The Fearless Warrior Podcast

102: How Nutrition Impacts Mindset with Amber Brueseke

• Amanda Schaefer

Share episode

On today's episode, Amber Brueseke, founder and owner of Biceps After Babies and mom of 4, shares how she helped thousands of women use macro counting to build nutrition plans that are both effective and enjoyable. We explore how focusing on nutrition awareness—not restriction—can dramatically improve athletic performance while building a healthier relationship with food and body.

Episode Highlights:

• Macro tracking is an awareness tool to understand what your body needs
• Most athletes aren't getting enough protein
• Recovery nutrition is often overlooked but crucial
• Parents should model good nutrition rather than forcing it

Connect with Amber: 

Website: https://www.bicepsafterbabies.com/

IG: @biceps.after.babies

Podcast: Biceps After Babies Radio


More ways to work with Fearless Fastpitch

Follow us on Social Media

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the fearless warrior podcast, a place for athletes, coaches and parents who know the value of a strong mindset. I'm your host, coach AB, a mental performance coach on a mission, former softball coach, wife and mom of three. Each episode, we will dive deep into all things mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success. So if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, mindset tools and how to rewire the brain for success, so if your goal is to gain the mental edge and learn the secrets of mental performance, you're in the right place. Let's tune in to today's episode.

Speaker 1:

Amber Brzezinski is a wife, mom of four and former RN who founded Biceps After Babies because she believes that being a mom doesn't have to mean your fittest days are behind you. What started as a little Instagram account to share her fitness journey online has become a business focused on empowering women to achieve. What an amazing reason to have her on the podcast, because that right there is an aligned mission with what we do at Fearless Warriors. Her signature coaching program is Macros 101. She's helped 10,000 women use the tool of macro counting to build a nutrition plan that's both effective and enjoyable. Recently, amber created a transformational fitness coach certification that teaches other health and fitness coaches how to improve client results by getting to the root of their problem. Amber and I have connected through a business coaching program and I have been inspired by her from day one. This is going to be such a fun conversation today. Amber, welcome to the fearless warrior podcast.

Speaker 2:

Hey, I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me. So let's just kick things off. Tell us about Amber. Yeah, awesome, okay. So I'm Amber Brzezinski and, as you said, my brand is Biceps After Babies.

Speaker 2:

I started it back in 2016. And I always say very, very accidentally I never wanted to be a business owner. I never wanted to start a business. I went to school, got my nursing degree, my bachelor's in nursing, and worked as an RN and was in the healthcare field and really loved that for several years until I started having babies. And by the time I had popped out two babies and my husband's career was starting to take off. It just didn't make financial sense for me to continue working at the hospital, and so I came home and stayed with my kiddos. But I can't just like sit on my hands and do nothing. And so that was when I kind of dove into fitness and I started out as a group fitness instructor, because that was something I could do when my kids were little. I could tag, they could tag along with me to the gym, I would go teach my fitness classes, they would hang out at the kids care, and you know, it was a win win for all of us. And so I did group fitness teaching for about eight years and loved it.

Speaker 2:

And I got to this point where I realized I was doing a lot of working out and my body was never really changing right. So I was spending hours and hours and hours at the gym and nothing was changing on my body. And I knew at that point that it was because my workouts were really dialed in, but I wasn't dialed in at all with my nutrition. I just was kind of eating and I wasn't dialed in at all with my nutrition. I just was kind of eating and I wasn't paying attention to it at all. And I I knew in the back of my head that if I paid attention to it and was more intentional about my nutrition, that I would be able to create, you know, better physical results for myself. And so I was scrolling through Pinterest and I came across this blog that talked about macro counting. And I'm not a big dieter Like that was has ever been. A lot of my my history didn't do a ton of dieting.

Speaker 2:

So as I'm reading this, I'm my nursing brain is going off and I'm saying this actually makes like nutritional sense. You know, I'm going back to my nutritional science classes. I'm going back to my biochemistry classes and like this, from like, the perspective actually makes a lot of sense. And so I started with. What I like to say is my research study of an N of one, and I was the N of one and I'm like I'm gonna try this out. So I started counting macros.

Speaker 2:

This was January of 2016. And I was floored because, in about eight weeks, the amount of muscle definition I was able to see, the leanness I was able to achieve just by finally paying attention to my nutrition it blew me away. Right, I had been working out for years and years and years and years, and those eight short weeks when I got my nutrition on board, like my body just transformed, and so I started sharing it. I got an Instagram account and I'm like this is so cool. I have to start telling people about this because it's amazing. And I ate ice cream every single night during that, during that first cut, and I had abs for the first time after four kids, you know. So it was just like all these things. It was like I wanted to shout it from the rooftops.

Speaker 2:

And so I started my Instagram account biceps after babies and just started talking about what I was doing.

Speaker 2:

And boy did people come out of the woodworks and want to know how to do it.

