Reaching Your Goal Physique Without Tracking? | ETP#204

Apologies for our 4-week hiatus! This week we step through a recent Hot Take from 3DMJ about whether it’s possible to reach your long term physique goals without tracking your calories, macros, or bodyweight every day. We present our various use cases, how and when might apply specifically to you and your goals. An insightful episode to assist you along your respective journey.

Timestamps:

00:00 Welcome Back and Updates

06:13 Travel Experiences and Cultural Insights

10:35 Personal Health Decisions: Starting TRT

18:53 Grand Opening of Undefeated Gym

24:34 Exciting New Opportunities in Bangkok

26:34 Episode Topic: Reaching Physique Goals Without Tracking?

28:44 The Role of Tracking in Nutrition

30:24 Habit Formation and Consistency in Nutrition

32:19 Portion Control vs. Tracking

34:20 The Body for Life Challenge and Its Impact

36:17 The Importance of Structure in Nutrition

38:11 Protein Intake and Long-Term Goals

39:05 Social Situations and Nutrition Challenges

40:51 Cultural Differences in Nutrition Awareness

42:36 The Balance of Nutrition and Training

44:22 Understanding Body Fat Percentages

46:41 Defining Long-Term Physique Goals

48:09 Ambition and Nutrition Control

50:16 The Impact of Weightlifting vs. Nutrition

52:00 The Importance of Training Intensity

54:41 Age and Its Impact on Nutrition Decisions

56:39 Personal Experiences and Long-Term Goals

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Transcript

0:25

What is going on guys? Welcome to Eat, Train, Prosper. This is episode 204. Brian and I were just chatting before we started recording and this has been our longest hiatus since the inception of Eat, Train, Prosper at I believe four weeks, potentially five weeks. And just to give you guys a little bit of a backstory, I was in Japan on my honeymoon for three weeks and then it just so happened that the week I got back, Brian was in London and it's just hard. with the travel to record and a little bit of extra details. Brian recently, as is the United States, had daylight savings time. So with me being here in Bali where it doesn't practice daylight savings time as a very large portion of the world does not. We normally have, I believe, uh a 14 hour difference where it's like 6 a.m. for Brian and then 8 p.m. for me when we start. Daily savings time happens and now it's 6 a.m. for Brian. It's 9 p.m. for me when we start recording and then Japan is one hour ahead. And I said, listen, I'm sorry. I'm not starting the podcast at 10 p.m. at night. I'm just not doing that on my honeymoon. feel like Jenny will just fucking not go for that if I even tried. So that's how we end up with our four week hiatus. But we're back. What is most important and today? We are talking about reaching your goal physique without tracking question mark. This stems from a DM Brian received which I'm sure I will let him elaborate on a little bit. But as always before we get into the meat and potatoes of the episode Brian can you kick us off with some updates please. Yeah. So, uh, as you alluded to, was traveling to London this last week and, I guess that'll be my first update. Cause that's the most recent. was, uh, quite a trip. went to see my buddy Simon, who I grew up with from childhood. We were like best friends from when I was six to 12 and then he moved to Switzerland. He's been in London for the last decade. Um, really cool to be able to see him and spend time with him. And then even cooler that I was able to do that with Kim. So this is our first. long extended travel that Kim and I have ever taken together since we had kids. Bryson's now eight, Viv's almost six. And we got away for two nights, one time. And it was this insane effort to get like one aunt to watch like one night and then like hire an overnight babysitter another night. It was like this huge, big fiasco. So we were like, all right, we're never going to be able to get away ever again. Then this summer, Kim's sister moved to Fort Collins, which is like an hour away from Boulder and she's she has no kids. She's really great with our kids. And so she straight up offered to watch the kids for four nights while we're in London. So we obviously took advantage of that. Like I said, the trip was great. We saw concerts, we saw MJ the musical. I got to hang out with my buddy and introduce him, his wife to Kim, all of that. Very cool. On the way back, I had the worst travel experience of my life. And I know you've had many of these as you are constantly traveling around Asia and things are happening, flights getting canceled, whatever. I've lived my entire life and I've never had a flight canceled until this trip. So I've had like delays, whatever, that's all pretty normal. So we show up at the airport on Thursday. We only have childcare coverage with her sister through Thursday morning. Then we were supposed to be back and pick the kids up from school Thursday afternoon. So we get to the airport, direct flight from London to Denver. Flight is delayed one hour for technical issues. And then after an hour, this flight will be canceled. And we're like, that's pretty unfortunate. What should we do now? So we find this flight at the last second that leaves 45 minutes later that takes us through San Francisco and then change flights in San Francisco and fly back to Denver. So essentially adding like six hours to the trip, whatever gets us back at midnight. At least we. don't have to have like an overnight babysitter. We just need a babysitter to cover the kids until midnight. We'll be home. All good. Flight takes off. We're on schedule. We get over Edinburgh, Scotland, which is like three hours from London and in the air, all the cabin lights suddenly come on. It's like completely dark. All the lights come on. This odor fills the cabin that we just, it was like this odd odor and they make an announcement that they're going to have to do an emergency landing in Edinburgh, Scotland. And Kim and I, course, are worried that like the plane's gonna crash whenever to see the kids again. She's like writing emails to them about how much she loves them. ah We land in Scotland, everything's okay. However, there are no other ways to get back to Denver. It's nighttime now. So we have to spend the night in Scotland. In the morning, we catch a 6 a.m. flight to Frankfurt, which again is going like the wrong direction in Germany. And then we catch a flight from Germany back to Denver. Thank God we did that. because if we hadn't done that, the Edinburgh airport shut down for 24 hours at 9 a.m. because of an IT issue. So if we hadn't caught that 6 a.m. flight out, we would have been stuck in Scotland for another 24 hours. Anyway, we got back, we brought my dad in to watch the kids. He had never done an overnight with them before. em And he was like nervous about it. He was anxious. He's got some kind of like, he's had seizures, like whatever. It's whole thing. But he stepped in, he did the kids, we got home. Friday afternoon at about the same time we were supposed to get home. Thursday afternoon. Insane travel day. I'm sure nobody was actually that interested in my story, so I'm sorry that it was so long. But to me, that was like an extremely profound experience that just kind of changes my perspective on travel. Like just to have two flights canceled, one of them mid-air, it just, makes me nervous to travel away from the kids in