#150 - Giveaway Winner, Staying Consistent Through Tough Times, & Realistic Expectations

In this episode of Talking Nutrition, Johan first announces the winner of the 2024 Odyssey Coaching Systems Scholarship Giveaway. Second, he talks about how to make it through tough times and still take care of your health. And finally, he discusses the importance of having realistic expectations and making healthy choices during different scenarios, such as summer or when traveling.

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Transcript

0:33

What is up and welcome back to Talking Nutrition. Today my voice is a little bit lower because I am totally just sick. You might hear me cough a little bit. I'll try to kind of keep myself in. What is up? What's up and welcome back to Talking Nutrition. Today I'm going to sound a little bit different because I'm totally sick. I'm down with a fever. I've been coughing a lot, sneezing. So just so you know, I'm going to sound a little bit rough today, which is also, by the way, why I'm a little bit later. I was supposed to obviously put out an episode on Thursday. I was trying to catch up over the weekend. Totally got home. Felt sick. Fever the last couple nights. But we're still doing it. We're still showing up. And this might even slightly speak or talk. What's up and welcome back to Talk Nutrition. Today I'm going to sound twice as low because I am totally sick. So my voice is rough and I've been coughing a lot. I'm down with a fever. Still am currently. Last couple nights were very rough. Long nights of sleep, trying to sleep it off, you know. But just so you know, I am sick so I don't feel great today, but we're still showing up. And that even speaks a little bit to one of the things I wanted to discuss today. So I kind of have three points for you to go through. First of all, we're gonna celebrate our winner for the scholarship giveaway. Second, I wanted to talk to you, make it through tough times, always going back to the things you can control and making the best of a situation. And then third, because like I said, I mean, there's really like different things to discuss today. Third, it's summer, going in with the right expectations, but also just in general, being realistic with. what you expect from yourself and what you ask of yourself because we always talk about leveling up. We always look to grow and we're always trying to do better. But I also want you to know that as much as we're trying to be on point with our stuff, right? If you want amazing results, your input needs to be amazing. If you want the best results possible, you better figure out to dial in your macros. You better show up to the gym, hit all your workouts. But in all reality, right, that's not always going to be the case. But we also need to understand in what scenario I can or cannot fully like optimally stick to my plan. So let's talk about that today. So like I said, a bit of a mix of different topics today because I mean, either way, I think it's stuff we need to talk about and it's a completely different approach to the things that we normally discuss. It's like, hey, how could it be like dial in, right? How can I really be a little bit better next week, a little bit better next week? Now we're going to look at the other side of that to where, hey, like maybe sometimes we can't do the optimal thing, but we can still do some basic things, right? And with that, you can also allow yourself to have realistic expectations when it comes to certain phases or seasons or even days. Right now, I feel like crap. I'll be very honest. Do I go to the gym today? No, I will not because I still feel the fever, right? that just wouldn't be the right thing to do. Will I beat myself up about not going to the gym even though Monday is supposed to be my chess day? No, not really. I'll just do it tomorrow, right? Hopefully, if I feel better. But it's one of those where would it be, right? According to the plan, yeah. But right now I'm sick, right? So let's say for whatever reason the next few days, because I'd like to think that tomorrow I'm gonna be able to go back to the gym. But let's say... For whatever reason, I can only hit four or three out of my five workouts this week. Let's say the fever doesn't go away. Okay. Is it a bad week then? Probably not, right? Because realistically speaking, what could have been done differently or better? Well, sometimes you can't do all those things. But first, before we dive in, a positive thing, a very exciting thing. We ran the giveaway. We've been spamming it quite a bit on Instagram, different platforms, newsletter, on the podcast even. We had to decide our winner and it was tough to be honest with you. We had so many applications. I was kind of overwhelmed to be honest with you with the amount of people who reached out who were like, yo, like I want to win this scholarship. I want to win this giveaway. And to be transparent to the stories are very impactful to see. Right. I think it's, people really open up in those applications. That's why it also was not an easy thing to pick one winner out of the, I mean, so many people who applied. But we can of course only have one winner. And the winner, let me just start with that, right? The winner to a giveaway scholarship is Anita Leute. So