Speaker 2:

And they wanted to know if I wanted to coach them and I said, okay, let's open up this research study from an end of one to like an end of many.

Speaker 2:

And I started taking clients and that was the beginning of my business.

Speaker 2:

And now here we are, almost, you know, nine years later, and we've served over 10,000 women inside of Macros 101, been able to help other women to be able to align their nutrition to their goals, be able to use the tool of macro counting to, yes, change your body composition, but also to develop a better relationship with food, to develop a better relationship with their bodies, with the scale, and I really help women to detach emotionally from their body, detach emotionally from the scale and really step into a place of ownership of how they want to live their life and be able to make these decisions about their body from a really intelligent, what we call a macro scientist perspective, instead of how most women make decisions about their body, which is filled with emotion and and hatred and, you know, disgust with what they see when they look in the mirror.

Speaker 2:

So it's been such an incredible ride. I could have never predicted nine years ago that this would be where I was, I'm at, but I've loved every single moment of it and being able to serve, you know, thousands and thousands of women, and has just been such a joy.

Speaker 1:

And that's the reason why every time I follow you, I interact with you and, full disclosure, I hire you to coach me because you're on that journey that I want to be on, and I think about these 10,000 women and the ripple effect and where my mind goes with this is the more that you do this work and the more that I do my work is we don't have to wait until these women are in their thirties, their forties, their fifties figure it out Like, if, if young women like our listeners, young softball athletes or sports athletes, if you can have this in your tool belt when you're preteen or teen like, can you imagine the ripples and the impact of of this?

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, One of the reasons I love working with, so I work exclusively with women. When I started out, I used to coach women and men and I very quickly dropped the men and said I just want to focus on women.

Speaker 2:

And yeah, one of the reasons is is because I really feel like when you change a woman's life and you change her perspective, you change a whole family tree, and I've seen that over and over again of women who come to me. Their mothers were big dieters, always critical about their bodies, always trying to eat less, always talking about how fat they were, and they wanted to change that and so they did the work. You know, they come in, they change their perspective about food, they change their perspective about body and now they get to pass that on to their kids and their grandkids. And so, yeah, we're changing family trees and, man, if we can start to address and prevent a lot of these body images issues, a lot of these like emotional eating issues that that stem from childhood, if we can prevent them early on, man, we're setting our kids up for so much more success and not having to deal with a lot of the crap that a lot of us, as women, have dealt with those of us who grew up in the nineties and the fat phobia that comes from from our upbringing, and so, yeah, I love that ripple effect.

Speaker 2:

I have a. I have a almost 18 year old daughter and it's been really fun to see her start to understand more about nutrition and she's learned a lot and starting to see her get really involved in how she prepares her food and what she's eating to be able to fuel she's an athlete, be able to fuel her athletics. I'm just like so proud as a mom watching her going out and lifting, watching her cook her food and make sure that she's eating enough protein. And yeah, let's start it early and have that shift early so we don't have to deal with a bunch of crap that a lot of older women have to deal with.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I wrote this down from when you were kind of explaining of, like, what is macros and how you got started in this One of the quotes that I wrote down was I paid attention to nutrition and sometimes that step one of if you're a parent or a coach or maybe you're a mom and you're like, Ooh, I, I like what this Amber's talking about Step one is you just got to pay attention to it. And I go back and think about my career. We weren't paying attention to nutrition, we weren't paying attention to mental performance, we were all about the X's and O's is like go to your lessons, go to your practice, work harder. And I've gone back to the gym and I have already matched my PRS from lifting in that I had in high school and college and I've matched those in my thirties. Because I am focused on nutrition, I am mentally stronger. I'm blowing my records out of the water and like that's I was in my prime.

Speaker 1:

It's like, oh, I know I sound like a broken record. I wish you could have a dollar for every time I've said this on the podcast. I wish I could go back knowing what I know now, but we can't. So what do we have to do. We have to empower the next generation.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, Well, and what I love too about this is a lot of times when people talk about macro counting. So I I approach macro counting very different than a lot of coaches out there, because a lot of coaches, in my opinion, take macro counting and they just turn it into another diet where they will give you macros and they will say, okay, now you need to follow these macros and then if you don't, well, that's wrong and do better and, like you know, and it becomes like this restriction mindset of like I have to stay within these macros, I can't go over them, and it takes all the problems with dieting and brings it into macro counting. So the point that I like to make and how I coach my clients is from a completely different mindset of this isn't about restriction, this isn't about control, this isn't about hyper-controlling your food. It is about what you said. It is about bringing awareness to what it is that you're doing and now that you've brought awareness, now we are in a position of power to make decisions about what we want to do next. Now you know how much protein you're eating. It's not bad, it's not good, it's not right, it's not wrong. But now you know, what do you want to do about it. What do you want to do about it? Not what should you do about it, or what do you have to do about it, or you know none of that like pressure language. It's like what do you want to do about that?

