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Primal Foundations Podcast
Welcome to the Primal Foundations Podcast! We will dive into what I believe are the 4 essential foundations you need to live a healthy lifestyle.
Strength , Nutrition , Movement , and Recovery.
Get ready to dive into discussions that will guide you on your transformative journey to unlocking your path to optimal health.
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Primal Foundations Podcast
Episode 38: Body Confident with Coach Bronson Dant
Welcoming back fitness expert Coach Bronson Dant to the show! Coach Bronson shares insights from his new book, Body Confident, revealing how shifting focus from looks to what your body can do transforms health and fitness. Dive into the carnivore diet, balancing protein and fat, and how lifestyle choices impact your goals. With tips on fitness, stress management, and sleep, this episode equips you with the tools to prioritize capability over appearance for lasting results.
Connect with Coach Bronson:
https://www.instagram.com/coach.bronson/
https://coachbronson.com/
Body Confident Book:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW17H7KP
PRIMAL FOUNDATIONS PODCAST-
Instagram: @Tony_PrimalFoundations
Website: Primalfoundations.com
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Welcome to the Primal Foundations podcast. I'm your host, tony Pascola. We will dive into what I believe are the four central foundations you need for a healthy lifestyle Strength, nutrition, movement and recovery. Get ready to unlock your path to optimal health and enjoy the episode. Today we have returning guests on the show Coach Bronson Dan. Coach Bronson is a seasoned health and fitness coach and author. You may know him from his books the Meat Life, a Beginner's Guide to the Carnivore Diet, and the Ultimate Ketogenic Fitness Book. Today he will share some insights of his upcoming book, body Confident. You can check out Coach Bronson's first appearance on the Primal Foundations podcast in episode 19. Coach Bronson, welcome back to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Tony, appreciate it. Yeah, it's great to have you on, and I remember when we had our first conversation, one of the things I said was you know, if somebody told you you're going to write a book one day you're about two books deep You're like, no, there's no way. And here we are. Book number three, book number three.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy. I hated it's one of those you look back at school, like remember school? And they're like, hey, you have to write a hundred word, or you have to write your homework is writing two paragraphs, and you're like, oh, it's so hard, it's the worst thing ever. And here I am writing, you know, 80,000 word books. It's crazy, man. But I have found that I actually enjoy writing more, not only more than I thought I ever would, but almost more than anything else I'm doing right now. It's just a blast, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:It's a blast. I'm really enjoying it a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to kick off today starting the conversation about diving into the upcoming book Body Confident, and I think it's a perfect way to kind of set the tone, for you know how we could talk about shifting the conversation around fitness and nutrition. Can you share you know what inspired you to write the book and then what message you hope that it brings to your readers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this, the, the the idea of body confidence, is something that, honestly, has been developing, growing, percolating in my mind for probably seven, eight years. Right, it started when I was introduced to CrossFit and when I opened up my gym in 2014,. That was kind of really where I started seeing the application of how fitness was improving quality of life and it started. That's where the seed was planted Like, wait, I'm not helping people get six packs, I'm helping people live better. And that's where it kind of started From there, when I got an in-body device for my gym and then I started seeing the impact of combining nutrition with fitness and how there's a bigger picture of looking at improvement. Right, Because up to the time I was really educated on the impact of body composition, it was all are you getting better at the gym and are you losing weight, which is a very limiting view of overall progress and how your everyday life is impacted. So, being exposed to the in-body and understanding body composition and how that can be more impactful than overall weight. And then my own personal experience of, after owning the gym for a couple of years, hitting the wall as far as my progress goes and actually going backwards because of gaining weight again because of injuries, because of the wear and tear that my nutrition lifestyle was causing, even though I was doing all the right things fitness-wise. There was another aspect there. It's like, wait, there's a bigger picture beyond weight loss. There's a bigger picture beyond looking like you're in shape. There's a bigger picture beyond looking like you're in shape. There's a bigger picture beyond what many people start their journey for, and it took me.
Speaker 2:My last book, the Ultimate Ketogenic Fitness Book, is kind of around. That came out in 2022. It was post COVID 2020, 2021, 2022, where I started this whole concept of fitness is freedom, where I started really trying to get into the low carb, keto carnivore space and let people and help people understand that the diet is important but if you don't move your body, you're missing half the half the equation, and that's where I started talking about it's 50, 50. Nutrition and fitness. You need them both in order to reach your goals and keep the goals. Nutrition will get you a lot of places, but by itself, it's not going to keep you there. Nutrition and fitness is what keeps you there for the rest of your life. That was where the Ultimate Ketogenic Fitness book that's what that message was primarily about is getting people to understand the importance of fitness.
Speaker 2:From there I really started connecting as I got more years under my belt and as I started being more self-aware and developing like what is the actual process that I'm following? Right? So I've got these ideas, I've got these concepts that I'm working with people. How is it actually working in real life? The people that I'm working with that are successful, what are the things that they're doing versus the people I work with that aren't successful? When I talk to other coaches, what are the people they're doing that they have that are successful? What are they doing? So, starting to try to gather this information about what are the characteristics of what people are doing, what things they're following, how they're applying the things that make ketogenic lifestyles successful, how they're thinking about their journey all these different things and really starting to connect with the mindset aspect of how we think about the process, and that's kind of the culmination.
Speaker 2:This book, Body Confident, is the culmination of all of these things together, basically saying look, it's not about how you look, it's not about even how you think about yourself. It's literally about what can your body do? Everything that we base our self-image about not everything, but a lot of what we base our self-image about is really tied into the limitations that we have in our life that we think are because we're overweight, we think are because of this health condition we think are X, Y or Z. But the root cause of all of it is you don't trust your body to perform the way it's supposed to perform. That's the root. When you do whatever you can and you focus on how do I make my body work better, you can and you focus on how do I make my body work better, everything else falls into place, Anything else.
