plan for you," right? 15:48 And so there's no, there's no accounting for where they're currently standing with, with any of that. 15:52 Again, no matter how many adjustments you made to the basic 1,750 calorie meal plan template that you've been giving everybody else and saying you're customizing, that's ultimately what that thing looks like, right? 16:03 So we, we gave them kind of these samples, and they would get so... First off, the first thing they would do is panic. They look at it and they get a ton of anxiety. 16:11 "Now I have to change my entire life based on this piece of paper." Yep. Yeah. Time to 180 your lifestyle. "Oh, wait, but what if I... But I have this, I have this event coming up on Friday. What do I do then?" 16:21 Or, "What, what about during the holidays?" Or, "What about," um, you know, yeah, like you said, like, "I'm having a bit of a bad day. I'd like a cookie." You know? 16:28 Like, there's just way too many things that come up that will foil this plan. The anxiety, feeling of restriction, feeling like, "Well, this doesn't have any of the foods that I like on it. 16:40 I don't like any of this stuff. This doesn't meet my preferences. Well, I'm vegan on Thursdays, you know? So what, what do I do on that day?" And- What about my wine? Yeah. Oh. I don't see any wine in here. Yeah. 16:50 You, you im- it immediately comes across as like, "All right, you don't get to eat anything that you like anymore. You're just gonna eat-" Setting somebody up for failure. Yeah. Yeah. 16:59 I was gonna say, then it brings this feeling of failure, and then that's when people fall off and they're like, "Oh, I already failed. 17:03 I ate the cookie that wasn't on my meal plan today, so now this whole meal plan's out the window." Yeah. It cr- it, it feeds the all or nothing mentality. For sure. 17:10 Like, "I didn't, I didn't follow the step-by-step instructions, therefore I failed for the day." Yeah. Or, "I went over the calories," or... Yeah. I mean, it's just, um... It, it is, it's frustrating how often 17:23 that is the first thought that people bring to me when they're having a consult. "So are you gonna like, just like tell me what to eat? You're gonna like give me a meal plan?" And I'm like, "No, I'm actually not. 17:31 That's actually the last thing in the world I would wanna do. But I get it. You're probably coming to me, you've gotten to this point because you're frustrated." You're desperate. Yeah. 17:38 "You're frustrated, you're desperate, what you've been doing hasn't been working. 'Fuck it. Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. I, I wanna lose this weight so badly.'" 17:46 They'll convince themselves that they'll do whatever. "I, I will do whatever. Just give me the instructions and I will follow them to a T, 'cause I'm so a- you know, I'm, I'm so frustrated." I'm ready. "I'm ready." 17:57 I'm ready. And then, yeah, two weeks into it, like it all falls apart. It's- Or it's two days into it and they recognize the reality of what's sitting in front of them. And you mentioned the word, which is rigidity. 18:05 Like, "Well, where do I fit this thing in? And, and, and is there any room for that?" 18:09 And by virtue of sp- giving them that piece of paper or spreadsheet or whatever else that they're, that they're looking at, there isn't any programmed into there. And you know that question is gonna come as a coach. 18:19 So those coaches that are giving these templates out out there, like, you know that's gonna come. Like you, you know it. And again, I know it 'cause I seent it. Mm-hmm. Right? Like, it, it doesn't take very... 18:29 They look at it and they, they nod their head and they go, "Okay, I guess this is what I'm paying for." And then they realize, then they start to have, like [laughs] they start to have regret, right? 18:36 And then they come to you, and we talked about this the last time on one of our other podcasts about, like, their, it's like accusatory. Like, "Well, this doesn't work for me, and it's not working- Yeah... 18:43 and I'm not losing weight." Well, of course you're not, because none of this gave you anything to go on outside of, like, this isn't a roadmap. This is, and this is, like you think about, like, navigation systems. 18:55 People don't know how to get across their fucking towns anymore because they don't spend any time paying attention. Good. All they've been doing is looking at the instructions. Follow- Oh, shit. 19:04 [laughs] Follow Google Maps, right? Get called out on that one. And they still get lost. And they still make wrong turns. Yeah. 19:08 And, you know, then they, they, then they get super upset when the, maybe the instructions that they did get are not right, right? Like, well, come on. Where are you taking responsibility, some responsibility for this? 19:19 So I think the big, big thing in this is, and hopefully what people take away on why these meal plans are an issue, is you've learned nothing. Mm-hmm. Precisely. There's, there's no personalization to this. 19:29 And in, in nutrition coaching, if, if fitness c- coaching is, is challenging, go ahead and 10X that on the nutrition, coaching, and lifestyle side of things. 