S5-Ep2: From Athlete to Coach: Ginny’s Rise — Prep Smart, Live Your Life the Team CSFP Way

What if discipline felt like care, not punishment? That’s the heartbeat of this conversation as we welcome Ginny to our CSFP coaching team and unpack how a 50‑something athlete built her best natural bodybuilding season without burning down her life. We get honest about the years it took, the injuries that forced smarter choices, and the mindset shifts that turned “more is better” into “better is better.”

We dig into the foundations that most people skip: quality sleep, real stress management, hydration, and whole‑food nutrition. You’ll hear why ditching “Franken foods” for simple staples improves digestion, mood, and training quality—and how to plan like a pro so decision fatigue doesn’t send you face‑first into a bag of chips. Ginny shares her micro‑planning playbook: splitting meals, timing carbs and fats around workouts, drinking enough water, and building sweet, salty, and crunchy options that still match your macros. Travel, family emergencies, work chaos—this system holds up in real life because it’s built for real life.

We also rewrite the language around food and setbacks. You didn’t “fall off the wagon”; you had a meal. Remove guilt, keep the joy, and move on. For women especially, female‑centered coaching matters. We talk hormones, recovery, mental load, and why bro‑style protocols often leave women worse off. If you want stage‑worthy results—or simply a stronger, saner routine—start with the basics and master them relentlessly. That’s how you build a physique you’re proud of and a life you actually like living.

If this resonates, tap follow, share with a friend who needs sustainable motivation, and leave a review with the one habit you’ll fix first.

Looking for a coach to help you be YOUR best self in bodybuilding or just in life? Let's get in touch!

Team CSFP

IG: @teamcsfp
FB: https://www.facebook.com/teamcsfp

To reach out to Tina @ Center Stage Athletics

www.centerstagethleticscoaching.com

info@centerstageathleticscoaching.com

To reach out to Ginny @ Thrive NutriFit

www.thrivenutrifit.com

IG & FB: @ginnygrivas

Chapters

• 0:00 Surprise Return And New Co‑Host
• 1:21 Introducing Ginny As Prep Coach
• 5:19 Early Struggles And Finding Fitness
• 9:59 Training Smarter Not Harder
• 16:24 Social Media Versus Real Progress
• 22:39 Mindset, Genetics, And Expectations
• 28:29 Self‑Care Isn’t Selfish
• 35:19 Foundations: Sleep, Stress, And Food Quality
• 44:49 Processed “Franken Foods” And Whole Food Swaps
• 52:39 Safe Prep Versus Harmful Extremes
• 58:39 Micro‑Planning Meals And Water Strategy
• 1:05:29 Travel, Eating Out, And Boundaries
• 1:12:19 Meal Prep Beats Decision Fatigue
• 1:20:59 Flexible Joy Without Guilt

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:21

Well, hello. It has been um a hot minute or 20 since the last podcast. I did, and this is going to be another special episode because I am not here with Brandy, but this is the Coaching and Cocktails podcast. If anybody is out there still listening, because we only put out episodes very randomly. Surprise, here we are. And so today I have my very special co-host, Jenny Grievous Ford, right? We are hyphenating your name because sometimes you say Jenny Grievous and sometimes you say Jenny Grievous Ford. And so, um, so so that's who's with me today. So if anybody's paying attention, you would have seen our social media posts earlier this week. I think it was earlier this week. I don't even know what day of the week it is anymore, but I think it's Friday, December 5th. That's what my computer's telling me. Um, and so we recently added Jenny as a team CSFP competition prep coach. And so we're kind of just here today to have a little chat. And so we can, I think most people know quite a bit about me, although maybe Jenny's followers don't. And so um we want to just introduce Jenny mostly. This is Jenny show. I mean, this whole year's been the Jenny show, but we can get into that. Um, and I just want you to tell everybody a little bit about yourself, like how and you and I can have a conversation about how we got here. And um, I want the world to know who you are because I think you're pretty fucking amazing. Um, or else I never would have considered you as an option for this because I have never shared this with anybody other than Brandy, this thing that I have here, and so um it's very, very special to me 20 years doing this, and so Jenny, welcome, Jenny. Well, thanks, my Janae, Janae.

SPEAKER_03: 2:15

I know I always tell people because they're called like how do you say your name? It's like it's it's Janae, but it's g-in-n-y. And I say it's kind of force gumps genny, except without the um the drug addiction.

SPEAKER_02: 2:26

So or the AIDS, I mean the AIDS or any anything that's there, so it's Janae and G I and N Y.

SPEAKER_03: 2:35

And yeah, I go by Grievous Ford because someday I'm going to actually get down to the Social Security office to change my name after I got married three and a half years ago. But you know, we'll see how that goes.

SPEAKER_02: 2:47

What's the rush? What's the rush? Give it some time. Exactly. You never know. Still feeling it out, you know. I'm sure he would love to hear that.

SPEAKER_03: 2:57

Oh my gosh. Well, yeah, everybody does need to know who you are. If anyone's listening who's not that familiar with Tina, because you have been um, you've been such a light in my life when I walked in your door. Gosh, and I guess it was 2001. I'm trying to remember now because things just sort of blur. We barely know what day it is, much less what year it is anymore. And this one's over. Um, but I was just in a really bad space when I came in to see you. And I think, you know, it's just one of those things that you you pick up health and wellness and fitness when you have nothing else left to pick up, um, you know, in your life. But um, so you've been just transformative to me for that. And I really, really appreciate it. And I really appreciate this opportunity because you've helped me grow so much over these last four, almost five years. And now I'm just feel so inspired to be able to help other ladies and men, really. I get so many questions on a daily basis about, you know, how I was able to transform, especially at our age, right? So um I don't know what you mean.

SPEAKER_00: 3:58

I'm still only 25. 25 times two, right? 25 times two.

SPEAKER_02: 4:04

Plus two. Oh my goodness, you're an equation. I am 52. You're a mathematical equation. I am. Gosh, I well, I turned 50.

SPEAKER_03: 4:14

Actually, yesterday, I I'm 50 and a half now.

SPEAKER_00: 4:17

Oh, I was like, wait, did I miss your birthday? I thought you were about to say you turned 51 yesterday. Oh 50 and a half is not a thing.

SPEAKER_02: 4:25

Come on, excuse me. Remember being a kid and you're so excited. I'm 18 months. I'm 18 months old. 18 months old. Or like when you're seven, you're like, I'm actually seven and a half. Seven and a half.

SPEAKER_03: 4:39

Yes. Well, that I you know what, none of that humor has left me. So yeah, I'm 50 and a half.

SPEAKER_00: 4:44

And that's fine. It's totally fine because you're fabulous. I was like yesterday. The 50, the 50s are amazing.

SPEAKER_03: 4:49

They are they are, they are, they can definitely throw us for a loop, but they they really are. And this year's been just amazing, just really truly amazing. I decided to just push myself really, really hard this year and kind of understand and see where I could go. And the push was really, it's that conditioning aspect. It's the food, it's the nutrition. A lot of folks are like, oh, did you increase your workouts? Did you do this? I was like, actually, no. Um, I kept my same pace, but you just kind of reduced the intensity a bit as you're in a prep. Do we, Jenny? Well, all right.

