S2_EP_28 High Flux Model and More for Fat Loss and Client Coaching, an interview with Dean Guedo and Jeb Johnston of StrongerU

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (00:01)
Hey, welcome back to the flex diet podcast. I’m Dr. Mike T. Nelson. And today I’ve got super fun conversation with my buddies, uh, Dean and Jeb. They were on here before. So you can find the previous episode that they were on and the notes on today, we get into talking about a high flux condition. This is where you’re trying to pull more energy through the system. We talk a lot about a neat, so non-exercise activity thermogenesis, primarily in the form of a step count. Uh, some earlier stuff from, uh, Dr. John Berardi about G flux. My recollection of going to his seminar on it in Chicago many years ago, was presented with him and Charles Poliquin, a polar Quinn’s effect on the industry on all across the board with, uh, different, uh, coaching, I guess, tips and techniques and the mental side of it. Motivation. Uh, should we really be manipulating our clients or what is a high flux state?

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:13)
Uh, Dean talks a lot about a very cool, uh, study in the Amish who were a very lean and we’ll get into why that is in the podcast and a lot more. So it was just fun to catch up with these guys. It’s been a little weird to be kind of in lockdown still as of this recording, this is in December of 2020 for people listening into the future. Um, but uh, spent a lot of time with these guys, especially in Costa Rica, Dr. Ben house, this place and not other conferences. So this podcast is brought to you by the flex diet certification. If you want to know how to implement things such as a higher flux condition, what are the effects of neat? How does exercise interact with nutrition? Uh, check out the flux diet cert. I’ve got eight interventions that I break down. Everything from protein, fats, carbs, neat exercise, and many more.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (02:11)
We discuss the big picture of metabolic flexibility plus flexible dieting. We’ve got lots of expert interviews in there, and then we break it down into each intervention. What are five specific action items you can do for your clients? And this is all within a very flexible framework. So if you listen to this and you’re like, Oh, that’s pretty cool. I need to get maybe better as a coach of implementing a neat or matching exercise to nutrition, I would highly recommend it. And of course I’m biased because I put it together, but go to flex diet.com, F L E X, D I E t.com. Get onto the waitlist there. That’ll put you onto the daily newsletter and once it opens up again, you’ll be the very first to be notified. And right now it’s opening around quarterly per year. So check out that, go to flux diet.com. Enjoy this conversation with a good friends, Dean and Jeb. Hey, what’s going on and started mixing Nelson here, back with the flux diet podcast with these two guys who have been on here before. So I’d highly recommend you check out their previous episode. I’d tell you what it is, but I just don’t remember at this point anymore. So we’ve got, yeah, we’ve got my buddy as Dean and Jeff both, uh, work at stronger use. So welcome back guys. Thanks for having us.

Speaker 2: (03:39)
Yeah, Nope, no problem. This is, it’s always good to get on a call with you. Cause you’re so busy. Now we have to schedule in an hour and just make it a quick.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (03:46)
I know it’s, that’s actually, it was so funny as I that’s one of the main reasons I just started doing a podcast again, because it’s like, Oh, it’s just an excuse for me to like talk to people. I haven’t talked to for a while with like some random subject, but if I didn’t actually like sit down and like schedule stuff, it like would never happen. And now, because I have another ulterior motive for doing it, it’s like, Oh, ah, I was talking to Dr. Adam fight from precision nutrition last night. And I’m just like, we spent like 20 minutes just going off about a PhD process and that kind of stuff. But I’m like at the end, I’m like, yeah, some people listen to this. That’s cool if they don’t, I don’t whatever, I guess, you know? Yeah. He just graduated. So he’s all done. He’s doctor, doctor now. So

Speaker 2: (04:34)
We had him on our other one. He’s he’s a good episode, man. I really liked that one. He was one of those guys

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (04:39)
That I listen to. That one. That was good. Yeah.

Speaker 2: (04:41)
Not that you shouldn’t know about him, but he’s like a little like more up and coming. Cause he’s still in school and busy as hell, but he’s like one of the smartest dudes I’ve ever talked to.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (04:48)
Oh, super smart dude. And super down to earth and you talk to him and he’s like, Oh yeah. When I was training this Olympic athlete at the Olympic training center and I went and did this and that, and not in an egotistical way, just that’s just what he does.

Speaker 2: (05:02)
Yeah. Well, that’s what I think. I liked them. I think everyone at precision was pretty sweet, but like, not that there wasn’t any ego, but they all like really good and like really humble about it, but also could blow your socks off, like in two seconds. And I’m like, Oh my God, wherever you guys all been

Speaker 3: (05:15)
There, I’m super impressed by all of those interviews, man. I was just like, wow. Like every single one of them, both super insightful and practical and application-based, but then also super, you know, into the research and they just cover all the bases really. And then John, when you got John on that, he was like, know,

Speaker 2: (05:34)
That was great. It just makes sense. It just makes sense. Why they’re rich, like for the most successful.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (05:40)
Yeah. Yeah. And Krista Scott Dixon is the same way. Like you meet her in person and you’re just like, Oh, that’s great. And then you ask her some question. You’re like, Ooh, if I didn’t know you, I would not have expected that that was amazing.

Speaker 3: (05:53)
Cause they, they had her on the same day as they had me on. So like went back and forth and

Speaker 4: (05:58)
They’re just cracking up. Cause they’re like, literally this is like almost like what we’re talking about, BJJ and talking about behavior, like all the same things they’re talking about. And I was like, let’s do it. I was like, man, she’s great.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (06:10)
No, yeah. They’re all awesome. It’s super fun. And yeah, it’s just kind of weird with all the lockdown stuff to not see people, you know? Cause the last time I saw probably Adam, John and Krista in the same place was in Toronto a couple of years ago I was visiting Jeff who runs bang fitness. And he’s like, yeah, precision nutrition has there a potluck tonight? I’m like, Oh, he’s like, Oh you should go. I’m like, but I got to get on a flight in a couple hours. You’re like, Oh it’s just a donation. Just show up. I’m like, okay. So I just crashed their potluck when I was there. And they’re all super cool and like, Hey, how’s it going? That’s awesome.

Speaker 4: (06:47)
Just literally a bunch of science nerds. Oh yeah, yeah. It’s Mike, we can talk science more here about this study. Oh yeah. John, John is historically the most jacked guy after seeing his bodybuilding pictures. I was just like, Oh yeah. Even more, even more impressed.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (07:05)
Yeah. I was kind of shocked by that. Like the first time I met him was at a G flux seminar, oddly enough, with him and Polak when like eons ago, you know, you kind of see the pictures and stuff online and you’re like, huh, then you meet him in person. I’m like, his forearms were like the size of my thighs. I’m like, Holy.

Speaker 4: (07:23)
They had a G flux seminar. I got to know we’re kind of talking a little bit. So like, cause that would have been a while ago. Cause that article like, um, um, Lou Schuler was saying like this stuff was talked about like years and years ago they had a seminar.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (07:35)
Yeah. I think don’t quote me on this, but I want to say 2005, maybe we could probably pull the T nation articles. It was right around that time. And it was in Chicago at a Polish woman’s place. And at the time I had just read, I think it was the Polish woman principles, which at that time in the early kind of when they come out like early two thousands, I think I, my head was like blown. I’m like, Oh my God, there’s more than a DeLorean method of three by 10. You gotta be me. What’s going on with the world. Like my head just exploded at that time. And then, uh, John was going to be there and Charles is going to be there. So I’m like, well I really like John stuff. I don’t know about Charles per se. I had an, you hear all the rumors and stuff, but I’m like, well even if half the seminar is good, I’ll just, you know, fly down to Chicago for it. And um, yeah, Mike Robertson was there. So I hung out with him for awhile and it was a good seminar in all honesty, like John’s stuff was great. And Charles stuff was like an hour of like musical information and like eight hours of him trying to upsell you into bio SIG five. And I dunno what also I kind of left scratching my head at that

Speaker 4: (08:48)
Was that before or after his earth wind fire model or whatever the,

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (08:52)
It was actually that was before like the internet its mind. But uh, yeah, it was, it was interesting to say the least.

Speaker 3: (09:02)
It’s so weird that again, I, that, that, um, you know, is in some ways just so wacky is also kind of responsible for so much of where the industry’s gone because so many people were like, he was the first like education model where people went out and then like they come back and they’re like, wow, this is it. And they all spawned all these other education it’s like, but, but then they’re all like, but I wouldn’t really use any of this stuff. But the idea came from me.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (09:31)
Yeah. It’s always like crazy how some of the stuff he had, you’re just like, what the hell are you talking about? That makes no sense whatsoever. Even now it doesn’t make any sense, but then he had other stuff that was just absolutely brilliant. You know? And you look at what he did for the industry overall. I mean, I think he was probably the first educator coach that actually charged a lot of money and got people to pay it, you know? So I think he did elevate the industry a fair amount where, from what I saw up until that point with the exception of a few other people, it was, let’s all race to the bottom and see how cheap we can make everything and personal training. Wasn’t really that viewed as a profession or even strengthened it wasn’t viewed as a high-end profession.

Speaker 3: (10:19)
I mean, that’s one of the things that’s so weird is like, because I’m 42, you get Mike you’re like 40 right. 46. Okay. So, so when we were in high school, like I love like my women, uh, and they coaches like in actually in my college was a personal trainer. So it was like, it was cool, but like that was not something aspirational. I mean, I just go to music, like use it. It seemed like a better educational pursuit, you know? And so now it’s like, this is a legit field and it’s crazy in such a short time.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (10:50)
Yeah. Yeah. It’s uh, and hopefully it’ll get better. My, my fear is with all the shutdown of gyms and all trainers was just a mass Exodus that I, I don’t know, I just wonder what’s going to happen. So

Speaker 3: (11:05)
You got a really interesting post. Like I really liked that was it yesterday or today about like, Hey, so all those on appeal without online training, like, and it’s so true. And I was just talking to Lisa Lewis this morning, actually react. She’s told me to tell you hi, by the way. But she said like Tony was, you know, Tony had that like same sentiment is like Tony general quirk about like, Hey, this is not like, this is not an easy thing to do. Like it’s hard. And people thought it was gonna be easy because these people selling that. And now that everyone got forced into it, okay, wait, maybe this is a hard thing, but maybe that also causes the cream to kind of rise. Like who sticks around is the people that have been working at this a long time? Well, it happened already. Like when w when, when that whole pandemic thing was starting and Andrew and I were doing podcasts, just getting updates from about like

Speaker 2: (11:54)
This online program, everyone’s going to do body weight stuff and stuff. And we’re kind of like talking about the future. And I was like, yeah, everyone, it’s not going to happen. Like, everyone’s going to get bored of it. These programs all suck. And like, everyone’s going to be out because all the bigger companies are gonna start releasing stuff. And then what happens, like, like Cressey starts giving out packages of equipment that you can buy. And they have their Mo like a lot of them just got just decimated. And then this time around, cause there’s been shutdowns intermittently, there’s nothing like, no, everyone’s like, yeah, I didn’t make any money. My Goodwill of being a trainer and giving a free information. Didn’t return millions in return for my body weight program. So they just stopped. Yeah. So like, that’s kind of what happened is the good people figured out that you have to be good and the bad people realize that they’re bad and they just didn’t want to get better. Cause it was hard. And that’s, I think that’s happening right now. Like, cause we’re in shutdown, none of the trainers and this isn’t the trash of the trainers, but none of the trainers that were shut down previously are really doing any of that right now.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (12:52)
Yeah. And I think it was all just a race to the bottom. It was like, Hey, well, I’m just going to, I don’t have any extra value to add, but I can do it at a hundred dollars a month. If you were doing 200, I’m going to do it at a hundred. And then even if they got people to do that and they were trying to do it in a legit way, they probably realized that this isn’t, I can’t afford to be doing this.