19:43 It's, it's, it's wildly more difficult for both the, the... And well, I would say, sorry, difficult. 19:50 I'll, I'll use the word challenging for both the, the client and the coach because of how much more depth of knowledge you need to, you need to either have to start as the coach and then obtain from the client, and then more specifically, the client obtaining from the coach. 20:06 Yeah. I mean, [laughs] I've worked as a nutrition coach a, a few different times, and honestly, like, I don't have the patience for it. 20:12 I don't ha- It's, it's, it takes a lot more going through these finer details of their day-to-day. 20:17 And, and, you know, obviously I still have those conversations with clients as the fitness coach, but, you know, thinking of this kind of comprehensive f- uh, um, uh, wellness, I guess I'd say. 20:27 I, but as a nutrition coach, it's challenging. And, but, you know, to go back, like you, uh, you hit it on the head with you're not learning anything. 20:35 And I think for the average person who your goal is health, longevity, things like that, is just like fitness, but even more so with nutrition, is you should learn to modify to where the nutrition fits into your lifestyle that you wanna have, not change everything in your lifestyle to get shoved into this, um, this, this box of what y- the nutrition should be. 20:55 Which the meal plan is the ultimate version of that, right? So how do you even, like I even think for people with different cultures or in things like that, that enjoy- Oh, man... different foods. 21:03 That's a, yeah, completely- Like- That's a whole other consideration... exactly. What about, what about me, sweet potato? You know. [laughs] That software had like- Yeah... 21:08 that, that software broke it down to literally, like you had the drop-downs for Mexican, right? [laughs] Oh, God. There was Hispanic. Yeah. There was Mexican, and then there was Hispanic. Yeah. 21:17 Well, which one do I fucking choose? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, that means I have to ask a person a question or have an intake form where they have boxes to tick, right? 21:23 And then so I can put them in a box, right? There's that. So I can- There's Asian. So I can ethnically categorize their diet. But wait, wait, wait. Well- I like Mexican food though. Yes. So what do I do? 21:32 [laughs] That's exactly my point. Like s- it, it sounds ridiculous, right? Yeah. [laughs] But at the time, you get this shit, and you're like, "Oh, man. This is awesome," right? Mm-hmm. "It does all the work for me. 21:38 This seems so simple." 'Cause you don't know what you don't know, right? And neither does your client, which is the problem, and they're just, again, frustrated and desperate. They just want answers, right? 21:48 And you're not giving them any. You're, you're, you're actually selling them, like I said, a problem at the, at the end of the day. 21:53 Which you are going to have to either un- help them unwind, or they're, you're just gonna lose them altogether as a, as a coach. And as a, as a client, where have you put that person, right? 22:03 Deeper into the hole, deeper into the des- the despair and the frustration, or, or where they're at. 22:07 And if you're a consumer that's not working with a coach that's just buying one of these things o- online, I'm gonna tell you, you get what you pay for. So, like, what do you reasonably expect from this? 22:17 How much thought have you put into, like, what is going on here? And is, does this seem right for me? Are you looking at this from a critical eye, right? At a, with a critical eye. 22:26 Are you using your critical thinking skills? I know that's a, that's, that's a tough one sometimes- Oh, hey, hey, hey... to kind of dissect this a little bit and go like, "Why- Evaluating... why would this work for me? 22:37 Why should it work for me? And even can it work for me," right? 22:40 If you're not asking yourself those questions, and if you're looking at a template, I'm gonna tell you, you're gonna be, you're gonna find all the reasons why it won't if you think long enough about it, rather than- If you're not emotional about it. 22:49 Yeah. Yeah. Looking for the, looking for the quick answer. We, we mentioned a couple of things where it's like you don't have a choice. You gotta get on that stage in your bikini or your, your underwear. 