SPEAKER_00: 5:24

So let's back up, let's back up a little bit. And that's uh the evolution of Jenny, because this is it really has been an evolution. It's you know, from and I appreciate the kind words from a coaching um aspect, yeah. The reality is you are the epitome of what an athlete in I mean, really, I think you would be successful in any sport. But if we're talking about the sport of natural bodybuilding, right? You came with like, I don't know, four weeks until your show, and you're like, hey, can you help me prep? And I was like, Yeah, no, I can't do anything in four weeks. So just keep doing what you're doing and I'll help you pose, right? I was just like, I was not really a whole lot I could do, which is true. Like I couldn't jump in and be like, okay, let's change this and this and this, because that would have been stupid. But you were, you know, and so um I helped you get your post posing was horrific. It was horrible. I got the pictures to prove it, but we all were. I sucked when I first started posing too. Um, but then, you know, after that first season of shows, then we really did start working together together. And um it was it was a beautiful thing to watch because you sort of had to make all the mistakes, like doing more than your coach told you, not doing exactly what your coach told you, because more is always better, right? More is always better. Well, if she told me to do 15, I'll do an hour. If she told me to eat this, I'll eat a little less. I definitely need to train six days a week, seven days a week to like kill myself, right? Um, but that's a mistake. I mean, that everybody does that, right? You're like, I'll do more because I'm not where I thought, where I think I'm I should be a more is better, you know, whatever, blah, blah, blah. But you did those things, but then when I asked you just not to and consider why doing those things was not the very best idea, you listened, right? And then you found that, oh, well, wait, you're right. Doing less does feel better. I do feel better. I'm still making progress, and I don't have to do more, I don't have to kill myself because in trying to kill yourself, you ended up with a whole bunch of injuries, right? Lower back stuff and just like way, you know, and this is really sort of wrapping up many years of progress in like a two-minute spiel. But, you know, you ended up with some injuries that you had to work through, which sort of force you to do things a little differently, right? And then um learning from that and and and quite a bit of it you were doing on your own because we weren't, you know, weekly coaching together, like every single week of you know, our entire time together. You did a lot of stuff on your own, which has been amazing um to watch and see your growth in that area. But I think come in coming back from those injuries and really having to learn about your body and um training smartly versus right, training. Uh I always tell people better is better, more is not better, right? So more is not always better. And I think you learn that, and I think you have found that you can push yourself within the construct of it staying healthy, you can be intense in your training without it going so far over the top that you're hurting yourself, right? And so, but I think the key in all that was that you really paid attention to your body and you really focused on your your mind, your body, your mind-body connection in so many areas of the prep. And I'm just talking about training right now, um, but you've learned throughout, right? Because where you are now in this season is not where you were in your even your first or your second season. You can see it in how your body looks, you can see it in how you've been mentally, you know, managing it and so on and so forth. So um honestly, that's been a beautiful thing for me to be on a on that journey with you because you know, towards I think towards the end of this prep, I was like, Hey Jenny, you doing all right? You know, you need anything? I was like, you need anything from me? I was like, are we, you know, and she it's you know, and the reality is you maybe other aside from a gut check or you know, your weekly journaling check-ins, because it does help you kind of take, you know, uh retrospect of what the you know week looked like, but I was like, Do you need anything? Are we good? You know, um, but yeah, so that I mean that's kind of where you ended up in this this prep. And people see this year, and this year was incredible, and your accomplishments are incredible, and your physique is incredible. Everybody sees Jenny as incredible, and they have seen you be incredible in past seasons, but this year it was just like it was like like I said, it was like the Jenny show, and but what nobody sees, and what people I think really, really need to realize, especially as you start taking on clients, because everybody sees, well, Jenny looks like that. I got this, right? I'm gonna hire Jenny, and then I'm gonna look like that, and I'll every you know, and Jenny's gonna help me look like that. And you know, yours was a five-year process, right? And this is what people need to understand, and it doesn't happen overnight. You didn't look like this in 2020 or 2021, or you know, or or whatever, or even 22, 23, whatever your lashes, right? And so being able seeing and understanding the transformation that happened outside of what you look like in a picture or on social media, that's what people don't get, right? And that's what that's what I really want to kind of share from your perspective. I think I just kind of like put a little bit out there from my perspective, but that's the hardest part about this sport is that social media is beautiful and wonderful and it's brought so much attention to the sport, but it's also the worst fucking thing that has happened for the sport. Like it's the best and worst thing because you just see pictures of people, and then suddenly those pictures, those people are trainers and coaches and don't have a fucking clue how they got there, let alone help somebody else get there. And nobody really truly understands the work. You know, I think I got an email from a client right after we announced that you were gonna, you know, be coaching, and they were like, Well, I want to understand how Jenny gets to that level. Um, right. And and I was like, I, you know, I can tell you what it takes to be an elite athlete, right? Like I could tell you those things, but what I can't do is do you do it for you, right? Because it really is a mindset and it really is very, very difficult, right? Like this is not a you just woke up one day and was like, oh, eat some egg whites and some chicken and I'll train hard and I'll do some cardio and here I am. Um that's the part you can't give to people. It's something that they have to find within themselves. And I think that you have I well, I know, I know that you have found this throughout the process, right? Like you didn't have it at first either. Um, and neither did I 20 fucking years ago when I did this, right? It wasn't until my last two seasons competing that I finally figured it out, right? I was just like, oh, right. Like I was like, oh, this is how you do it, and you don't lose your mind, and you you know, and it doesn't have to feel so hard, and it's hard, but it doesn't have to feel so hard. Um, but uh you know, I think it all kind of comes down to that that mindset now. You know, I did have to tell this client, I was like, well, also genetics. Now I'm not saying that it's all genetics, but also I can't tell you that if you implement all these things that Jenny did in terms of an athlete's mindset, that that's how you're going to look, because it's also not true, right? So anyway, um, why don't you kind of give your perspective on what this journey has been for you since you started to where you are now in terms of because you and I were talking a little bit about your reverse, but before we get to the this year's reverse, I would like to talk to about how you got here in the first place, right? And then, you know, we can we can either say that for another podcast to specifically talk about the reverse, but I really want people to understand who you are, how you got here, little background on you, um, and how you ended up having the best season so far this year.

SPEAKER_03: 13:54

Yeah, so far, exactly. No, and I think that's a really good overlay. And and really, when I when I had first come to you, I was dealing with so much stress and anxiety. I mean, I think we all have things that happen in our lives. You don't get to be, you know, 40 or 50 or 60 without some sort of calamity or traumas happening in your life. And um, and I was just at a point where I was feeling very stubborn and dealing with a lot of stereotypes about how I should look and how I want to be valued and how people perceive me and just a whole mess. You know, society, the perception that you have for women is that as you get older, you become less valuable, right? Because our identity is so wrapped up into what we look like and how people perceive us. You know, are we a good person? Are we are we helpful? Are we kind? We don't actually really take the time to sit and go, well, what do what do I want to be? What is my identity? What is my legacy? Um, you know, we're taught a lot in life to be selfless in the sense that we we we give to our families, our husbands, our friends, you know, our children, et cetera, everything of ourselves. And we get to a point where, okay, for me, I was becoming an empty nester. My daughter was going to be going off to college soon. She was still in high school at that time, but I thought, well, what's my next chapter? What's that supposed to look like? And, you know, being Gen X, you know, we're we're raised on that whole teen beat magazine lifestyle where you see the really skinny models on the top cover and you see them in Glamour magazine, et cetera. And this is what you're supposed to look like. You're supposed to be real thin and you know, a size two, and that's ideal. And you still carry that forward, even from that time period. So, and yes, and then you get social media, and then you get everybody showing you to work out this way and that way, and you need to look like this, and you got to eat this or not eat that. And it gets so overwhelming and confusing that all you want to do is grab a bag of chips and just eat them off your chest like a sea otter at the San Diego Zoo in a corner.

SPEAKER_00: 15:45

Oh my god, were you watching me last night? Oh, but oh my god, I'm so glad that you do it too. Oh my god, that's why Yvette calls me rabbit. Do you know the story why she calls me rabbit? No. So, Yvette, you know, my very best friend who does all the tanning. She's the world's the world's best tanner. Best because there were many, because we've been friends for I think, well, 20 at least 20 years. And I remember when my son was really, really was little, and I I think I was in prep. And I was always stealing his food. And I think I was like on the phone with her, and I was talking about how like I was trying to eat his cookies, and I um I was hiding them because I wasn't supposed to be eating cookies because I wasn't prep. And I had like crumbs all down the front of me. And she said, or I and she said, All I can imagine is you, and nobody's gonna see this video, but she said, All I can imagine is you were like this, and you had like these little crumbs all down the front of you. So that's why she's called me rabbit because I was stealing cookies and I had crumbs all down the front of me. So it's also very much like I I have been known to have an entire bag of potato chips sitting, sitting on my sitting on my belly like a nodder. Oh my god, eating all the chips, and you can tell where I sit on the couch every night for T TV watching time with my husband because we flip the cushion over. That's where all the crumbs are, like all the potato chip crumbs. He's like, babe, do you get any in your mouth? Like all the crumbs are like in the couch cushion. I was like, Well, listen, life's rough. That's right. This is what I'm doing at my at my TV watching time at night before I go to bed. Anyway, that's right. Yes, I too do that.

SPEAKER_03: 17:24

That's that becomes sort of our coping. Like, okay, I can't deal with the world right now. I'm so overwhelmed. You just sort of go into yourself for me. It's Fritos. If you give me a family-sized bag of Fritos, good luck getting one. Yeah. It's mine, it's absolutely mine. I'm kettle chips. Oh, yeah. You know, we all have our vices, we uh we all have all that, but I I knew I needed to do something because I just felt so out of control in my life. And what I realized was going down this road of my own uh physical well-being and how I looked aesthetically actually took me into a whole journey of how to repair my mindset, how to fix what was going on in my brain internally, how to deal with face with, face actually, and deal with past traumas, all the stuff we have from growing up and all the things and decisions we've made and mistakes in our 20s and our 30s and our 40s, etc. And then also realizing that I've got this daughter who's looking to me, I'm her only mother, and I've got I've got to be a better example for her. And the only way I could do it, and it took me a while to figure it out, was to be 100% selfish. I had to focus on me. I could not be a good partner, I could not be a good mom, and I was a horrible friend if I couldn't fix me. Yes. Oh my God, amen.

SPEAKER_00: 18:46

Thank you for saying that.