Anita has always, you know. What is up and welcome back to Talk Nutrition. Today I'm going to sound a little rough because I am sick. I'm down with a fever last couple days, rough couple nights, but hey, we're still showing up. There's really three things I wanted to discuss with you and today will slightly be a shorter episode. Just so you know, I'll be bringing back our blogs again. I haven't written any for a little bit, but I want to bring them back. We're going to do a lot more there. We're going to, of course, link those within our upcoming episodes as well. A lot of cool stuff coming up, so stay tuned. For now though, today, a little bit of a shorter one, where first of all, very exciting news, we are announcing our giveaway winner. Second, I want to speak to making it through tough times, which is something that just kind of came up in my head and I was like, we got to talk about this because we rarely do. We always talk to optimizing everything and doing a little bit better and really trying to do the work. Absolutely, but there's a different side to that as well. Like sometimes we go through tough times. So how do we deal with that? Could be time of stress, could be, right? Anything, you know, life throws things at you, right? You're going to go through your ups and downs and what will you do? What will you do when you're tested? Not in the sense of like an extreme workout or your deficits. Yes, those things or the ice bath, right? Those things, of course. are very great ways of testing yourself, but what will you do if you go through a period of, you know, mourning someone or going through breakups, stress? By the way, even if you go through your menstruation week and you don't feel great, right? I see this come up a lot. PMS symptoms, right? Stress. Having a time where sleep is just kind of crap. Maybe work is crazy. How will you still do the things that will at least keep you physically in a good spot, right? Within reason. And then my last point for today, I also want to speak to having the right expectations for the season that you're in, for the scenarios that you're going through. Also understanding that, yes, we speak to hitting macros and we're always trying to be on point with everything, but also there, depending on the time of the year or where you're at, or maybe there's a change in. in location where you're at. I have a lot of people who are traveling a lot for work, people who go offshore. How will you deal with those times and how will you not beat yourself up understanding that there's a difference between what we can do optimally, let's say when we're at home, and then of course when we're on the go or there's something, right? Let's not beat ourselves up either for not being as on point compared to when we are fully on a roll and can control. So one thing at a time, first of all, the winner for our giveaway. Honestly, it was very difficult to pick a winner out of the so many applications that we got. And it was very impactful to read all these amazing applications. And people really opened up. They share why they should win and the things they've struggled with. And it's very difficult. Honestly, like every, you know. Every application, I was like, I would love to help this person. So either way, first of all, if you applied for the giveaway, thank you. Thank you for showing your interest in our coaching program. Now, even if you're not the winner, of course, we'd still love to work with you, love to coach with you. But of course, there can only be one winner to the actual giveaway. So that being said, announcing our winner officially. for our 2024 scholarship giveaway, Anita Leute. So Anita has already been on board today. We are diving in right away and for the next half year she's gonna be coaching with us. I'm very excited. So first of all, Anita, I'm stoked. I'm very just excited to jump in. I can't wait. Like I said, it was a difficult choice because we had, I had to do like additional calls to kind of like address the top three, you know, but hey. Only one winner, and in this case, it is Anita. So I'm super excited for you. Let's dive in today, right? So we're starting with her food diary today, which is this week. And from there, we're going to start to make changes. Because one of the things we do differently is we actually look where you're currently at first, right? A lot of people struggle for years, decades sometimes with their weight or health and nutrition, but then also expect to be able to go into a program and over the next Two weeks already dropped like 10 kilos, you know. I'm over exaggerating here, but you get it, right? Without any consideration for their current routines, how long they've been trying to diet and those kinds of things. So you see, that's why we start with a full diary. That's why I always want to see, hey, what are you currently doing nutritional wise? What are your habits looking like? And then from there, we'll start to make changes. So to give you a little bit of a look behind the scenes, then from next week, we're going to start to make changes. We're going to put our plan together. and then we'll take it from there. And then of course, week to week, there's a lot of back and forth, a lot of troubleshooting. Now moving into the next topic basically, or