22:57 You wanna be as lean as you wanna, y- you can possibly get, despite your health, despite your comfort level, right? There's no room for frustration. There's no crying in baseball. Do this, and we will get there, right? 23:08 That kind of thing. That, that works. It works, but it doesn't work for a long time, right? If you're in a, that medical situation, where it's like, "Look, you want that b- that, that gastric bypass surgery? 23:18 I gotta get you to lose 100 pounds first. How important is that to you?" 23:21 For that person that may be on their deathbed or just left the doctor's office with a metabolic disease or disorder or some level of health that's, "You're, you're gonna be dead if you don't do this"- Mm-hmm... 23:30 that's a pretty good motivator for a lot of people. 23:32 But clearly it's not enough for, for a lot of people to go, "I gotta eat this," right, "in order to lose the 100 pounds to get the gastric bypass or the sleeve or the whatever medical intervention that I need. 23:42 So yeah, I might do that." But again, that is a very small... It's a larger population than we probably, you know, it's bigger than it's ever been. But my point of that being is you get it, right? 23:52 It's, it's not who we're talking about. Again, on the performance side, I already said that. It's not accounting for you. Like, bodybuilding is not performance. 23:59 It's, it's a quote-unquote conditioning level that you get to, but the things that you have to go through to get there are not healthy, and they're not sustainable. Hard stop. 24:07 On the performance side, if I need to get out on the field, the court, the mat, the, the ice, the whatever it is that I'm doing on a, on a regular basis, this will ebb and flow. It absolutely will ebb and flow. 24:18 So to give, like, a whole team, like, "How much do you weigh? You know, what's your BMI? You know, what's your BMR? Here you go. Here you go. Here you go," that's a failure right from the get-go. 24:29 So again, going back, like, we've given people in the past, like, "Here's a sample-... kind of so that you kind of understand what this should look like. 24:37 Even that's problematic because that's enough for a per- person to say, "Nope, can't do it," before they've- Mm-hmm... even started anything. Yeah. 24:44 So I think the, the, the thing we gotta back up to is, okay, so what is the right approach before I start going this? Do I have to go out and get a coach? 24:51 No, you do not have to go out and get a c- This is coming from the dude that owns a place that, [laughs] you know, that employs coaches and makes a living on this stuff. No, you do not have to get a coach. 25:00 But you do have to have a high level of awareness of yourself, your lifestyle, the things that you're trying to get accomplished. More importantly, the first thing we gotta start with is history, right? 25:10 So if you, if you, if you look at this sort of, like, from an educational process, the first thing we gotta understand is your history. Where have you been? What's your diet history look like? 25:18 What's your health history look like, your medical history, or your exercise history? All of those, and then your, your successes and failures. We gotta, we gotta have a hard look at all of that. 25:28 And I think I'd add to that, what's your education on nutrition as well? Like, what have you even... What do you know? [laughs] All right. So yeah, like, tell me where you're coming at this from. Yeah. 25:35 What platform we are approaching this from. "Well, I'm keto, and that's how I'm gonna stay." Good to know. I can work with that. Yeah. Right? Like, "I'm vegan." Sure. Great. We can work with that, right? That's fine. 25:46 Like, my job is to help you match, you know, s- find a solution within the lifestyle for, and, and, uh, y- and, and I guess norms of however you live, obviously having to make some adjustments, but I can, I can work with that. 25:59 But we have to start with history. 26:00 We have to understand all those things first, and, and sometimes it's very tough, like to understand, like you are a disaster or, man, you've been really rigid for a long time, which is kind of the other end of the spectrum. 26:12 We're gonna ask you to be making some changes here that might be really tough for you. Yeah. Yeah, I have a client who is... Yeah, he's kind of on that end of the spectrum where he's been so rigid. 26:21 He tracks down to the gram. He's so structured that he'll start to freak out when I suggest he gets a little more flexible. Like on his birthday, he's like, "I wanted a, I wanna eat a whole pizza on my birthday." 26:34 Eat a whole fucking pizza, dude. Like, eat on, you know, eat a whole pizza on your birthday. [laughs] Do it, dude. All we'll do is we'll just allocate around that and just, you know, be aware of what you're consuming. 