SPEAKER_03: 18:47

So hard to go down that road because again, we're taught to be selfless. We're not taught to be selfish. Selfish is bad. Selfish is selfish. No, selfish is good. There's a reason why they tell you on an airplane before you're taking off during the safety briefing to put your freaking mask on before you put it on your kids.

SPEAKER_00: 19:04

It's literally what I say to at least one client, if not more, every single week, every single check-in, because it is the same thing. I don't have time to do this because I gotta do all these things, and I can't do this because I gotta do all these things. Okay, and I'm like, you gotta again, I use that exact same reference. If we are not taking self-care is not selfish, it is not selfish. The most selfish thing we can do, in my opinion, is to pour out of an empty cup and give everything of ourselves to everybody else without doing anything for ourselves.

SPEAKER_03: 19:38

That's selfish, correct, because all it does is breed resentment and contempt.

SPEAKER_00: 19:43

Yeah, those two things and makes you uh it makes you a martyr. Okay. So how's that working for you? Right. And then and then you're miserable, and why are we last? Why why is it okay for us to be miserable and you know, and and listen, when we're miserable, nobody else around us is really all that happy. That's just the reality of it. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_03: 20:01

You're just putting up a facade, yeah. And and really, it's it's just one of those things that everybody at one point in their life has to deal with that fact that it is you've got to take care of yourself before you can take care of anybody else. And once I was able to unlock it, and yes, I did go through the okay, well, Tina, my coach. Just telling me to do X, Y, and Z, but I can do this and I can do that. And I could when you start to do things outside of your program, that's where you really get in trouble. You have to reset your whole mind because some of the things you you touched on, more is not better. More is hurtful. So if you're prescribing me, you know, you're going to do 20 minutes of cardio and it's going to be three days a week. So I only want you to doing 60, 60 minutes. Well, I take that as a oh yeah.

unknown: 20:44

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 20:45

Actually, I'm going to do 75.

SPEAKER_00: 20:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 20:47

I'm going to do 110. I'm going to do 120. I'm like, that's not the point. She's not giving you a small goal for you to hopefully blow through. It's this is actually what you need for your body, for your brain for this week, because you're forgetting what you've got to still leave in the tank for your body to recover and repair, but also for your brain to think and be able to be a productive human being in your normal body. So you have to follow the program. And the same thing goes when you're when you're weight training. Yeah, could you go instead of eight reps on this and do 10, 12, 14? Sure, but you're going to hurt yourself if you are not following your appropriate number of sets and the and really according to the weight that that's appropriate for you to be lifting at that time. And don't burn out. I mean, I was burning out so badly in the beginning.

SPEAKER_00: 21:36

Yeah. And nobody needs to be in the gym three hours a day ever. Like or two, really, for that matter, unless you really are having to do an hour of cardio and an hour of training, which I hope you don't.

SPEAKER_03: 21:45

But no, of course not. Nobody should be in the gym that long. Nobody should be in the gym that long because all you're doing is hurting yourself. The amount of inflammation that I had to physically feel, and I could you couldn't tell me shit, remember? I had to physically feel like shit to go, oh, I'm over-training. This is what it means to overtrain. I'm so full of inflammation. And then at the same time, when you're trying to do weigh-ins, right, as a one metric, one metric, right of progress, which you're doing on a weekly basis. And sometimes you're weighing a couple times during the week and it's fluctuating up, down, up, down. So you're screwing yourself over in your head. You've overtrained, your body's full of inflammation, and you feel like crap. And I go, okay, well, this isn't working. Well, why isn't it working? Because I'm not paying attention. I'm not listening. I'm not listening. You have to listen to the program, you have to listen to your body, you have to see how it responds. And you just need to take it one week at a time. Because that's the other problem is instant gratification is such a massive problem in our society.

SPEAKER_01: 22:47

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_03: 22:49

Social media just makes it worse. Oh, yeah. So everybody's wanting to jump on the bandwagon. What's the latest trend? Because I need to see a change now because it's Thursday, and the party that I'm going to is Saturday night. It starts at eight.

SPEAKER_00: 23:01

So I must lose five pounds. How can I do that? I just had a client fire me. She was a lifestyle a couple months ago. And she was significantly overweight. She was obese. And menopausal. She's in her mid-50s. And, you know, is doing all the things. I'm using air quotes. And has done all the things. And, you know, going to the gym five days a week, okay, great. But nobody gets to be that overweight doing all the things, right? So you know, she was sleeping like four hours a night. She was eating, you know, her food choices were shit. She might meet her macros occasionally, but food choices were shit. She was getting zero sleep. And, you know, there was like no mind-body work, there was no stress management, there was, you know, none of these things, which is for me, that's first thing. When I'm, I mean, I actually don't even care if you're meeting macros, right? Like, I'd like to get your protein up, whatever, you know. Anyway, she refused. Like, and she got so mad at me because she thought I only like I would be perfectly fine if she never if she only dropped five pounds in like five months. And I was like, you know what? You're right. If I got you sleeping eight hours a night and drinking your water and just managing your stress, because none of this other shit matters if you're not doing the the underlying foundational things that you have to do. So I don't care if you're an elite level athlete. And she insisted that she wanted to train like she was going to compete, even though she was significantly overweight. Okay, fine. That's a great eventual goal. But I had to keep assuring her that there is no elite athlete on my team. In fact, there is no athlete, period. I won't even discuss getting on stage with somebody until they're getting the right amount of sleep. They're, you know, we're consistently training, eating the right nutrients and things like that. So yeah, so she fired me because she was did not think I had her best interest in heart. And I didn't care if she ever lost any weight. So, you know, but um, you know, and I wished her well. And I, you know, I still said, you know, this because this this just what it is. And so, so what you're talking about are those foundational aspects that I think so many people blow through seeking. Well, I just I need to hurry up and look this way. So just give me the macro, not even macros, give me the meal plan. That's my favorite. Give me the meal plan, tell me what to eat, tell me what to do. I'll just I'll kind of do it and then hope I get there. I don't know. That's just not how it works.

SPEAKER_03: 25:38

Yeah, it means that's and that's really, really difficult because I definitely had I I definitely had a client I had to part ways with who couldn't understand that in order to achieve change, change has to come from within. And that change also has to do with your patterns on your day-to-day basis. You have to make a life change for a change to occur. It you cannot out-exercise your diet at all, ever. And I'm, you know, I've got I've got people that have told me like, well, but I'm but I'm running, you know, and I'm I'm clocking like 15, 20 miles a week. And it's like, okay, but but and and also trying to build muscle at the same time. I'm like, I'm sorry, those two things don't even exist in the same plane. Like you can't, you can't do that. You have to determine what your goals are, and if you want to make change, you've got to be by abide by that change. And the big thing really is with diet, you have to understand that there's a bit of sacrifice, and and you call it we we look at it as sacrifice, I think, as humans, because we feel like we are um uh uh what am I trying to say?

SPEAKER_00: 26:41

We're supposed to be able to just eat whatever we want, whenever we want, and we're not supposed to have to ever restrict ourselves. You feel like you're depriving yourself of joy because we associate food with because we put emotions on eating, because that is how we're raised. That's just how human right, and you're not broken, you're not wrong. Like, this is how we literally, this is what I keep telling people. So, like the the day we're born, pre-verbal in utero, we know exactly what we need. Our bodies know exactly what they need, everything is there as as needed. We know we know how to feed hunger sickles, we know what we're supposed to eat. We're talking pre-verbal infant, like you know, so I come out into the world as an infant, and immediately I'm bombarded with all the things that say I no longer know how to eat and feed myself and and and follow and know what my instincts are to eat, right? What my body actually needs. So from the day we're born, we're trained not to do what our bodies need, right? Because whether it's our mom, dad, family, structure, whatever however they eat and drink and and whatever, and then and then we're watching TV, and there's whatever on TV, and then we're on social media, it's whatever in social media, and so we have to unfuck our entire lives to underst to get back to nature because we know how when we're born, and then it's all fucked up, and then we have to get back to understanding what that is, right? And so um, I forget where I was going all with all that and where our conversation was, but I think it made sense. Yeah. Um getting back to understanding that no, yes, I love my potato chips, don't get me wrong, and I am not telling people to can't eat potato chips. I will never tell you you can't eat potato chips, right? But you have to have the you have to have the foundational structure of a healthy, nutritious diet, and you have to see it as something that is supportive of your health and well-being, and not as restrictive, right? So we just look at it as restrictive because our that's where I was going with this. Our entire lives we're told that we're supposed to be able to eat the giant, you know, 2,000-pound burger from bit from you know, from McDonald's or you know, whatever the whopper, whatever this the bullshit shit is all over the television. And so that's what we're told. That's fun food. Yeah, that's that's joy. Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 29:16

That exact you're absolutely right. And also our our food supply is filled with more processed than not, and that has completely screwed us, I mean, physically and mentally. I mean, our brain chemistry has been completely screwed from that. So you you do if you're going to make a change in yourself to feel better, both physically as well as mentally, you have to start with the quote unquote sacrifice of looking at your diet and making those changes to insert those whole foods, because then and only then can you add in those frequent little little comfort things here and there that you might want. Maybe you want a peanut butter cookie, and maybe you want these Fritos, or maybe you want a bag of kettle chips or whatever it is, but you can't unless everything else, the foundation is made up of those whole foods and good brain-fueling type foods. If you remember, I said that you do because you used to yell at me. Um, after our first my first season with you, and I went to the off-season and you were looking at some of my diet stuff because I was careful, you know, we were working together on off-season eating. You're like, what the hell is this shit in your diet?