the future again. And so it was just a, you know, quite an unfortunate travel back, but on top of, you know, a great trip to start. So. That's my first update, I have two more, it's been a long time, so I'll only pass it over to Aaron and he'll come back to me. Yeah, so my first update was uh my wife and I spent three weeks in Japan for our honeymoon. We did a few nights in Osaka. Then we went to Kyoto for I think six nights and then we spent like nine or something like that in Tokyo. Japan is is one of the very few places that I would say that I have traveled to that was 100 % worth the hype. It is such a cool, unique place, especially as an American. Watching the culture, you know riding the trains participating. Everything is so orderly people are respectful people are very very quiet, you know and and admittedly this this honestly frustrates me to say there was only There was three times during our trip Where we were in either two of them were in the train on the train and one of them was in a restaurant where someone was like being like really obnoxious and loud all three times it was other America and it like really frustrated me and I was like I get why so much of the world hates us because this is how we act when we go to other places and it was it honestly it really really did frustrate me um because it's like the entire train is quiet and there's just like four group of people like literally screaming on the train and it really really pissed me off that was one of the low points of the trip But other than that, it was so cool just participating in, you know, different cultural things that we did, the food, just riding the trains, walking around. Like it really, really was a good trip. The only kind of downside is by the time we had, we had like five or six days left and we were both like really ready to come to come home. And it's kind of like a gift and a curse. Like I finally made it to this point in my life where like I can afford this. lengthy trip away, you know, we were fortunate with how we've structured our life and business and stuff. And then we finally go on it and you're like, I kind of want to go home and get back to work and my routine and you know, and and and but at the same time, I'm very fortunate that I really I love my life. I love what I do with clients and training and recording the podcast and stuff. So that was just a nice reminder that I'm very I feel so incredibly grateful that I've been able to build this life that when I leave it. I just want to get back to it as opposed to I can't wait to get away, you know, because I don't like my life. So, you know, a gift and a curse, I suppose, but a very, very good trip to Japan. Very, very worth planning and taking that trip for many people who are interested. Yeah, I follow a political podcast where the guy for his honeymoon went to Japan as well. And he just had nothing but good things to say about it. you know, because it's a political podcast, he compared the way that Japan is to America with the compare and contrast and a lot of facets of life. And he was just very, very bullish on the idea that we need to change some of the way that we live to be more like the way they live in Japan. And so it's definitely a place that I look forward to visiting at some point soon as well. I'll tell you the craziest thing really quickly and I'm sure as a parent you'll be like dumbfounded. The children starting at like age five and six ride the trains to school by themselves. I'm it's it's wild like you see these literal six year olds just on the train with their backpack on standing there like like everyone else is going to work you know and you see a six year old just on their way completely self sufficient. unattended, just getting it done. And I'm like, that is just wild to me. Absolutely wild. that's partially about the way that the transportation system in the city is organized, but it's also about the lack of crime and the safety and all of that stuff. uh Like here, my son is eight and we still don't even let him walk the half mile to school by himself just because there's four different turns on streets that he needs to make. Yeah, it's just different. Okay, cool. So second update for me, I teased this in our last episode. before we took our long hiatus in that I was going to be starting TRT. And so uh this is happening. My doctor just put in the prescription last night. I got the alert. so assuming that everything is ready and the RX is ready for pickup today, I should be injecting site number one this afternoon or this morning whenever I'm able to kind of get to the pharmacy and pick it up. And so for anybody that... either didn't listen to the last episode or maybe I can expand a little bit more since this is something that I think is pretty important in my life and a decision that I didn't take lightly and also something that you obviously have experience with. ah For me, the issue or the decision pretty much came down to a few different factors, but the main one just being that... Actually, I don't even know if it's the main one, just a number of different factors. One being that I have reached a point in my life where I think I've decided that I'm just not going to compete in natural bodybuilding. That was always on the back of my mind for a number of years. uh Two is that I threw discussions with other people doing TRT with my doctor and a ton of talking to chat GPT. I kind of was able to elucidate that I think I have a slightly lower than baseline uh dopamine level. at base level. And it's interesting because you can only compare yourself to yourself. I think I said that in the last episode as well. And from the outside, people look at me and they're like, this dude must be fine. Like even if he has low testosterone, like it's clearly not affecting him because he works out six days a week, whatever it is, he's sleeping fine, he's a parent, he has a job. Like all these things in life are happening. I think what people aren't realizing potentially about that is that there's a difference between doing all those things and feeling like super motivated and energetic and excited to do all of them versus having to rely on self-discipline to do those things. And I've just noticed over the last year or two that the amount of internal discipline that I had to harness to do my workouts and I would say do work in general. I've also talked a bunch on the other podcast I run called Life Reflected. about how I have been a little bit directionless and purposeless in my professional life recently. Not that I don't love Paragon and fitness and all these things, but feeling like there's something more for me out there outside of fitness and not being able to grasp or grab it really. And so all of these kinds of things coalesce together into my decision that I think I'm willing to give TRT a shot and just kind of see if it allows me to. change my perspective on some of these things, take a little bit less discipline to do the various things that I have to do throughout each day. And so ah all of that kind of came to fruition. ah I am really excited to get started and see where it takes me. um I've talked to a couple other people in my position with similar testosterone levels that have started at the same dose that I'm going to be doing, which is 50 milligrams twice a week. And um they've noticed significant improvements in exactly the areas that I'm hoping to see