Speaker 2:If we look at it like a tree, right Right now, many, many people are stuck trying to cut a tree down and they're climbing the tree and trying to cut off branches and then they're wondering why they can never stop cutting the tree. It keeps growing back and they're in this perpetual. I got to cut this branch. I got to climb over and cut this branch. I got to climb over and cut this branch. Oh wait, that branch grew back. I got to go back and cut this one. Like all this stuff is happening.
Speaker 2:If they would just go to the core, which is metabolic function, how much work can your body do and are. Is your body doing? Are you doing everything for your body to make it function as well as possible? Everything else comes from there, and we say it all the time. We talk about metabolic syndrome and metabolic dysfunction. That's the root cause. Well, if metabolic dysfunction is the problem, then metabolic function is the solution, but we're not looking at metabolic function. And when we look at metabolic function, this is another reason I wrote the book. I know this is a long response, Sorry.
Speaker 1:Oh, keep it, keep it rolling when we look at metabolic function.
Speaker 2:I'm not talking about mechanistic function we get into. Oh well, I'm worried about my mitochondrial health and I'm trying to improve autophagy and mitophagy and all of these things that are mechanisms inside the clock, right, we're looking at, we're looking at, we're trying to tell time and we're taking the clock apart and we're looking at the gears and the springs trying to understand what time it is. That's not helpful. When I talk about metabolic function, I'm talking about what are the things in your life metabolic function in real terms. For the everyday average person, metabolic function equals can you do what you need to do in your life every day. That is what we should be focused on and that's what the book is all about trying to change our mindset. And what is the focus that we're trying to look at? And stop looking at all these things that are wasting your time. Right, the majoring in the minors. And what are the big things? The low hanging fruit, the minimum effective dose changes you can make in your life that are going to move you forward.
Speaker 1:I love that, the aspect of and a lot of people think of it as this way of it's a 50-50 split nutrition, strength training, what have you? But you're really like it's a 33%, 33%, 33%, with mindset being a part of the equation Kind of argue too. We talked about the why last time of like, if you're asking yourself, why ask it again and again and again to get to this root cause? But like mindset, I think, like you probably might agree or maybe not, but like I think, if you don't have the mindset that that strength training or that nutritional habits that you want to have, that it won't even, it won't come to fruition.
Speaker 2:Oh no, it won't. And it and you may get initial success and you get short-term success, but nothing is sustainable if you're not thinking about it the right way. And the right way is going to be different for everybody, because everybody's at a different place and where their level of awareness and goals and things are. You can look at anything and say if you're not consistent, it's not going to work. If you're looking for short-term success and all you're focused on is getting results right now, it's not going to work. If you're always changing what you're doing because you're looking for the best solution, it's not going to work. These are traps that people get into all the time. Or if you're trying to stack 18 different bests on top of each other, it's not going to work.
Speaker 2:There's some basic ideas behind things that we need to do to be successful. We need to make small changes, we need to have a long-term vision and we need to continue doing something long enough to see if it's actually working. And if it's not working, then we make a change. And when we make a change, it's a small change, not an extreme change. So there's a lot of these mindset things about the process itself that people aren't paying attention to and they're just not developing the awareness to say what am I doing and why am I doing it? That's one of the biggest things I think an individual can take away from the book and from this talk is, if you can't answer the question of why am I doing this in the first place with a specific result in mind, that you have an realistic timeframe and when you should expect that result, then you probably shouldn't be doing that thing.
Speaker 2:Too often I hear people say, well, so-and-so said I should. What the hell does that mean? They don't know what you're going through, they haven't lived in your body, they don't live your daily life. So why are you doing that? Just because they have a PhD or just because they've got a million followers on YouTube or who knows whatever reason? People listen to people, right? What is your context? What is the thing specifically that you're trying to do, and can you maintain it for the rest of your life?
Speaker 1:This process right and you mentioned it when you're responding was giving it the time that it needs and, again, giving that timeframe and if it's not working, change and be open to change. And that's the segue I want to get into. Is a lot of people on carnivore. You know carnivorous diet, low carb they don't talk about this a lot but you know carnivore works for you until it doesn't. Um, I have my kind of um take on it, but I I want to hear yours and I think that you know I was mentioning to you that I've heard you talk about how you're on carnivore and you've had to change some things that weren't working for you over the past few years. If you can kind of talk about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I want to see if I can word this in a way that is impactful but makes sense at the same time. The principles that make carnivore effective always work 100%, every single time. How you implement those principles will change based on your goals, where you're trying to go and where you're coming from. So it's not that carnivore isn't working, it's that you may not be doing the things within those concepts that make sense for you today. Right, and that also includes and this is also this is another piece of the puzzle is we have to understand that if nutrition is 33% of the equation, then you can't blame everything on your diet, and that's another mistake. People, well, I did carnivore for six months and it didn't work for me. Well, yeah, but you were also not working out. Your sleep sucks. You work 80 hours a week. There's a whole bunch of other things going on. So carnivore can help with some things, but if you're overloaded and your total allostatic stress load is this and you're not doing things to physically improve your body's ability to perform and manage stress, and there's all this other stuff going on, then you are working out of a hole trying to climb uphill. So, of course, the diet's not going to help. There's other things you have to do. So understanding that in the big picture, in the long-term concept of sustainable change, doing the diet can be a step, but if it's not working this is the part of that self-awareness and evaluation process Maybe the diet is working the best it can, maybe there's other things you need to be doing to support what that diet's trying to do. So maybe that's another aspect side of that coin. If we're just looking at nutrition, just looking at the diet itself, there are people at different places that need different things. And again, we'll use myself. For example.