SPEAKER_00: 30:21

Was it the Franken foods, which is my favorite term? I was like, What the fuck are these Franken food proteins that you're eating? Like, stop eating this shit. I would rather a client eat an actual Snickers bar than some of these fucking nasty ass fucking protein cookies and go eat a bag of fucking Doritos, stop eating Quest chips. Those things are so fucking nasty. Like, I know that sounds stupid, but I'm like, go eat like not really a bag of Doritos, go eat an actual homemade chocolate chip cookie. Stop eating the Linny and Larry shit.

SPEAKER_03: 30:53

Real eat real food. Like, this is horrible. Yes, everything felt like I was in the substation living on the moon or something like that. Like I had to eat this at all. Good, you know, but I was it was just bad habits for me because I'm thinking, oh, it's good, it's fine, you know, and it's convenience food, and and it'll be protein chips or a protein bar or God forbid a Larry and David cookie, and then I'll be farting for the next three weeks.

SPEAKER_00: 31:17

God, nobody even understood. You want to know why you have fucking gas and digestive issues.

SPEAKER_03: 31:21

Stop eating that shit. And it was it was awful because if you remember, I didn't have very much vegetables in my diet. No, what is that with people not liking vegetables? It was not understand it, and I was just so I was so stubborn about it, and you know, traveling a lot too and everything, but man, my choices were just rough. And you were like, What is this? This is garbage. Stop filling your body with garbage. And I was just kind of like, Yeah, okay, okay. But you really notice it when you go into your prep, and then you really can feel the brain difference, and you're like, oh gosh, you know what? It's I feel really good about blueberries and this and my strawberries and my yogurt, and you know, my my blueberries and my oatmeal, whatever. And now it's like I can't live without those things. And in my reverse dieting this year, I've really noticed like I'm keeping some of these staples that I have created that I love the flavors of, but also knowing that, hey, if I really want some pretzel crisps or I really want this or that, I can have that too. I'm just incorporating it in so that I'm still feeling mentally better. My physicality is as I'm still feeling good when I'm going to the gym. I'm not just failing based on what I put into my body.

SPEAKER_00: 32:36

You don't throw out the good for the bad. And I do not like to even put good and bad labels on food, but that is my quote, right? You just you still have like if somebody's going to a party or a vacation, whatever, I'm like, please go enjoy yourself. Yeah, but don't throw out the good for the bad, right? Get your protein, get your fruits and vegetables. You want to have cocktails if that's your vice, have cocktails, right? You want to have dessert every night with dinner, have fucking dessert every night with dinner, but don't throw out the bad for the good, get all the good stuff in first, right? And then have some of the others, and it's not it's not actually bad that there's a time and place for everything, but that's my point.

SPEAKER_03: 33:12

Yeah, but that's the key, and that's why they call it sometimes a dirty bulk versus a non-dirty bulk, you know, because you you do have people that come off of a bodybuilding season and then just go straight to whatever their vice was prior to, and it's just so counterproductive, it's really just sabotaging, you know, everything that you've built because now also you got to remember your body composition is completely changed, especially now doing X number of seasons. My body composition is totally different. And we talk about how when you go to actually put some of that necessary weight back on, how it changes, you know, where it goes on your body is not up to you. It is not. I mean, you've got a fueled machine here that you've created and built and had run, it's gonna come back where it wants to go, and you need to be okay with it. Um, so it's it's it's not always gonna go in the places that you really want it to go to.

SPEAKER_00: 34:01

No, and you know, and as we were discussing, every prep is different, every reverse is going to be different, right? You learn, you learn, you live and you learn. There was no, when I was coming up in this, so 20 years in the sport, there was no such thing as a reverse diet. The the literal advice we got after coming off of a bro diet, mind you, right? Where we did actually eat carbs and did 5,000 hours of cardio and you literally only ate like chicken and asparagus. Oh god, it's horrible. Um, you uh you were so restricted you had no choice but to come off of your prep, not go to the gym for a week. That was the actual advice people gave us. And you got to the show with a suitcase full of cookies and potato chips, and your freezer was full of all every every possible kind of ice cream that you could imagine, and like you know, those you know, BJ style size things of cookies and and all the things, but that's and you you gain 20 pounds in a week. Yeah, I mean that that's that's what we did. That is what every person did. And yeah, now we know better, and so we we do better, and I've done that. Like it's it's miserable, it's horrible, it's absolutely excruciating. That's why we also don't diet the way we used to. Well, some people still do, there's still a lot of really dumb coaches out there that are doing that shit, but um fire your coach if that's what they do, but anyway, um and I've heard of that. I mean, it's it's everywhere, it's everywhere. It is I it blows my mind that people still do that, but it's still everywhere.

SPEAKER_03: 35:26

So the the biggest lesson that I learned, especially with this particular season, was um you have to be so careful and conscious of not hurting yourself when it comes to eating with the conditioning in the eating. There was a show that I was at recently, and it wasn't anyone that I had competed in, but I was supporting someone in, and I'm talking to a couple of the other competitors backstage, and one of them had been on a 400-calorie diet for six days in a row, and she could barely stand.

SPEAKER_00: 35:59

And in fact, she also hadn't had anything to drink.

SPEAKER_03: 36:01

Yes, and I'm I'm like, this is how you die, this is how your entire system just collapses. You go into complete organ failure. Like, this is a joke. I mean, this is not the way that natural bodybuilding works, and this was not necessarily a natural bodybuilding show that I had attended, but it just still, I don't know why I was still so shocked, but it just did shock me because that's not the way that a good prep works. The the way I was able to make it through almost 30 weeks this year, was being consistent in in the macro counting and the macro recording, but also being really smart and listening to what my brain needed and my body to follow, but what my brain needed, whether it was 9 a.m. in the morning, one in the afternoon, or six in the evening, because you have to be present, right? For everyone in your environment, kids, work. So what did I need to do? Okay, well, I know that I had these meals and I know I had these macros. I need to break these up further. So I would go from, you know, earlier in prep, maybe it was five meals a day to then six to seven. I got to a point where I was eating nine to 10. And what I mean by that is it's still the same number of macros, but if at four o'clock in the afternoon I needed to do three almonds because that's what I had to do to get to 515, that's exactly what I would do. And so if I'm allotting myself that day 28 grams of almonds, which is roughly 26 to 28 almonds, yes, I do know this horribly information. I would break those almonds up to where I would eat them throughout the whole day that way. And it sounds silly, but it gave your brain just enough. And then also that increase in that water. I was up to a point, I don't know if you remember, but I was drinking about 160 to 180 ounces a day throughout the whole day. And I made sure that I was like, okay, if I'm gonna have these three almonds, I'm gonna do these gulps of water, boom, and I'm good for the next 45 minutes, you know. And that's exactly how to do it. And I could still work out and I had to plan. Okay, if I'm working out, if it's gonna be a one o'clock workout today, because maybe I can't do my morning one, you shift those macros to support it. It's like a bookend. You gotta have it before, you gotta have it right after. So think about it. And so that's the the intensity of this past year's season really had to do with incredibly careful planning, incredibly careful, and then all the crap comes up that you don't plan for. My mother-in-law passes away in July. Next thing you know, I'm going out in the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma. How the hell am I supposed to plan around that? You know, and and you have that, and then you have work catastrophes, you the next thing you know, you're driving to college. You know, it's there's always going to be something, but if you can plan some intensity around where your energy needs are going to be most and work your food around them, it's the way to survive, it's the way to get through. And and that was the healthiest thing, it's the healthiest I've ever been.