improvement on as well. And so yeah, just really excited to get started and of course gonna keep everyone updated throughout the process. Yeah, that is I as I'm sure a lot of the listeners are interested in just how what your personal experience is like, especially around the things that you spoke around, like drive motivation, having to find a little bit, hopefully more of that, like intrinsic, you know, motivating force that obviously you have had at various strengths in your past because you don't get to where the things that you've achieved without that. Right. But it's just like through lifetime, you know, things there's ebbs and flows through through everything. So I'm very, excited for you. I'm also excited that I am in the position where I can help you with all these stupid little things that you're never going to know that you just have to find out on your own and all these dumb things that you run into that I can just be like, no, do this, don't do that. One thing that's like so wild that I will give the example is like when you go through, you know, the the the the medical framework, right? They're gonna give you like a 25 gauge, like one inch or one and a half inch syringe to administer with. You do not need that big of a syringe whatsoever. So you can use like in full transparency, I pin with a 28 gauge, 12 millimeter, which I believe is it's either half inch or five sixteenths or sorry. 5 16th 8 6 5 5 6 I think it's 5 16th or sorry maybe it's 5 8 5 8 or half inch regardless it's like 12 millimeters it's wonderfully sufficient to hit to hit the muscle in because we're lean right if you were 22 24 percent body fat it's not but when you are like your ventral glutes or your delts whatever you decide to administer in it's perfectly fine but you wouldn't know that and then the first couple of experiences are quite unpleasant because you're using like a one and a half inch pin that they send you when you just do not need that. Interesting. think, um, my doctor mentioned that it's, a, it's a quite a small needle and that I might not even like really feel it. So I think the recommendation was to use like one of those insulin, uh, needles. And I, I'm only supposed to take 0.25 milliliters, which is like, I mean, an insanely small amount of liquid. Um, Yeah. And so also you mentioned the, the glutes or the delts. He actually wants me to do it subcutaneously into the abdomen. Um, so that I'm to be doing it that way. You can and that's the beauty in this is I recommend everyone kind of not experiment but different strokes for different folks. However, that saying is because you're so lean, you're going to put that in your belly fat and it's going to sit there and you're going to have like a marble there for like five days, which is uncomfortable. Right. If you were someone who's like 25 % body fat and you have a good chunk of body fat there, It's that marble is within like your inches of fat when you're really lean and you put that in there you feel it in in your skin. It's there for a couple days. It feels uncomfortable. I did a couple tests sub cue. I didn't like it because of that and I just went back to pinning venture glute effectively. Can I, do you know if I can use the same needle and injection to just inject it into a different site or is there a different way that you go about doing it if you're going into the muscle versus subcutaneously? ah I'd have to see just send me photos of everything and then I'll tell you. Yeah. Yep either way, I think he also mentioned I could do my love handle. And while I don't have a ton of fat on my actual abdomen, two inches left or right of the belly button, which is the recommended site, he said that if I have more fat on my love handle, I can do it there as well. And so I think I'm probably just going to do that. And then to also add to that, I uh in 2012, I had a DVT in my leg, which has actually been another reason why I was putting off TRT for as long as I did. And during the DVT, had to do these like lovin X shots, which are way more drastic than a point two five milliliters of, uh of TRT. Cause I think it was one milliliter every time I did it. And, uh and I don't remember it really holding a marble in my stomach. It was two inches to the left or right of the belly button. I don't remember any of that really being an issue. It would kind of dissipate and flatten out within 20 to 30 minutes. And it seemed fine after that. So I can't imagine the TRT would be worse than the lovoneck shots, but I guess I'll just need to experiment and see. It depends if it's an oil versus a water-based liquid. Yeah, like the, either way, I'm going to do as the doctor recommended. And if that isn't working, I will, you know, try a different approach. All right, what else you got? We have the grand opening for Undefeated this past weekend, which is really, cool of just a very big culmination of this giant long project. It was way harder than we all anticipated with all these insane setbacks. But Undefeated is fully open, our full gym floor, full recovery center, sauna, steam room, showers in there, hot bath slash hot tub, as we call it in the Western world and cold plunge and then our 25 meter Olympic sized swimming pool and deck out back all fully functioning and open with our full hours from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days per week. Dude, so cool, man. I really want to get out to Bali and experience this at some point. And hopefully, I mean, there's no way it's going to happen before you move. I definitely want to get out there and see what you guys created, because all the online presence of the gym is epic. I just want to be part of it and experience it. So really proud of you guys for what you all Thank you, thank you. it's been a, it's been a, it's been cool, but it's been a lot. So um I'm happy though. Members love it. A lot of people, get tons of drop-ins and stuff. Now people come in, get a lot of good praise. So, so I'm happy that people enjoy it. People are up there like training hard. Another cool thing is, is today we hung Jordan's pro card win up in the posing room. And now that's like the cycle complete, like all four of us have our pro cards. and up in the gym, was something that Jackson wanted, which I honestly did not think was possible. But lo and behold, within 12 months, all four of us have done it. So that's that's really, really cool. And it's just great. Like there's always like any time there's going to be like two to five IFBB pros like training in the gym. People come in from over. So it's just like turning into what we had hoped it would, which is just very, very like wholesome um from my standpoint. Yeah, that's awesome, dude. I love it. And you know, the work ethic and the environment there is contagious. Like I'm sure being there breeds the more likely possibility of becoming an IFBB pro simply by being surrounded by others that are doing it. Yep, exactly. All right, well, my last update, I guess, is just kind of musings on my new cycle design because we are officially in cold season. This year with boulders weather, I was able to extend biking time out through most of November. But now that we're in December, I almost went out yesterday to bike. was 49 and sunny, which is actually like, like I could have biked there and been totally fine. ah But I was like, you know what? I don't want to be cold. My hands are going to freeze. My face is going to have