Speaker 3: (13:16)
Yeah. It’s like five bucks an hour. Yeah.

Speaker 2: (13:19)
Like even, even our GMs, RJ may shut down right now. So the BJJ gym and they’re doing online stuff and it’s like, it’s like fairly good, but like, it’s not, I wouldn’t pay for it, but I’m paying for it because I’m trying to support the gym. So the trainers who were like good and created community or some of the gym communities or the CrossFit gyms, like they got money because they were good at what they do. And they built something, not because of their products. Good. Cause it’s like, it’s really hard right now to understand what that looks like and to do it well. And there’s going to be really only a few people doing it and they were probably doing it beforehand. Anyways,

Speaker 3: (13:49)
You know, I’ve talked to a couple of my friends who are kind of in that crossover, PT, personal training, uh, the guys at resilient. Um, and then my buddy, Carl, uh, you actually, you’ve done stuff with integrative, uh Carl’s business partner. I think you did some integrative. Oh yeah, my buddy, my buddy Carl, I trained with yeah. He works with them, but he they’ve said that that zoom sessions have actually been better for them in a lot of ways and personal because all the distractions are gone. You’re really hyper-focused. And like, it, it actually has changed the model and they’re like, I thought it would be so terrible, but they found that from a, especially from a PT model, it’s like the hands on stuff obviously is negated. But the training aspect of it, they felt that they’re actually better trainers by removing all that stuff around them, which I thought was really interesting.

Speaker 2: (14:38)
W and David Gray does that, like, we just had David Green on, I think we’re releasing it like today or tomorrow, but anyways, like that’s his whole model is he does zoom calls and he was like, Maria. He was saying, it’s like, yeah, everything’s gone. We just, if you’re good at coaching, you can kind of get what you want. Cause it’s an hour, like an hour long of like, you have to be focused in on it. And like that’s, that’s valuable.

Speaker 3: (14:57)
There’s no, there’s no commute. There’s no, uh, people around talking to you. There’s no interruptions.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (15:03)
Yeah. I think it’s an interesting thing. I think it will be valid for a small percentage of people who like doing that. Because if you think of like the average trainer in a gym, right. And say, okay, and I know trainers who’ve done this. And they said, Oh, okay. I don’t know what to do. I’m converting everyone to a zoom call. So I’d had, you know, 10 people in person an hour per session. Now I’m sitting in front of my computer, staring at a screen coaching people for 10 hours a day. Right. It’s probably not the same person who wanted to be in-person with people walking around and seeing the movement, having the in-person interaction. Now they’re like jammed in front of a computer screen trying to translate that same experience. And I think that for a lot of trainers is just going to be a disaster.

Speaker 2: (15:49)
That sounds like the worst thing that sounds like one of those movies in the future where like there’s no feature feature. You’re just literally a robot. You’re acting like a robot that would suck. Yeah. I can’t wait. That would literally be the worst. Sorry. Anyone who likes doing that? I guess we kind of do that online training as well, but it’s not the same. I’m not walking people through.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (16:09)
No, no. I mean, I’m looking at videos and doing stuff, but it’s all mostly asynchronous. And you know, I may have a few calls here and there to answer questions and do things like that. And even the one-off like zoom sessions I do are all just basically high level of troubleshooting. You know, I’m not actually sitting there walking someone like through their deadlift and watching them on video and telling them to move their camera around to the other angle and stuff.

Speaker 3: (16:34)
Well, I think all of us really liked the troubleshooting aspect of this whole coaching thing. I talked about that my blog today was like, well, my favorite things is problem solving. Like, yeah, that’s the fun. But if you’re sitting like, okay, and now let’s go one, two, like if you’re that trainer like this doesn’t sound like a fun, Oh fun. How was the day today?

Speaker 2: (16:55)
Your outside is nice here in Canada. Like, you’re just like, it’s just not the same. I don’t know.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (17:00)
Yeah. I, I did in-person training for awhile and I did it at gyms and the gym I was at actually filed bankruptcy and that’s all I stopped doing it basically and moved everything to my garage for a while. And then I just dropped my client load to just like a handful of people and that wasn’t too bad, but that may have, when I was doing it in the gym, like I realized like very quickly, like after I could get through like four sessions in a row. And after that, I wanted to jump off a bridge somewhere because like with the same people, when it was new people, it was like, Oh, this is great because I’m doing all the troubleshooting and all the problem solving. But then when it kind of got into that routine of, they’re just showing up and you know that if they’re not paying you, they’re not going to do a thing. And I had to be up on like, I would look on Google beforehand. Like what the, um, like the twins baseball scores were. Cause I had a, who was very into baseball. I could give two about baseball. Right. But I knew that I would be like a point of conversation, you know, to talk with them about, we know what was going on. And so I could kind of fake my way through it. But man, I just felt like I was dying inside.

Speaker 3: (18:06)
I totally, I used to bartend, I would watch just enough baseball to understand what was happening. But then someone would say something that was like an in-depth point of reference. And I’d just be like, yeah, man, totally. That guy sucks. They don’t want it.

Speaker 2: (18:19)
Well you to give your opinion, they just want to give their opinion. So it always works out like that. Just let them talk and they’d be like, Oh yeah, this guy gets it.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (18:27)
Yeah. Yeah. I would just agree with them. And then I’d ask them about some, like the top three players and I’d just throw out their name, like, Hey, what do you think about this guy? Oh, that guy’s a total, man. I’m like, yeah.

Speaker 3: (18:41)
Honestly think it’s kind of a good leg path to go down. Like that is very much the art of coaching though. It’s like finding common ground and getting that buy-in, I mean, that’s kind of, you know, that’s, that’s kind of a big part of it that I think a lot of people probably missed.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (18:57)
Yeah. Yeah. I, for myself, I realized I, I can play the game and most people watching probably wouldn’t know much of a difference, but I fast realized that if this is all I was doing the entire time, I was like, Oh boy, I, I would not want to be my own client in that situation. So I kind of just slowly got out of it and kept enough people where I got enough experience and we would always do more advanced stuff with them. There was people who always wanted to do more. So I just kind of only worked with a handful of people I wanted to, which was a lot better.

Speaker 3: (19:28)
It’s that whole thing of like, if you’re, if you’re kind of violating your values, like, like what you value and what you love, like it’s, you can’t do it for long. Yeah.

Speaker 2: (19:37)
Well, and it doesn’t sort itself out. Like even, even the company we worked for, but like Jeff and I obviously we do online coaching and stuff, but eventually we just, we get certain people because we’re the people for those people and they know kind of our personality and kind of what we’re going to go down and like, that’s helpful because then I can do things my way, because I’m going to do the, my anyways. So you know what I mean? And then you have the luxury of Paul said it. So we had Paul Anita on our podcast last time. And um, long story short is, is, is the way our system works or the way we do things work because we kind of bring people along into that, even though there is some inherent bias in it, but it’s like if I were to go coach someone who wants baseball and that’s all they want, like, I don’t know if it would work for them. And so we get caught in this like thing of like our system is the best system, but really it’s just the best for our set of values and ethics and the way we do things, which is like hard for people to understand. Um,

Speaker 3: (20:31)
Well coming back to the Jeep flux thing, like death’s the big thing like Dean and I like really push or are really into pushing this like high flux model. And yeah, maybe it’s not for everyone, but if we can get, so this whole idea of, of, you know, we talk about nutrition is, is, you know, come back to this thing all the time with like, people are great at losing weight. People are awesome losing weight. They suck at maintaining that weight loss. And it’s like, what is, you know, the big hindrance it’s because they live in this constant state of energy, low energy availability. And like when in Costa Rica, when Dean came with like his whole talk about high flux, it’s like, so maybe it’s not the solution for everybody, but, but if people can live in that higher buffer zone of like, you know, being able to, if they under eat 500 calories or over 500 calories, the weight stays neutral.

Speaker 3: (21:22)
Like, Oh, all of a sudden now, you know, we’re playing into this world of like, Hey, if you go and have a cheeseburger, your world, isn’t wrecked. Yeah. And that’s where we want to get people to. And again, I’m like, even like within your model of like, you know, of med flax, like me personally, like people are like, Oh, you know, I’m mean I wake up now. I don’t eat carbs in the morning. And if anyone was like, Oh, what, what do you mean? You don’t eat carbs in the one I’m like, I just don’t like, I want to have higher fats for a certain point of the day. And I want to create a little bit more of a metabolic flexibility within myself because I need that to live my lifestyle now does everyone now, maybe not everyone wants that, but for me personally, like, is it the best thing for this that I don’t know, but I feel like it has to be a robust human. Like I probably want that to occur.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (22:10)
Yeah. I think you can either highly externally control your environment. And that will definitely work. I mean, I’ve never one in your family is onboard and there’s not a cookie to be found in your house and you’re very antisocial than, you know, everything else. And you kind of stay within your own world. Yeah. You can run that model, but I think it’s harder. I think it works, but I think you can do like a hybrid of, okay, how can you yes. Control your own environment. That’s a big thing. No questions asked if you bring cookies and set them on the counter, I can guarantee the cookies will disappear within a couple of days if you stare at them all the time. But also how do you, like you said, prepare someone to go out into the really real world. You know, if you’re neutral on 1200 calories, Ooh, that’s, that’s going to be hard because the real world is all about excess and all these other crazy foods and highly palatable foods. And it’s just, I think you need to do some hybrid of it. Where when you get released into the real world, you can handle some of those high glucose influx, caloric, influxes, and be okay without having it implode everything.