SPEAKER_00: 39:13

Yeah. And it's the only reason you felt the way you you felt the healthiest, the best. I mean, every check-in you sent me, um, regardless of the catastrophe. And also, I will say from a coach's perspective, your check-ins were always thorough. There was so much information. I could tell it was cathartic for you to write them. I could tell you were actually going through your week and and it was good not just for me, but for you, because really check-ins are meant to be that. Like I wasn't getting one-word answers. You were really, you know, try t taking me through your week, which helps me really understand what's going on. But um you getting to this point where you felt your best, you looked your best, because all anybody sees is your look, right? I don't think anybody cares on social media when they're looking at your physique, how you actually felt. But it's the best you've ever felt for somebody who looks like that, right? Because you're not supposed to feel good when you look like that. And good is I'm using your quotes again. That's relative, right? You felt good for comparably. Um This has been a five-year process for you to understand using your body as a science experiment, really do it putting in the work to say, okay, this is how my first prep went. This my first reverse went, this is how I felt during that. And then the second time I was like, Okay, well, this is how I you got a little bit better, and this is how I felt during that. And then, you know, you got a little bit better. That's what makes an elite athlete. Nobody gets to where you are you were this year, their first time competing. And if they do, it's really fucking rare, right? They're already like some kind of world-class athlete and something else, and they just decided to dip their toes in bodybuilding, right? And so um that's the kind and I'm glad that you you you talked about how much detail, right, and intention there is but behind everything you do because people are going to look at you and go, I want to look like Ginny. Okay, cool. That's a great I want to look like Ginny too. I'm never going to, but still, like I still I just still do I like my potato chips too much. But and I'm not giving them up. I have zero uh intention of doing that. But to get here, it is so it is so much work, and you you put in so much intention behind everything you did. And because you did that, you were able to fly to Oklahoma and you know how to fuel your body, right? Were you able to pack and take all your food with you? Probably not. Sometimes you had to eat out. I know you did because you told me about it, right? But you know how to order off a menu, you know how to you get to a point where you're so good at like measuring stuff, you're either taking your scale with you or you're really good at it and you eyeball it and you get really good at eyeballing things. And you know, if somebody you said, I didn't want butter on my steak, and you know goddamn well there was butter on your steak when it comes, and you don't politely say, I'll eat it anyway, you fucking send it back and get what you asked for, right? And so, because you're like, No, I'm not, you know, and I don't know if you actually did these things or not, but these that's the kind of intention it takes to get to an elite level of conditioning that you had. And so if anybody wants to say, But I I want to look like Ginny, you have to understand what it takes to get there. It is right. What is that uh graphic that's always out there? Like people say you see success and it's uh it's an iceberg, right? So people see your success and it's you standing on this tip of this iceberg, and what you don't see is all this like you're drowning underwater with all these things that you have to do, but to get there, but that's what nobody sees. And and to be very blunt, that's what 99.9% of even the athletes in the sport aren't willing to do, right? And so, um, which is fine, your results will show the effort you put in. Your results show the effort you put in. It is not because you just woke up looking like that five years ago when you stepped into the sport because you didn't, and so it takes that kind of time, it takes that kind of intention, and it takes that kind of willingness to, you know, listen to your coach. And I'm not saying that's the only reason you're successful is because you listened to me, because that's not true. You did the work yourself, right? You were invested in your own well-being because you were like, well, hey, if I'm gonna do this thing, I also need to take care of this one vessel that I get to carry myself around in for the rest of my life, right? And when it comes down comes down to it, I mean, you can be an elite level athlete and you know, win all kinds of trophies and some cash is super fun, you know, and great. But when the plastic trophies are dusty and put away, you gotta have something to live in for the rest of your life. And if you trash it for a fucking plastic trophy, then what's the point? Right. Like, and there are too many people out there that are just willing to trash themselves with really ridiculous training protocols and really ridiculous eating protocols and really ridiculous, and I say ridiculous because they're listening what you did is extreme. Like, there are the reality is there are elite-level athletes who uh eat a thousand calories a day to look the way that they do. It some people just are right. The the reality is that happens for some people. And when it's done and smartly, right, it's it's not going to kill you. It's just there are some some some people that, but then there are others who are just, you know, like you said, this poor girl who was probably eating 400 calories a day unnecessarily because some bozo probably told her to fucking do that. And so um, it's not really even about the oh my god, you can't go sub 1,000 calories because some athletes do. There are some elite-level athletes that do, but it's done in a very intentional way, right? That is not for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks, weeks on end. And you know, there's a lot, there's a lot that goes into it. But um putting in that kind of time, nobody wants to do that, Jenny. I mean, the reality is nobody wants to spend hours a day prepping their food, nobody wants to, because I hear it all the time, right? Everybody wants this look, but then oh, I gotta go out of town this week and I'll do the best I can. Okay. I mean, I mean, that's fine with me. Like, I can't do it for you, right? But you're telling me you want this thing, and so I, you know, my job as a coach then is to be like, okay, that's fine, but just understand that this is probably the result we'll have, right? And if that if you're okay with it, I'm okay with it. Like, you know, yeah. Um, but anyway, that's I I just want people to hear what you're saying, right? It's not like I just I ate a cut some almonds during the day to get me through. Like understanding, right? Like this, you had that it wasn't Jenny was not randomly picking at almonds throughout the day. Jenny measured out her 40 almonds for the day. This is all she gets. And if she eats them all by 10 a.m., she doesn't eat more, right? So that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_03: 46:21

And if breakfast consists of, you know, these are my egg whites with my vegetables in them, and then these are my oats with my blueberries in them, instead of eating that as one breakfast, I would end up being breakfast one and breakfast two. I mean, we were second first breakfast and second breakfast, and you know, kind of pushing that through. But I had an aha moment where it finally dawned on me like, how and why I do this and and and what changed for me this year. And it was like the discipline, like, how do you do this discipline? And I go, well, well, wait a second. When our kids were little, okay, and we needed to go anywhere with them, okay? Everybody remembers that 18-month-old, right? And you're trying to anticipate when is his or her nap time? When is she gonna snack? What kind of energy is this body going to produce that I need to have snacks prepared for? Where's here's her whore favorite toy? What about that but little book that he loves? How am I supposed to soothe this tiny human being throughout this entire day? You plan to the nth degree what you need for that toddler. Every snack, the bags of Cheerios, the little fruit cup, the this, the that, the other. This is exactly the same thing. It is.

SPEAKER_00: 47:31

I think that's that's that is brilliant.

SPEAKER_03: 47:34

You become your course, it only works for people who have had kids, but but even so, think about it when you're going anywhere. I mean, you've got to think about it. Like going on a trip. Do I have all the diapers? Did I bring all the pull-ups? Do I have this? Do I have that? All of the crap that you had to pack before you even packed for yourself. So there you are, and here you are with bodybuilding prep. And how do I get through prep? People talk about the work that's behind it. Well, the work isn't necessarily what's done at the gym, the work isn't on the treadmill, the work isn't, you know, driving to the gym. The work is, yeah, you're talking about meal planning on Sundays. What am I going to prep? And then how am I going to divide this out? Because I don't know how I might feel Monday versus Thursday. A catastrophe might happen Wednesday. It might make me overly hungry on Thursday. So, you know, you need to anticipate these things and plan for. And once you do, once you do, you become a machine. And that's your focus. And you know, this is something that my husband taught me, and I think it's fantastic. He has a standing meeting on his calendar that nobody can block, nobody can book. And it's from 12 to 115, and it's the time he goes to the gym. Hell or high water, hell or high water, that's his time. Period. Can't bother him, can't book it. Yep. And that is the key thing. So, whatever day that you want to pick to do that kind of planning in the kitchen, that's your time. That's it. If it's 2 to 5 p.m., you get your favorite podcast on, like coaching cocktails, you can listen to us. You know, and make your freaking meals, dude. Yeah, do them.

SPEAKER_00: 49:10

Stop fucking off and telling me you don't have time when I see you posting on social media all day long. And because look that's what I mean. Listen, we're all busy. We're all busy. If you want, uh you know, where there is a will, there's a way, whatever little you know, thing you want to say, you know, if you have a strong why, you don't need a how. You just fucking do it. When I was competing, my I had an 18-month-old the first time I stepped on stage. My husband was competing with me. I worked for the federal government. I drove into DC every day. I had a very uh difficult and complicated job. I had an infant. Um, I was prepping for competition and I only trained three days a week. So that was literally the only time I had. My baby had to go to daycare. I dropped or Eric dropped off. I picked up, I had to be out of work at a certain time. I was on, I had to do cardio at 2:30 in the morning in my garage. I am not actually suggesting because I wasn't getting enough sleep. So I already said that back then I didn't do things the right way, and I didn't have a coach telling me otherwise. So, but that was the only time I could get my cardio in. So, and I could only get to the gym three days a week, and it had to be at this particular time, and this is what I did. And every single Sunday, no matter what, I prepped food and on Wednesday too. And you know what? I got to a point where it only took me an hour. I know how to fucking make a week's worth of food for two people and an hour, and still do all the things that you know we need to do back and forth for the you know, for Nick and you know, all of those things. And so you have you cannot be willy-nilly fly by the seat of your pants, girl, if this if you really want to make this happen, right? Like, it's just like so. When you were talking about taking a toddler out, I was like, Well, I actually know a lot of people that don't plan, and they just right, and I look at them and I'm like, You mean your baby just goes to bed whenever and you just eat whenever? And I was like, How does that work? Right? Like, you're just waking up whenever and just I was like, our son was so regimented because we were so regimented, so bodybuilding was like inbred in our whole lives when Nicholas was growing up, so it really was a oh no no, we are we all have to eat at five. If we're not eating at five, this child is going to like like the exorcist with his head spinning around, right? And so our entire lives were planned around like, nope, we're not eating at five. Like you get to a restaurant and you're like, what the fuck do you mean? Like we can't be seated until 5:30. I was like, that is not gonna work, right? Like it's like if this child's not eating, if this child's not in bed by seven, right? Like every little thing. Now, granted, that also that also tended to backfire on us quite a bit, being that regimented, but that's really what it takes, right? And but I I think that was such a really, really good analogy, especially for people who have kids. Um, they will get it if you're the kind of person who actually plans to go out of the house with your child if you're willy-nilly, it's not gonna work for you anyway. Um, but I have a lot of clients that like to just chase their macros all day long and they're not pre-planning and they're not, you know, and so, but it's a process, it's a learning process, right? And so if they want to get better, and this is what coaching them through it means, I'm like, okay, well, we really got to plan ahead. You really got to prep. Don't tell me you don't have time. Everybody, you you have time if you actually want to make it work, right? Nothing changes if nothing changes. So if you want to do this thing, something has to change.