Speaker 2:When I first started carnivore, I didn't track anything. I just ate meat and it changed my life. It changed my life from a body composition perspective, from a health perspective, from a performance perspective, from a recovery perspective. Everything got better. And then I maintained that for a long time I played around with tracking. I played around with not tracking. I did a period where I wanted to see how lean could I get and I got down to my high school weight at one point in time. So from my heaviest at 245, 250 to my lightest at 165, right, following a carnivore diet, that was way too skinny. I look like a fricking skeleton dude. I look at pictures back now I'm like what the hell was I thinking? Man, that's horrible. I like to be around 185, 195. That's my sweet spot To now, where I've been carnivore now almost six and a half years. Six and a half years I've been at my goal lifestyle for most of that time Because I already had the fitness in place when I started carnivore. So it took me about 90 days for carnivore to put everything together and then since then it's just been easy riding and anything that I do is an experiment, right. But I don't have any specific thing I'm trying to fix at this point in my life at 52 years old. So for the past year or so, year and a half, I've just been kind of coasting and not tracking. Working out has gone down. My consistency, my frequency, overall time in the gym has gone down because of work and business and writing the book and going back to school. There's just all these different things that are going on. So that has been much more in the back of my mind, kind of I'm just maintaining whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, I put on 20 pounds, it's like okay, but you're a carnivore, how do you gain weight winter carnivore? Well, I just wasn't tracking. And I ate more. I love eggs, I eat a lot of eggs, and when I'm not tracking and I'm not being focused and specific about what I'm doing, I tend to eat a lot of eggs and butter and I like 80% ground meat and bacon and sausage. You know what I mean All these things. So over time I put on 20 pounds of fat.
Speaker 2:I went from 185 to 205 and about a month and a half ago I was like putting on my work pants. I was like wait a second, what the heck is going on here? This isn't. I don't like this. Hold on, you know. It's like wait a second. Okay, now I got those pants sized a couple of years ago when I was 185, 180. And so now here I am. I'm like, okay, I guess I need to pull it back. So I started tracking again. I started being more specific with what I was doing. I started watching what I was eating, making different choices and being much more aware of what I was doing. And it's been six weeks now. I've lost. I'm a little over 10 pounds lost. Everything's starting to fit better again. My pants aren't riding up my butt anymore, all those types of things.
Speaker 2:The process of is it working or isn't it working has a lot to do with are you doing the right things? Are you waiting long enough to see it happen? And are you actually there's doing the right things? And then there's doing the right things, so there's doing the right things. Or then there's doing the right things, so there's doing the right things. Are in the things that you've chosen to do, the things you need to be doing to move you in the direction you want to go? And then there's the. Are you actually consistently performing and executing those things to see the results you're looking to see? So those are the three things to look at Are you doing the right things? Have you picked the right things? Are you doing them consistently and have you given it enough time to work? If you have those, if you can say yes to all three of those things and you're not getting where you want to go, then you can evaluate okay, what do I need to change? What do I need to tweak?
Speaker 1:of emotionally when you kind of hit that point, because I, you know anybody that's ever yo-yo, dieted, dieted right, um, you, you have a lot of success, and then all of a sudden, the diet's not working anymore or, you know, you go off of it and you find yourself back at that weight or higher. How did you kind of feel is it different now, um, versus like if that, if this were to happen to you, you know, 15 years ago, yeah, I don't know about how I would have felt 15 years ago.
Speaker 2:I mean, 15 years ago was one of the reasons I started doing this because I felt like crap about it, about being overweight and I didn't, and even at 20 pounds heavier than I am or, you know, than I was about a year ago. I don't, you know what I'm. I mean I've lost almost 15 pounds, so I only got about five more pounds to get back to where I was. I mean it's like, oh crap, Okay, I put on some weight. I guess I got to go back. I mean, at this point I've been doing it long enough and I understand the process and I know what it takes and I'm not expecting it to be an in a week thing. It's been six, seven weeks, right. So it's like, okay, I know what I need to do, I'll give it. Knowing how much I had to lose, I figured it's probably going to take me eight to 12 weeks somewhere in there to get back to the body fat percentage. I'm not worried about the weight as much as more about the body fat percentage. I was at 18% body fat. I don't like being at 18%, I like being around 12, 13, somewhere under 15. So it was like it 18%. I like being around 12, 13, somewhere under 15. So it was like it'll probably take me eight to 12 weeks to get back under 15. And then I'll be good.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's a process thing and I understand it's a process thing and it doesn't mean anything to me other than because I've been self-aware of the process. I know that I haven't been tracking. I know that I haven't really been focused on it. I know that I've been in a maintenance mode and that other things have taken a priority. What is there to get upset about? It's expected that my body composition will probably go in a direction I don't like it to go, and at some point I'll have to say okay, I'm done, I'm not going any further than this, let's bring it back. Okay, I'm done, I'm not going any further than this, let's bring it back. So no, they're very much more pragmatic and matter of fact about it now than I probably would have been in the past.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's seasons in a year, right, there's ups and downs and waves. It's just one of those things that's going to happen and, like you said, just kind of acknowledging it and taking the step in the right direction is the biggest thing. You know, a lot of people get frozen with it, like now, what do I do now? And get upset, but just kind of digging your feet in the sand and saying, okay, like this is where it ends and I'm going to make some changes. And this is a very similar, very similar which has been happening to me oh, go, keep going.
Speaker 2:There's a difference in there too, and it's not so I didn't go off track. I want to make this. Here's another reason why I was able to be pragmatic about getting back on track air quotes. I'm saying that facetiously. I didn't get off track. I didn't change a lot about what I was eating. Yeah, were there times where I had more. I had potatoes when normally, when I'm being trying to really be focused, I don't have potatoes, I don't have French fries, I don't have hash browns.
Speaker 2:Sure, like I said, I was kind of like, whatever it is kind of, it is what it is. I don't really care that much. I still want to be clean, I still want to be animal-based, I still want I'm still following the general concepts of what I believe is good, healthy nutrition. So it wasn't that I was making an emotional departure from my belief system that got me off track. I wasn't responding to emotional triggers. I wasn't following an old habit loop. That was a self-sabotaging activity.