Speaker 2: (23:19)
And it informs the coaching because a lot of times when we coach people through this, we seem like, Oh man, this coach is awesome. He doesn’t want me to restrict. He doesn’t say drinking is bad and all this stuff I don’t have to. Yeah. It’s kind of a cool thing because I get buy in because I’m the dude who’s like, say, Hey, you can do all this stuff, but we’re also working them in a system because if you start out or like, but anyways, the way I start out is like, I’ll tell them straight up. Like, unless you’re willing to, like you said, cut out, like are ask them like, are you going to be able to do that? And like the people that can do that are engineers. I think we might even talk about this last time. Yeah. Engineers who liked stats and don’t like talking to people anyways.

Speaker 2: (23:56)
Boom. They can, they can cut out everything. And I think Jeff had a client like literally just kept losing and losing. He kept just raising calories, but like he would do anything that they said. And there’s a PR we probably know a few people like that. Those are the people. If you’re not that person like you’re done. And so like you tell them to cut out everything. And that’s what 1200 calories is essentially saying or 1100 or a thousand. Um, because you, you know that they’re gonna eat 1300 calories. So now you’re prescribing 900. That person’s life has to be a certain way and they’re not going to do that. There’s like I would challenge him on the fine.

Speaker 3: (24:27)
And Ben and I went through a pretty deep dive into, um, you know, what is, what does the literature say when you risk? When you’re restricting calories? And in the literature, people say, when people are reporting high levels of restraint eating, they gain weight. Well, we know that they’re not in a caloric deficit gaining weight, but what they are is they’re in this, this deficit of the mind where they’ve restricted so much in their mind, and yet they’re still eating in a caloric surplus, but psychologically they’re reporting this restrained eating model. So if we can give them now on the other side of things, when people have high levels of restraint eating and they show weight loss, they actually look to, um, they look at the ideas of tracking and measuring and weighing in a positive light. They see it as a positive. So all of a sudden these things that, that through this, you know, diet culture or whatever people label it, as that we see as negatives look at could be positives. When people see the results, it’s just when they don’t see results, they look at it as negative. So if you’re giving them this restraint model and they are actually still overeating, then you’re failing on two levels. Whereas if we can give them this abundance model and they end up losing weight, Holy, like this is different.

Speaker 2: (25:43)
Well, and you’re biasing it in a certain way. Like I know we have some control as coaches. Like we obviously hold there’s this power dynamic. But like when we talk about things and use certain words, it’s a lot easier when we’re talking about this abundance or G flux, or however you want to talk about it when we’re, we’re giving them grace. And there’s no judgment because we’re not trying to get them to restrict. So all the wording isn’t based around restriction, they almost get those positive associations with it because now tracking is used to get more, as opposed to this thing, where they coming in thinking they’re going to get less. And they’re because most people come into these things thinking it’s restriction. Like that’s what they’re coming to a diet for is they, they, they understand based on we’ll call it diet culture. That restriction is the way to the promised land. And w w if you get someone who’s like immediately, like, that, they’re like, what? And then we can start to build that thing that works in that study because that’s powerful knowledge. But if you, if you still coach it a certain way, you get that person that under reports and hates the whole thing. Perfect. That’s a great way to lose weight. Long-term perfect. But I

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (26:44)
Think a lot of it just even goes to the big revelation I had, which I’ve talked about at nauseum the several years ago was telling someone a negative. They cognitively understand it, but it’s the old, you know, don’t think of a pink elephant. Oh gosh. I just thought of a pink elephant. I told you don’t think of the pink elephant is like, don’t eat the Oreos, donate the cupcakes. You know, like you’re visually giving them this image that subconsciously they’re like cupcakes. I like cupcakes, energy debts. My body’s programmed for efficiency. There’s a cupcake on the counter son of a. I want the cupcake. Oh, wait, wait. He told me the cupcakes bad. Ooh. Oh, bad. Oh, now you just think about all the mental horsepower that they’re expanding there versus I want you to eat more protein. Here’s a protein looks like, um, have a chicken breast. That’s six ounces for lunch. Okay. Chicken breasts. Okay. Well, how do I cook it? There’s a few more steps, but you’re, you’re almost like you’re trying to buy us some in the correct direction and make it a little bit easier. Not harder.

Speaker 2: (27:45)
Y w and that’s where the mental stuff’s important too. Cause like what happens with the chicken breasts? Who it’s like, they have like our main issue with probably most of our guidelines. Jeff can maybe speak for itself, but like 120 grams of protein. Isn’t a lot for me. I get my breakfast, but like, I’ll have some dudes and some dudes who like eat meat. That’s like, they’re like, Oh my God, I’m so full. I can’t eat. Should I keep eating? Like, yeah, like, yeah, eat. And so now it’s a problem in that respect too.

Speaker 3: (28:13)
Well, I think Mike you’ve said multiple times, it’s like, like, like, ideally if we can get, you know, most males to have four boluses of like 40 grams of protein a day, like, is that hard? Like, it really shouldn’t be, especially like, I mean, I’m a hungry, like I’m eating, I haven’t had a protein shake. Like I had a lot of stomach issues last year when surprisingly, when I was eating 3,500 calories a day. And you know, I couldn’t like protein powders started like bothering me and I couldn’t. And now I don’t, I really, I mean, I’ll have a protein powder every once in a while. But for the most part, like my day is like, of course, and then Tommy and Ben scared me in Costa Rica that I don’t get any coli. And so like now every day I have like two or three eggs for breakfast.

Speaker 3: (28:53)
So like, but my morning, every day is like, okay, I’m gonna wake up. I’m gonna have three eggs. I’m going to have like, uh, like four ounces of ground beef and, um, a bunch of like lettuce and broccoli slaw and just mix that all together and put them that’s my breakfast. And then I fry up a pound of ground chicken. That’s a hundred grams of protein there that I’ll have over the next two meals. And I have dinner and it’s like, my proteins taken care of, I get 200 grams of protein without even thinking about it. And then I have people all the time. They’re like, Oh, how do I do this? And I was like, I mean, you can, you can have a shake. And like, you probably might want you to now, but like, long-term like that it, that I don’t think that a shake plays into the whole protein leverage theory. Like I think there’s going to have to be some chewing and some thermic effect in the average, like the reason that I want you to eat more protein is because, because the protein is probably not going to lead to weight gain, it’s going to add satiety. So if you pound in four shakes a day,

Speaker 2: (29:43)
She told them that I straight up tell them that I’m like, listen, poaching seeker here. It’s not about muscle. It’s not about the thermogenic effect of food. It burns more. You heard that, like, I literally just want you to problem solve you inherently problem solving. And you being full as. Then the protein is what I want. I’ll straight up tell them that. But it’s one of those things where the coaching informs the system and the system helps the coaching, which then helps the person not have these negative connotations because now they know why they’re doing it. But I also have no problem saying, it’s not that hard to get the protein. And I’m cool with saying that we’re like, there’s a lot of systems and be like, Oh, don’t shame them and stuff. I’m like, no, that’s. Like this will help them. And if you coach it right, like I’m totally willing to double down and plant my flag on certain things that have like killed 10 birds with one stone. And so you kind of get the freedom to be confident to say that message without offending people, which like you said, it’s easy. Jim’s like 90 grams in the morning done.

Speaker 3: (30:35)
Yeah. And, um, one of the things that I have this conversation with people and like, I won’t work with a lot of vegans. And it’s because from an ethical standpoint is, you know, there’s been like some position stands or within started, or people say like, Hey, we’re just going to give them less protein. I’m like, I’m not willing to do that because I know that they’re not getting bioavailable proteins and complete proteins as it is. And so then I’m going to say like, it’s cool to eat 75 grams of, so you’re getting 50 grams of protein and then I’m putting you in a deficit. No, I’m not going to do that. Now, if you are willing to do the things that’s required. And as a vegan, it’s going to suck. You’re going to probably have to be high flux because you’re going to be getting a lot of carbs and fats along with your protein sources. So we’re going to have to move you. And if you want to be this, like, Hey, I’m just going to eat, you know, some Tempe once a day and then like a half a cup of lentils, like it’s not going to work and I’m not going to do that because I don’t feel ethically that that’s okay.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (31:30)
Yeah. I’ve never heard about that. Yeah. And I’ve had some vegan clients that I just straight up tell them like, Hey, my first question is, why are you a vegan? And if it’s a, an ethical religious type thing. Okay, cool. Then we’re fine. That’s fine. But if you’re like, I had a client a while back, I was like, ah, I read some stuff that this is a more healthy way to go. And he was a big dude. And I’m like, man, I said, here’s what we’ll do. Will you try it for a week? But I want you to hit at least 120 grams of protein. Now this is well below what I think you should be at. And we’ll run the log, everything. I’ll give you all the info. And you tell me how this went. He’s like, this is horrible. He’s like, I can’t eat any more beans. I can’t eat any more of this. You know? So I kinda tell them up front, like, we can do this, but it’s going to be harder. Now, if you’re a male and you can take like rice, protein shakes or something like that, that’s not too bad. But if you’re a vegan, who’s like, Oh, I don’t like protein powders either. Woo, woo boy. It can be done. But it’s, it’s just going to be hard.