SPEAKER_03: 52:36

It is what it is. Yeah, you have to plan for the self-destructive future self because we are, we will always self-sabotage. It is human nature to do that, and you have to plan, you have to plan for the unplannable, like all the things that come up, whether it's work-related or you're doing a construction project and something blows up in your house and you you suddenly have to react or pivot. And you and you and I have been both through that with everything you're flooring and the stuff in my house. You have to be able to anticipate it. So the meal prepping that I still do, which I love, gives me something to lean on when it's two, and I'm going, fuck, I can't take any more today. I just can't. And you're just you want to reach for those tortilla chips. You want to crunchy, but I've prepped something, a snack. I have a whole bunch of snacks in my fridge. I prepped them all out, but I know what they are. And I just grab it out and grab a spoon or grab a fork and at least know that I'm not putting trash in my body. I put something that I wanted to eat, and then I can go ahead and move forward and deal with the problem at hand. You know, you so again, it's like plan for the future self-destructive self because that's exactly what we'll do. And that's the only way you can get through it.

SPEAKER_00: 53:48

And I and I another thing I tell clients a lot, like doing having that takes the decision fatigue out of it, right? Like we have enough decisions to make in a day. You have to decide not to punch your boss in the face, you have to decide not to scream at your kid, you have to decide, you know, not to, you know, have road rage. You there are there are so there is so much self-restraint we need to have in a day, right? There's so much self-control we need to have in a day that it is not infinite. Our self-control is not infinite. I don't care what anybody says, right? You will eventually run out of self-control. And if you don't have something set in place, right, like you said, my I just can't take any more, and then into the bag of chips I go, right? And so, you know, you you take decision fatigue out of it by pre-planning, pre-making your meals. So it is no longer, fuck, how am I gonna fill 20 grams of protein and 50 grams of carbs? Like, oh, I don't have, you know, what do I eat? What do I eat right now? What do I because your brain is flustered and frazzled and can't take anymore. And so it's gonna be screaming at you to get the quickest, most, you know, the fastest acting carbs it possibly can, which is always gonna be junk, right? Gimme, gimme, gimme. Um, but if you have something, you do grab it. You it's that robot piece, right? Decision fatigue is a real thing. I don't, if you if you don't have to think about it, you're just taking it out of the fridge and you're eating it. That is one less thing your poor little brain, which is already overworked, has to do, right? And so that is what it when you don't give yourself an option, you're like, no, these are I've already plugged it into my fitness belt sitting right in my refrigerator. You just take it out and go, right? It's just like easy peasy and no more. I don't even have to think about an option to eat something else because I haven't given myself any other options. And then you move on about your day and your brain's gonna operate a better and your body's gonna operate better, and and you're gonna feel a whole lot and you're gonna have a lot more progress.

SPEAKER_03: 55:45

And it doesn't have to be options that your brain doesn't want. I mean, how many times a day do we, you know, kind of go, gosh, I want something sweet, or I want something salty, or I want something crunchy, or I want, you know, we those are the kinds of things that we that our our bodies sort of cue us for. So if you just plan them in the fridge, and I've always got either something prepped that's sweet or salty and crunchy, right? So I I I can base it on what I feel like in that moment because they're all matched pretty much well, you know, equally within each other. But again, I I think decision fatigue is such a great term because that's exactly what you're removing. You know, it's like when you're it's a Friday night, maybe you want to go out to dinner and your husband is like, okay, well, where do you want to go? I don't know. Where do you want to go? What are you in the mood for? And the next thing you know, it's a 30-minute conversation, you still haven't figured out where you're going.

SPEAKER_00: 56:28

You're freaking hungry as hell. Every time we go out to eat.

SPEAKER_03: 56:33

Right? It's that thing. So, so get to know and understand you and then help future-proof yourself. Like, really think about it because again, it goes back to the toddler. Think about how your toddler behaves with not enough sleep or not enough snack and what they might. They might want those cookies, those bunny, those bunny cookies or whatever, or they might want the you know, the goldfish. You got to pre-pack those little baggies, you know, and be reasonable about it with your kids. Um, so it's it's not, it's just not too different, but it's it's a big thing that I've learned from this past year is just really understanding what my brain needs, what my energy needs, and then being able to work around it and give it what it wants, but then also leaving the room for the joy, you know, like, hey, it's there's gonna be a tree lighting tonight pretty practically everywhere, you know. So go go to the tree lighting, go and have drinks if you want to have drinks and go and eat those potato skins if you really want potato skins at the restaurant. Like, go and enjoy, but I can do that guilt-free because I know what the rest of my diet, I know what the rest of my week looks like.

SPEAKER_00: 57:39

The other 200 meals you had that week were what your body needed, right? And so when you do that, it was like when Thanksgiving came up last week, right? It's the same advice I give to my clients all the time. Enjoy the meal. If you if like if tracking is what you want to do, then by all means do that. But if it's not, then don't like I'd rather you be present with your friends and your family. And if your face is in my fitness pile, you're not present, right? Eat what you enjoy. This one meal does not negate the other. I mean, if you eat what if let's say we eat five meals a day, seven, what's that, 35 meals a week? Five times seven. If I can do the math. Okay. So one out of 35 meals, not gonna kill your progress, right? Now, the problem is like, then it's like, oh, well, I had that one, and then there's leftovers, and then the five meals the next day turn into, you know, the same meal that you just had on Thanksgiving, and then the leftovers are still there and you keep going, right? So, you know, then you might negate a little bit of progress, but um have the thing. If you have the foundation already and you're doing what you're supposed to do, the problem is that we we most people have not done enough work on themselves to really understand their nutritional needs, their nutritional triggers, right? Their emotional triggers or emotional emotional attachment to food, and we're so mindlessly going through life and mindlessly eating um that you they don't get to the point in which you've gotten to, right? Or, you know, people like us, you you know, have gotten to listen, I will emotionally eat, but I absolutely understand that that's what I'm doing, and there is zero guilt or shame in what I do, right? Like it's if I have made the decision, like I I I've caught flack. I mean, I see, you know, lots of coaches are you know, everybody poo-poos emotional eating because you you look at it like a bad thing. I don't, right? I think that in a controlled environment where you truly understand what you're doing and when it's not done, because the the problem with emotional eating is the guilt and the shame that come with it, not in the actual comfort food, right? And so, um, but also you have to have the self-awareness. We don't get to emotionally eat all day, every day. That's a problem, right? But if I need comfort food because this potato chips are my comfort food when I'm, you know, overly stressed, and this is the decision I've made to have them and it makes me happy. It doesn't, I'm not doing it in lieu of understanding my emotions and what I'm doing, right? Like I'm not trying to numb my emotions, I am not trying to avoid them. This is just what I've chosen to do in this moment. Because it makes me feel good. But I'm also still doing the work and understanding what's going on so that I do not continue to eat bags and bags and bags of chips for the rest of the week, right? For whatever the thing is that's happening. So if you're doing it with up the with intention, I guess I would say, like my emotional eating is with intention. It is not out of I don't know what else. I don't know what to do. And I'm just right, I'm not eating, drinking to avoid or or um numb. I'm I'm doing it because it's it's something that I am making a choice to do, and then I move on from it. It's not a big deal. When you don't put emotions on food, especially negative ones, all that noise goes away. You can have some chips or some French fries or some pizza or a burger and you just move on. Yeah, you just it's okay. It's not a big deal. We get ourselves in trouble when we have it and we go, oh God, I'm horrible, and I'm so fat and and already fucked up my whole diet because I had the burger and now I'm just I'll just fuck it. I'll just fuck the whole week. Fuck it. And now I'm gonna go do this, and then you eat everything that's in your pantry. That's the problem. The problem is not the meal that you ate or something you ate emotionally, it's the guilt and the shame that go with it. And that's that, but also that's something that takes a long time to work through, right? That's a that's a disordered eating pattern, again, also ingrained in us from childhood because thank you, moms and grandmothers and families who you know, guilt and shame about food our entire lives, just it is what it is. Um, and so when you take the emotions out of eating, and that's a big part of prep, right? Is that you are so circling back to, you know, because you I talk about that a lot in the sense of my lifestyle clients and just lifestyle, like getting to a place where like food is food, it all has a place. The good stuff, the bad stuff, there is no good stuff, food doesn't have morals, right? It's not good and bad. It doesn't, that's it's there. Just take the emotion out of it when it comes to that. Eat what you want to eat, but you have to fuel your you have to fuel your mental and physical well-being when it comes to prep, right? You have to take the emotion out of it. You have to be a machine, you have to take the decision fatigue. You have to, the only way to set yourself up for success is all the things that you just talked about, right? You have to plan for your inner toddler is gonna come out and start raging if it's not cared for properly, right? Which also includes sleep, yes, hydration in the form of whatever that baby's eating, drinking.