like snot running all over it. wind. So I'm just going to go for a run. And that's kind of been my approach more recently. and so as that happens and I'm doing less cardio, I do generally tend to increase the frequency of my training from, I usually it's a three day, three over eight days is kind of my norm during bike season, three lifting sessions over eight days. Um, I'm probably going to go to a four times a week over the next two to three months. And so I'm musing about kind of how I want to organize that. uh Part of me wants to go back to some sort of like split because I've been doing upper lower, upper lower, just alternating forever um for many, many months now. And I love that structure, but just out of novelty and something to keep me engaged, I kind of feel like going back to a split might just be fun during this period of time, given that I have an extra day in the week to train. And it would then allow me to, when I go back to bike season in March or April, going back to that upper lower alternating and not feeling like that's just the way I've done it forever and being bored and monotonous and all of that. So, so I'm using on that. I really, really like combining chest and back together. I just, it's always been a way that I've really enjoyed organizing training, especially in the way of having horizontal push and horizontal pull on one day. And then vertical push and vertical pull on another day. So you're actually hitting back twice throughout the week, but one of them is more lat based and one of them is more kind of upper back based. and so I, I, I'm probably going to design the program with that structure in that I have those two upper body days and then, um, trying to figure out what I want to do with legs, whether I want to, uh, do it once a week with like a higher volume session, which gives me then the opportunity to throw in maybe like an arm day or an arm dealt day or something like that. Or if I actually want to. have two proper leg days, which I'm not really leaning towards. anyways, just having fun with kind of this process because I don't often get the opportunity to, to focus on my program design with any intent other than simply, you know, how can I fit this around all the cardio that I'm doing? So anyway, looking forward to that and should have a new cycle of Brian's program on the app starting in think December, either 15th or 22nd. So stay tuned for all that. Wonderful. My final update and then we'll get into it uh tomorrow morning. Actually I leave for Bangkok for my friend Ben Broughton's 2025 uh Bangkok camp. So there are I don't even know how many people coming in for camp. There is a lecture each day. We have the training session post lunch after the lecture where we're breaking out into small groups. Each group has a coach leading them. So I'm very very excited to do. Honestly, this is like so wild to say my first in-person like work with anyone ever. Like I've never been a personal trainer. I've never done any in-person like speaking any hands-on training with anyone and this is going to be my first. So it's actually like kind of silly now looking back on it. But in the beginning when I started my business, it's because I had such a bad social anxiety that I couldn't do things in person. And now it's coming like full circle where I've been able to just like sit in the beginning in the shadows, know, build this business from behind a computer screen and achieve these things. And now I'm like, you know, very confident with a lot of these things and actually like looking forward to delivering. I have a big long lecture that I'm giving, which I'm super excited for. And then taking people through training sessions, which I am could not be more excited for. So I am very, very excited about this trip. Plus, I just love Bangkok on top of it. So I get a it's a it's a number of wins for me all stacked together. Yeah, dude, that's very cool. throughout obviously the years of the CrossFit gym, was working in person with you and other people for seven or eight years. But since then, uh, since starting Paragon, we've had a number, maybe like five or six different seminars, similar to kind of like what you're doing, where people will come to either Boulder or Orange County or wherever we're kind of hosting the seminar. And Lori and I will essentially take people through like training exercises and nutritional lectures and stuff like that. and then, you know, big Q and A. And it is so cool, man. The energy is so palpable and you feel so engaged with your community. So I'm really excited for you that you get to experience all of that as well. Yeah, so so many cool things to to end the year on and I'm sure we'll talk more about that in the coming weeks. But let's dive into the episode, shall we? Yeah, man, for 25 minutes in, it's about time. Okay, so this one I'll slate even though the DM came to Brian and I'm sure he can provide a little bit of context. So there was a 3DMJ post. I couldn't see from the screenshot exactly who from 3DMJ if it was the main page or one of the coaches. So I apologize there, but there was a hot take and I'm reading this verbatim and it says unless you're actually competing on a bodybuilding stage, it's possible. reach your long-term physique goals without tracking your calories macros or body weight every day and then you received a dm asking if we could do a podcast on this with a statement that said i would love to stop tracking but it seems pretty daunting for me to stop and here we are Yeah, I think it's a really interesting conversation topic and I am very much of the mindset that this is possible. Like I saw that post and that DM that was sent to me and I was immediately like, yes, agree. And I think a lot of that comes from my personal experience. uh Much of it possibly colored by the fact that I have so much experience. And so I'm fully aware that 27 years of doing this is a little different than somebody being at year six. and maybe only tracking for two or three years. But I'm still going to argue the side that I think this is very possible, um if not totally reasonable to assume that you can reach your physique goals this way. And uh I'm gonna guess that Aaron takes the other side given that he's a much more structured and also a high level competitive bodybuilder. So it should be fun to discuss it. Yeah, I am. And I think things like this are productive, right? We have differing opinions on it. I see nothing wrong with that. Like I said, I think it's actually quite productive. And one thing is I may be potentially too pedantic in my approach around this, but with some of the verbiage, I think it's possible to reach your long term physique goals without ever tracking anything. I just... Possible? Yes, of anything is possible, right? I think the out the likelihood is incredibly small and you're doing yourself a disservice and making it way harder by removing objective metrics that are in place to help you, right? So think that's like my primary argument. That being said, I don't think it's necessary. for every single step along the way. For example, like right now, my goal for the next eight months is to enjoy it, get a little bit stronger, not go backwards, but like my body weight can't really go up anymore. I don't need to be tracking. And if I'm honest, I track like four, four and a half days per week, but I eat the same exact foods every single day minus