Speaker 2:

And now we're coming from a position of power and knowledge and understanding and saying, yeah, I do, I want to eat more protein. That helps me fuel my performance. I desire to do that. And now we're coming from a desire framework which is incredibly different than a I should framework or I have to framework, and this changes everything. So this is like my soapbox that I get on, because I love macro counting and it is such a phenomenal tool to be able to support the workouts that you're doing, the body composition goals that you have. But it irks my tater to no end when people take this really wonderful tool that can be really healing and really helpful and they just turn it into another diet where it's like now we're just restrictive within this confines of these are your macros and you have to hit them. No, toss that out. That's never going to work long-term. What I want clients to get to is like again, let's bring awareness to it Now. What do you want to do? And now the ball's in.

Speaker 1:

I love that you keyed into that, because you know we we should have hit record sooner Amazing conversations. We were already talking about something else that you were explaining and how it all ties together, but I underlined the word desire. Yes, you know I I think about the next generation and the work that I'm doing. So I have a question for you, coach how do I get my athletes to desire? You know, it could be anything, it could be how do I get them to desire to pay attention to their nutrition? How do I get them to desire to be motivated to get their extra reps in? How do I motivate them and get them to have that desire to understand why to do mental performance coaching? I mean, that's like the thread through it, all of like, as a parent, as a coach yeah, are you asking me the question? I guess the question is is like how do you instill that desire?

Speaker 2:

Well, I would say, first of all, you can't, right, you can't instill desire into somebody else, and anytime you're trying to do that, you're trying to control them, and that will never work. Long-term control is very tantalizing and and we see it within macro counting too People want to like control their, and that's very tantalizing. But the goal is not control, the goal is to be able to trust with your body and so moving people. So, anyway, you trying to control your kid and get them to desire something is never going to work long-term. So can we help with cultivating the desire and getting them to like cultivate it themselves? Yeah, you can be supportive of that, but I think you got to get away from this idea of like I got to get them to desire this strong framework. It's never going to work, parent, um. So how can we help them to understand and maybe like cultivate that desire?

Speaker 2:

Knowledge is really powerful, right? So I love to give clients knowledge without then telling them how to apply that knowledge. Necessarily, right? So I can talk to you about the benefits of protein. I can talk to you about what you may see if you eat more protein, how it might impact your performance, how it might impact your recovery. I can give you all of that information and from that you may naturally have a desire now to eat more protein. But that's very different than me saying you need to eat more protein or saying you should eat more protein, right?

Speaker 2:

It's again the difference between a want and a desire framework and a should have to framework and the should have to framework is, again, it's very tantalizing because it works for a while it does. It works for a while. It's like you can white knuckle a diet for a while. You can white knuckle like for a while. You can white knuckle like forcing your kid to go do batting practice for a while. That will work for a while. It will never work long term because that desire has to be cultivated from within. And you've seen this interview.

Speaker 2:

Who have like athletes have seen when your athlete is being forced into doing something, it's a completely different experience than when they desire or they want to do it. So, getting to that desire, I understand how parents they're like okay, well, to do it. So getting to that desire, I understand how parents they're like, okay, well then I just want to get to that desire. And so then they try to take the, the should forcing into like let's force them to desire it just won't ever work. So I would say knowledge and understanding is huge. And the second thing I would say is it doesn't matter what you say, it matters what you do.

Speaker 2:

And are you modeling it for your child? Because I, the number of times that I've sat down and like had a conversation with my daughter about lifting and about nutrition and about protein, I can't even remember one Like I. I really don't remember ever sitting down and being like okay, let me teach you about the importance of protein, let me teach you how important lifting is for your performance. I don't, I don't think I've ever done that, but what has she seen me do since she was a little girl? She's seen me prioritize going to the gym. She's seen me lift weights. She's seen me cook food. She's seen me model high protein, high fiber, whole foods. She's seen me model all those things.

Speaker 2:

So I didn't have to teach her it, because she learned it by how I, how I, showed up. And I think sometimes as parents, we want our kids to be better than we are, have more motivation or desire than we do, and I think it's a time to like turn it a little bit inward and say, hey, am I modeling that for my child? If I desire for my child to work hard or to set goals in this one area and achieve them, am I modeling that? And can I talk to them maybe more about what I'm doing and allow them to get it by osmosis, instead of being directive with what they should do?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, because immediately when you said you have to eat more protein, I immediately felt that like okay, coach, okay, I'll do it, I'll do it, yeah, and you probably would do it for a while because someone else told you to do it.

Speaker 2:

But it's very different when it comes from a no, I desire to eat more protein.