unknown: 1:02:57

I don't know.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:59

Um, you know, so I I really I love that, I actually love that analogy. I think it works really, really well. Even for people who probably don't have kids, I'm sure they've been around somebody who does and they've seen what it look the pet, you know, what they look like. That's what you should look like walking around and if you're in prep all the time. You should look like you're carrying, you know, just consider it your inner toddler.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:19

Yeah, you're you're battling it. You're battling it, you're quelling it, you're just doing what you can, and you're realizing that you're just you're trying to get through the day. It's day by day that turns into week by week. Um, and just just being conscious of it, just making that effort to be really conscious of it. So it's yeah, it's been a very interesting journey. And it's you know, it's it's not sustainable. Like the other thing, too, is that I get you get a lot of people that are, especially lifestyle, that aren't competition competition type personalities, but they're like, oh my God, you're so lean, you're so this. I'm like, I thank you, and I appreciate it. This is not sustainable. This is not, this is something that I'm doing for competition season only. You know, in the off season, I look a little bit different. Um, you know, I don't necessarily go back up to the 175 pounds that I used to be when I first began, but you know, I've I've I've learned to kind of have a happy medium and et cetera. But you know, I try to show them what healthy really looks like. Um, and it's different for everybody. It's it's very, very, very different. But you know, I have um I have a lifestyle client who's a teen who's really a phenomenal, phenomenal young lady. And she's, you know, she's dealing with the the social pressures that are out there of looking a certain way. And she really wants to look a certain way for prom. And I'm like, great. So she's really engaged me early on, which is awesome. And she's a phenomenal soccer player. She plays on travel soccer, so she's doing tons of endurance stuff all through the week. And I'm trying to help her with some of the losing. And the issue that comes up with a lot of teen girls is that eating. It's the pressure of, okay, I'm out of Chipotle. What the hell can I have here? Everybody's going to Sonic. What can I do there? You know, so trying to help and work with teens on how to kind of make some better choices in some of those fast food, high stress environments. But, you know, she was came to a point where she was really frustrated because she'd fallen off the wagon for a day or two. She was feeling hormonal. She ended up overeating, and she felt horrible about it. She just thought she just failed, just sabotage. And I was like, okay, everybody has a moment. We've all got those. Some of them have several moments in a row. But it's my whole life. It's my whole life is that moment. Exactly. If we had nine lives, we were spent, done. But you know, I said it doesn't mean you throw in the towel, and it also doesn't mean that you over-exercise an effort to compensate.

SPEAKER_00: 1:05:33

You we never punish ourselves, we move on. You just get up and you go forward with the next meal and the next decision.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:40

It's a learning moment. Why did you feel the way that you felt? What were the cues? How did you feel during it? What did you learn from it? Okay, just get back on the program the next day. Because right now, your stressing over it is actually causing you to retain more of everything, whether it was the water, the salt, the fat, etc., your cortisol is through the roof because you're so guilt-ridden over what and again with the guilt and shame, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:04

If we just have the food, it happened, and we move on. You just do it and then you move forward. It's a journey, it's not a sprint, but you have to learn learn that, right? Because we are trying to unlearn and God bless this girl, you know, and and I hope that you can help her at this very young age to get to this healthy relationship with food early on so that she is not us in their 50s trying to fucking figure it out. Because then you got a whole lot more life to un whole lot more mental shit to unfuck, right? Right. And which is where you know most of my clients come in, right? So most of my clients are, you know, 30s, 40s, 50s, and it's like, woo we like trying to undo these lifetime of learned behavior and learned patterns and socially induced norms, right? And um, you know, the the neural pathways in our brain that are just wired to loop de-loop de-loop-de-loop on the guilt and the shame and the guilt and the and the reduce and the you know, we we don't eat, and then we eat too much, and then we loop-de-doo on the guilt and the shame, and then we exercise too much. It's just this, it's just that particular neural pathway is so fucking ingrained in in in nearly every woman I've worked with in some way, shape, or form, right? It's all the same, it's all the same, it's the same pattern, different neural pathways. And the only way to fix it, to kind of dig a new route, right? To pave a new route in our brains, is to do that one little baby step at a time, right? You did really great for a week. I hate saying fall off the wagon. We're not on fucking wagons, we're just fucking walking through life eating our food. We're not on a wagon, we're not off a wagon, we didn't fall off a wagon, we're just moving forward one step at a time, right? I had a meal, you did not fall off a wagon, you had food. And now let's go have another meal and let's make that meal look a little bit different than that that the meal you just quote unquote fell off the wagon with, right? We have to change the narrative around food so that we can take the emotion out of it so that we can fix the neural pathways, right? So we can create new uh new ways of thinking, right? But if you have thought a certain way since the day you were born, because you're trained to think this way from the day you're born, people don't realize that you're probably there in utero because your mom was probably equally fucked up, right? And I don't mean yours in particular, but all moms, right? And so because they went through the same training as all women do. And so you get to this place in your 50s. Well, you have literally dug the grand fucking canyon in your brain of these thought patterns, right? That's exactly what it is. Do you know how many years it took to the for the Grand Canyon? That that's your thought pattern. So imagine this neural pathway in your brain with this food loop-dilu that we're all fucking stuck in with the guilt and the shame and all the things. How do you get out of the Grand Canyon? You gotta fucking claw your way up, right? You gotta climb out of that, and then you have to, and the only way to do that is to start, okay, one meal at a time, one habit at a time. One, okay, you slid down the rock, you had a meal, you fell a little bit more back into that Grand Canyon. You're like, okay, is that really where you want to stay? I don't want to stay there. I want to get the fuck out of here. And so I'm gonna climb my way. I'm gonna just my next meal, I'll get, you know, different thoughts, right? So it's it's just continuing to have, you know, changing the narrative around what we're doing, even when we slip back down, right? So I slip back down, I start to feel the the patterns coming up, kicking myself. I fell off the wagon. No, let's change the let's change the narrative. You weren't on a wagon, just move on, right? Take that out of your narrative. We're just eating food, right? Let's let's go drink some water, let's go have some protein, let's let's go to the gym, let's move on. And then you keep doing that. And the more you do it, eventually you will build new neural pathways, right? You will have new thought patterns and it won't feel so hard. Doesn't mean you won't ever slip back down into that Grand Canyon pathway. You've got because it's there, it never actually goes away, right? We can slip back in there, but it does become easier and easier because we're going to be a little bit closer to the top every time, right? So we're gonna be a little bit more on our new pathway and not so much in the old pathway. And so, um, but if we don't, and and you really do have to fake it till you make it. And I I use that term in a sense of your fake your thought patterns before they actually become true thought patterns, right? Like this is an easy one. You wake up every day and you're like, I'm fat, I'm gross. Okay. Just wake up every morning and say, I'm beautiful. I don't fucking care if you believe it, just say it, right? Like I'm I'm amazing. Just I know it sounds really stupid and silly, but do it any fucking way and do it every fucking day until eventually it doesn't feel so um forced, right? Because it will if you just practice it, right? It's like going to the gym, it's the same reps we gotta do at the gym. We if we don't fucking build the brain muscle, if we don't build the neural pathways, if we don't build the new thought patterns, if not nothing changes, if nothing changes, right? You can go to the gym and do reps all day long. Well, do reps of stop talking about falling off the wagon, do reps of change your narrative, do reps of I just I'm just you know what whatever the thing is that we need to work on to to to dig ourselves out of that horrific loop that we all sit in, right? Eventually you get there, right? Like it but it takes work, like you don't just like you don't get to look like Jenny by going to the gym a couple of times in the last year, right? You did that kind of work, right? You did the reps, and I'm not just talking about in the gym. You you had to force yourself, it wasn't always easy, it comes easier now, but it certainly wasn't five years ago, it certainly wasn't for me 20 years ago, right? And I've been doing this for 20 years, right? And so I, you know, now I am in a place where that doesn't mean the pot the thoughts don't ever come in. Don't think that I don't sit and go, good lord, my belly is fat today. I do not like this, but also I go, fuck it. I mean, right? Like I'm just like, okay, we're moving on, right? It's not a big deal, it's really not a big deal, and it's not gonna dictate my day, right? And so um it's just change again. So just like putting in the reps and really changing the thought patterns and narratives. And and I I from a coaching perspective, I am really big on narrative, right? I I really think it's such a game-changing thing for people because we put too much negative, everything has a negative connotation, fall off the wagon as a negative connotation, right? So whether it's drinking, I fell off the wagon, it's eating, I fell off the wagon, it's negative. Change that, right? We have to phrase it differently in everything that we do, right? It's like not saying that what we're doing is restrictive, right? We're not saying we're restricting calories, uh, it just feels icky. I don't want to restrict calories. That sounds horrible. I mean, it is what we're doing, but no, I'm I'm eating for my goals, yeah, right? You know, I'm I'm eating for my performance, right? It's not restrictive. I'm eating for my performance. I'm eating because I want to look a certain way. I'm eating because I want to feel a certain way, I want to perform a certain way. You know, it's if we if we there's just we have to untrain ourselves, right? That is what it comes down to. And and I think from in us talking together, it just solidifies to kind of circle back to, you know, why I wanted to do this podcast today and kind of introduce you to this to the world. Everybody already knows you anyway. Um, and why I wanted you to be a part of this thing is because you reminded me so much of me in your short period, you know, your short period of time that I've known you and seeing how you've developed. And you know, I think you you being older and doing it, I I had to kind of do it from a younger age, and I think maybe it took me a little bit longer to to get to where I needed to be. But um, and that's why I wanted you to to be here doing this, you know, with me for our team center stage figures and physiques, team CSFP athletes, because we need more of that in this sport. There is too much bro bullshit that still bleeds a lot. And there are so many women who need to understand that there's a different way, there's a better way, it's not worth trashing your body to get there. Um, and you having that kind of perspective um is why I wanted that for our team, because you know, eventually I'm not gonna be around doing this for another hundred years. Like somebody, somebody's gotta have the energy to do it, and um and that's what I want. I you my my biggest thing in this sport is for women to be able to do it and leave it better than they came into it, right? Because I see I would say probably 90% of women that get into this leave worse off. Yeah. And and it it's a it's tragic because that's not the point of the sport, but it is unfortunately what happens.