Speaker 3: (32:35)
I had a guy, I had a guy who was a doctor and he decided he wanted to go plan feast. And he was like five foot eight, like 375 pounds. And I’m like, why? Because it’s a healthier Mt. Model. I was like, so just out of curiosity, what do you think would be healthy for you to lose 150 pounds? Are you to continue to eat garbage or take your, your vegan foods, but still weigh 370? Like you’re a doctor. And I think he wasn’t a cardiology. He might’ve been GP or something, but I’m sitting here. I’m like, how can you look at these things and understand how metabolically unhealthy you are? And, and granted, he was plant-based and then every weekend would, you know, be like, yeah, I had a meatball sub and a cheese steak. And I’m like, so you choose to go off your vegan diet, eat like straight dumpster food, but you won’t eat a chicken breast. There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance. Sometimes the smartest

Speaker 2: (33:24)
Or the worst. Well, that’s where we go to this coaching thing. Even remember Ben. So Ben has this QA first curse. I know we’re pushing Ben’s course. And you have a course too, which is awesome.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (33:33)
But we had this course

Speaker 2: (33:34)
And we had case study. It was like this vegan. And like, I kind of went off and out because he’s like, well, what would you do if you, and I was like, I wouldn’t, I don’t want to work with them. And Jim’s like, I haven’t, that’s not my avatar. He’s like, well, what would you do? Like you have some vegans you’re gonna work with them on, well, I would treat them like everyone else, like, like, like you were saying, can you hit these things? Like, I don’t care if you’re a vegan or keto and stuff. And it sounded super harsh, but I almost thought about it afterwards. I’m like, yeah. I think part of it is like, I’m not treating them like they’re special, which is a lot of the reason why people join vegan, vegan as many ways they saw this documentary and they want to be special. Like everyone else, it’s like, well, you’re not. And you have to do all the same stuff. So figure it out. Um, and if you can make it work, it’ll work.

Speaker 3: (34:12)
It’ll be fine. But I think that’s where, again, coming back to this high flux model is like, if, if we can push their energy availability up and you push the food up, because we know that like, listen is a, is a dude going to hit as high a protein? Probably not. But if I can get a guy to hit 150 grams of protein a day and he has to be at 3000 calories, so be it. But I can get him moving enough at 3000 calories that he’s cranking through. He’s working out hard, like the dudes going to be a beast. But if I have to keep him at 1800 calories or 1500 calories, like he’s not getting protein in, he’s not going to train hard. He’s not going to do any of the things that, that are going to drive that. And,

Speaker 2: (34:50)
And that’s where you, you can backdoor the stuff that we want through the energy expenditure part of it. And like that’s a tougher sell, especially depending on we’re using vegans. But the correlation of vegans is they’re stubborn. But if they’re stubborn and they watch Netflix documentaries, um, they need a more, they need a documentary about steps and, um, energy expenditure. That would be great. Cause then everyone would actually get on that. We would solve it.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (35:13)
I wonder how long that would last. I mean, there’s like the old study as you saw of, um, like they put up signs in front of, uh, elevators and trying to get people to use the stairs. And I don’t remember how long the study was, but it did show that it did help. It did on a general population level. But again, you’re talking about like the lowest barrier to entry. Like the assumption is almost nobody uses a stairs. So anything going up is going to be a benefit. Um,

Speaker 2: (35:44)
Oprah is the way like or Oprah, like people, um, because when Oprah, this is, this is my mom’s story, but, um, she was, she’s still doing 10,000 steps. And like, I won’t give him to my mother’s health, but I thought it was stupid back in the day, but it was definitely Oprah. They got them on it. So it’s like, you need someone. That’s what I said, documentary.

Speaker 3: (36:02)
Yeah. I’m finding a lot of client now. This is not me. Cause I’m not, I’m not pushing this and they’re not on their own. A lot of my clients have come to this, um, that, that I’ve been seeing a lot more success in movement because they’re doing these ring challenges or whatever on their, their Apple watch. So you have to close rings. I don’t really know what it is. Cause I don’t have an Apple watch and you actually need to go look, but it’s like a challenge, but each day you have to close your rings and it’s like, one might be steps and one might be sleep. Yeah. So it’s like, it’s literally close your rings or whatever. But a lot of my clients who have engaged in these things have been hitting all their steps because at the end of the day, you know, they might be just going and doing laps around their bed before bed.

Speaker 3: (36:39)
I don’t know, but I don’t care either because they’re like, they don’t want to go to bed without this because then they’re not going to get through the 30 day challenge thing. And I’m like, sweet. And it’s like, this is where tech and you might, you use tack like you use it. You use HRV not to tell people not to work out. You have to be like, Hey, like, listen, if we’re doing the right things, all of a sudden, these things kind of tend to line up. So Hey, why don’t we do all these right things,

Speaker 2: (37:03)
Man, this is, this is totally how they get over everything. And they’re like, Hey, listen, you want an extra ring to get to your challenge. You need to buy this app. Okay. You need to go do something there. They’re totally training people. I’m wondering I’m skeptical now. Where are they going with this? It’s not the big, yeah.

Speaker 3: (37:20)
Well who cares? Who cares? What their intention is? Like, no, like seriously, like this is, you know, Ben talks a lot about intent versus impact, right? Like your intent doesn’t really matter if you’re not making an impact. And if you are making an impact, maybe your intent doesn’t matter. Like what, what is it? Is it about this? Is this about making you feel good as being the one that, you know, there’s, this is about getting the outcome you want. And so if I can find it, like you say, Dean, like if I can find a backdoor in to get the outcome, I want like, I don’t really give a. Like it’s, it’s, it’s going to help them in the long run. And they’re going to come around to get that intent, that, that, uh, of building autonomy and efficacy and stuff by using this external, uh, stimulus.

Speaker 2: (37:58)
And that’s where it’s like, even with coaching stuff. And I know we’re talking about energy expenditure, but like, it really does give us more options. Right? Because then you can use your coaching shops that do however you want. But when it is not just about food, because I think that’s where a lot of the negative connotations coming from because everyone understands food or at least they understand more foods, bad. Like this is garbage dumpster food is, it’s just devastating, healthy, healthy food. And like, when I’m going to go on a diet, I’m going to eat less. Like everyone understands that. And it’s like, that’s like almost it’s a negative it’s working against us because that’s what they expect. And that’s what they pay for. So it’s like, it’s you almost want to cheat. You want to backdoor stuff. Like I know that sounds crazy. But like right now people don’t understand that other end of the equation. So you, you have to either explain it really well, have external, whatever Pokemon go was a good example or the rings stuff that you can do. Or you have to coach, you have to coach.

Speaker 4: (38:53)
Yeah. Well, and just hard people. People have argued that it’s manipulative and, and maybe it is a little bit manipulative, but like sometimes,

Speaker 2: (39:03)
I mean, the argument that we had, um, we had Gabby from Dario and, um, is it Hannah beers? And like, I wouldn’t ask it up. I’m like, what’s the dark side of all. This is like, is manipulation bad? Like there’s this moral, ethical thing where like, I’m like, I’m okay. I’m okay. Manipulating it a little bit. If it works. I mean, that makes me a little bit dangerous if I’m a complete psychopath, but like, I like to think that I’m not. And like I would say you guys, I still have two people that think I’m not right. Um,

Speaker 4: (39:27)
Was on the dish

Speaker 2: (39:29)
Out of this thing is the same thing. The same tactics, the crazy people use to push the insulin model of whatever. Or, you know what I mean? Our push, all this stuff that we now know doesn’t work based on science, but they have a huge following, um, can be used for, for good it’s. We’re when we talked about this with Pat, I know we’re throwing a lot of names, but about this fine line between a guru and someone who’s actually like trying to like do something it’s very fine. But I think that if you walk that in an ethical and moral way, at least to yourself, you can probably get a lot of these things. But on the other end, it’s, you’re using the same tactics. All the crazy people use, which is, which is scary for a lot of people. And a lot of the reasons why a lot of this doesn’t happen because we’re as an industry, we, we like to really Villa vilify, all the people that are successful without actually taking the stuff that they did successfully and using it for what they quote unquote think is the right way. And so we’re in a losing battle. So why not, yeah. Be a little manipulative, it. Results.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (40:24)
I’ve gotten a news more end equals one. And even writing more about my own personal experiments and stuff, just because that’s what people remember. And you know, like they’ll remember that more than the 30 references I’ve put on there. Like, all right. I don’t remember any of that. Oh, I remember the one guy who ate the 400 grams and his blood glucose. Wasn’t crazy. You know, the survey story from, uh, from Ben house and stories like that. People are like, what? That guy did that a client of mine. Um, Cimarron. I told him to post recently he had a Duxa so he’s sub 10% is a, guy’s a male eating 400 grams of carbohydrates a day. So he posted this on Facebook the other day with this pictures, very shredded dude. And he’s like, yeah. And after I eat all my calories, I had like a whole container of ice cream at night. People are like, what? Like the emails you get from people, like, how can he wait? Oh my God. I thought like carbs made you fat, but here’s this guy who’s at 400 grams. We have data and pictures to show that he’s pretty lean. So now my theory of like all carbs make you fat, like the amount of cognitive dissonance that sets up on purpose, like people are like woo

Speaker 2: (41:38)
To nauseum. I mean, that’s where the thing is. You’re like, but they’re like, yeah, but the pictures were more successful than like literally everything you’ve written since the beginning of when you started writing about this stuff and you’re like to like, and I even I’m guilty of this too. Even with some of your articles or jabs or bands, I’m like, I’m not reading all the studies right now because I’m looking I’m on my phone and I’m in front of the TV. I’m not going to like, try to see if you’re right. I’m just going to trust you. But like, most people don’t even get that far. They’re like, well just let me see the pictures. And then it’s even like, with, with that study you were talking about with, with Serbia and stuff. I think the other one that kind of got to me was the one guy eat rice cakes and his, his blood, his blood glucose popped.

Speaker 2: (42:20)
And so to me that was like, Oh, like individuality is a thing. And there’s it’s context dependent. I’m like, okay, at that dinner, I just thought carbs are carbs. And then this was like years ago. Yeah. And I’m like, it really stuck with me where it’s like food foods for different people can, they can react differently to them. And so if you want to go down that rabbit hole, there is something there. If people are having problems and I’m like, Oh, I remember that. I don’t even have an idea of what study that was or whatever, where you could find the article on it. I just knew that story. So it is yeah.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (42:47)
Yeah. Yeah. That’s more powerful to the average population than the frigging Wiseman study. They posted and sell that. I don’t know how many frigging years it took them to do the thing, but it was crazy. I study even Rob Wolf because he wrote about this in his book wire deed, which is a great book. Like he would post his blood glucose response and his wife’s blood glucose response to like the same food. And they’d be like radically different, you know? And that was like a brilliant marketing strategy, educational strategy, just all around because people could relate to it.

Speaker 3: (43:18)
And then at the end of the day you go, huh, what’s the results. Cause maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe they both got results with completely different blood glucose spikes. You know, maybe it just didn’t matter in this context because they train their asses off. They, you know, mostly eating whole foods. They’re moving around a lot, you know, they’re metabolically healthy. So maybe if we, maybe we nail those things down,

Speaker 2: (43:45)
It looks to me like, w we’re trying to build that presentation and I’m trying to present something and I’m like, Oh, I can, all you all, you guys tell really good stories when you do it. It was like, I know what the Amish are. Like, I don’t know the homage, but I like have this idea of the armors. They’re like these skinny cut-up dudes that like work and they refuse to use tools. And some, I already kind of knew all that. And then I went and read the study and it was just like literally saying what Jeff said. They, they work. They, they moved a lot and they kind of eat like. And they were, and like, that’s a good story. Like everyone can, everyone knows the Amish are crazies.