Speaker 2:

My daughter is a really good example of this, because she's a vegetarian and this isn't something that she completely decided on her own at age 14. And it's just something that's important to her and so, because of that, some nights we have meat for meals and she takes the initiative to go and cook herself something or add something, or like it's never anybody else's problem, right? This is her decision, it's what she's decided for her life, and so she makes it happen, she makes it work. It's not my job for her to eat vegetarian. She's taken ownership of that. And I think, the more that we can allow our kids that space and cultivate that space where we trust them right we're not trying to control them, we trust them to be able to make these decisions Then we're cultivating a space where they can flourish in the long run and not in just the you know, like the couple of years, that we want them to be really, really intense, you know like the couple of years that we want them to be really, really intense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that so much. One of the things that you had mentioned, too how does this relate to the compliance that you were talking about?

Speaker 2:

So a lot of times there is, I see, clients get into a compliance and what I call a compliance and defiance framework, which again is from an external.

Speaker 2:

When an external entity is telling you what to do, you're now caught in this catch 22, where you can either comply with the thing that the outside person is telling you to do, or the rebel kicks in and you want to defy what it is that they're telling you. So it's basically a lose-lose situation. You're losing yourself in both of those. Someone tells me what to do and now I either comply and they win because I'm doing it, or I defy and I don't do it, and then I feel like I win but I don't get the outcome that I want, because that was gonna create the outcome. So you're setting yourself up in this lose-lose situation when you have an external compliance, when you're focusing on external compliance, versus when we can turn that into an internal compliance, meaning someone else is not telling me to do this. I desire to again do this. Now we're not in that lose-lose situation, cause it's either like, yes, I'm going to do this and I'm going to own the experience and I'm going to own the disappointment and I'm going to own the hardness of it and show up for it because I choose to do this, or I'm going to choose not to do it and I'm going to choose the outcome of maybe not getting the result I want because, but I'm choosing it. It's like it's the difference between when your kid chooses to go to practice and even if it's a sucky hard practice and it hurts, and whatever it's like, I chose it, I want it, I want to be better, I'm willing to do hard things versus you forcing them to go to practice and then they get there and they're like miserable and they hate it. And now who do they blame? They blame you, right, because internal compliance, versus an internal compliance where it's like no, I'm doing this because I want to.

Speaker 2:

And it's interesting, human psychology has shown us that humans are very good at being able to experience pain if there is a purpose behind the pain. And so when that purpose is like, I'm choosing this, I'm choosing to sit in this pain. You know, you think about childbirth, right, it's like, it's hard, it hurts, right, but at some, at some, you know instance like this I chose this and on the other side of this, I know what I'm going to get, and so it's the same thing. It's like when that pain has a purpose. I chose it. I'm showing up for practice. Yes, it's hard, it gets hurt because I want the outcome. We're able to psychologically handle that a lot better than if we're doing it because somebody else told us we're being forced into it. We have to comply with this. When we don't want to, it's all their fault. When it's awful, it's a framework that will never work. External compliance is a framework that will not work long-term, especially as we get older and grow into adulthood.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can think of immediate examples of like if I buy you the new bat, you're just magically going to hit better, Right, If I get you more hitting, which that's another conversation for another day. But pain has a purpose and this kind of relates to process versus outcome. I think a lot of the time we get caught up in the term trust the process, but if you don't outcome, outcome, goals and outcomes it's not that we just want to ignore them completely, but eventually, if you're trusting this process whether it's macros or mental mentality or anything there is an outcome Like that's like the cherry on top. So we're not just trusting a process just because we want them.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and I always say, like, the outcome sets the vision right. We have to have a vision If, when you're climbing a mountain, like there's a top to the mountain, that's the vision, that's where I want to go. So it's not that that is bad or you never want an outcome goal, that you want to set outcome goals you do. They set the trajectory. But what I always tell clients is, once you set that outcome goal, then we got to figure out okay, what do I need to do to get that outcome goal? And that's where your attention is. On a day-to-day basis, your attention isn't on the outcome goal, it's on the process that I'm taking today, and so they're both important. They just play different roles in your goal setting process. So I always have clients set the outcome goal and then reverse engineer what they need to do to be able to get there. And now, every day, I'm focusing on the things I can control, the things that are binary, the things that are specific, the things that are like things I can do today. That's where I'm thinking, that's where my focus is on, because that's what I can control. The outcome goal, like you said, is the cherry on top. I can't control it. I'm going to do my darndest to be able to get up there, to be able to achieve it, but I think about it like a hike.

Speaker 2:

My dad was so. My dad did a lot of hiking. We did a lot of hiking growing up and my dad was always so good. It's like as we're going on the hike, my eyes are, like you know, down at my feet and my dad is always like look up, look at this beautiful vista, look at this beautiful meadow, look at this flower. You know it's like he's enjoying the whole process of climbing the mountain. It's not just the top that he is enjoying, you know, he's going for the top. We're moving towards the top, we hope we get to the top, but on a moment by moment basis. He's not being like, oh, I can't wait to get the top. He's like, oh, my gosh, look at this flower. It's amazing here. You know, here is just as amazing as there, and that's what's going to get you there.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that the late mental performance coach, trevor Moad, was quoted by saying here is on the way there.