Speaker 2:So, getting back on track, it wasn't about beating myself up or getting down on myself because I did something wrong. And that's where I think a lot of people are, because they're putting this emotional weight into their actions and everything that I did was I did it in awareness of the situation and awareness of what I was doing. I made the decision to not track. I made the decision to let my nutrition and fitness lifestyle take a backseat to other things that were a higher priority. And then, when it got to a point where I didn't like what I was seeing and feeling and how my life was from a fitness and nutrition perspective, I said, okay, it's time to readjust those priorities and then keep going with about my life. So, because the the cause of the change in my body composition was it I wouldn't say intentional, but it was not made in I wasn't oblivious to what was happening and it wasn't an emotional thing. It made switching gears a lot easier.
Speaker 1:This is something I've just been going through since January, like I've been tracking myself and I don't. I was this intuitive eater. I really rarely stepped on the scale, maybe every once in a while, and I started noticing since last January I kind of went up a little bit, not by much, I thought it was cause I was strength training a little bit more. I don't do as many endurance things. Um, so I knew my weight was going up a little bit. I was still working out, I was still eating carnivore and then all of a sudden, you know, when I ended doing endurance things, I was like in the one seventies, low one seventies, mid one seventies, about that 12, anywhere from 12 to 15% body fat type deal, and then I went up to about 18%. I was in the upper nineties.
Speaker 1:I'm like I've been eating, you know, steak and lifting weights, like what's going on. This was working so well for me, Uh, but that intuitive piece and uh, really kind of bit me in the butt a little bit, and this is something that I've heard you talk about. I think this is what kind of happened to me was this hormonal satiety versus mass satiety, and I was basing a lot of my meals off of the weight of what made me feel full versus actually what the energy that I'm expending. So if you could talk about like the hormonal satiety versus mass satiety.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, it makes a. It makes a difference and and making sure that you're getting enough protein and fat in combination um is really a key, and that's going to be different for everybody. I actually um have a. I've been putting a list together of studies I wish existed, in case someday the tooth fairy comes down and gives me a crap ton of money to do studies I've got. One of those things is what is the optimal fat protein ratio in a meal to stimulate satiety? Insulin, like? There's a bunch of hormonal things that happen when we have the right combination. And what is that combination?
Speaker 2:But I found that for a lot of people who eat a lot of lean protein and not a lot of fat, they have issues with satiety. They tend to be hungry all the time. People that eat too much fat have an issue with feeling full quickly, but not for a long time, and then they got to eat again. They got to eat again, they got to eat again and then now because they're so focused on fat. This is one of the reasons why people that do high fat tend to overeat fat, because they're eating more meals in a day and they're not getting enough protein. So there's a balance between fat and protein, that really there's a sweet spot and yeah, it's just.
Speaker 2:I think everybody playing around with understanding the term adequate. What is the adequate amount of fat that you need in a day? What is the adequate amount of protein that you need in a day? Figure out what that is and try to balance those numbers between your meals so you're getting a similar ratio of fat and protein at every meal. I think that's really the for the general population. That's the way to go. That makes sense. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I've, I've, I've been experimenting with fat cycling, where I'll have, within one day I'll have two pounds, but you know, of ground beef or whatever. But it's going to be like one of the packs might be an 85 15, the other is going to be a 97, 3, uh, and then another day I'll have you know exact two pounds again, but then they'll both be 85, 15, or one of them can be 80, 20. I just been messing with that and like just pulling the lever on the fat.
Speaker 2:It's a huge difference.
Speaker 1:It's crazy how much weight like, how quickly like not, and I can kind of see my abs a little bit. Not that I have a six pack by any means, but I was like, okay, I can start seeing my abs pretty well now I was like and it happens quick, when you're consistent, it happens quick, right, yeah, yeah, and I think that's uh a piece of that too.
Speaker 1:Uh, knowing that this is like this diet's working for him, because I felt good the entirety of eating carnivore and maybe I was over indulging in some of the meals. However, I still feel it's not like I feel like I'm dieting now, I'm just tweaking and I and I'm still feeling full. I'm not, I don't feel like I'm sacrificing, and to me that's the biggest piece up from somebody who's yo-yo dieted all their life yeah, cut, cut, weight wrestling, like I just don't want that feeling in my life ever again. Uh, of you know, missing a bunch of meals just to like make weight, and that that segues into this. Next piece is fasting. Right, and I've. I've heard you talk, uh, I've heard you talk about fasting and you have a pretty good view on it. Can you kind of share with the listeners you know, when you think fasting should be implemented? Should it be implemented?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Um, my take on fasting is that 99% of people don't need to try to do it. If you're eating naturally, you're getting adequate protein and fat in your meals. My experience is that most people will intermittent fast on their own without trying to. And if you're trying to intermittent fast on purpose, it's likely that you're making your process of growth more complicated than it needs to be. The focus should be on every single time. The focus, the first thing that needs to be met, is adequate nutrition. I don't care when you get it, I don't care how you get it. You need to get the nutrition that your body needs in every single day. Until that, you can check the box and say I am consistently getting the protein, the micronutrients, the fat, the electrolytes everything that I need every day. Fasting should not be in on the table, because fasting the specific focus for why people fast is mechanistic, it is not holistic and mechanistic is not sustainable. The results you get from fasting don't last If you stop fasting. If you meet the needs of your body by giving it adequate nutrition and moving it properly, you get all of the benefits that you get from fasting without having to starve yourself. Get all of the benefits that you get from fasting without having to starve yourself.
Speaker 2:And this is where I'm trying to bring back the whole concept of fasting mimicking for a ketogenic diet, Because when I first got started in 2018, I heard it everywhere I went. That was one of the main benefits that every website on the ketogenic diet, or carnivore diet listed was that it's fasting mimicking. And now I can't find that anywhere. I'm like why did we stop talking about this? Right, and what I mean by fasting mimicking is if you look up ketogenic ketogenesis, ketosis those words every single document, article, study, whatever analysis you find talks about the ketogenic metabolism being a result of one of two things starvation or carbohydrate restriction.