26:41 And leading up to his birthday, I'm getting emails, I'm getting texts basically about how nervous he is- Freaking out... and, like, how this is going to sabotage him. And I'm like, "Dude, enjoy your birthday." 26:52 And it's taken some coaching and some understanding of psychology- Mm-hmm... um, to get him to the point where it's like, "Dude, you, you can r- you can release that a little bit." Yeah, yeah. 27:00 "You can relax a little bit. Like, there, you're not gonna sabotage yourself from one day of enjoying yourself. We can adjust around it. We can make allocations. There is flexibility here." 27:11 But he's coming from a background where he's been so rigid with himself that he immediately starts like, "Uh, uh, uh, uh, is this gonna, uh, uh..." You know? Anxiety attack. And I have to talk him off the ledge. 27:21 It's a real thing. For sure. It's a real thing. It's on the other edge. Uh, on the other end of that, people eat out of emotion, too, right? 27:26 They'll make poor decisions, or they'll make choices, you know, within their dietary, you know, intake based on the same emotion, right? 27:33 So it's, it's this vastly varying thing that you have to be aware of as a person, and obviously the coach needs to be aware of that so that they can help you navigate that because we know it's gonna happen. 27:42 We know it's gonna come up. So that is the value of a coach. But more importantly, that's the value of you having a higher level of awareness of your history, right? 27:49 And where you currently stand from a platform perspective in ter- terms of entering into this. The next thing is gonna be math, right? 27:57 So there is some math, and, and there are a lot of nutrition coaches, and I hear them out there vehemently, you know, opposing this with regard to, like- Counting calories, counting macros, yeah... 28:06 counting calories, counting macros. You know, I- I'm just gonna say, like, I'll debate that all day long, and I'll also... I'd love to hear how many people you were actually successful with over time, and I want metrics. 28:19 Mm-hmm. Uh, what metrics are you measuring your level of success with? Because when it comes to fitness and it comes to health and wellness, metrics are a thing. They are not the only thing, but they are a thing. 28:30 It sounds like too much math, though. [laughs] Yeah, it's too much work, right? So what are the things, right? Like, what are the things we need to understand? 28:35 Well, most importantly, I'm not giving you a calorie number, right? I'm not prescribing a calorie number. What we need to understand is how much are you intaking now? Yeah. 28:44 How much have you intake, been intaking in the past? Have you been in a deficit, you know, based on your past to where you are now over the last month? 28:50 You've been re- severely restricting or being in this caloric deficit. I need to know those, those things. So let's get an idea of where you are and a, and a pretty close idea. Not an educated guess, not a hypothesis. 29:03 But let's get some, let's get some metrics around, like, what are you doing? Because if we can measure that, it can help us manage it. 29:10 We're not managing you to the number, but it's a great pl- it's a really important place for us to understand before we start going down this part, this path of creating a framework or structure that's gonna work for you. 29:19 Not just in the food that you eat, but how much are you eating? That's important. Yeah. Right? 29:24 Whether it's weight gain, weight loss, fat loss, health, longevity, or, or excuse me, uh, longevity, performance, or aesthetics. Super important. 29:32 And within that math, obviously we can start to break down, like, okay, well, what would be, like, an optimal number of calories for you to be eating at based on some of the metrics we've collected on you, height, weight, age, activity level, all those kind of things. 29:43 Like, you don't have to understand all of that in the, the detail. That's the coach's, that's the coach's job to do that. But you do wanna understand it. And by the way, it's not that complicated. It really isn't. 29:55 But to your point, Ryan, it's like, eh, that's a lot of math, dude. [laughs] It's some work you gotta put into this, right? And if you... 30:02 We talked about this, uh, on the last podcast about fat loss, and that was, look, the, the more you understand, the more informed you are. 30:10 It puts you in a much better position to start obtaining results pretty quickly and recognizing what those results should be. And we m- we, we noticed that the people that... It's fact. It's not notice. It's documented. 30:21 The people that get off to the strong start that way and have a higher level of understanding have better results up front and for the longer term, generally speaking, right? 