Talking Nutrition
Welcome to the Talking Nutrition podcast, where every week we dive deep into relevant nutrition, fitness, mindset, and health-related topics. Hosted by Johan Vesters, brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.
Talking Nutrition
#55 - Quitting For Winners?
We live in a world where the harder and longer you work, the more you do... the better. But is there a time and place to quit and pivot? Could doing LESS actually allow you to shift your focus towards other/more important things, in order to do those things better?
Yes, you do need to work hard for your goals. This whole 'health and fitness' thing doesn't come easy. You need to show up every day, to eventually get to where you want to be (and then you'll set new goals).
But... sometimes you need to slow down. Or the body will slow you down.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Introduction
6:46 Training for an Ironman AND wanting to lose weight
12:53 Are you just 'supposed to' be able to handle it all?
15:52 More complex cases (hormonal/gut issues) take MONTHS to work through
21:29 Quitting a fat loss phase
25:11 If you don't slow down your body will slow you down
31:56 Outro - Coaching applications
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What's up and welcome back guys to Talking Nutrition episode 55 today really going right? Here's something in the backgrounds. Sorry, it was my Instagram you don't want I was gonna say oh, let's just start over but now we're gonna leave it in. Gonna leave it in. It was it was Fraser talking. Okay Do you think he'll ever quit? Like anything he does? Now speaking of quitting? I don't think so. He will technically he's quit or retired, but it's more so pivoting. Right. Yeah. which ties into today's topic. What is it okay to quit? Right. I think we do talk a lot about kind of like, doing the work and overcoming, you know, obstacles and making sure work anyway, and keep going, you know, show up every day. But so to the listeners, a Kristine shared a post with me that I want to read. Because I thought it was a really good point. And it's definitely something we haven't really talked about, which is kind of cool. Because, you know, I mean, every time we're like, what do you want to talk about today? We're like? Sure. So this is actually kind of like a new topic, which is really cool. So let me just read this out loud real quick. So you're supposed right, so contrary to popular opinion, quitting is for winners. Knowing when to quit, change direction, leave a toxic situation, demand more from life, give up on something that wasn't working and move on, is a very important skill that people who win at life all seem to have. I thought it was a great post. Because it is actually true, right? So so again, we talked about this real quick before we hit record, but don't take this as like a thing where hey, you know, when things get difficult, we just need to quit like, it's not like that. But at some point, there's definitely time in place. And we both agree on this, you know, to have to pivot to maybe drop something to quit something. And I do also think that these situations are going to come up at some point. But what's up, Kristine? So obviously, you shared this post with me, you had a couple of good points there, kind of relating it to, you know, your stuff as well as a client. So let's actually start there. First of all, with you. Yeah, so I share this with Johan because of something I'm personally doing, personally quitting. And then also I had a client quit something that was hard for him. I mean, quitting. And these both of these situations, they're, they're very hard to do. But in in, in the long run are the smartest is the smartest choice. It might not feel like it's very hard to make the decision. But when you really weigh everything out and look at the big picture. It is the right decision. So for me, I've chosen to discontinue K training. I've had it for about two years now. And for the last like half year, even a little bit longer than that. I've been kind of going back and forth with it between, you know, continuing to build it or you know, discontinuing it, pretty much. And finally, I came to the conclusion that I am I am going to discontinue it. And it was not an easy decision at all. It was very like back and forth. Like I'm going to be letting so many people down. And I did. Like I got emails, like from people saying, you know, they're so sad and stuff. But it was crucial for me to do that. Just in terms of like being able to delegate more time to other things, to keep things growing in my business but more so keep things sustainable. I also it wasn't something that like I was super passionate about anymore. And it's not to say that you just give up on something because you're not passionate about it, but it's just I just I don't know, it's hard for me to explain like, ah, it was taking away from my K Nutrition. And I didn't like that, like Kay nutrition is like my baby, all my, all my energy and everything goes into that. And it wasn't doing well enough for it to be worth it. And I also wasn't like it wasn't doing enough, but I also wasn't