Speaker 2:So if the benefits of the ketogenic diet can be obtained just by reducing carbs, why are we so focused on also reducing all of the other nutrition that we can get from the rest of our foods? Makes no sense to me. When people are trying to lose fat and lose weight, that makes sense. But if we go back to the earlier part of the conversation and we say weight loss isn't the goal metabolic function is the goal and we say weight loss isn't the goal, Metabolic function is the goal and I need protein, I need fat, I need micronutrition, I need electrolytes. So starving yourself of nutrition in an effort to improve metabolic function is a cognitive dissonance that I don't think people are recognizing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want the car to go from A to B, but I'm only going to put a little bit of gas in it and I'm going to expect it just to make it.
Speaker 2:You might make it on fumes but then you're going to have a whole bunch of going to fill the tank I'm going to put three extra gas, three extra tanks of gas in my trunk, but I'm only going to put a quarter oil in. And then I'm wondering why my body is stressed, I'm wondering why I'm overheating, I'm wondering why my things are falling apart because you're not giving yourself the functional macros, the functional material that your body needs to perform. So it's not always about fuel. There's other things that nutrition and this is we go back into. We're going to segue into another conversation of.
Speaker 2:Macros are not fuel. Macros equal function. Fat is not a fuel. It provides fuel. It is a substrate that your body can utilize for fuel, but it also enables metabolic function. Protein has a higher percentage of metabolic function impact than it does fuel impact and fat is essentially flipped. But that doesn't mean you only eat. And this is the whole calorie conversation is everything is equated to energy. Food is not energy, food is function. And if we can stop talking about food in energy perspective, I think everybody's perception of what this is about will change. I wish I could. Just if there was one wish that I had in the world, it would be to make everybody in the world forget what calories are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the one thing we were talking about in the first podcast. And you're just like if I had a magic wand, I would you know, did I say that then too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's exactly the same thing.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it was a and it's a great point. It's like the we're we're having these conversations about, like how the calorie calorie out doesn't matter, yet we're making a lot of decisions on what the heck the calorie counts are. Um, you know, irrelevant, yeah it, you know. And the one thing we also talked about too, uh, was alcohol. Uh, give you like a little update, because I remember when I was talking to you, it was january. It was, uh, you know, carnival, carnivore month, yeah, and uh, I was like I'm going to go 30 days, I'm gonna go 30 days.
Speaker 1:No alcohol and I felt really good. A little bit of weight loss, not much, um, it was cause probably eating way too much ribeye, but uh, uh, you know, I felt so good, like I literally said I'm going to do this another 30. So I did it end up. I ended up doing 60 days and the biggest noticeable change was my sleep. Oh my God. It's crazy, isn't it? I couldn't believe it. Like I couldn't believe. I have a real tough time sleeping. It takes me a little while to get down. I have like a process, but I'm going to be in bed for like a good 45 minutes before I could knock out. But when I completely cut out alcohol and not that I was drinking a ton, ton I was just like a sack of bricks.
Speaker 2:Boom out that was the biggest change for me. Same here, the same thing happened to me yeah, uh, it's, it's been good.
Speaker 1:I I do still have alcoholic beverages every once in a while, uh, but I know that if, if I really am concerned about my sleep, it's like I'm gonna make a make a very good decision of like, you know, I'm not going to have alcohol, but I know I was going to throw that in there, because that's one of the things that we're talking about, yeah, and that's a really good thing too is that people understand that.
Speaker 2:This is one of the other parts of the book. That is really the main, not the main, a main underlying message Everything that you do is your choice. Right? I had the same experience you had when it comes to alcohol. I decided I'm done, I don't even want to deal with it anymore. Right, that was my choice. That was the journey that I decided to go on. You decided I still like alcohol a little bit, I'll have it every once in a while. I decided to go on. You decided I still like alcohol a little bit, I'll have it every once in a while, but you tried it.
Speaker 2:You know the impact. You are making an educated, self-aware decision and you're owning it and moving forward. That is freedom, that is your ownership and your decision and you're okay with whatever comes from that. And I think a lot of people are afraid to make that choice, right. And they think well, you know, if I, if I become aware, if I stopped drinking alcohol for 30 days and realize, oh my God, this is amazing, this is amazing, I feel awesome, then I have to, I have to quit it. No, you don't have to quit it. You just know what happens if you don't do it. Now you have a choice. You're giving yourself the opportunity to make a choice one way or the other, and it doesn't have to be all or nothing.
Speaker 2:That's another topic. In the book. There is always a gray area and too often we live in the white or black, like you. I'm not stopping it all together. I may not do as much as I used to. It may not be as often, it may not be as frequent. I may not do as much as I used to. It may not be as often, it may not be as frequent, it may not be as much each time, but I now know what the impact is if I don't do it and I know where that line is when I'm trying to do X, y or Z. So that process we don't know until we try. We have to be able to experiment, but then we have to also own the decision afterwards to experiment, but then we have to also own the decision afterwards.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Confining yourself to a box, we can't. I just, I just did a post. I was in Japan for two weeks. Oh dude, I'm so jealous. Oh, it was amazing. I didn't have one bad meal, Everything was great and I was posting some things of like I did. I don't even eat fish. I don't eat fish, but my buddy was like no no I don't eat.
Speaker 1:I've just never liked fish, not a big fan of it. He's like I was meeting a buddy out there who's also a teacher and he teaches in korea, and I was like dude, let's, let's meet up in tokyo. So he's like I know a place we can do sushi.
Speaker 2:It's like a two-hour experience did you get the sashimi like raw tuna and stuff, yeah, the whole shebang.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's awesome. Man, sea urchins, octopus, head tentacles, everything. What? Bluefin tuna? The whole shebang, oh gosh. We had to make reservations six months in advance to get in this place. I don't even eat that at all, but I was like you know what I'm going to do it. I know there's rice on it, I know there's all these other things. We had sake. We. We did two hours. It was one of the best experiences I've ever had. There was a pizza place that I just kept hearing about, so I met. We made reservations for this pizza place and it was one of the best meals, this better pizza than I've had in Italy, and it was phenomenal, everything.