Speaker 3: (44:18)
I had my session with Lisa this morning. And so she’s like, what are you talking about on this podcast? And I was explaining like, Dean and I are really talking. We were talking more about this high flux model more and more every day. Like, and, and the story that I tell is the Amish study, because when Dean pulled that up to me, like, I don’t know why, but this, anyone who knows who the Amish are, like, you automatically are like, okay, I know this guy, right. He’s, he’s on a horse and buggy, he’s farming, he’s walking around, he’s hammering, he’s building a barn with, you know, with wooden nails and like, you know, plays tetherball, like, and then he shows up at the farmer’s market and all they bring is like pie and coffee cake. And like, like these guys, when did the, like the, the Dean sent me the, the art, the initial

Speaker 2: (45:03)
I’m like, you have to look at this. I think I’m, I, I, I swear. I found something that even Mike didn’t find, I’m like, you have to read this. Like, I might be crazy.

Speaker 3: (45:10)
The thing that hit me is like, the average guy is like, there’s only 150 pounds, but he’s under 10% body fat. Yeah. And even if they measured the body fat way wrong,

Speaker 2: (45:24)
They mentioned that six. So it was probably wrong. They’re probably,

Speaker 3: (45:27)
Well, like, let’s say they’re 15% still. That’s still the average guy. Like, that’s an insane number. And like, I’m sitting here. I’m like, Holy crap. Like that to me, if, I mean, granted, I also like spent three nights awake because when, when, uh, when James Krieger started posting about the gravitas, if that thing, so maybe, maybe I’m just way psyched about things that nobody else cares about. But like, to me, if you can sell that story and tell someone like, Hey, here’s the Amish like, boom. Then they’ll be like, Oh, okay. Like they’re not living, they’re living in aesthetic lifestyle. Sure. But they’re not restricting on food. They’re not restrict. They don’t, there’s not a single one of these guys under 10% who’s ever weighed anything.

Speaker 2: (46:12)
And they don’t, they’re not sitting there counting their macros. And either, definitely not like sitting there and being like, Oh my God pie is bad. They don’t even, they don’t even have the internet. They don’t even get to have those thoughts because they never got indoctrinated into this system. Literally chose to be out of it. So it’s interesting. Like, and I think people could be more like that. I know, I know it’s simple story, but it’s like, that also might be a negative because then they also think that they have to work hard, which people don’t like doing. Um, so that’s, that’s, I guess that’s the biggest barrier,

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (46:42)
But I think that’s an argument for recreation too. And I’ve never done this before about exercise versus recreation. And man, some of the people I have are like super hardcore into fitness to get them to do anything recreational. It’s like pulling teeth, you know? And I’m like, dude, just go play tennis, have fun, go play basketball, go, you know, do do whatever. Just have fun. Well, do I need to take my Apple watch with, do I need to measure my heart rate variability before and after? No, go have fun. Like go learn to surf, go learn to freaking kiteboard do something like, don’t worry about everything else.

Speaker 2: (47:16)
You see Kyle’s posts that you did a Q and a, we were just dropping all our friends names. What he’s used to like your kids, your kids work out. And he’s like, no, like they, they do recreation like all day. Like I, I don’t want them necessarily right now to have that in their mind, because again, that’s that negative. I don’t even know if it’s a negative, but there’s this like, um, restriction that model ish. It’s not abundant. So basically he’s like, yeah, they just do stuff all day. Like that’s kind of how, like, it’s probably a better way to do things. We’re the weird ones.

Speaker 3: (47:46)
Yeah. We’re definitely, I mean, I definitely think like when, you know, it’s a little bit safer and I can go back to BJJ and like, okay, well then I have to, I’m already thinking about like, wow, this is really going to change my hypertrophy model because I definitely can’t recover the same. Like there’s no thought of me of going and doing anything for fun. But I do for now that now that we’re in South Carolina, like Sarah and I were talking like, like, we’re going to, I want to power on a paddleboard. We’re gonna do some paddle boards, go down the river, go to the ocean and like do things that are like, well, you said it’s, it’s not, it’s not extra. I’m not going to train. I’m going. Cause I want to be outside and like be in the sun and like get some light and some vitamin D and it’s warm and that’s what I should be doing. But it’s like getting that, my head wrapped around that when I’ve been in New York city for 10 years. And like, anything I do is like, this has to be training. Like everything is training. Yeah.

Speaker 2: (48:34)
And that is where, like, I don’t know like where your thoughts are on this, but it’s like that did the training. Do you ever get this? And maybe this is a question. I know you’re the podcast host. But with, with, um, I like the separate steps outside of training. Not necessarily for the same reason that everyone does it, but it’s just like, um, people, this idea is that they can outwork a bad diet because of training or because they, they lift like a bro, like there’s no way they can get fat. I almost want to separate the two. Not because it’s like it expends energy differently just because it it’s segments them in their brain differently. You know what I mean? That they don’t get that bias because it’s just like, I don’t give a what you do in the gym. Like I do just, I give a about steps. And so I try to isolate it because I want them to isolate it so that they have that correlation between more movement equals skinny.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (49:22)
Yeah. I mean, even when I did the flex diet, sir, I mean, I have neat, right? So non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which is basically measuring steps as easiest way to do it in reality. And exercise is like completely different interventions for the exact same reason you mentioned, because I don’t want people to kind of lump them together because the reality is I can then play with them as two separate variables. And I think just saying, okay, I want you to hit at least a base level here just for general health and just movement. And you can get into, you know, non-insulin mediated uptake and blah, blah, blah, that kind of stuff. But I find it’s just much easier to even with clients, okay. Just send me a putting chronometer what is your step count at the end of the day? And we’ll, we’ll just, you know, track it that way initially. And that’s independent of what I’m having them do for exercise or even recreation,

Speaker 2: (50:15)
Easy story for me to do. I usually always cause like, they’ll be like, yeah, but I got like 20,000 on my run. Like, don’t give a. And they’re like, well, what do you mean? Like, they should be the same thing. I’m like, how many, like you’ve done marathons, I’ve done some races. I’m like, how many, how many people do you see doing your fun runs like, Ooh, whether it has anything to do with the steps or not. It’s like, I want them to stick in their head, like, okay, I’m going to track it differently. I don’t want to be that person. But I find like that person, if you look at their life, they do conserve energy in neat. Um, a lot of times, like if I ever look at a CrossFitter or whoever, someone who like recreationally does lifting or whatever, usually the biggest correlation to their sticking point is, is yeah. A little bit of food. Like we control that, but it’s always neat. Like, it’s almost like I wish I was wrong sometimes, but every time cemetery, 2000 steps a day. And you’re like, what the? But they work hard. So they don’t feel like they need to. And they don’t even know that that process is happening until they see that number. And it, every single time, like, I, I, I that’s now I’m a guru, but

Speaker 3: (51:16)
Every single, I think that’s why COVID has been such an interesting experiment as a coach is, is there’s this double-sided thing is like for people who are very extroverted and their biggest issue is food and environmental, uh, uh, situations where eating out and being around, man COVID was awesome. I got them in restriction. And then when things started loosening up, all of a sudden they started like, I don’t understand why are things changing? I’m like, because you’re going out to eat three times a week and drinking with your friends and you feel that that is that you necessarily have to do that. On the other hand, you had people like personal trainers or anyone who worked in like any kind of industry like that, where they were on their feet all day, move around and then their, their activity just got smaller. And so they were, they were hampered by COVID and then things started to open up and they’re were back to like, Oh, now I’m moving around 10 hours a day.

Speaker 3: (52:03)
Like not even thinking about it, like changed everything. I’m active. I’m not sitting on my and thinking about like, well, I guess I’ll just eat a bag of chips. Like, so there was this, this dichotomy of like who it worked for and who didn’t. And we’ve watched it go through shutdown to opening back, to shut down. And it’s like, all of a sudden that has been such a great coaching experience for me is to learn that like we have to work on, on controlling the things that people feel out of control with and using those variables such as meat or environment as like this pushed. And like you said, and of one it’s like, that’s where we really have to like push pull and like, okay, maybe these are the things, these are the levers we need to pull on less than like, Oh, just get more steps. You need less food that it’s like, Oh wait, what are the things that are really kind of activating those pathways?

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (52:53)
Yeah. Another thing I do too, is I’ll stack multiple reasons why they should do something together so that they’ll get to the point where they almost just can’t at least cognitively ignore it. So like, I’ll say, okay, I want you to get up in the morning and just go for a short am walk. Well, I don’t know. I want to do that. That’s a pain in the. I got to get up a little bit earlier. I’m like, yeah, I get it. But, uh, you’re going to be able to move a lot more. So if we look at your step count, it’ll probably be a lot higher just because you’ve gotten even like 10 minutes of movement in the morning. Okay. I mean, I still don’t do it like, Oh, do you know another reason is that because you’re in a fasted state, you’ll actually use fat a little bit more as an energy source.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (53:30)
Oh, okay. Like, Oh, and did you want another reason is that when you don’t have sunglasses or you’re not behind windows do get better, you know, photo regulation because the photons are hitting the back of the eye and it goes to the STN and basically you’ll feel more alert during the day and sleep here at night. Oh, okay. All right. So basically I just keep stacking reasons and reasons till it gets to the point where they can’t come up with any reason not to do it. So at least cognitively now they’re on board. It doesn’t automatically mean they’re going to do it. Um, but that’s sometimes kind of an effective way to

Speaker 3: (54:03)
I’ll tell you what. I stopped. I stopped wearing sunglasses on my morning walk because of that probably a couple of months ago. And I’ve noticed I have more energy in the mornings. It gets me.

Speaker 2: (54:16)
I don’t wear sunglasses ever because I’m too cheap. And I get the $10 ones at the gas station and they always break. And then, so I’m going to be blind, but at least I’ll be awake in the morning.