doing enough. I was doing well, but I also wasn't doing enough. And like it was just because I just it wasn't something that was I love doing. But it also, like I said, was just taking away from different from different stuff. So I decided to discontinue that. And I definitely feel relief now that I have. So in my opinion, yeah, I quit. There's something I quit. But it was for the better, long term. So then with my client, I think that a lot of people can relate to this in some capacity. I mean, this is similar to me with CrossFit to like quitting. Oh my gosh, my dogs, like quitting competition, right? Like I did, I quit, like I stopped doing it. So this client, he was training for an Ironman and also wanting to lose weight. Okay, so we have this like timeline. And okay, we are trying to, like we were in a cut, we are trying to get him down in body fat. He was also training for the Ironman, those two things do not go hand in hand. Okay, they do. This is how you crash and burn. I was I was doing things with his diet where we would, you know, try and stay away from that. But there's also this other part to it, where like, he had a really stressful job. Right. So like, there's just all of these stressors happening. And he's putting so much stress on himself to perform well for this Ironman. And we started to see things like he started to see dysfunction happening, like he was getting injured. And like I kept telling him like, I was trying to educate him and educate him on like, this is like really hard to do without burning out and running into like dysfunction, whether it's injury risk, whether it's hormones, like things like that mental health. And so it like got to the point where everything was just kind of falling apart for him from his nutrition, like he couldn't adhere to it. And he's like, it's us like this, you know, the nutrition isn't stressing me out or anything. It's like everything else. I'm like, Well, you're not hearing to it, and you're get because he can't adhere to it, because he's so like messed up from everything else that's going on. And like so yes, it is a stressor, because you're trying to do all these things. And like, you don't have the capacity to deal with this and like put your best effort forth. Because, you know, there's just not enough room, they're like, his stress cup is overfilling. Right? I have to write 100%, like the concert. So it is stress stress to the Ironman period, you should not be trying to cut with an Ironman, Ironman training, like, and I really tried to meet them in the middle in a timeline of like, Hey, we're going to have, we're going to cut for this shorter period of time, and then we're going to pull out and start to, you know, really increase food and whatever, and get in a good spot before the RMM. But then, you know, his his wife, like, obviously, it was really impacting things at home as well. And I can only say so much and like, I don't want to overstep my boundaries or anything like that. Right. So, and the thing is, he's a good friend of mine, like, I've known him since like elementary school. So anyway, she sat him down and like how to talk with him. And he came to me and was like, you know, she said these things and I was like, you know, and he knows that I had been hinting at this stuff for a long time and educating him on you know, why these things are happening. And so ultimately, the decision like the the foundation of all of this was that he was trying to do an Iron Man with not having the capacity to do one like, with all the stress and like all this stuff in his life. It was not the right time. And so he chose to quit and not do it. And it was really, really hard for him because like he had done all this training, he had told people, right, so those, there's almost like an identity thing attached to it. You know, he felt like he was just letting himself down because he feels like he should be able to handle all of these things. Like, no, like, we're not built to handle all of these things. And anyone who looks like they're handling all of these things, there is some dysfunction happening, usually, we just can't see it. Right. So, yeah, you know, that was something that I thought was, really, it was very hard for him, but I know that's gonna lead to like, a lot of growth for him down the road. And he's going to start to see like, his relationship improve, and his health improve, and he's starting to strength train more versus running, and swimming and biking, you know, so his body's gonna respond better from a fat loss standpoint, he's going to be able to adhere to his nutrition better. So everything starts to feel like a domino effect, just by removing this one thing, right? That was really holding him back from a lot. And it's not to say that he can't, you know, go and try and do one down the road, when he's in a better place to do it. Maybe, you know, you focus on fat loss. I mean, he's recovering now for a while, but like, we focus on fat loss, we get, you know, that body composition into a better place, then we go, you know, down the road and try and do an Ironman or something like that, you know, when stress levels