Speaker 1:When I was in Shibuya for a little while, like this little back alley, I was visiting like the different places and I was asking them what's like, kind of like their specialty. Osaka had like these pancake things. It was like really cool and I made this post about it. I was like, hey, I just want people to know, like I'm posting some things like a food that I typically normally eat, but I'm coming to Japan and indulging in these experiences and this is my intent, like I'm going to come out here, I'm going to have these things. I have a plan versus oh, I'm not going to cheat. And then all of a sudden I go to Japan and I have all these things and I feel shitty about myself. But opening up, there's, there is a food freedom piece to this diet, to this mindset of allowing those things and understanding when it's a, you know, a special moment and it's like, oh, I can't have it because I have my carnivore card. Like no, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I like the idea, too, of when you the food freedom doesn't come from staying away from things. It comes from following a plan. If you have a plan, the plan can be modified to reach a goal, but the plan never stays the same. Yeah, right, what is the saying? You can have all the plans in the world until you get punched in the face, something like that.
Speaker 1:Right, mike Tyson. Mike Tyson says something like that you can do whatever world until you get punched in the face. Something like that, right.
Speaker 2:Mike Tyson. Mike Tyson says something like that right, you can do whatever, but until you get punched in the face. Once you get punched in the face, all that stuff goes out the window. So, understanding, the goal is to win. As long as I'm following, I understand that the process is going to have twists and turns. I understand the process is going to have ups and downs. Understand there are going to be things that come up and happen in life that I'm going to have to change how I'm approaching things or what I'm doing, but that doesn't change where I'm going and one thing isn't going to completely throw me off that journey. So, yeah, I think that's huge.
Speaker 1:Even crazier. When I got back, I weighed less for two weeks, two weeks in japan, like, and I was still working out, walking everywhere, all that's.
Speaker 2:That's probably why because you were walking yeah we're probably getting crazy steps in everywhere.
Speaker 1:Uh and this next piece is that I want to talk about too is kind of we were talking about fitness, is, you know, getting into some different types of training and modalities, but kind of this overarching theme that you've talked about. You know, getting into some different types of training and modalities, but kind of this overarching theme that you've talked about. You know, what do you mean when you say move weight, move well, move often.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, it's. I don't know if it gets any more simple than that for especially for people who aren't doing much of anything. Uh, just consistently move something that's hard to move, whether that's your body, whether that's your couch, pick up your dog, I don't know. Whatever it may be, do it often and make sure you're doing it and you're learning how your body is supposed to move and function so that you don't hurt yourself. That's the basics. There are programs. There are things you can do. You know I have programs, you have programs. There's a bazillion things you can do. You know I have programs, you have programs, everyone's. There's a bazillion things you can do out there to follow, to have some kind of routine. But you have to consistently challenge your body If you want your get your body to get better. That's the core, the core concept behind those three things. You know our bodies are designed to improve by receiving stress.
Speaker 2:Okay, you can't get better at something unless you are already bad at something. What, wait a second? How does that make sense? Say that again. Right, like I can't get better at juggling if I never first learn how to juggle. And when I first learned how to juggle, guess what? I'm going to be bad at it. It's going to be hard, it's going to take time. I'm going to have to learn how to do it with one ball and then two balls and then three balls right, I'm not going to start the process and then automatically jump to chainsaws. And because I can't do chainsaws, am I going to just not learn how to juggle? Oh, I can't lift that much. This is one of the most frustrating things when I own my gym. I can't join your gym. It's going to be too hard. Well, what are you going to do then? We got to start somewhere, right? That's like, for you know, I use this analogy when one guy was at the gym one day talking about how he came in to visit.
Speaker 2:He's like I don't think I can do this. It looks like it's all too hard. And I was like let me ask you a question Do you go to church? He's like yeah, I do. I said okay, do people that go to church? Do you only let people come to church if they're already saved? And he's like what do you mean? I was like everybody can come to church. It doesn't matter if you're saved, not saved if you're a drug addict. Wherever you are in life. The church doors are open for you to come help you find answers and help you make improvement and help you move to a better place. This gym is the exact same way.
Speaker 2:If you're looking at I can't do this thing another example, that's like looking at the NFL and saying I'm never going to play backyard football because I can't go to the NFL. I'm never going to get in my car and drive to work because I can't drive a NASCAR race. That's the mindset that people are going into fitness like. It's like no guys, everyone has a place to start. And for you, the best way to figure it out is what is physically hard for me right now that I can make easy. If it's hard for me to do X every day, then my fitness program is going to be how do I make that easy until I don't have to worry about it anymore? That's all you got to worry about. You don't got to join a gym. You don't got to do anything. I can't. It's hard for me to get up and down out of the chair. All right, practice getting up and down out of the chair every single day until you don't have a problem with it.
Speaker 2:You have just improved your fitness. You have just improved your metabolic function. You have just improved autophagy, improved lean mass. You've just improved your neurological function. You've just improved your lymphatic system. You have just I mean, the list of things are going, guys, and this is where I talk about literally mechanistic focus keeps you from progressing. If it's hard for you to get out of your chair, I don't care what your A1C is, get up and get out of that chair. The more you can show that you can improve your in your ability to move around in your house, I guarantee you your a one C will improve on its own. Yeah, so so that is, that's the flips, the, the, the flip in the brain, minds, and the mindset and the brain work that people are doing, that I want people to have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is a little bit, because there's the wearables, there's this, there's that. It's like kind of a money ball thing with health and fitness, like it's like okay, like how do you feel? Well, that's my problem with the whoop straps too. I don't have a whoop strap, uh, but a lot of people gauge a lot of stuff like their performance scores of their whoop strap. They might have had actually had a. How they woke up, I felt really good in my sleep. And then look at the whoop strap, they might've had actually had a. How they woke up, I felt really good in my sleep. And then I look at the whoop score and it's like, oh, you got a bad sleep. And they're like, well, what is it? Right, right, yeah, uh, going into, uh, you know your and I want to get your kind of take on this and what things that you do. You know what are your. You know training modalities that you use personally and programming methodologies that you find for yourself to be beneficial. All of them, all of them.