SPEAKER_03: 1:16:00

And so you you you hit something that's so important. We we women, we're not small men. We we are not, we should not be compared to men. We cannot be looking at men's diets and men's workout regimens. We have to understand and appreciate ourselves as women that we are nurturers. Um, men are, you know, the the hunters, and and that's fantastic. Like our roles are so different and equally important. But as nurturers, we have to learn how to nurture ourselves. And in nurturing ourselves, it's mind and body and what we need, our methods are completely unique to what how men operate. Um, so it I want to bring this mindset and carry it forward for other women that are either looking to compete or are just thinking about competing. It's fine, it's great if you want to just start that journey just to see where it goes. But to teach them how to be have grace, right? Give themselves grace and how to nurture themselves because you're right, it's not about a wagon, it's not about punishment, it's about understanding the fuel that your body needs the way that it needs it, when it needs it, anticipating its needs. It's it's doing all of that so that you can go out guiltlessly to enjoy yourself and have fun. I mean, I'm going on a cruise over Christmas. You better believe I am not tracking a goddamn thing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:20

If you log on to my fitness pal one time while you're gone, I'm gonna be mad at you.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:24

Right? Yeah, but you know, but I'm gonna be able to do it because I know exactly what the tools are for me to get back into what my my normal routine is, right? The one that we all fight for when we come back from any vacation. So I know what my routine is, I know what I've done the other 50 plus weeks of the year. So I I feel good whether I'm going into prep or whether I'm going into my off season mentally, and that's that's that's the big thing. So this is awesome. It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:57

I'm excited. Yeah, it's it's going to be awesome, and I'm excited to have you helping to breathe new life into the team. And I can't wait to see um, you know, what kind of athletes we get to produce together and you know what it's gonna look like backstage for for our team again. And um, I'm so fucking sick of some of these bro blh teams backstage that make me want to fucking throat punch these disgusting male coaches that I see backstage. If you've been backstage recently, you probably you're you're you were either on the team and you think it's really cool, or you know what I'm talking about, and you're laughing right now. I'm just so fucking sick of it. Because they're you know, there's I can tell you that, you know, I think there's a few people that that have respected me over the years. I mean, I've been doing this for a long time, but there's an awful lot that don't that's still a male-dominated sport. The crazy thing is it's a women-dominated sport in terms of the athletes, and yet it's still a male-dominated sport in terms of the coaches. You can see it backstage, you always see it backstage. Um, and so I want more strong women coaches in this sport to make sure that the women are being coached as women so that they we leave them better than we found them because they have their whole lives to live in this sport bring you know, sort of crushing somebody's life early on, which it did to me in many ways, right? Like I'm I'm really grateful for the lessons that I learned doing things because we didn't really have anything else back then, right? Like it's just how everybody did it, so it is what it is, and I had well-intentioned male coaches, right? And I um and who were very caring, but they were just spewing out what everybody knew, right? Like everybody's doing the same thing, they're mechanical, they're very mechanical, and it's you know, and and so I am happy to have you know, you sort of you get into this work and and help us, you know, really have better options for for female athletes so that you know you and I together and the couple of other female natural bodybuilding coaches out there. And I say natural because I there are plenty of IFB female coaches out there. And I am not saying they are all horrible, but I just I run into it too much, right? Like it's there's just too many patterns in some of these male coaches and IFBB coaches and not understanding women or not understanding natural athletes. And um, and so that's what we bring, right? And so if any of this that we've talked about, you know, resonates with you know some of the women, um, men, um, I don't coach men, but if you choose to, obviously, you know, um in terms of you know prepping men, I my my choice is to only help women, um, but that's what we're here to do, right? So if it's something that um speaks to you, then this is maybe a better option team-wise than some of the other crazy shit that's out there. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people go for what oh, what's the word I'm looking for? I think they go for what will like, oh well, this guy has all these women who win. That's cool, but he's also starving them or sleeping with them. That's even worse. That's happening, that's happening too. You know that, right? No, no, so many, so many, so many. If you're sleeping with your coach, please stop, go find another coach. Um, or if you're it's so gross. It's so gross, and people go with like, oh, this guy has all these pros, and you know, these people. Um what what what was I gonna say? Um, oh, and they're cheap. So, and I understand, right? Like what you but you do get what you pay for in the sport, you do, and you do see some of the results.

SPEAKER_03: 1:22:09

I mean, there might be somebody who's got a whole bunch of pros, but you also see some of these pros that get up on stage and they're just stringy, you know, because their prep has just gone either too long, too hard, just inappropriate, and they're a mess after. I have seen that, I have seen that only only you know, being in this for five years, it's like, golly, this athlete looks so different than they did. Didn't they just compete? Why are they competing again and again and again? They're not even every single year, again and again and again and again. There's no off season and there's no ability to recoup and recover, and it's so important. And you've got to have a female coach to understand, you really freaking do, because there are so many hormones at play here. Guys are very black and white, and I'm not trying to just be stereotypical about it, but it just is, they're just black and white.

SPEAKER_00: 1:22:53

Yeah, they're like, tell me what to do, I'll do it. Give me a meal plan, tell me what to do. I'm gonna execute. Women are just we're just not that way. We're and there's just so much more at play, and and that is to me, that is also the benefit to having a female coach.

SPEAKER_03: 1:23:08

Creatures, man, emotional creatures.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23:11

I wish we weren't. I know, I wish we weren't. Life would be so much easier as a dude. Yeah, well, for sure. All right, so we have talked for a very long time, I think probably a good hour and a half, if not more. Um, hopefully we will do more of these. Jenny, are you game to do some more of these? Oh my gosh, different topics, super fun, right? Got to talk about reverse prep. I feel like so important. Well, I think we spent a good amount of time today talking about like what prep entails. And so I think like our next podcast, we can definitely talk about more of the the reverse side of things. And um, so for sure, we will we will schedule another one of these to to do. Um, so Brandy and I always used to say as we were getting off of the podcast, I had to think, I was like, oh my god, it's been so long. What did we used to say? We would say, Don't get weird, use your head, it'll all be okay.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:03

Yes, I like that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:24:04

And then we say, bye.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:07

Bye. Bye.