are just a little bit better than they were. So yeah, I just think that it was really big of him. And I think a lot of people just struggle so much in situations like that, because it was like that with me, for CrossFit. Like, I'm like giving up, I'm giving up, I'm quitting. But it's going to improve, it did improve my overall well being, it's going to improve his overall well being and the best choice. Yeah, yeah, I think it's hard to when you have those big goals like that. It's also about the goal setting. You know, it's also about kind of like, having a goal that's achievable, that's realistic, and having the right expectations, which I will say in people's defense, we tend to a lot of people don't know that, we tend to think that we can do that all, you know, like you said, we were supposed to be able to handle the stressful job, and sleep deprivation, and high intensity training. And the list goes on, you know what I mean? Like that, we're just supposed to be able to do this stuff, you know, we watch another fucking David Goggins video, and we just keep on pushing nothing against the dude, by the way at all. But you know what I mean, right? It's always kind of like, go hard. And you know, you're just supposed to deal with this. And of course, like, yes, we do have to do to work. But at some point, like, say, as the body decides, we don't. And it's too much. And the body size is too much. We can want whatever we want to achieve or do or whatever. But we're gonna hit a wall, you know, we are gonna hit a wall. Yeah, like, if he would have done that, if he would have done that to Iron Man, he would have hit massive, massive wall when he was done. And he would have just been in a horrible, horrible place because like, there was other stressors, like there was gut issues. And you have to remember this is all intertwined, because the root of it is stress. Right? Like it's causing gut issues. It's causing, you know, mental health issues, anxiety attacks, like bouts of depression, it's all intertwine and people like they, they, I mean, it's just hard for them to understand or like be able to decipher what I need to take off my plate, right? Because they just sometimes they don't have the knowledge in order to do something like that. And they don't see that like, that is the what's what am I trying to say? Like the Ironman was the, like the common denominator that was causing all of the issues, the Ironman training. I mean, it was the Ironman training, it was trying to try and to do fat loss and it was in that it went against like what I do I do as a coach like I did not feel right. So I was trying to like, figure out ways to, you know, help in terms of like trying to do both, but you just can't and, and I, I would tell him that I'm like, this is like really hard for me. I'm like, it's like I told a client the other day yesterday, and a check it and like, we're working on her Hormonal Health and people are so impatient. Like we we've been working on it for like two months. And when it's hormones, it takes more than two months. She's like, when can we go into our next cut, and she's improving right now. She's like, her body composition is improving while we're in maintenance, focusing on Hormonal Health. More than it improved when we are in a cut. And I'm like, I can't do this. I I'm sorry. Like, when we're focusing on hormones, I will not put anyone into a cut. I can't do it morally, it's just something I can't do. Because I know the effects. Right? I know. So I educate them on that. But there was definitely like a moral thing of like, this isn't this isn't working. No. And that even plays into a lot of stuff where, which I do think is wrong in the fitness space. Because people will be like, you know, I'm struggling with hormones, guts, whatever it is stress all this stuff. But then they'll go somewhere, it'd be okay, I want to lose weight. Okay, cool. Here, your calories, let's get started. You don't want to mean, and unfortunately, there's just way too much off. There's in the fitness space, where it's just, hey, let's give it another try. And you know, let's cut more and go to the next diet and shit needs to change. You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of good people out there, especially these days. Or maybe that's maybe just the people that we're connecting with, and people that we follow, but like, there's some good people out there. But like, like you just mentioned, like, we're trying to do this in the healthiest way possible for you. It's cool. If we want to get you lighter, I'll get your lighter, right. But isn't it nicer? To set you up for like, long term success? Where, yes, your lighter ball is gonna be healthy. Yeah. Or are we not going to care about Hormonal Health? Feeling like shit? Getting into issues down the road? Right? Because it's really long term. Like we can't think just short term and it's difficult to I fully understand 100% said, currently working with someone I mean, especially the beginning, last stuff going on bodybuilding background, you don't know cycle for very, very long time. Kind of like all over the place a little bit. Digestion was