Speaker 2:

Yes, love it. Love it Cause it's so easy to think there is so much better and I just got to get there and I'll be happy, and then I'll be successful, and then whatever, then I'll be, and the truth is is that you can be that right now, and it's going to be so much more likely to get to the top.

Speaker 1:

And enjoyable. Enjoyable, yeah yeah, which you mentioned your dad. This is so cool. So, Kara, coach care, everyone knows coach care on the podcast. Kara is your sister, so little side note. Yeah Well, where do you want to take the conversation now? Because you know I talked to you at the beginning of this. If we could talk about macros, we could talk about mindset. Um, we could talk about entrepreneurship. Um, you know, some of the questions that I ask is like, was there a time that you failed? Or like what would you say to coaches? Like, where do you want to take this?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean I would love to do a little bit of like, just technical stuff, because I assume that people who are listening have questions about, um, their athletes performance and how Christian relates to their athletes performance. And a lot of times I get questions from questions from parents who want to help their kids improve their nutrition, but they're really worried about introducing any diet culture speak or talk into their kids, Right. So they're worried about their kids maybe tracking food because that feels like diet culture is or like it might become restrictive for their kids. Especially when we're talking about girls, Right, we're really really consistent with like not wanting to tell girls that they're in the wrong size body or whatever. And at the same time, parents are like, yes, and I know that nutrition plays such a role in my athlete's performance. So how do I walk that line between helping them to pay attention to this and have it be important, without introducing some of that restrictiveness or diet mentality into my athletes life? So if that would be helpful, I'd love to.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely yes, and secretly for myself. I've been tracking my macros as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I think so. First of all I mean I already said this, but I think it bears repeating is, what you do is always going to speak much louder than what you teach your kids, and so I always love for parents to start with their like do a little introspection before we're like projecting this onto our kids and asking yourself is like what is your relationship with food, what is your relationship with your body, what is your relationship with nutrition, and are there areas that you can start to improve, to improve your food intake and improve your nutrition? And even just taking your kids along for that ride becomes such a teaching experience, right? Instead of sitting your kids down and being like you need to eat more protein, you can sit them down and be like hey, honey, I was listening to this podcast and I realized that I probably don't eat enough protein for my body. That's really important for building muscle. So you're going to notice that I'm going to be focusing on eating more protein at every meal. I mean, I'm going to focus on making sure there's a protein source at every single meal that I eat.

Speaker 2:

You know just like kind of just bringing them along for the ride and then, as you're like you know, plating your grilled chicken. You're like see, here's how I'm building my plate. I'm going to put a portion of protein, I'm going to have a portion of high fibrous carbohydrates and I'm going to have a fat right. So you're starting to teach those essentials about how do we build a plate. We want a source of protein, we want a source, like I said, of carbs that are giving us some fiber and we want a source of fat right, and that's building a balanced plate. So I mean some athletes, the higher levels you get, yes, we can get into, like tracking your food, being more intentional and specific with your nutrition. For a lot of like teenage athletes, if they just even understand how to build a plate, we're like higher than 95% of the other athletes.

Speaker 1:

That they're competing against is no, so yeah, not, not waiting until they're in college. Like, oh, now she's in college and, rather than you know, their coaches will help them. Like, no, you just sent your kid. If you've never taught them this, you just sent them into a cafeteria with a meal plan that they don't know how to build a plate.

Speaker 2:

I have no idea, yeah, so so starting just to teach them how to build a plate can be really, really helpful. I do think that there is value in tracking protein for a period of time. Protein is the number one macronutrient that is going to be the most helpful, I should say, for an athlete. Protein and carbs. Protein in terms of building and retaining and rejuvenating muscle tissue. Not only muscle tissue all tissue in your body is utilizes amino acids from proteins. So you talk about your tendons, your ligaments um your skin, your hair, your nails, like all of those things are utilized protein, and so protein becomes the building blocks of of the body. So making sure we're getting enough protein is huge for athletes. And then, of course, carbohydrates are going to be very supportive in having enough energy to do the high cardiovascular work that most athletes are doing. And then the recovery right, because we're wanting to recover from said activities as well. And so making sure that you're eating enough carbohydrates and enough protein. For most athletes it's not about are you, do you need to cut back. For most athletes it's like are you getting enough? And so I also want to kind of change that mentality.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people think about tracking in terms of restriction right, I track to cut back Right. Tracking just gives you awareness. It just gives you awareness of what you're doing, and so for a lot of people, I'm actually encouraging them to track so that they don't under eat, and I see this with a lot of athletes you're under eating. You actually need to eat more, and what tracking does is helps you to have a black and white. Oh, I need to eat more because I'm not eating enough carbohydrates, I'm not eating enough protein, so having tracking is like again it's. I know that that's like kind of a people have lots of opinions about tracking, but I think the reason that we have those opinions is because we relate it to restriction and it doesn't have to be just because it can be used for restriction or for fat loss. It doesn't mean it has to be. It's just a tool and we can use it in lots of productive ways.