like, know, raspberries to blueberries to strawberries. that sort of thing. Maybe it's Kiwis in the morning right now. Bollies going through a none of it's like a semi annual Kiwi drought. So I'm having papaya instead of Kiwi. uh But I think it's all relative to obviously the ambition of your goal where you are in that trajectory and how much of structured nutritional knowledge you already have. So obviously it's a very very open ended statement but I think how we interpret it based off of where you are along the journey of your long-term physicals would really, really dictate where you might find on this, you know, either side of this argument is as best applies to you. Yeah, I think you said a few good things there. Of course, you know, the habit formation and being able to be consistent with your food day to day is going to be crucial if you're going to try and achieve your physique without tracking at all. But I think the important thing to take from this statement from 3DMJ is that it's possible to reach your long-term physique goals. They're not saying to optimize your physique and be 6 % body fat. on stage or even in a photo shoot or anything like that. They're simply saying to reach your long-term physique goals. Like would we say that I have reached my long-term physique goals, even though I'm not, you know, currently photo shoot ready or, or any, or even, you know, ready to do anything like that. I'm more or less treading water at this point with my nutrition and yet through the habits and formation and understanding of the composition of various food. I literally haven't tracked a single thing that I've put in my body since my last photo shoot prep in 2022. And I am quite confident that I would be able to replicate the body fat level and physique that I got to at that time without tracking. Of course, tracking makes it easier because it takes the guesswork away from it. But one thing that I really want to do is reflect back on uh something I did when I was 18 years old, which is the Body for Life Challenge. And so this is a transformation challenge that was really popular in the late 90s, early 2000s. It was run by Bill Phillips, who is the CEO of a supplement company called EAS. And uh they were actually the first company ever to come out with a creatine. They called it phosphagen, but in the 90s, they literally were the very first company to come out with creatine. And so I don't know if that's an aside. so much. one of the things that they promoted as part of their transformation challenge, and of course, it was about buying their supplements. So keep that in mind, take it with a grain of salt. But they never recommended actually tracking your calories for these transformation challenges. And they had, you know, I think it was 600,000 people go through this three month transformation challenge. And their their book that they put out about it and all of the material on the website and all that stuff. It never recommended tracking, it simply recommended uh portion size control and quality of food control by uh taking meat portions that represent the size of your palm, uh starch portions that represent the size of your fist, and then filling in the rest of your plate with fruit and veggie. And uh their recommendation was to do that for three meals throughout the day. So they're not huge meals. Like when you're talking about a meat size, the size of your palm, you're probably looking at four ounces, something like that. But you're doing that three times a day. And then you're also supposed to consume their myoplex shakes two to three times a day, depending on your protein and caloric needs. The myoplex shake was essentially like a superfood. was 42 grams of protein, 24 carbs that were filled with like some complex carb sources. I think there was even fiber in the shake and then like one or two grams of fat. And so uh that was literally how they laid out their agenda was, you know, these, these five to six feedings per day. following that protocol. And that is literally what I did. That is how I got my start in transforming my physique was through this idea of portion control through monitoring size and quality of food. And everybody else that successfully completed this transformation, know, incredible, incredible transformations. They all kind of followed the exact same approach as well. And so given that that was my initial introduction into the consumption of food for bodybuilding purposes, I am probably slightly jaded and in my kind of take on whether this is possible or not. I mean, I love that. think it's it's obviously helpful. from I'm going to play devil's advocate is that's tracking your food. It's just abstracted. It's an abstraction on top of tracking your food by providing a structure saying your palm is approximately let's call it what three ounces 85 grams. The fist is hundred and twenty five grams of like a rice maybe a hundred or maybe slightly less of a potato something like that. It is. It's providing a structure that's abstracted away from the actual numbers. And I think that ultimately, for example, using my example, I know that if I eat these meals every day, it gets me approximately like 36 to 3,800 calories. That's maintenance, right? That structure is just an abstraction on top of tracking. And I think I think both of these are wonderful. think that is the true answer. And where I think a lot of people go wrong and probably where this hot take stems from is people don't have a structure. They just track their food as they go along the day. And that's what provides that kind of um like anxiety or reliance sort of thing, because they're effectively using the tool. as a as a not as a guidance. It's like they drag the tool behind them and then try and fit the day into the tool as opposed to structuring their day in a way that allows them to have the things that they want from a from a long term physique and then the structure shifts of sorry the shifts of maybe the goal is obviously you know muscle gain strength gain or leaning out for summer or whatever it may be. Yeah, I um... just slipped my mind. But I guess my next argument, and then maybe it'll come back to me, but my next argument here was going to be that I actually think that you don't even need to be as specific as that portion control with the palm and the fist and all of that stuff. I think if you just have a general sense or grasp on the amount of protein that you're consuming throughout the day, that that almost takes care of all of your needs as far as you know, am I going to build enough muscle to reach my physique goals. That is, that is, that is the question is like, you know, when it comes to actually seeing your results of how much muscle you built, you have to essentially just eat less. And when you want to build muscle, you essentially just have to eat more. But as long as you're getting sufficient amounts of protein on the journey up or the journey down, the rest of it sort of doesn't matter. Like we've talked about how fats and carbs are more or less interchangeable. You have your little nuance take, of course, that, know, most people are going to do better on higher carb, lower fat. Of course, that's not the case for everybody. Um, but at like a very general level, if somebody was consuming body weight in protein on the way up or body weight in protein on the way down, and then simply just being a little hungry on the way down and being