not great, high stress, really low energy levels, just altogether, just not feeling great. You know, I mean, sign up with a coach. And that coach kind of like treated it as like, hey, no, you're gonna get on stage again. She's like, No, I don't want that. I just want to cut a little bit for summary, you know, when we got put on a way low, like a meal plan, and there was really no room for anything flexible of any flexibility. Could she was just supposed to stick to the meal plan. And she's like, okay, you know, I'm gonna stop and she came to me. She actually asked me like, Hey, is it okay? If I have like, one like, free meal every now and then I was like, one free meal fucking every day, you know, like, we need to get your plays. But But why we're sorry, if I'm bringing this up, is that things just add up at some point kind of going back to today's topic. We pulled her out of the cuts. Right. So quitting also I've done I've done that for with two clients recently quitting the Yeah, we quit because she came to me in a deficit that she's hey, I want to lose body fat for summer. We kind of it kind of felt you know, like how the body responded for a couple of weeks. And I told her Hey, we can't do this. We have to go back to maintenance so we have to get you feeling good first to figure this stuff out before anything and it's improving a little now but there's still a lot of stuff going on also add maintenance so we need to take our time there you know. And we stopped that deficit right? I was a quick a couple of weeks let's see. But we decided to not do it anymore. And now we're looking into hormones. I got to health is improving. Luckily, you know working on stress management and sleep and those kind of things. And then once she feels good we can look into further goals. Thing is to she actually mentioned because she was doing cardio when I pulled her cardio as well, which I felt really I know we talked about this, you may, but I felt bad about that. Because I know she really enjoys that, you know what I mean? But again, you know, the body kind of decides, and at this stage, stress is too high. And we had to pull that too. So we pulled the deficit, pulled the cardio, unfortunately, right. And I told her to like, at some point, you gotta get it back. But for now, it's just like the temporary trade off. And it's difficult. And then she's like, What about CrossFit? You know, because she really wants to try that out too, as like, I'd love to give you that. Like, if you would like to try that. But just not yet. Because right now, things are slowly improving. We got to work on this. But again, going back to what you you said to for your client, as well, maybe we can do Ironman next year, or anywhere, you know, down the road, where there's maybe a little bit less stress. And life kind of allows for that, because we cannot do everything all at once. You know? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I had a client, I've pulled two clients out of cuts recently. One was, well, somewhat recently. One was like the hormone when I was just talking about, I actually did testing on her because like we were, she was doing everything right. And it was really weird, like, just very minimal, minimal progress. And so I started to pull her out. And then I did some testing. And her hormones were definitely like, out of whack, there was quite a bit going on there. And so now we're working on that. And she's seeing the progress there at maintenance, but she's still just like, she wants more. Right, like she's being a little bit impatient. So then there was another one that we did a ton of work on, like her relationship with food, because she had a lot of emotional eating popping up. And she just improved immensely. And then we're like, okay, like, let's try and we'll, we'll try and go into a cut. And we went into a cut, it was like, almost like, everything started coming back. It's like, she's, she went back into that mindset. And I'm like, this is never worth it. Never ever, is it worth it for you to be in a cut, you know, and we're still having those like binging episodes, it will only perpetuate the issue. And I have to remind her right of like, she's been in that for years, and years and years and years. And so, six months of working on something that you've been doing for 20 years, is a short period of time, right? So we quit the deficit. I also did testing with her, there was some hormonal stuff going on with her, which will play into emotional eating, like that can very much happen, right. So now we're in she was upset, like, she felt like she was starting from like, you know, day one is really much her words. Which realistically isn't true, right? And we talked about that. But now she sees you know, we're at maintenance. She's not having these episodes, we're working on her hormones, her her mood, and everything, digestion, everything is so much more stable. And so she quit and benefitted from quitting. Right? Like, we quit. We're like, we're not doing this. And so, yeah, it again, it's, it's very hard to do it nationally. But and like something to touch on with that, too, is it's not something