Speaker 2:All of them. I again I'm at a point now where I'm just kind of playing around. I mean, I I number one. Um, outside of my time being CrossFit gym owner and being really into CrossFit for a few years, I didn't follow any specific programming. I just kind of did whatever I felt like I wanted to do. And it's harder for me now to not do that because now I've had so much training experience I could not have anything planned and go into the gym and think in my head, okay, what have I been doing for the past three months? And I know, okay, two weeks ago I did this, I did this way. That stuff just naturally works in my head so I can look at an exercise and know where I am with the weight and the movement et cetera, and I can put a program together on the fly. So I'm in a little bit different kind of situation than most people, but right now because, like I said, I'm trying to be more focused about what I'm doing Um, the program I have put together now is basically a four day split.
Speaker 2:It's um, all weight training. Uh, it's basically a leg day, a push day, a pull day and then an accessory day, and I do that four days a week. I don't do any specific cardio other than I always do at least an hour of exercise when I go to the gym. So any weightlifting, any of the lifting that I do. Whenever that's done, if I have 20 minutes left in the hour, if I have five minutes left in the hour, I'll go walk on the treadmill to make up the rest of that hour, and that's pretty much how it is. Sometimes I'll be like, oh crap, I got three minutes, let me hop on real quick, get three or four minutes in and then I'm done. But it's just because I want to. My goal is to consistently do that amount of work every week.
Speaker 2:So if the lifting is done, I've got some cardio. I do some light cardio, just kind of as a cool down. I usually put on a video, listen to an audio book or do something. It's also some personal time that I get. That's everything. So, yeah, so my programming right now is mostly straight training. I'm more about maintaining a little bit. If I could add some lean mass, that'd be fantastic. But it's more about just maintaining while I'm cutting right now and then just we'll. I'm cutting right now, um, and then just we'll see what happens from there.
Speaker 1:When people hear that you go four days a week, four hours total, they're like that's it. I can't believe that. You know there is and you've you've mentioned this term before, which I really believe in is like a minimum effective dose. There's no, there's. That other side of the coin that we haven't really talked about, too, is some people that overtrain it's too much, too soon, too fast, and they want to. You know the process that they have. They want to get fit in a day, and you talked about the just continuously changing a strategy over and over again because they didn't get results, but you didn't even give it the time that it needed.
Speaker 2:Yep, and when it comes to fitness, it's a longer time than you think. Yeah, it's a longer time than you think. I like to do my programs. I have one program that is an eight-week cycle where the workouts are exactly the same for eight weeks. Right, and it's like look, but people love it because they start week one and they do all these exercises they may have never done before and they're like I don't know how to figure out how to do it. They got the weights and then the next week they're a little bit better at the exercise, the weight can go up a little bit. Then they get to a point where they're the mind work they have to do to understand the movement has kicked in, they're used to the exercises. Then they can really start putting on the weight and then they're taxing their muscles, they're really feeling it. So usually it's one to week. Week one to week four is them figuring it out, and then by the time they get to week eight, the weight has increased so much compared to that first week.
Speaker 2:It's like like holy crap you know, you know, and then we moved to something else. So you know, six, eight, 10, 12 weeks is a good amount of time to work with a program. Uh, to see, hey, is this working for me or not?
Speaker 1:I've always. I've heard a couple of different ways of saying it, but you know, variety is good. Like you want some variety in that that accessory work, but at the same time like looking at variety as like a little bit of a side dish, like don't get away from the main course, stick with those bigger lifts or stick with whatever that program might be and then sprinkle those in. But you know, are you going to have the side dish and only the side dish?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would. I would say, actually, that variety should be. Any well-formulated program is going to have variety. It's where we get in in, stuck is in the random yes, right. So you need variety because our body does a whole bunch of different things and we need to be able to train for we need to be able to perform all of those different things. Um, where we get stuck is I don't feel like this today, I'm going to go do that instead. That's where we get stuck.
Speaker 2:Now we're completely screwing things up because, for anybody that doesn't understand, when we program exercise, we program workouts in a let's say, in a week, I'm expecting a certain amount of stimulus on this day and then a certain amount of recovery on this day, based on the specific things I'm having you work. If you go do something else, you're messing up the entire flow of stimulus and recovery and the focus of what we're trying to do. So that's where I get this question. All the time I'm following such and such a program. If I join you, do I need to follow your program? Yeah, can't do both. Yeah, you can't do both, and I don't know what they're doing in that other program. So I would prefer you to do my program if you're going to work with me. Yes, so that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:And also, you know, and having this overarching theme of programming is also like taking the things out that you want them to get good at, you know, like in order for them to do that thing better. I'm a you know, a kettlebell guy. I'm a big advocate of kettlebells and you know I've had people that I've worked with and I've backed out like I want to get my deadlift up and this, that or the other, and it's like all right, actually back them off of deadlift to to focus more time on learning a swing and how to swing properly. And lo and behold, they haven't really deadlifted in the you know four to eight weeks and they pick up the bar and they're like holy shit, like carry over is a thing you know, it's purposeful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I call it, I call it transferability, yeah, and I cover that in the book as well. It's, it's a key aspect in understanding the movement patterns. And you know, there's this, this idea I'm glad you said that, because there's this idea I've been playing around with I don't know if there's another term that exists in exercise science, but I'm it's. The idea is what I'm calling targeted inefficiencies. Targeted inefficiencies and the idea that have you ever heard the phrase? The magic is in the movement? Yes, so I believe that was coined by Greg Glassman, the founder of CrossFit, and the idea being that if you improve a movement or an exercise properly, if you scale it properly and progress it properly and teach the technique properly, the movement itself will improve the imbalances and deficiencies, as opposed to traditional like NASM or NSCA protocols and methods where it's like, oh, if someone has a balance issue in their right leg or something, a unilateral something with their hip, we're going to do individual, unilateral work and BOSU ball work and all these individual things to fix that one thing. Well, why do I need to do that? If you have an imbalance, it's because you don't know how to squat right and you've never done it right. So if I properly scale, don't know how to squat right and you've never done it right. So if I properly scale and teach you how to squat with no weight, maybe with limited movement, focusing on going slow and controlling your body, I can progress you from a body weight half squat to squatting 300 pounds and by the time you get to 300 pounds you're not going to have a deficiency anymore, you're not going to have an imbalance. So the idea that when we're talking about training functional movement, the targeted inefficiency is where the focus of technique fixes the overall movement right. So wherever that chain is.