a little full on the way up. I'm of the belief that that simple approach would be sufficient to reach your long-term physique goals over a long period of time. Not that this is something, you know, doing it this way that you would be able to reach those goals maybe in a shorter amount of time, but in a longer period of time where we're talking about 10, 15 years of consistent dedication to the weights, making sure you're eating enough protein throughout the day. I just don't believe that that needs to be tracked at like a micro level to be able to. build muscle and or lose fat. I mean, when we're speaking in absolutes, of course, I have to agree because I really do my best not to speak in absolutes. just I would strongly argue your likelihood of success plummets because you run into so much frustration over time because I mean, I hear about this all the time. One of the things as a nutrition coach, right? When you're in whatever social situation like for example, this is absolutely wild. We're at my wedding reception, right? My wedding. And one of the dudes who's he was like someone's plus one or whatever is like pretty drunk and is like, Oh, hey, can I ask you like some nutrition questions? So I'm like trying to do this, this and this and I'm like, dude, is my fucking wedding right now and you're just trying to make me work for free like at the wedding reception. And it's He was trying, he just didn't, he was missing the pieces around like the drinking on the weekends, the wings with football Monday night, right? So a lot of the things, and that's a really good example. I mean, you remember I used to love wing night. I would go to wing night every single Monday after comp class. It's an awful food for you if you care about body composition. The fat. And carbohydrate relative to the volume of food is astronomical. It's absolutely astronomical. And unless you were to actually put numbers to these foods, your desires and stuff and things like balance and a lot of these other buzzwords that are used in the industry, you you're not able to completely see through. like, again, is it possible? Of course it is possible. But it's the odds are incredibly stacked against your favor because you're unable to see things at their true caloric values until you actually spend time comparing them. So I think if I were to try and make a ground statement argument for myself, you do need to spend a sufficient amount of time. Let's call it six months to two years over. your duration, maybe it's three months on six months off or something like that, to be able to be exposed to enough different foods in enough different situations to properly formulate your intuition. And I think that's the root of my argument is as a just a child, a human in America. I mean, Europe and Asia and other parts of the world are obviously probably a lot better because it's obviously like we're way more fucked than everyone else when it comes to like food and body fat and all that stuff. You have to spend time searching for nutrition as an adult through an interest because unless your parents are like athletes or whatever, it's just not you're not going to have it. And everything that you're going to learn are these rules that have some semblance of practicality like a rule that I used to believe is no carbs after six, right? There is some semblance of a positive association which means hey, eat your carbs earlier in the day, right? Which we know from a few years ago there was that research published I think it was called Chrono Nutrition, which they called it, right? From a nutrient partitioning and insulin sensitivity standpoint, it is typically more favorable. to eat more of your carbohydrate earlier in the day when we're more active, that sort of thing. But it is not a law. It is not a rule. And then you start to formulate these broken rules where I can't have the carbs after six because after six it somehow turns to fat and things like that, which is also just completely false. Yeah, I mean, you look at me, I eat almost all my carbs between like three and seven PM or something like that. uh But so I agree that I think there would be benefit in tracking for three or six months. Like you said, I can't argue that that wouldn't be helpful. uh But I'll also reference CrossFit Aaron, since you referenced CrossFit Aaron, who was going out and having wing night and drinking beers and all of these things. And I'll say that by all standards, you were jacked. Like you might not be at your like optimized best physique or whatever, but anybody walking around PB would see you with a tank top on or with your shirt off and be like, damn, that dude has muscle. He is jacked. He's big, he's strong. And so the question would be like, you you, reached a high body weight during that period of time because you threw caution to the wind and you didn't care, but likely that you were at least getting enough protein, which was my argument from the beginning. And then you were just, filling in food with alcohol and wings and cheesy bread and pizza and whatever. Like it almost doesn't even matter because you got big and strong and you were jacked. And then the question is simply just if you were to then stop eating some of that stuff, still not tracking, but simply just being like, you know what? I'm gonna keep my protein pretty high, make sure I have protein every time I eat. uh But I'm just gonna make sure I finish every meal like a little bit hungry and that I go to bed at the end of the night a little bit hungry. uh where does your physique end up at eight or nine or 10 % body fat? Because your best physique ever as a natural was 192 pounds at 8 % body fat. that right? Yeah. So like when you were 220 pound Aaron in the CrossFit days and you were over consuming wings and pizza and beer and all this stuff, like if you simply just allowed yourself to be hungry and that weight went down, even though it isn't optimized and you're not doing it in like the perfect way, your physique would still end up. lean and jacked. Maybe you wouldn't be 192 pounds, but you'd be 188 or 187 or I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, like you would get to a point where you would be like, damn, like that is a long-term physique goal that I just achieved. And I didn't have to track shit to do it. I just had to be like a little bit hungry at the end of the day. I agree with the caveat that I don't think people are going to be successful to 8 to 9 percent body fat with I need to be a little bit hungry. It's really subjective and I think it's the frustrations and there's just so much room for error. Right? Like we know when you're dieting margins for success are already pretty small for consistent week over week process. I think if the goal is like, I want to get to 12 % body fat, I agree with you. I think that's like really, really doable because 12 % body fat as a male, as a woman, we're speaking approximately like 2021, something like that. I think if you're like really fitness focused, it's a big part of your life, maybe part of your identity, very similar to like the way that we were, whatever that is, like 12 years ago now. I think 12 % is 100 % possible. But going from 8 to sorry, 12 % to 8 % is a completely different animal. It is way different than going from 16 to 12, even though it's only four percentage points. But going from 12 to 8, I would say it is three times as hard, at least. Yeah, I guess