Speaker 1:

That was the first thing that I discovered when I started lifting and going back to the gym. I was well under my protein goals.

Speaker 1:

Most people are and when I started increasing that, there was probably one thing where I realized, okay, in the morning I was eating too much protein, and I was, you know, tracking that gave me awareness of that. But then for lunch I was only eating probably like eight to nine grams of protein and I wasn't taking a protein shake. And the first time I went back to the gym it's like why am I not maxing out? Why, you know, why are my weights not going up? As soon as I started focusing on my protein, I have increased my every set of four. Every time I reset that cycle, I'm PRing, I'm PRing, I'm PRing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, because you got to give your, your body the tools to be able to build the muscle you're telling it to build in the gym. Right, it doesn't. It isn't just going to hope that, you know, pop out of thin air. It's like asking a contractor to build a house and not giving them any wood Like. That's essentially what you're doing If you're not giving your body the protein that it needs to be able to build the muscle mass.

Speaker 1:

But in my mind I was eating you know, I'm eating lunch meat and I'm eating eggs but it's like the awareness of the numbers going back, as, like I'm a perfect example of this If you start tracking I don't track now as thoroughly as I did when I started, but that awareness is what kickstarts that those changes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I always say I mean, tracking is a tool and I think everybody would do really well to utilize that tool for a period of time, but I don't want my clients using it forever. To me it's is a knowledge gaining tool. You learn portion sizes, you learn nutritional content of food, you learned what has fiber, what doesn't, what has protein, what doesn't, and then now you have that foundational knowledge and now you can utilize that away from tracking. Right, you can eyeball a portion size you know when you're looking at the menu that probably has more protein than that does. Right, it just gives you more nutritional information and knowledge to be able to make decisions from.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't always have to come back to tracking.

Speaker 2:

In fact, I don't want my clients tracking long-term. That's not the goal because, again, the goal is not control, the goal is trust and I see macro accounting as a bridge, because a lot of women come to me and they feel very out of control with food and so tracking and utilizing macro accounting helps them to feel more in control. They feel like, okay, I have a handle on this, I can control it. But I always tell them that's not the last stop, it's just a way station, because the goal is to move you to a place of trust with your body and being able to let go of the tracking and be able to trust yourself long-term. But for a lot of people it's really hard to jump from. I feel very out of control with food, with I'm just going to trust my body and my knowledge and things like that. So I see macrohannan as like kind of a way station to give people a feeling of control. But at the long run I want you to get to that place of trust.

Speaker 1:

And if you could give parents listening to this a message of you know. I know we've talked about the logistics of it, but if we were to put two athletes side by side and we said, okay, one athlete is under fueled and the other athlete is fueled Like. What is the ripple effect beyond? Just like the weight room.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing I think people don't understand is that, yes, nutrition is going to support your performance in the moment. I think the piece that a lot of people miss is how big nutrition plays in recovery, and that's the game changer is like, yes, fueling for the workout that you're going to be having important, we want to have access to that glucose, we want to have access to being able to sprint harder, run faster, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think people miss how vital food is in recovering from that stress on your body. And so if you take two athletes, one is under fueled, one is fueling appropriately. Yeah, in the moment, the one who's fueled properly is going to perform slightly better, but what you're going to see is, over time, because that athlete's going to recover more, they're going to get better and better and better and better, whereas the under fueled athlete is going to be very stagnant in progress.

Speaker 2:

Because the body, the body I mean we could get the whole thing but like the body goes through what's called a stress adaptation recovery cycle. That's how you increase strength, that's how you increase power, it's how you increase everything that the body does. It doesn't just build muscle because you desire it. It builds muscle because you told it to build muscle by putting it under a stress that it was not able to handle. So we have to stress the body, which then creates an adaptation, if, if we allow it, if we have the recovery to be able to create that, and then that's how you get stronger.

Speaker 2:

And so an under fueled athlete is going to have the stress applied to their body, but they will be unable to go through the adaptation cycle and actually be able to recover from it because they don't have the fuel, the energy to be able to do so, and so what you will see is stagnation. You will see them not get stronger, not get faster, they'll plateau, they won't get any better, whereas somebody who is well fueled, that recovery now allows them to continue to go through that stress recovery adaptation cycle over and over and over get stronger, get faster, get better over time. So I think the the fueling for recovery is something that most people just don't think about, and that, I think, is that's the game changer in the long run is how well can you recover? Because the athlete who can recover best is the athlete who's going to win in the long run.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for bringing that up, because that had never crossed my mind is the recovery that is. That makes sense. It makes complete sense, yep.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean it's like the again, the contractor without the building blocks is like who's going to build a bigger house, the contractor who has all of the building blocks that they need to be able to build it, or the contractor who's sitting there with nothing, with, like you know, just a couple twigs to be able to build it. That's, that's the difference.