Speaker 3: (54:26)
Um, cause I try to look cool when I leave the house, but Oh, I should though. Now that, now that my GM’s in my garage, I might as well. Yeah. But like honestly, the mask things was a big, uh, indicate maker. Maybe stop wearing sunglasses a lot because in New York, like we, we wear masks too. Like here, it’s not a big deal. Cause you just walk around, like you don’t need a mask to go walk around the neighborhood in New York. You’re like, well, so you’re wearing masks every time you leave, everyone’s freaked out. You know, we, we got crushed so bad. So like everyone wears a mask all the time, but your sunglasses are fogging up. You’re like, I’m not going to wear sunglasses. Like I’ve got to wear a mask. So I can’t wear sunglasses

Speaker 2: (55:02)
Another, another. So basically COVID helped you for another thing too. God extroverts skinny. Yeah.

Speaker 3: (55:08)
Honestly, like I hate saying it, but like COVID is not like Dobbs. And I actually had this conversation on, on DMS about like for a guy like me, whose life was kind of sitting in front of the computer and working out. Like the only thing I took away was jujitsu, which was pretty big, but like I don’t have much of a social life and I, you know, just like work in front of a computer and it, now that I can work out my garage, I’m like,

Speaker 2: (55:32)
Well, it’s like, look at the silver, looking at the silver lining. That’s a little bit better than personal is that it’s forced a lot of coaches to, again, like you said, look at a lot of these variables and just even critically evaluate why things worked like that extrovert example was perfect. Like I have actually a few people where it’s like, it literally got them in line, but it wasn’t COVID it was, it was, it was the other stuff, even though the correlation is COVID, but it’s like, how can you manufacture? That actually sounds horrible. I don’t want to manufacture COVID but conditions like COVID in reality when post COVID, it looks like there’s strategies around that. And it’s the same that we were talking about. It’s this? I think we have stories now where we can enlighten people to, Hey, maybe this will work and I don’t know. It’s cool.

Speaker 3: (56:16)
I think a lot of people would, were putting their resp there. They felt a social responsibility to other people that, that, um, actually, Oh, outweighed the personal responsibility of reaching their own goals. And once these people started to see that they were like, Holy, my life has been about, it’s more important to go meet my friend for drinks because they had a bad day than for me to do the things that are going to get me to the point that I want to be at. And that’s a huge, huge, huge awakening for a lot of people.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (56:47)
Oh yeah. And for me, the other part I noticed too, is that we only took two trips, were gone in July for a little while, took a road trip. We were gone for five, six weeks recently. And to go from, I figured it out the other day for like three years in a row. The longest I was home in a row is two and a half weeks with the exception of last fall. I was home for six weeks in a row. And then to be home that entire time. I mean, it, it, it feels weird. I mean, I still love teaching. I missed, you know, like seeing all you guys and everyone at conferences, but outside of that for, for training and everything else, it’s easier because like, I go to bed at like the same bed I wake up in the same place, you know, like it’s, I have everything I need in my, my garage.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (57:31)
I couldn’t get to the gym. Wasn’t a big deal, you know? And just, I’ve worked more during this time than I probably ever have before. And it’s sometimes kind of forget that like, Oh yeah, like you can make pro, even though you’re on paper, I’m always still training. I was still eating somewhat decent, you know, but just, I think the consistency just stacked up from like one day to the next, to the next of, you know, getting a half hour more sleep, getting higher quality sleep, you know, probably eating a little bit better because I can control more of the food, getting to the gym more often having the equipment I want outside my door, you know, all those little things add up over time too.

Speaker 2: (58:08)
W you were the hardest avatar. Um, like when we were doing the case studies with the group, like probably the hardest thing, traveling, the traveling professional and like, you were probably the best person to do it because you understand it all and you still have troubles doing it. You know what I mean? So if you can’t do it, like I’m CA coach Betty who travels for her, her medical sales job to like figure out all these variables. Like the only one that’s I can control really is steps. Yeah.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (58:38)
I realized just when I was traveling was like, okay, yeah, I’m still going to try and I’m going to do all of the things, but I completely dropped my expectation of what I wanted to do. And you kind of have to decide at that point, you’re like, eh, at the time my body count wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t really a priority. I wasn’t unhealthy all my blood work was fine. So I’m like, I’m just going to leave it as it is. I’m not going to try to ride four horses and burn myself out. It’s just like, okay, this let them do for this period of time. As long as they don’t become unhealthy or morbidly obese long as everything is going okay, then I’m going to be fine with that. I’m going to prioritize this other stuff at this point. But then when that gets removed, you’re like, okay, well now it’s time to flip that. And I’m going to prioritize the other stuff because don’t have this thing going

Speaker 4: (59:22)
On.

Speaker 3: (59:24)
Yeah. And I think, honestly, that’s a big conversation I have with people constantly is priorities. Like it, it’s okay to not prioritize fat loss and prioritize like work or like that’s okay. Like maintain, like put one thing on the back burner, maintain it, and then come back to that quality when you’re ready to prioritize it.

Speaker 2: (59:41)
But that’s where manipulation comes in.

Speaker 4: (59:45)
Because like, this is, this is like a psycho is inherently.

Speaker 2: (59:50)
I like, I emphasize that. It’s like, Oh, this is not what you don’t think is giving us. We do the rest of your blood. I know, like I know, and I say this like straight up, I’m like, I can ethically and morally say and with experience and with tons of people that like, you can figure out your steps. So let’s just say that model of, of whatever, not focusing on this or you’re traveling. Like we’ll just, the calories are a little bit higher. Cool. We’re already working at keeping your calories a little bit higher, perfect. That fits your lifestyle. Now you just have to move more. And then really, I depends on the exercise and not, I literally just disregard exercise. Like I don’t, but I’m like, if you got it, you got it. But I don’t push that. The first thing, because then you kill two birds with one stone is like, can we start to eat more so that whatever you’re not focusing on on weight loss is not even, you don’t even have to focus on it.

Speaker 2: (01:00:36)
It’ll just happen. And then you’re, then you’re now saying, do rouland button look, I mean, it definitely, um, yeah. I don’t know that. That’s why a lot of this stuff, if we can work towards this more abundance model, we solve a lot of the problems without having to actually do anything. You know what I mean, by just doing the thing. And then we solve these coaching logistical problems in people’s lives. And these judgment problems you’re judging me or shaming me. He goes, I didn’t, I’m not trying to focus on this. That’s all gone because that’s inherently a restrictive food mindset that we’re not, we’re not even playing that game anymore, which is powerful because it makes coaching way easier. If you can kind of get on board with it, it’s just, you have to be confident in selling that story, which is, that is the hard part.

Speaker 3: (01:01:17)
You think he’s saying it makes coaching easier. It makes cause you way harder, you don’t have to be a good coach. They get to because when you have, you have a background in education and you’ve been working with people for, you know, 10, 12 years. Yeah. Of course, that it feels like it’s easier.

Speaker 4: (01:01:33)
Well, I don’t know. It’s hard what it does. It’s really good for me. It’s easier.

Speaker 2: (01:01:36)
I don’t have to answer a lot of these questions. Cause it’s the same answer. It’s like, listen to, what about this? What about this? No, to this answer, I’m literally giving you this one answer for like 10 things. So don’t ask me this question again, because I’m going to give you, and I’ll give you the same answer and that’s, that’s maybe where it’s easier. It’s totally hard to do. Cause you got to understand how this stuff works. But, um, I don’t know. I just don’t like food as a restrictive model. Like that’s kind of where I see a lot of the problems with this industry is the inherent lack of understanding of the energy out system. But even even the lack of understanding of the psychological that comes with telling people eat less food. Like, and we totally that’s staying that. We get people to eat less food. Like I get it CECO deficits. Yes. But it doesn’t have to be a thousand calorie deficit. That’s crazy talk. But that’s usually where people start like, well, 1200 calories. And like I’m a nutrition coach now.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:02:29)
Yeah. It’s amazing to me. And I, I talked to Ben Polsky about this awhile ago too. And he was telling me, he’s like, it’s like, dude, you should just be the person who talks about the interface of nutrition and exercise. Cause he’s like, no one really talks about that. It’s indirect. And I was like, what? And I’m like, Holy crap. He’s right. You know, because like I switched my whole model six years ago because I did training only I did nutritional name and most people did the combination, but I had a lot of people who were doing them separate. And then when I look back, I just quit because every single person that did it separate was a disaster. If part of their goal was body cop. Because the person where I’m the only paying you for nutrition and I can talk about step count.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:03:15)
I can talk about how their coaches just brutalizing them with exercise. They can’t recover from, or you have the exercise only model. And they’re like, I don’t know why I’m just not getting any leaner. I can’t figure it out. You know? So I just said, screw this. Even, even with very high level athletes, I’ll only do nutrition or movement. If I actually know their coach and can physically call them on the phone and be like, Hey coach, why were you having them do this or that? Because that’s usually a completely different story than what the athletes telling me. So if I don’t have that direct line to that person who I know and trust, I’m like I have to control both of these variables or at least have permission to do something about them because I need the leverage to get you the result that you want. Otherwise you’re just gonna be mad at me. And I’m going to like,

Speaker 3: (01:04:03)
Um, with, with the world, the girl that I’ve coached in the world, America’s strongest woman. We’re going for world’s next. It’s in like eight months, Sunday, I have a call with her and her, her strength coach. Cause we need a period as the next year. Like, and when you’re talking to lead athletes, like that’s like, that’s kind of the kind of period station that happens. Like you better be on board with everything. And like you said, if you’re not, if you’re not looking at that’s the training side of things, I mean, we’ll forget it.

Speaker 2: (01:04:27)
And that’s the thing. No, one’s going to argue with that. Like you even get the crazy people that talk about starvation mode, they agree with you. Cause they’re like, Oh, they get to eat more food. Like literally every crazy is like, no one can really disagree that everyone knows exercise is good. That’s kind of what the studies show is. Like there’s no one way they all work, whatever. Um, and then we know that calories in calories out works and like for some reason, no one actually combines the two. And like that actually blows my mind. Like it’s like this, it’s like, it’s like underground coaching. It’s like, Oh yeah. Do you know? We like, we combined steps in exercise and food and like, Oh, that makes sense. They all work. And who’s going to disagree. You should move more. It’s helpful. No, one’s going to say no, I’m going to move less. Like duh, like I just, it just literally, I can’t like wrap my mind around like why this isn’t taking, am I in my, the stupid one? Maybe I’m the stupid one.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:05:20)
Well, I think anytime you’re, it’s a self it’s a selling thing. Right? Look at any fad. Like if you want to write a fad book, right. You’re just going to demonize some food and just convince people that it’s easy. Right. Because I kind of makes sense. Right? Humans are wired for efficiency. We have subconsciously we want to do things that are easier. I mean, I remember even trying to increase my step count. I was working offsite at a co-working place and I’m like, okay, I’m going to park farther away. So I get more steps walking in, in the morning, literally by day two, I realized, instead of walking all the way around the end of the cars, I had cut a shortcut through all of the cars, back to my car, like unconsciously. And I caught myself on the third day. I’m like, why did I do, what am I doing? But that, that’s how you’re, that’s how you’re wired. Right? That’s the default mode they’re going to go into

Speaker 2: (01:06:14)
Without that happening

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:06:16)
Without the habit or any cognitive oversight or paying a coach or, you know, literally taking years and years and years to retrain that the other way.