that then comes down to the question of like what body fat percentage would determine your long-term physique goals. Because for somebody that starts at 20 plus percent body fat, like a long-term physique goal for them might simply be to get to 12 % body fat where they can see some abs and they look pretty jacked at the beach. And they're like, damn, like I am so hyped on where I am right now. And so maybe that need to get to nine or 8 % body fat isn't even part of the long-term vision of achieving their physique goals. And so the question then just simply becomes like, what are your long-term physique goals? Because if it's 12 % body fat and we both agree that you can get there simply by just being a little hungry at the end of the night and eating enough protein, um then that would be sufficient for that person. Whereas somebody else maybe has that goal of getting a little bit leaner and suddenly maybe they do need to be a little more dialed in for the final three to five weeks of that experience, but you can get almost all the way there. by simply just being intuitive and being a little hungry and eating protein. I think that is the entire crux of this conversation is how lean let's call it for it is like how lean is your I want to make sure I use the proper terminology long term physique goals right are we talking 12 to 15 percent body fat as a male yeah I don't think you need to be tracking your food I think you just need to slide fitness and health into a priority position when it comes to your nutritional decision making. And you do that for a period of like nine to 12 months and train really hard. However, we also want to define really hard and do some cardio to make yourself to make yourself feel good, you know, day to day. I really think that's all you need. um But if as your ambition grows, so does the likelihood that you need a higher amount of precision with your intakes and out. Right. I personally love drawing the parallels of nutrition to finance. Right. Let's say you make whatever the median household income is in the United States. I don't I don't know what it is. Let's call it seventy five thousand dollars eighty thousand dollars something like that. Let's say that's your your median household income and you decide that in three years I want to buy. a house in this like low income neighborhood on a potentially up and coming part of town right and I need a 20 % down payment. Let's say that house is I don't know to $250,000. So your down payment is Brian 20 % of 250. Can you help me please? Perfect. Thank you. You have two to three years to do that right. You probably don't need to have like your finances in Monarch or You need a budget and all that stuff as long as you have a pretty decent, uh a pretty decent level of controlling of your, what's that? There's a specific term here. Your discretionary spending relative to the goal, right? That's probably pretty reasonable. If you decide that you want the $650,000 house in the like rich white people neighborhood, that's a completely different goal that requires a different level of uh control over your finances. So it ultimately comes down to how ambitious your goal is. If you just want to be a dude that looks healthy and not fat at the beach, yeah, I don't think you need to be tracking your food. Like what Brian said, sufficient protein income, intake, sufficient protein intake, push your training hard. eat uh try to eat a set number of meals each day whether that's three four five six just stay consistent with it and over a long enough time horizon like you will get there but as your and then potentially who knows maybe you live your life at maybe you get that 12 percent and you're pretty happy and then your desires change maybe you do want to be a little bit leaner and then maybe you start to to layer in some additional structure but that would be under the clause that your long-term physique goals have now shifted, right? So, I mean, that's my take on it. I think it really does come down to purely is of your level of ambition and what that is for you as an individual at any given time. Yeah, I think we 100 % agree on that. I think we've reached a point where we both can say like, yeah, you know, it really just depends on how lean you want to get for your like long-term physique goal. One thing I want to do real quick that I think is a bit of a tangent, but I think is also somewhat relevant to this conversation is parsing out the difference in impact of lifting weights versus eating a certain way. And there's no way that you can attribute like Like take these two avatars. You have one guy who lifts weights, but eats the RDA across the board. He's just eating like, you know, 60 to 80 grams of protein a day. He's eating like a ton of carbs because that's the RDA, whatever, whatever. But he's lifting weights really consistently. He's training hard in the gym. And then you have another guy that's like, no, no, it's all about the protein and the food and all this stuff. I'm going to track all my food. I'm going to eat so much protein. I'm going to eat the quality carbs and the fiber and good fats and all this stuff, but I'm not really going to lift weights. I'm just going to kind of do this other stuff. And if we look at these two avatars, the guy that lifts weights and follows the RDA is the only one that's actually gonna end up with a muscular physique that might represent like a long-term physique goal. Whereas the guy doing everything right with nutrition, but not lifting weights, that dude's not gonna be jacked at all. He's gonna have no muscle because lifting weights is the stimulus for MPS. And so uh I don't exactly know what I'm trying to achieve by saying that, simply just that. being that lifting weights is the thing that moves the needle and that nutrition just has to be secondary to that when we're talking about long-term physique goals. I was like 100 % on board to like the final like seven words. Okay, well then argue against it. Yeah, tell me why tell me why I'm I think it's relative. Obviously, we all know I love training and I think your training stimulus needs to be you have to train hard enough to elicit an adaptation. And I think that's something that people I've seen this in practice like this where they're they're just not pushing themselves hard enough. They stop when the first rep where it starts getting hard and they're not going to change because you're literally not trying hard enough. Literally. That's that's but you're not trying hard enough. um But if you already have that part covered, if you try hard, if you try really, really hard and you don't look the way that you want to look, it is because of your nutrition. So I think like, I think I'll kind of like meet in the middle. You need to try hard enough in training, training provides like your shape effectively. The muscle that's there, the nutrition is if you can see the muscle underneath the body fat or not. So, but like you said, like I've had one client comes to mind. He was meticulous with his nutrition. Absolutely meticulous. The most high quality everything. And he was just a this incredibly unassuming skinny dude because he just refused to push himself in the gym. Simple as that. So I think it's out there. Although I would say in my professional experience, I do get a lot more of. The people that push themselves sufficiently in the gym, but then the nutrition's just garbage and