Speaker 1:

I love that. I love that. Well, where do you want to take this conversation now? So we've talked about macros. I hope if you guys have any questions, I should say this If you have any questions, we're absolutely going to give you Amber's contact info, um to ask questions, and please follow her on Instagram. You also have a podcast which we featured on our podcast, so biceps after babies radio. Um, if you have questions like, please let us know, Um, selfishly. I kind of want to shift the conversation to entrepreneurship. So, like entrepreneurship is like rocket fuel to selfment. I have to ask you and maybe I don't want to put you on the spot, but you've read the inner game of tennis. Yeah, what was your takeaway from that? Do you have like a big aha from that one?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I think I think the the biggest thing that I remember from that book and it's been a while since I read it, but I think the biggest thing that I remember from that book is when you like overthink something, you mess it up. It's like the, the athletes that like were super focused on their form and they're super focused on um, did I do it right or did I do it wrong? Those are the ones who weren't actually successful in being able to hit the ball, um. So that was a big takeaway. And then the second one was when we congratulate performance, we unintentionally are demonizing the opposite, right? So sometimes it's so easy to be like oh my gosh, honey, you did so good You're doing, that was such a great shot, your form was so good, and we think that that's a good thing. But inadvertently, what we're doing is we're demonizing when they don't do that, and that sets up a whole inner dialogue that a lot of the kids have of that inner critic. So I just thought that was so fascinating because it wasn't anything I thought about, we think about.

Speaker 2:

I will say I see this, though, if we can shift to like the scale, I see this on the scale, because when I talk about women with their relationship with the scale, my goal is to get women to a point where they step on the scale, and it's a very neutral experience. Where a lot of women want to go is they want to step on the scale, and they want to when it's in the direction that they don't want to go. They want to not feel bad. But then, when it goes in the direction they want to go, they want to celebrate and they want to cheer and they want to say, oh my gosh, it's so great and you can't have that. You can't have if it's down, neutral, if it's up, celebrate, because by doing that you're basically telling your brain that that the opposite is bad. Right, if you're celebrating the scale going down, then the scale going up opposite has to be bad.

Speaker 2:

And so my goal for clients is always to get to a place where it's like it's a net neutral. It's just information, it's just data, it's just okay. Now I have an information about where my scale is today. It's not good, it's not bad. I'm not rejoicing, I'm not sad, there's no emotion tied up with it. So, anyway, it's the same concept I think the inner game in tennis talks about. It's like we can't try to celebrate the good things that somebody is doing, the good techniques someone is doing, because inadvertently, what we're doing is teaching them that the opposite is bad. So it is more about that feedback and neutrality. Yeah, that's important, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Scale scoreboard. So yeah, it's all numbers.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I talk about, so my, my clients. I'm trying to get them to become what I call a macro scientist, which is like we view the data from a scientific mentality, from a curiosity mentality, from a what is this telling me about my body? I mean, it's the same dang thing with stats. It's like the stats don't tell you anything about your identity. They simply tell you about that, what that one performance was. And now from there, that's interesting, that's curious, we can take that as feedback and we can use it to improve over time. But they're like being able to separate yourself from those data points. You have to be able to do that if you want to be successful long-term, otherwise it just gets into your head and it doesn't. It doesn't help you. Now you spiral and you go down the drain.

Speaker 1:

Well, I think that's what makes you such an amazing coach is that all of these conversations are tying back to mindset and like proving that, like, no matter what you're coaching, you're coaching women, I'm coaching teams, I'm coaching athletes Like it doesn't matter, like it all goes back to the roots, the mindset.

Speaker 2:

That's right, yeah, every time. That's. That's the secret. That's the secret. That's the secret that so many people don't, don't know is like, how you think about something matters way more than any, like one little thing that you're going to learn, or how to you know, to your, your point, like any one, how to, about how to swing the bat doesn't really matter if the person who is swinging the bat is struggling or mentally not, not strong.

Speaker 1:

Right. So as far as business goes, when you started doing this, did you have any inclination like this? You've done so much research and read so many books and we could talk about mindset forever. When you first started out, did you have any idea of how much you would become an expert at this level?

Speaker 2:

No, absolutely not. No, when I started again. So I started with my N of one and my N of this worked for me. Right, it's like it worked for me. Let's see if it works for other people.

Speaker 2:

So then I started coaching other people and that was a really interesting experience, because I gave these people such great macros like so good, like this is perfect. You just follow this and you've got it Like this is it. And then they wouldn't follow it. And I was like what the heck? Like what's going on here? I gave you these perfect workouts, these perfect macros. All you had to do was follow through on it and you're coming back saying that you didn't.