next section for this podcast, making it through difficult times, stressful times, times where things are just kind of working against you or it feels like it. There's different scenarios that we can think of, right? But let's say things are tough for a little bit, okay. Will you allow that time to totally get you down? Or will you still do something for your health, your fitness, et cetera? Now, I'm not saying that you should expect yourself to be able to hit all your workouts and your nutrition perfectly, no. But what I am saying is that as much as we might feel like crap, there are still certain actions we can take to keep our nutrition in check, to do things that allow us to manage stress. to, for example, prioritize our sleep, we can still eat healthy, and we can still make sure that, hey, I might feel like crap right now, but the things I can control, tracking macros, right? Getting my steps in, going for a walk, journaling, meditation. I can list a whole bunch here, right? Optimizing sleep. Even just taking some more time for yourself to recharge. Prepping your food. All those little things, those little actions that... no matter how we feel we can still do, objectively speaking, right? Out of all those kind of things, can we at least do something that makes you feel better on like a physical and physiological level? not taking away from the mindset side of things. Mental health is huge, of course. And there's different scenarios we could apply this, but let's say we don't feel great. Okay, are we gonna make it better or at least as good as possible by still, you know, doing our best to be healthy and feel good physically? Or are we gonna make it worse because we are, right? by now allowing this to move into like a downward spiral where we're like, you know, I feel like crap. So now I'm gonna eat like crap. I'm not gonna work out. I'm not gonna hit my steps. I'm not gonna journal. I'm gonna stay up late. We make it worse by doing that, right? We do. So let's make sure we still do little things at least in our favor. I'm not taking away from the fact that sometimes life gets hard. It does. But you can still do something that will allow you to be at least in a better spot compared to just letting everything go. So maybe that's currently or maybe recently you've gone through a period or hey, you know what, maybe sometime in the near future, something happens and you'll feel like crap and you'll be thrown off. You might be on a roll and then all of a sudden this thing happens, right? How will you respond? How will you respond? Are you gonna still try to do better? Or at least control what you can control? or will you allow yourself to become a victim of the situation? Think about that. There are always things you can do. Drinking water, eating your proteins, fruits and vegetables. These are things that are very basic. These are things we can always do. We can always get a workout in. Knowing that working out, lifting weights is also good for your mental health. Getting your steps in is good for your health. So many things. Walking is great for stress management. Those are all little actions we can still take, no matter how we feel. And now let's move into the third section. I just wanted to share that because we do need to understand there are things we can always do. Now, when it comes to the third section, summer or just any other scenario where it's like, hey, a little bit different, going in with the right expectations, by the way, even if it's not summer, let's say you go away for work, you go, you change locations for work. You're traveling, whatever, like any different scenario, the phase you're in. What it takes to create results is not you being 100 % on point with everything all the time. We always speak to that 80 -20 mindset, right? The 80 -20 rule, 80 % Whole Foods, 20 % anything else. We can take that same principle and apply it to everything else for your steps, your sleep, how consistently you hit your macros, how consistently you hit your steps, the list goes on. How often we do... enough fiber, our fruits and veggies, we do drink enough water. It's really like that 80%, as long as you're 80 % good, even if we zoom out completely. If you're like 80 % on point this whole year, on average, you're killing it. You're doing great. But what expectations do you have for yourself in this current place, current state? Because a lot of times we expect a little too much of ourselves. A lot of times we tend to beat up ourselves thinking that I always have to do better, right? I'm supposed to be hitting my macros. I'm supposed to hit my calories. by the way, like I fucked up. I didn't hit my steps. I couldn't get my workouts in. Okay. Can we zoom out and see what kind of a week we're looking at? Okay, so maybe we didn't hit our macros, but we were traveling and we still did great because We maintained very well. We made healthier food choices. Our weight didn't go up. We still got some decent amount of activity in. Isn't that already great? Isn't that already plenty for that scenario? I just talked to someone as well. They went offshore and they're very worried about tracking not being right as usual. Meals were at a catering. So, you know, like it's a completely different kind of setup. Of course, that's going to be