to just like make an instant. You don't just want to make that instant decision of like, I'm quitting. Like, you definitely need to, like, weigh out the pros and cons of like, what's happening, wait it out a little bit. And sit on it like you don't just quit? Right? That's not what we're saying. There's gotta be discussion, there's gotta be weighing the pros and cons. And so yeah, anytime like, that's happened with a client, we see the benefits. And same with myself. There's always this benefit that comes after. And sometimes it's temporary. Like you can go back and do that thing down the road. So I think this is just a really important conversation because there's like these high achievers that want to just do everything, and it gets them into trouble. Yeah, yeah. This kind of reminds me of when I last it's called all started in 2020 it was like December November. Because at first I stopped training, CrossFit first and then eventually stopped coaching CrossFit as well. For kind of similar reasons, but like, either way I needed energy for like other stuff, you know what I mean? I mean, I will say, with CrossFit, there was, I just burned out like that. That was the main reason why I stopped training, CrossFit just ended up being too much. You know, the body said, Hey, I've had enough. Because usually what happens if you keep pushing, right? You either get sick, you got to injured your burnouts. If you don't, your body will slow you down. And that's what happened. And I vividly remember the actual moment to where we I started, you know, the, the session. And we started off with like, the training program was a little too intense, but started off with heavy clean and jerks. And I started and I just felt like, it's not gonna happen, you know what I mean? It was so beat up, everything hurt everything, just, I was like, I gotta, I gotta sit down for a sec, you know. And then I was like, totally just jettison, I just had to stop, you know what I mean? So I just dropped CrossFit. Okay. And over time, I had a bit of a weird thing with training for a little while. But then I kind of got into power building and, and bodybuilding felt way better. Half your lair, quit coaching, CrossFit. Because it just ended up too much as being too much as well, right? Because I started this company, I really start to, you know, nutrition coaching, being very busy. You need time for that? Well, and if you don't work on your own stuff on a train, and then also train or sorry, coach, other people, the crosses class just ended up being too much. And I was like, it's a little scary, because I got pros and cons, right? You start to think and it's like, well, yeah, I know, I kind of should do this, because I need the energy and the focus for my own company. But then also kind of afraid, because it's removing income. And it's the classes that I did really enjoy doing and those kinds of things. But again, I decided to quit them. And it was probably the best decision I made that year for my business. Because all the sudden, I have way more focus there. You know what I mean? So we do need to be aware of that. I've been asked you to coach CrossFit. Again, but I just had to say no, you know, because I just have my own thing. Would I like to yeah, like I love, you know, coaching those classes, it was a lot of fun, you know? But don't have the capacity, you don't have the capacity to do it. Yeah. I mean, I'm at capacity here, pretty much like we're at least getting there, you know, like, it's, it's a lot, same for you, like, we're a one man show so far. So, you know, at some point in the future is going to change. But for now, like there's only so much you can do you need your energy. We I mean, we got to be at a for our clients, first of all, and then there's a whole bunch of other stuff. And sometimes you got to be like, hey, you know, this one thing that's gotta go. It's always, it's always been that like, it's like, it's my clients. And that's it. Like, that is the main thing if something else is taking away from that, or like, is draining me or like something like that I'm taking this, like a way because I don't want this to be impacted. I want my quality of coaching to stay the same. And that means like, okay, maybe my mailing list isn't right now or like, maybe this isn't right now and just, you know, I'm kind of always have evaluating that. I guess, like if I really started to, like, I went through some crazy burnout this this past like month and a half. And I wasn't really posting on social media, I'm doing I pull back on the podcast, um, every other week instead of every week. You know, just, I'm not really doing my emailing list. I have to do that in order to keep this where I want it to be. Right. So, I mean, that kind of goes I'm not I'm not like, I mean, I'm not quitting these things. I'm putting them to the sideline for a bit so that I can keep this right. So yeah, I mean, quitting, putting it off to the side for a minute, you know, same type of thing. Yeah, it's all seasonal. You know, we, I kind of want to end it off with this because we do need to understand everything is seasonal. Whether it's, it's gonna be