Speaker 2: (01:06:26)
Well, that’s where this working out at home thing is, is tough. Like I can even relate to that. Like, so we have our BJJ gym is closed, but they have solo sessions. You’ve got to wear your mask. There’s no coaches, you just follow the workout and hit the bag. And like, I have that at home and I’ve found myself literally, like I was like, yeah, I’m going to go. I’m going to go. I’m going to go. Um, I signed up to go cause you have to sign up in advance. And like, I’m like kind of like Andrew has done work in, relay on the couch. I kind of pass out for like 10 minutes. And then I wake up. I’m like, yeah, I’m not going. But had there been a coach there and had I had, I knew I was going to get something out of it.

Speaker 2: (01:06:57)
Like I was going to learn this new skill and I’m going to fight and it’s going to help when it was all on me. I was like, yeah, I’m good. And like, but, and I didn’t even know it. And then I was doing it. I’m like, I knew what I was doing. And I’m like, I’m still doing it. Cause it was like, this is way too. It’s taken way too much control. And like, I don’t even want to think about this anymore. It’s done. I know, I know myself and I know evolution. I’m not doing it. So I’m literally hitting cancel as I think about hitting, cancel, knowing it’s a bad thing. Like, and that’s everything people do. Those unconscious unconsciously, I’m doing it consciously knowing that my, my unconscious self is way, has way more control, which is sad. Yeah.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:07:33)
But what if you had an Apple watch that had half a ring open on it? Would you then do it?

Speaker 2: (01:07:39)
No, it would be money. If I was, if someone was like, you’re going to, you’re going to lose two, even $2 for not going, I’m going to penalize you. I would go. For sure. I’m so cheap. Like, so it’s, it’s more of a cost thing for me, but like that’s inherently, maybe the 4g, if you know, if you know your motivator, like that’s a big deal. A lot of people have no idea what, yeah. That’s I even tell people that I’m like, even with our coaching stuff is like, I feel, and I truly feel this. I feel like a lot of people’s success. Isn’t knowing the right variables. It’s literally, they just need to pay someone. They, you call. I stole your thing

Speaker 3: (01:08:16)
From my blog post this morning, by the way, Dean. Yeah. From the discussion we had yesterday, it’s like, listen, if you’re, if you’re trying to, to, if you’re relying on the people you pay for your motivation, you’re screwed.

Speaker 2: (01:08:28)
I don’t even want to like talk about it. But it was just like, if your main motivator is like a trainer, a nutritionist, a massage therapist. I like God like a church. Like literally all of those things are the most fragile things ever. They could literally leave in a second. You’re. And there there’s a lot of people that are their whole model of like trying to stay healthy is dependent on other people. And even with COVID like a lot of that came crashing down. Now you’re. And as a coach, like, I don’t want that for people. And I don’t think either of us do, but it’s like, how can you coach in a way? And I think Jeb, actually I saw that email, but how can you coach to get those variables out? I think that’s where we got to go. And it’s, it’s, it’s really hard. It’s just hard because people don’t want it

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:09:11)
Survivorship bias, you know, all the people we work with. And I mean, that’s why I charged a lot of money for one-on-one coaching. And part of that is just to completely weed out people that are not motivated because I know I’m not the best motivator. I’m just not that good at it because part of it, I don’t care. I’m just, that’s not my personality. But if you’ve got a problem that you want to figure out, I can probably get you a result. Or at least I know enough people that I can call up and be like, you know, I’ve sent, I don’t know how many things to like Tommy was like, bro, this makes no sense to me whatsoever. Look at this. This is screwed. This is weird. What’s going on? You know? So I have people like you guys, I can call and if I get stuck, um, so again, I think it depends on who you want to work with and what you want to do.

Speaker 3: (01:09:54)
Yeah. At Thomas DMS or my like, go-to like, I was like, Tommy, I got a girl she’s pretty much carnivore. Um, do I need to worry about fiber? He’s like probably not. I should. I was like, she eats Oregon meat. Probably not question though. He’s like maybe some sweet potatoes, like sweet, sweet potatoes or a post-workout meal covered like any question about like keto or like crazy like low carb diets. I’m like Tommy every time.

Speaker 2: (01:10:19)
Like is Tommy eating carbs yet?

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:10:22)
Uh, he’s slowly working some back end. I think. So. I’m just doing

Speaker 3: (01:10:27)
This training.

Speaker 2: (01:10:29)
Maddy. You look, you look like then like you looked fine. It was just, I was like, he looks like he doesn’t eat carbs. Well,

Speaker 3: (01:10:37)
They did get eaten by a snake too. I think that was cause I was like, dude, how come your legs? Your arms are like so huge. But your legs he’s like, dude, I got a big place. You could work legs for like a year. I was a kid.

Speaker 2: (01:10:48)
I was into your arms

Speaker 3: (01:10:49)
Or Jack. He’s like, yeah, I did curls like five times a week.

Speaker 2: (01:10:52)
What’s my excuse. I like, I never got bit by a snake. I should have just literally went and found a steak at, in Costa Rica. Just so I could have an excuse. Like, yeah, I got bit by a snake. You wouldn’t have been able to dead lift though. That’s true.

Speaker 3: (01:11:06)
And you shouldn’t tell people you have a 700 pound dead lift anymore attire,

Speaker 2: (01:11:13)
But that’s another, like, you want to talk about the dark side of manipulation. It’s like you tell someone you did this thing. Like, or like Jeb has like before and after photos of himself, like in like model attire, like people are more likely to listen to you. It’s like, it’s like, is that a bad thing? I don’t know. I really like these conversations about this stuff. Cause like, I think a lot of coaching conversations don’t happen around that. They’re like trying to coach to the standards, like use the tools you have, dude. Like the people who are successful use, we’ll say manipulation. But like they use the things that they’re struggling. Like, you know what I mean? Like why, why not

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:11:49)
Use it? Yeah. I mean, I haven’t had this internal conflict for quite a while. It’s like, do I just get much more shredded? And then just put pictures of me shirtless everywhere. You know? Cause part of me is like, I just hate, I hate the idea of that concept because it’s so over used. But to your point there is, you know, stuff like that does work to some extent, but then it’s like, okay, well what people do I want to be attracting? That’s the thing that I wanted to do. And that’s like, ah, but do I want that

Speaker 2: (01:12:22)
Ah, money plays into it too. Like, and I have this discussion with Jeb and a lot of people is just like, once you kind of make enough money for those problems, not that matter, then you can actually do what you want. I think a lot of the conundrum that we’ll call it trainers, but people find themselves in this coaching introduced, they don’t actually have clients. So they don’t actually have experience. Even though they say they do, they don’t make enough money to do the stuff that works because they need to do those. We’ll call them low, low rent variations to get these things. And then it’s, it’s, it’s just, it there’s a lot of people in the graveyard of coaching who couldn’t make it work because they were financially driven to make decisions that probably didn’t align with stuff that works. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2: (01:13:04)
So it ends up becoming to the rest of us. They married. Well, yeah, but like Eddie’s money. Money does drive these, you have a significant other that has a certain amount of income it’s like, that does help. So you see a lot of you want to do correlations, go look at a lot of the more successful fit pros. They all have dual incomes because like almost every single one of them. And like that plays a big factor because I can afford to do things. We’ll call it the right way. But at least the more evidence-based way I see a lot of evidence-based coaches who are full on evidence-based no clients, there’s PhDs, there’s masters because they literally are dead broke. And they’re trying to push this message of science in the right way. They have no clients. So you. You know what I mean? Like the answer is go get away and get away again. And I know that sounds really crazy, but if you’re making decisions around that, I see correlations all the time and I can like pick them out. I’ll go through my friends list. I could point every single one of them out. Um, which is, I don’t know that that’s where does any of this matter?

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:14:08)
Yeah. Well, I mean, that’s why I stayed in the, I mean I worked for 12 years in the medical device industry and I worked there even part-time while I was doing my PhD while I was starting my business for that very reason, because at the time I wasn’t married when I first started and I’m like, I need some health insurance because it’s ungodly expensive otherwise. And I knew that if I just, uh, at one point I wasn’t gonna quit the med tech stuff and just go do my PhD full time until I realized I can’t even make my house payment on what they’re going to pay me as a research assistant. So that’s not going to fly. And then also to your point was I knew I would make bad decisions. I knew that if I dropped out and I needed to put food on the table for just myself at the time, I knew I would probably not make the best long-term decisions either. So I purposely, almost killed myself in the process, but I didn’t want to get to the point where I had to make a decision only, just because of the financial implications. Um, yeah. And so now, I mean, luckily it’s worked out, okay. My wife works for me now and I just pay a load of money and just, you know, private health insurance anyway. Um, but if you have someone else that can help through that transition, it just makes it so much easier.

Speaker 3: (01:15:27)
You almost, I would say though, you also, it allowed you to charge what you charge and you also grind. I mean like yes. A lot of work. Yeah. You, you travel and I’m sure it looks very, very glamorous, but we’ve all been on travel trips with you and you’re waking up early to go do this or you’re taking a break to go do a podcast in the middle of your, like, it’s not like you’re sitting on the beach all day. Yeah.

Speaker 2: (01:15:51)
It’s very hard to get to that point in which we’re talking about. Like, and you made a good point, Jen. It was like, Oh, it’s not easy. And like, I totally agree. I just liked being at this point cause I did the work and I married well and I made some good financial decisions like that really helped the model,

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:16:05)
But it does help. I mean, that’s the reality,

Speaker 2: (01:16:08)
But there’s a lot of people I know like that. It’s like literally, and I don’t look down on them, but it’s like, I can, I can, I can understand the situation is like you’re training, whatever 40 hours a week. There was no way in hell. Unless you get, go to kill yourself to, to get those, those skills and start to work on these online businesses. So there’s a lot of stuff in the way that it’s, it’s really hard to progress a lot of these concepts.