different from home. What do we expect from a setting like that? Someone else, a client of mine, he travels a lot to where we actually, for him, we almost have two plans. We have, hey, when you're at home, we dial things in as much as possible. But when you're on the go, he knows which hotel breakfast to get, what kind of things, what basics to keep in mind. We do some eyeball tracking, you see? Those are different scenarios. So we also can't beat ourselves up about not being as consistent as... we are at home, right? Even though we're traveling. those are two different things. Last week, I went to visit my family. I still had to do a lot of work. Of course, we were doing giveaway stuff, right? I have my team to take care of, my clients. I went to see my friends. By the way, I flew to Holland to renew my passport. And I actually wouldn't allow me to do that because now I don't live in Holland anymore. And it's a whole different process now. So I'm going to do it here in Norway. But okay, that's a different story. It was going to take 10 to 12 weeks and I was only in Holland for a week. So, you know, better luck next time. But okay, that's a different story. So I'm going to use myself here as an example. Did I hit all my workouts? No, I didn't. Did I nail my macros? I didn't nail them. I did pretty good. My eyeballed, right? Did I control my food quality? If I look at that 80 -20, yeah. I mean, I was still like at least 80, 85 % whole foods, if not more. I've almost only ate whole foods, which is great. It just makes me feel good. I like those foods. And then of course, we had some fun stuff as well. So 80 -20, you see? Or 80 -20, 90 -10. Was my sleep as good? No, because in Holland it was like 30 degrees Celsius and I'm not used to that anymore. And it was very warm, so I had a hard time sleeping. Okay. Did I hit all my steps? Actually, no. Not what I usually do. So there's definitely a few things where if I would compare that to a week here at home where I'm hitting my macros, I'm preparing all my own meals, I'm weighing everything, I have my usual routine, I can go to the gym, do my walks, etc. My morning routines. Different scenario, right? I can't beat myself up then about last week because I went in with the right expectations. If I instead think I'm supposed to be doing exactly what I do at home in this different scenario when things are different, when I'm traveling, et cetera, of course I'm going to let myself down. But that's also not the intention. So now also understanding that you're looking at summer. It's July 1st today. You're looking at summer and it's a time where you're gonna have more social settings. We have July 4th coming up, right? We have people are going on vacation. There's so much coming up in July, August, even September, right? There's always things, but also understand that there's gonna be a difference between being completely dialed and just making healthier choices, just keeping your healthy habits up. during times when hey, things can actually be a little bit, in quotes, less optimal, because this is what we've been building healthy habits for, right? It's all not about being on point with everything all the time. You're not going to step on a bodybuilding stage. You're very unlikely to be doing weight-based sports or anything like that where there's an actual deadline, there's an actual thing you've got to control as much as possible. It's not the case, right? You know, our listeners, right? You're trying to be healthier. You're trying to be stronger, leaner. You don't have to be 100 % accurate like a bodybuilder or something, you know? You don't, you know? 80 -20, that's all you gotta do. So I know this episode was a little bit random, just three different kind of pieces. We had the giveaway, of course, which is amazing. Going through tough times and then, right? going in with the right expectations, setting yourself up with the right expectations and also knowing that, hey, I don't have to beat myself up if I know going into this that it's gonna be different, right? I'm also still sick. So again, I'm not feeling great. That's why I wanted to keep it shorter today. I'm going to do my best to have a little bit more of an exciting episode on Thursday. But that being said, I actually want you to go in and scroll a little bit through our podcast. Go back to some older episodes. I can guarantee there's going to be some cool stuff for you. There's going to be some things in there that you would that you may really like. Different topics, right? Scroll. See, you can even search by the way, right, in Spotify. But see what's maybe something that really applies to your journey. If you can find any topics that you would really find helpful. And hey, by the way, if you have any suggestions or questions, just hit me up for your Instagram because you can always come with any suggestions for topics. I'm looking to bring on new amazing guests. We're looking at a very exciting third quarter of the year. So that being said, I'm gonna wrap it up for today. Thank you for being patient with me being sick and I will be back on Thursday. Like I said, slightly more interesting episode maybe. But, I'm joking aside, I mean it, like, scroll through the podcast. Check out some older episodes and I'll talk to you soon.