30:28 If they execute the things that they need to execute in order to, to, to achieve stuff. So math is a thing. We need to understand some numbers here. Not so that we can manage you to a specific gram of protein. 30:41 Yeah, yeah. 30:41 I'm start, I, I try to, I try to, you know, get that point across to my clients that I'm gonna teach you how to do this, um, and we're tracking not for my oversight, not so I can go through your logs and red pen you and gotcha and, "Oh, what'd you eat there? 30:56 Why'd you do that?" It's, number one, it's for your awareness, but also if you have an understanding of where these numbers come from, you can pivot much easier. 31:05 You actually have some bearings, you have some perspective on, "Okay, this is what my BMR is. This is what my maintenance is." 31:12 Maybe two years down the line, that maintenance has shifted based on how my body composition has changed- It will... based on how my physical activity levels have changed. 31:20 But I understand the principle, so now I'm able to make these adjustments in a much more educated fashion versus just guessing. 31:28 And when, just to bring it back to, um, you know, some people are, they kind of get that rhetoric that, "Oh, counting calories, that's restrictive. That's extreme. I don't wanna do that." Uh, 31:39 an analogy that might be helpful, um, you know, why we need that kind of observation period and we need to know where you are to start with, you take your car into a mechanic and you're like, "Oh, yeah, it's making this kind of weird noise. 31:51 It's not running right." And the mechanic's just, like, looking at the car, "Uh, yeah, this is what I think it is." "What, what, you're not, you're not gonna look under the hood?" 31:59 Or better yet, the mechanic asks, "Hey, can I look under the hood?" "No, I don't want you to look at it. No, no. Just, just tell me. Just tell me what to do. Uh, don't, don't... 32:07 I don't want you to look at it any closer." Like how, you know. In that sense, that doesn't make any sense at all, you know? And by the way, I want the absolute cheapest and easiest solution to this. 32:15 So without looking at anything, like, sell me what's that on the shelf over there? Is that, is that what I need? Like, that, that, that additive that I, I just pour that on my gas tank? Yeah, what does that thing do? 32:23 Yeah. That, that fixes it? Yeah. Uh, it's a great analogy. 32:26 And it's, again, uber frustrating, and that's why you get a little emotion on these podcasts when we're talking about particularly on the nutrition coaching side of things 'cause of the pushback and that ridiculous, uh, mindset sort of coming into it. 32:38 And it is. It's kind of really, just think about this. We had an example of it actually come up just today, [laughs] um- Yeah... with a, uh... Well, we were- Yes. [laughs]... texting about it. Oh, my. 32:45 And I mean, I think it's probably pretty timely. Um, a- an individual that doesn't wanna track. Does not wanna track, is pretty inconsistent in terms of their workouts, has been traveling a lot. 32:58 We've been working together for about six months, and we did an initial body composition scan when we first got started. I was finally able to get this individual in to get a check-in today, six months later. 33:12 Overall, they've moved in a positive direction. They've gained a little bit of muscle. They've lost a little bit of fat. Not much. About a pound, pound and a half of muscle gain, pound lost of body fat. Frustrating. 33:24 Look- yeah. Looks at the numbers. "Well, I mean, yeah, it's positive change, but I was kind of expecting to, to see more progress at this point in time." My lord. Um, "So how, how do we make progress faster?" 33:35 And after I gathered myself for a moment- [laughs]... I was like, you know, "Well, consistency. Um, you know, maybe exercise more than three times per month. 33:47 And also, I have no idea how much you're eating because you refuse to tell me. Like, so we've just been working on habit coaching because sometimes I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna battle you. I'm not gonna try to- Yeah... 33:57 convince you why this is important. I'm not gonna try to drag you into this because that's not gonna get a positive result either. But okay, now do you understand why this is important?" 34:07 "Well, why am I not progressing faster?" "I don't know. I have no idea how much you're eating. You're, you seem generally healthy to me because we've been working on general habits because- Mm... 34:17 you won't give me any specific information to make specific changes." Mm. "So w- what exactly are you looking for here?" A- another thing, uh, just another thing the meal plan will not account for, right? 34:29 And that is, is, uh, people think they're doing something and they're not, right? 