Speaker 2:So when you talk about a deadlift, somebody may be deadlifting and it may be their hip position that they don't know how to fix. It may be they don't know how to brace properly. It may be they don't know how to activate their lats and pull the bar in. It may be that they want to drive through their toes. There's 18 different things that could be wrong with the way that they're doing it. But if we focus on let's not have them deadlift and let's just teach them.
Speaker 2:You know, I like what you're doing, like with the kettlebells. The kettlebell is so similar in movement pattern to the deadlift and the muscle activation just because the kettlebell is doing something different than a bar is. You're teaching the movement pattern, the functional movement, in a way that strengthens the entire chain and fixes whatever that targeted inefficiency is Right. So you're targeting the thing that's wrong by fixing the whole. It's very much like what I'm talking about with nutrition. Yeah, stop looking at the mechanism, stop looking at the small thing that needs to be fixed. Make the whole thing work better, yeah. And then guess what? The whole thing works better, right.
Speaker 1:So yeah.
Speaker 2:I like that.
Speaker 1:With the cause. I do a lot of my certifications through strong first, and the one of the things Pavel Tessaline, he, he, it's not as nicely put as you put it, I've never been able to say his last name, tessaline.
Speaker 1:I think it's Tessaline, tessaline, I think that's it. I could be wrong. Don't tell him. Sorry, pavel, but they call it the what the heck effect. It's like in my manual. It's literally just called the what the heck effect. Okay, and just based off of like the stimulus that they can kind of like scientifically tracks, like how the stimulus relates to the muscle fibers and then why other things are carried over and why you get stronger in other areas, do bottoms up pressing, like what you do with the kettlebell, the bottoms up pressing, oh my God, that's works so much. Yeah, it works all in your whole shoulder capsule and everything else. And like getting perfecting like a kettlebell snatch, like my when I got, because the vertical, the hip hinging of snatching is a little different than the hip pitch of swinging and so there's a difference and for and I don't do box jump, I want to start jumping more. I'm like in my mind I'm like I'm getting a little. I'm about to turn 36, I'm getting a little. I'm like. I'm like I don't jump enough.
Speaker 2:You don't, you need to jump, you need, I need to jump more, yeah, and I haven't been jumping All right, I'm going to set a, I'm going to give you a goal. Yeah, all right. I'm 52 years old. My max jump is 43 inches.
Speaker 1:How tall are you? Three quarters on a good day. But I'll try to get up there okay. But but I wanted I'm. I've started to jump more and I haven't box jumped a ton in a long time. But I mean, I've been swinging forever and I'm like holy shit, like I could. Actually I'm, I'm pretty good. I'm not bad at jumping as much as I thought I was gonna do it, but I want to get better at it, doing some like more dynamic movements, because I don't want to lose that. I take that for granted as, being a former athlete, like I'm still going to have it. I gotta keep doing those things. And I I get too again. I get too focused on like how's my you know single arm press or military whatever, but I'm not really focused on you know how am I moving and making me sure that all aspects of my like body are resilient, like jumping off of something or falling down or whatever.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I mean it's a good you know, it's a good habit to do that kind of work Plus some plyometric work. So I mean there's different stuff for most people, I think. Doing some box jumps or even broad jumps, right, how do I scale, but I don't, I'm afraid of jumping high jumps, or even broad jumps right, how do I scale, but I don't, I'm afraid of jumping high. Okay, to jump far? Yeah, do a broad jump. This is basically the same thing. It's good enough for the average person. You know, take a day sometime. How far can I jump?
Speaker 1:try five or six times and then try it again next week, and try it again next week and see if it, if it, gets better, you know it doesn't have to be a main thing, it's just it's good, it's good, it's it's great to work in Yep, great to work in uh, any anything else coming up for you? I know the book, or two questions. I know the book's coming out. The other question is will it be available on all? I did purchase it already. Yes, I know it's coming out in September.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm actually emailing the guy that I was supposed to get all the files to upload to Audible yesterday and I didn't get them. So I will be emailing the guy today saying, hey, where's my files? So I'd like to get them in and get them approved and everything set up in Audible so that it can go live on Audible on the 3rd of September when everything else goes live. So that is the intent. If it doesn't happen right then, then shortly after September 3rd everything will be available on Audible, awesome.
Speaker 1:So September 3rd is going to be the release date. Body confident anything else coming up or another book in the process.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've got, like I said. I've got, I don't know, eight or nine books on the list of things that I'd like to put together. Coach Natalie and I actually have. We have an idea for a book that we might want to do together. That may be next, but we'll see how that goes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Couples that live together stay together.
Speaker 2:No, something more along the lines of telling some stories, telling stories about people. So we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Well, coach Bronson, it's also always a pleasure. I can't wait to you know, read the book and then I'm gonna put in the show notes for the readers and listeners to you know. Click on and get access to Awesome. Appreciate it, man. Thanks, cool, all right. Thanks for everybody listening to another episode of the Primal Foundations podcast. Thank you all for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe, like and share. See you all next time on the Primal Foundations podcast.