Speaker 3: (01:16:31)
Well, I’ll talk about it all the time, but like leading up to this in my other careers. And actually when I started this, like people like people, clients come to me and they’re like, you know, I’m so busy. I work like 45 hours a week or 50 hours a week. And I’m like, okay, like I spent a decade working 70, 80 hour work weeks. So you’re not, I’m not, there’s not a lot of sympathy here. Like you don’t have to do that, but I’m going to tell you most people who are in the position that they’re at and like, and it wasn’t all in this industry, but you know, I’ve done really well in a few industries. And it’s because I woke up early, I went to bed late. I took on stuff for free. I busted my. I went, you know, going to continue education, finding people that I to be associated with. You know, there’s a reason Dean did really well, really fast in this industry because he flew from Canada to your house to stay for a week and learn. And then he went to, you know, learning from Pat and he like put in that work and compounded it. And, and unfortunately, people, I think, because again, D keeps saying it’s easy to put in an inordinate amount of work in a very short time as well.

Speaker 2: (01:17:30)
Kind of coming back to the diet stuff is like, I would rather, I understand that people don’t find it easy. And so it’s like, what are the things that we can get them to? I guess, unconsciously work hard, but like have these motivators as coaches so that they, they get the hard work. And a lot of it’s not having sympathy. I think as a coach, you can bias that. But then again, the steps, there’s more food, this working out, trying to figure out a way to sell that story. You can at least get the variables that work for fat loss. Yeah. They might not be the most successful, um, nutrition coach. Cause they’ve got to burn it, all this stuff, but at least in the food realm, we don’t talk about that. And we get vilified a lot of times or there’s just the person you need to work hard.

Speaker 2: (01:18:07)
You need to work hard. Like did that ever work for anyone? Like really, there’s a few coaches that can talk in that way and get people to buy in. If you’re not that person you have to literally backdoor this stuff. And, but hard work is still the way. Like, I don’t think that there’s any way around that. I think that the person who can get around that can literally starve themselves and lose weight, but they still look like. So really, um, then you get the starvation people coming out, starvation mode, what it’s like, that’s the way I think again, that gets into guru land. And that’s where that small line between being a guru and going here. But I can more confidently say that this is probably a better answer. It’s just, how do we get that? And I don’t think telling people the obvious is the route.

Speaker 2: (01:18:49)
A lot of times when you have hardware, you know what I mean? And that that’s, I guess that’s the problem. And that’s the problem that I think we’re trying to solve by doing models like this with actually paying clients in a position that we know we’re privileged a little bit to work with them, but we get to test these out. You like, sorry, master’s person, you don’t because you don’t work with these people. And like, literally there’s not that much, there is science on it, but there’s not that much on it. But like, we want to change how we can guess mesh neat physical activity and diet and make it common. Because like you said, Mike, six years ago, like that’s not even a thing, which again, silly. I would rather be the guru on that stuff. Cause I can only sell that and feel good about it.

Speaker 2: (01:19:27)
You know what? I want to be a guru in selling that message. I’ll take that any day of the week because at least I know it’ll work, um, within reasonable doubt, but I mean, now I’m in Google land, but yeah. You know what I mean? Like that’s where you can use the same tactics that all the other gurus used to then sell a better story. We still may be wrong in 10 years, but um, that’s where I’m at right now. I was like, how do we get to be gurus there? Um, and fight the other gurus and then have a Google boxing match in Gemini.

Speaker 4: (01:19:54)
That’d be TJ.

Speaker 2: (01:19:58)
If we don’t win that model, we can go after grammar. If the grammar doesn’t work on the online battle, they literally go

Speaker 4: (01:20:03)
And choke them out.

Speaker 2: (01:20:05)
Sorry. That was a good rant there. Like, you know what I mean? Like that’s where we’re kind of at right now is like, we have the tools now, like now how do you progress the story? Because like you said, G flux was out 15 years ago. Like, and it’s still not popular in like, I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s kind of where,

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:20:23)
Yeah. And I think there’s a big difference between do the work versus try harder, right? There’s there’s never gonna be anything. That’s going to get you around doing the work that that’s just a given. Like at some point you have to put the work in. There’s no way around it. But when you get to a certain point, especially if you’re doing a method that you’re not seeing a result from trying harder is not going to solve, it’s not going to solve it.

Speaker 2: (01:20:45)
No, that’s actually Jeb, what the? Uh, I can’t really say names on this one, but it’s like literally, um, your past effort, your effort. Your past effort will kind of inform actually you can kind of say this because that is this part doesn’t work.

Speaker 3: (01:21:01)
I mean, that’s the perfect thing. It’s like, if you just, if you’re doing this, if you’re like practice is just gonna use results. Yeah. Like the, the whole thing of like practice makes perfect. No perfect practice makes perfect. Yeah. Like if you’re practicing something the wrong way, you’re going to develop poor habits and poor skills. And so you’re right. It’s true. Try harder sucks. But you can’t get around to it.

Speaker 2: (01:21:22)
And that’s where having a coach is helpful. Again, I’m not even trying to sell the person who tries hard. Like I can mold that person and just like, you should try hard at this thing. And at least if we’re informed well enough that we can kind of put that personality to the thing that is probably more helpful than we’re in business, but yeah, trying harder, it doesn’t help anyone. Like I said, there’s a lot of trainers. Well, since we’re in the fitness and it there’s a lot of trainers in online nutrition coaches that try real hard at doing home workout programs. And they’re not making any money off that and they’re not making those programs anymore. And so do you want to try harder? Do you want to like be successful? Cause they’re not synonymous. Like there’s a lot of people that don’t try that hard and they’re very successful. Yeah. Like that’s not always true, but you know what I mean? There are people who were lucky. Um, and they try a little bit hard, but I mean like, yeah, like they got good bots, which they have a tired to get. I think we know, we know a few people that don’t have that hard.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:22:18)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much guys for being on here. Uh, Dean, where can people find more about you other than traveling to Canada?

Speaker 2: (01:22:26)
This is really easy right now. It’s either Instagram. So ghetto dot power. Um, I have a 700 pound deadlift weighed down in the old section, but Jeb and I also have a podcast called a pump, which we predominantly do on YouTube, but we also have a podcast format. So again, there’s people like you, um, all our friends, we tend to do the same thing you do, which is bring on a lot of the same people to talk about a lot of the same stuff, but it’s more self-driven. But I think a lot of the information that we put out is it talked about similar to this conversation about coaching and kind of stuff that isn’t being done. We’d like to attack a lot of things that we think, um, are done really poorly and then try to offer solutions or at least chats that kind of talk about the negative and what can be done, which is kind of our gift to the world. Um,

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:23:08)
Entertaining, which is good.

Speaker 2: (01:23:10)
Yeah. I think that we hope we feel conversation. We feel good about the conversations, even if we’re right or wrong, whatever. I think we’re just highlighting certain things that have some deficits and talk about it.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:23:21)
Yeah. And where can people find you a job

Speaker 3: (01:23:24)
Food on the mind.com my website and, yep. And that’s got a, my daily blog. You can sign up for that. I send a daily email out as well, which is just kind of short form stuff to talk about motivation. Uh, did the intersection between food and nutrition and uh, you know, the brain. And then of course the Instagram, Jeff Stuart, johnston.com and on the pump, um, I try to stay off of Facebook as I find it to be a toxic wasteland that I don’t want to be involved with. So

Speaker 2: (01:23:50)
Repost his Instagram on there. Let me do that. Do you do that? I automatically repost it. Yeah. Okay. So he doesn’t actually go there. He stays in the Instagram world. Post ghost

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:24:00)
Posting goes. Yeah. That’s what I’ve been doing a lot of. And then I come back on later and reply.

Speaker 2: (01:24:05)
That’s really good. That, that is great. You’ll get a reply like a month later. Like it’s perfect. Yeah.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:24:09)
Yeah. I usually get back to people never timely, but

Speaker 2: (01:24:13)
Like, all I get is Mike replied and I’m like. And then I can look at the posts. I’m like, what am I? Oh, thank you.

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:24:22)
Yeah. It’s so bad for the whole Facebook algorithm. But um, Jody wanted to say hi real quick.

Speaker 5: (01:24:27)
And if you want a timely response, you just stop me. I will grab him, wrestle him to the floor and make him answer the question. That’s true.

Speaker 2: (01:24:39)
I can prove that theory. Yeah. Can you wrestle Mike right now? Next in the middle of the podcast,

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:24:44)
She’s tripped me before in my own living room, we were first dating or she came up to give me a hug and stuck her foot behind me and pushed me. And I’d toppled over like a tree.

Speaker 5: (01:24:54)
Well, imagine the difference between I’m the oldest of five. Right? So, and I also was small for my, for my age all the time. So I was always like a small man syndrome all the time. Like I would throw myself at people and tackle people that had a foot on me. That’s just who I was and grow up wrassling and stuff. He never did that stuff. So I’m like, Oh, he’ll think it’s funny. He’ll wrestle me back. Nope. And I just, I almost started crying cause he’s got this look of, it was like watching a piece of timber fall off and he’s looking at me like exactly, very slow motion. He looks at me like, he’s like, like what are you?

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:25:38)
It was between the stereo and every last meeting and Jody says something, you’ll do it without asking questions on the glass coffee table. And I just felt

Speaker 2: (01:25:50)
Okay, we got to go to this

Dr. Mike T Nelson: (01:25:51)
Podcast. Cool. Awesome. You guys, thank you so much Serbia. I said, hi Mike. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast greatly. Appreciate it. Thank you much to Dean and Jeb for coming onto the podcast. And once again, always great to talk with them. Uh, do check out their podcast, the pump, if you’re into kinda old school bodybuilding and the culture around it. Uh, plus they’ve got a lot of really fun guests on there and I highly recommend it. It’s a very entertaining and thanks to them. Hopefully you enjoyed this podcast if you did, or even if you didn’t just leave us a review and some information of what we can do to make it better or what you enjoyed about it. You can, that helps us a lot with getting this into the hands of more people or I should say maybe into the ear holes and more people. Uh, this is sponsored by the flex diet certification. Go to flux diet.com F L E X, D I E t.com eight interventions on how to maximize the effects of nutrition and recovery in a complete system done for you for your Alliance, uh, go to flex diet.com, get on the wait list and you’ll be notified as soon as it opens back again. Thank you so much greatly. Appreciate it. Have a wonderful day.