34:33 And so again, they get the meal plan, they look at it, they do it for a couple of weeks and like, "I got this," and then, you know, things change. "Yeah, I'm still eating the same. I'm eating clean." Sure you are. 34:43 So, uh, uh, uh, so again, the math piece is important to understand how it impacts things down the line, which then leads into the next thing was if you kind of have a, a better understanding or more informed about the math, the next thing is gonna be the science, right? 34:57 And again, without getting too science-y and blowing people's heads up, it's important to understand how food impacts you. 35:02 How when you put certain things in, or more specifically, don't put certain things in, how that impacts down the chain. What your performance, what's your energy level, what's your gut gonna feel like, you know? 35:12 How is your poop schedule gonna be, you know? How's your sleep gonna be impacted? All that stuff. People wanna start to get into, "Oh, yeah, my hormones." Well, food impacts hormones, right? 35:22 [laughs] And that is part of the science. So having a general understanding of how these things go make the other things, the history and the math, make a lot more sense for you. 35:31 So you have to be, you, you, if you can't get that information on your own or you refuse to do it and you're look- and you, you, you, you s- you wanna make progress both for the short and the long term, it would behoove you to either get a coach, right, who's good at explaining this stuff or start to dig a little deeper into what, what that stuff means. 35:49 And I recognize that's a very slippery slope. Point being, the science is important. How does all this stuff play together? 35:57 And once we've got all of those things, again, we got history, math, and science kinda handled, man, that sets up probably the most important piece, which goes a little bit back to what you were just saying there, there a, a second ago, Steven, and that is mindset, right? 36:11 And more specifically, psychology. Because psychology is likely going to be the largest component of the entire thing once we get through understanding that history, math, and science. Because things come up. 36:24 And again, no meal plan template's gonna handle this for you. If your psychology is, and it's, it's only as shallow as, "Here's the plan. If this, then that," you set yourself up for failure before you've even started. 36:37 And again, I'm gonna go back to the coach, if you're doing that You're doing that to your clients and you're letting them walk away with the, the m- the mindset and the psychology of, "Oh, I have the plan now. 36:46 I've just handed my client the, the golden ticket. I've given them the key to their success, and all I'm gonna have to do now is maybe adjust some macros or some calorie numbers or whatever else," you're a shitty coach. 36:57 It's just, it doesn't work that way. Uh, so again, the psychology piece and the mindset piece, you know, some of it people might think it's corny. 37:05 You know, self-talk, how you're approaching problems, how you're overcoming obstacles, um, how you're setting yourself up for success, how you're creating an environment around you that k- that keeps you in a success mode once we've gotten, once we've started to see a little bit of that. 37:18 Also understanding obstacles are gonna come up. How do we handle those? Again, dude, have pizza. Have some ice cream. Have some fucking cake. Do whatever you want, man. You do you. 37:29 What you do on that day will not negatively impact you in the longer term. You might feel shitty the next day. You'll get over it, I promise. You're not going to die. You know, that, those kind of things. 37:39 B- Helping to set somebody up for success or at least, again, g- getting with somebody where you... They're gonna ask you those questions like, "Hey, what, where are you challenged? 37:47 You know, where, where, where do you find that you, you, you start to stumble and fall? 37:52 L- Help me understand you so that I can help you pre-navigate this stuff and hand you a couple of different options to get through this thing and we can work through which one of those works the best." 38:03 Meal plan templates don't have options. Maybe it's you can swap this much chicken for this much beef. That is not what I'm talking about, right? 38:11 I'm talking about how to navigate real life, and that goes back to being a lifestyle coach, not a meal plan template giver, right? 38:18 So again, if, I think if you kind of wrap all of that up, like, uh, when, when you're looking at, like, what are the things that you should be examining before you're getting into some type of a coaching program, latching on or planting a flag in some diet tribe or something like that, is understanding all these things, because every one of those is secondary to understanding what we just said. 38:40 It's history, math, science and psychology at the end of the day. 38:45 I know you, you don't, you don't have to know all that, and that might sound like a lot and maybe this just discouraged a lot of people from even getting a coach. 