performance wise or vodka. composition wise or even relationship to food or literally like anything, you know, there's gonna be times where it's fucking awesome. And there's times where it's gonna suck. You know what I mean? And then most of the time, it's kind of like, okay, you know what I mean? Most of the times, like, we're good, but it's gonna be awesome sometimes, and it's gonna suck sometimes. And that's cool. Like, we do need to be okay with that, which is difficult thing sometimes. But does let you know how life works. You know what I mean? It's all up and down. Just how the weight fluctuates every fucking day. You know, it's the same shit for everything. Yeah. So that being said, just bring up one little thing here. You know, quitting. When it when you shouldn't kind of, it's, it's when it gets a little bit more difficult, because you do, of course, you want to work through stuff. Whether it's weekends, vacation, social settings, like those kind of things where we know like you mentioned with a, like binge eating, for example, we're not just going to quit, like, that's not something I think we should be dropping, you know what I mean? That's something that's difficult. It's going to be difficult for quite a while, probably. But we can still work through that. And those kinds of things are not worth quitting. So I will say that, right. Yeah. Because there are things that are worth working through. And that will then down the road lead to things being better as well. Right. Okay. So what is secrecy? Wrap it up? Yeah. Do you have any, like, updates, anything coming up for us just kind of like, kind of chill on your end? Ah me and Eric are starting to like flip houses, which I'm really excited about. Yeah. What else? There was one thing I wanted to say, Oh, I've got a few like functional clients, something I haven't really like put out there. But I have like a functional tier of coaching, where it's really just focusing on like, gut health, Hormonal Health, we do a lot of testing. And like, it's not fat loss related or anything like that. I mean, I mean, it can be obviously when you focus on those things, but it's more so just helping people improve, feel better get to the root cause of their issues and work on improving that. So it's, it's pretty awesome. I had a client who had some parasites, I do the GI map. And so like, I'm just so obsessed with, like learning about that and seeing it so cool. So we're in a process of like getting rid of that there's some clients that have like Candida, or like H. Pylori, stuff like that, or what we're working on, alongside hormones, you know, thyroid and things like that. So it's fun. Yeah, I've been getting more into kind of like, complex cases, I guess you could call it like that, or at least have just been coming up recently. And I feel like we're gonna have to do a whole lot more of that, because it's quite problematic, if you look at it, how common these kind of things are becoming now, time, but as a coach, I'm like you like, I'm like, it's kind of exciting, too. Because it's, you like figuring stuff out, and you can really get someone to really feel good and like, problem solve, you know? Yeah, it's super interesting. I will say, though, to anyone listening, like this shit is difficult to figure out sometimes. And it's going to be much so and it's very difficult to to kind of stick to it as well as a client. Yeah, like my functional tear of coaching. It's like six months or a year, like, and it's more than likely a year like this stuff takes a long time. But if you don't figure it out, and you know, work on it, it can become a really big issue down the road. So that's why it takes like longer up front, right. But, yeah, so important to take that time and not rush it. For sure. That being said, we're like, let's say someone's listening to this, and they're like, Hey, I kind of need some some extra help. Like, where can people find that is on your website? I'll link it in the description. Yeah. Yeah, they can just apply to my coaching through my website, which is at the link in my bio on my Instagram. That'll come through. If you want more of like the functional coaching, like it's not fat loss. It's like all hormonal stuff like that. Just say that in the in the application and then off, I'll see it and we'll go from Maryland's view and we'll go from there because I am taking functional clients on but I'm not Like taking right now I'm full capacity with my other like just, I don't want call call the basic but like Gen pop like fat loss type of client. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, that being said we do shameless plug as well. Yeah, we are currently taking on people. So if you do want to have the fat loss of muscle gain, etc. We do still take people on currently so I'll drop the link down below as well. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to drop us a quick review. It was a huge favor. We do this for free to help you and really the only only thing we want to charge for that is a quick five star review, you know. That being said, I'll talk to you soon, Kristine until the listener, see you next week.