Speaker 2:

And so that was my experience as a coach was like oh, there's something else here. There's a disconnect here, because it doesn't matter how perfect it is the plan that I'm giving my client, if they won't follow through or they can't follow through or they don't follow through, it's not actually going to be successful. So then I had to back my train up and I had to be like okay, what is here? What is blocking these women from knowing the plan? Saying, okay, I got it, I got the plan, coach. And yet coming to me a week later saying they didn't follow it. What is blocking that? And so I dove in deep with that over many years of trying to figure out what. What is blocking these women? How do I figure out what it is? How do I work them through it, how do I move them through it? And that's become you know years long of figuring out what that looks like as a coach.

Speaker 2:

And now I've gotten really really good at being able to see self sabotage, identify where it's coming from and then being able to shift a client out of that and get them into action. And that's what I've. I mean, it's taken years and lots of practice and lots of training, but that's what I pride myself on is like, yeah, I can, I can give you your macros. That's kind of boring. It's like anybody can do that.

Speaker 2:

What I'm really good at, what my superpower is, is figuring out why you don't follow through. Figuring out why you say, yeah, I'm going to only have one drink at dinner and then you end up drinking four drinks at dinner. Right, there's a disconnect there, there's self-sabotage happening there, and I'm really good at helping to dive down into why that is and it you know newsflash secret. It all comes back to the mental work. It all comes back to how you're thinking about it, how you're making decisions, how you're speaking to yourself, whether you're working in an external compliance framework or an internal compliance framework. That's that's where I get really jazzed to work with. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Well, if it was just as simple as you know doing a plan I mean chat, GPT, a jillion of them out there I could just type up a plan. I could just type up a lifting plan. I could just type it up. If it was that easy. Yeah, yeah, it worked Right Like it's not just success by now.

Speaker 2:

And that's why most of the women that I work with are like 30 plus, because a lot of people do just they want like the quick fix. And so they kind of have to like do a bunch of those quick fixes and they have to buy a bunch of plans and try a bunch of meal plans and try a bunch of diets until they finally get the message that like, oh, maybe this isn't going to actually work long-term, maybe it works short-term, but it doesn't work long-term. And so then they get a little bit older and then they realize, oh, I actually want this to work long-term. And then they come to me I love that, actually get it to work long-term.

Speaker 1:

I love that so much. Well, I want to be mindful of your time. I have a couple of rapid fire questions and then we can close out with the question we ask all podcast guests. So rapid fire. Uh, what's your favorite place to visit? I'd have to say Hawaii, I love that favorite.

Speaker 2:

Oh man, you know I'm really on a sushi kick lately. That's. That's been my go-to, yeah, sushi favorite place to work out. Oh my, my crossfit gym love it.

Speaker 1:

And coffee of choice. Are you a coffee drinker?

Speaker 2:

yeah, uh usually a latte I love. I don't know, it just depends on if it's cold or hot outside. If it's hot, I'm drinking ice, if it's cold, I'm drinking warm. But usually like peppermint, I'll go with peppermint latte. There's something about that.

Speaker 1:

All right. And last, one favorite genre of music to jam to oh.

Speaker 2:

I got to go back. I got to like like early two thousands like pop. It's like reminds me of my school days, right, like NSYNC, some Backstreet Boys, some like Christina Aguilera, like we're going back to like high school. That's what I love that.

Speaker 1:

Alicia Keys. That's kind of my my go-to when I'm working out, For sure, yeah. Final question you are a time traveler and you can go back in time and give your past self one message. What would you tell yourself?

Speaker 2:

I think I would say it's going to work out. I think there's just a lot of worrying that happens that I worried about, and it's just like if you just kind of let it go and just realize it's going to work out and just take one step at a time, you know, that's where you can get anywhere. If you again, if you had asked me nine years ago what I was going to do with this little Instagram business that I was starting, I would have had no idea. I just took one step at a time and then I took the next step. And then I took the next step, and here we are, nine years later, and I could have never anticipated it. So, yeah, setting goals is awesome, vision casting, dreaming is awesome, but sometimes you can't even dream as big as the things that you can do, and so it really is just trusting that it's going to work out, taking one step at a time, taking feedback, adjusting and then taking the next step.

Speaker 1:

So good. I knew you would have an amazing answer for that. Where can we follow you? I've got your Instagram handle at bicepsafterbabies. We'll link that below. Is Instagram the best place to follow you? Yeah?

Speaker 2:

And any. You can find me bicepsafterbabies anywhere Instagram, tiktok, facebook. That's my website. Biceps After Babies Radio is my podcast. But if you just put in bicepsafterbabies like, you're going to find you're going to find I love that.

Speaker 1:

Well, thank you so much for your time and I'll see you on the next conversation.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, so much.

Speaker 1:

Amanda.

People on this episode

Contributor

Amanda Schaefer

Host