38:50 They've already thrown their hands, "Oh, fuck, that's just too much, man." Do you have to go back to school? What is this? [laughs] I'm not, I'm not ready for that. 38:54 I'm gonna have to examine my life in order to change my life? Oh my, I'm gonna have to do some work? [laughs] I've said it once- [laughs] Here we go... and I'll say it again. 39:01 The results you are not getting are 100% because of the work that you are not doing, and the work that you're not doing involves all of those things. So there are options. 39:11 Look, if, if coaching sounds like the right thing, you are, you're, you hear us talk, you guys hear us talk all the time. We've got nutrition coaching where we can help you personalize your, your program. 39:19 And sp- more specifically what that means is finding a framework and solutions that work best for you. It's not gonna be a meal plan template, [laughs] right? We're not gonna hand you here's the things. 39:29 And I think that scares a lot of people 'cause they know they don't want that and they don't... So I'll put that out there right now. You're not gonna get a meal plan template. You're gonna have to do some work. 39:36 It's a two-way conversation. It's not you tell me some things and I hand you a thing and then maybe we talk on occasion, uh, you send me some numbers and I adjust your numbers. That's not what this is. 39:45 That is not the conversations that Steven has in here on a daily basis for six, eight hours a day sitting, whether it's on ac- across from somebody in a chair or online, right? 39:56 Where we're doing like through a video chat or maybe it's just a phone call, right? Whatever you prefer in terms of your, your interaction, like that's available, too. Super simple to get. 40:04 The other way is you're, you, you maybe have been doing, you've done this a few times. You just need a little help. You kind of wanna dip your toe in the water. 40:11 We do have an online, uh, uh, nutrition success and education program or education and success program in that order, 'cause you're not gonna be successful if you're not educated, and that's called our Fuel You, uh, program. 40:24 And that's, it, that's a self-guided thing that you can do online. We've c- we've included all kinds of materials. Reading if you like to read. Videos if you like to watch videos. 40:33 And once you're involved in one of those programs, you, you kind of have like direct access to us. 40:38 So if there's questions that you have that come up along the way, you want to address something personally, we can set up a consultation where you can, you can meet with one of us, likely Steven. 40:47 Just kind of walk through what is it you're struggling with or where can I help you make the next step here or overcome this potential, you know, thing that you're, you're looking at or staring down the barrel of. 40:55 That, that's, those are, that's kind of two ends of the spectrum. But I'm gonna tell you this. One way or another, you're gonna get educated. You might think you know it all. 41:03 Dude, you're gonna learn a ton through working through either of those programs, and you'll certainly learn a, a ton if you're, if you're, if you have somebody available to you. 41:11 So if you're at one of those points, you're like, "Dude, I've done the templates. I've done the, you know, the diet tribe things. 41:17 Um, I've kind of toyed around with the bodybuilder programs and stuff like that, and I've seen some su- some success, but I just can't seem to, one, get back on track, or one, or two, maintain it." 41:28 Uh, or it, some people just might be, "I am just completely lost." Uh, whichever, uh, e- end you're coming into to this on, there are solutions, right? W- And we have those. 41:41 You just have to be ready to kind of go down the path and understand what, what, what might work for you. 41:46 And more specifically, like the best way to do that is to talk to somebody that can steer you in the right direction. So usually it's a, just like anything else, it's like taking that first step. 41:56 Uh, don't commit to anything until you know what it is. You can test drive the thing. So you can reach out to us here. It's super easy. And, um, we can get you going. 42:03 [rock music] Thank you for tuning into this episode of Iron Sights. If you enjoyed our conversation, you can support our mission by hitting the subscribe button, leaving a review, and sharing the podcast with a friend. 42:14 I'll see you on the next episode. [rock music]