they're big, they look like a high school linebacker or a defensive lineman or something like that. There's muscle there, but they're also 25 % body fat. But like that person is the exact avatar that I was talking about before, where it's like, if that person who's big and jacked and just wants to get down to 12 % body fat, because that's a huge increase in their physique appearance compared to where they were, they already have all this muscle because they ate excessively, whether it was wings and pizza and beer, it doesn't really matter. They're getting tons and tons of calories. They're 25 % body fat. They have plenty of muscle. They simply need to just eat less. And eventually, long-term, by eating less and being a little hungry, they would get to that like 12, 13, 14, 15, whatever percent body fat where they feel like that physique is something that is admirable, something that they've been working toward achieving, et cetera, et cetera. And so, yeah, I don't think that that is arguing against your point at all. I think we've both kind of agreed at this point that it's relative to where your goal is and how lean you wanna get. But my argument simply is just that, and I think you'd agree that training with weights, working hard in the gym is the primary stimulus. to your physique and that the nutrition, at least on the way up, you might disagree with this, but at least on the way up to me is so much less important. Like it just, almost doesn't matter as long as you're getting 0.6 grams of protein per pound of body weight. I don't even know if it's that much. Like if you're just eating enough food and you're in an anabolic environment and you're training hard in the gym, like you will gain muscle. So really the question is just like on the way down, how are you getting there? I agree. Yes, I do think there's caveats where your rate of fat accumulation, it can be dramatically and positively skewed with control. Right. And I think that's where people get out, take things out of hand. Right. They come back. I just trained. I need my post workout. It's a big bowl of cereal and peanut butter and all these other things. Like you're not partitioning 225 grams of carbs and 40 grams of fat as a natural at 18 % body fat well, like I'm sorry. Your insulin's gonna spike, your glucose is gonna spike, like your speed running body fat accumulation there. But outside of those things, like I do agree, there's one thing that you've said on this podcast, like probably two years ago at this point, Brian, and I always love to reference it. There's a lot to be said for like working hard, enough volume, and enough food. And that's all I knew for. 10 years almost, like eight to nine years of training. It worked really well. I was pretty jacked, but I was just 15 % body fat. There's no abs there and I wanted abs effectively. And as my long term goal, I wouldn't even say shifted. I always wanted abs, but I just, I think if you want to be big, yeah, train really hard, eat enough protein and focus on getting big. And then when you decide you want abs, you probably need to track your. I think that's a very good ending statement for myself. Yeah, I don't think that that's wrong at all. uh I do wonder also if there's a difference in the need or the necessary approach based on age. Like somebody that's 20 can probably get away with a lot more of that like wings, beer, pizza crap, and you know, their insulin is still fine and maybe they don't gain body weight at such an excessive rate and all of these things. And then when somebody's 40 or 50, those same decisions are exponentially worse for you. I have a... I have a question to pose. don't have an answer to this. I'm not, I love that and I asked that same question, but my question on top of that is, is it because you're 40 now that you're not gonna partition things as well? Or is it because from 20 to 40, you've had these compounding set of decisions that have led you to the current state? that you're at 40, right? Let's say you had a super crazy health focused person who from all their 20s and their 30s, they were like, I don't know, a cyclist or something like that. Stayed super lean, ate really clean and healthy, and then at 40, they wanna try and do like the 20 year old dreamer bulk. Are they gonna respond as poorly as another 40 year old? because they've spent 20 years being really meticulous with their nutrition. So I guess it's like my ultimate question, is it the age of 40 or is it the decisions that have compounded over 20 years from 20 to 40 now that you're 40? I have no idea. it's probably the latter. I think it's probably the latter or at least it skews to the latter in that I think the decisions you make between 20 and 40 have an impact. And using myself as an example, the fact that I have just as much muscle right now as I did when I was 20 or 25, I think actually speaks to the fact that I'm probably as insulin sensitive as I've ever been. You know, we look at my insulin and it's at two when I get tested. My glucose is 83 or 80 or whatever it is. Like I'm fine when it comes to insulin sensitivity. If I didn't have all this muscle mass, it likely wouldn't be this way because muscle is a glucose sink, as we've talked about before. It's a place when you eat all the extra glucose, your body has a place to store it. Yeah, so I think that a lot of it has to do with that and using your cyclist example, the cyclist is an interesting one because they are likely insulin sensitive. because of all the metabolic work that they've done at different intensity levels. They're using glucose throughout their training. They are probably extremely insulin sensitive, but they don't have the muscle mass to act as the sink. So if they were to go on one of those dreamer box without the muscle mass there, it would create a future problems for them. Yeah, that's a very good man. Maybe the cyclist wasn't the best uh example, but yeah, I ultimately I agree and it's one of those things you kind of just Have to experience for example. I know we're kind of running over and we want to wrap this one up, but my sink Has grown so much for where I can put glucose it is absurd the amount of carbs I need to eat now daily to stay like full and pumped and what where I start dropping off and getting really flat and stuff. It's hard to honestly believe if I wasn't experiencing it myself. we're always slightly blurred by our own situation and our own experiences. And so I think that's a lot of where my argument is coming from. And then that's also alternatively where your argument is coming from is that we've both seen success enough to reach our quote, long-term physique goals by taking different approaches. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. So I think this episode was wonderfully productive. Hopefully the listeners feel the same way uh next week. We'll be back with we don't know yet, but we will have something for you guys. Maybe we'll do a final end of the year Q &A to help the listeners start the new year off on a strong foot, which I know is always something that I would love to try and give back and provide for people as it's obviously, you know, an important time of the year, but so many people just come up short. oftentimes because of improper or less than stellar information. So hopefully we can uh course correct for some of you guys. As always, thank you for listening. Brian and I will talk to you guys soon.