Next Level University
Confidence, mindset, relationships, limiting beliefs, family, goals, consistency, self-worth, and success are at the core of hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros' heart-driven, no-nonsense approach to holistic self-improvement. This transformative, 7 day per week podcast is focused on helping dream chasers who have been struggling to achieve their goals and are seeking community, consistency and answers. If you've ever asked yourself "How do I get to the next level in my life", we're here for you!
Our goal at NLU is to help you uncover the habits to build unshakable confidence, cultivate a powerful mindset, nurture meaningful relationships, overcome limiting beliefs, create an amazing family life, set and achieve transformative goals, embrace consistency, recognize your self-worth, and ultimately create the fulfillment and success you desire. Let's level up your health, wealth and love!
Next Level University
1435 - 1 Powerful Health Awareness You May Not Know Yet
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the concept of maintaining calories and counting calories for weight loss? In this episode, hosts Kevin Palmieri and Alan Lazaros talk about understanding the power of data-driven decisions and how it influences our health, fitness, and nutrition. They discuss the profound impact of being calorie-aware and how thinking in numbers can transform your perception of food and nutrition. They also share practical tips and strategies to help you maintain momentum and empower you to pursue your dreams relentlessly.
Links mentioned:
Book a FREE Breakthrough Session with Alan: https://bit.ly/3Wr6clL
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Website 💻 http://www.nextleveluniverse.com
The best way to track your habits is here! Download the app: Optimal - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/optimal/
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Any of these communities or resources are FREE to join and consume
- Next Level Nation - https://www.facebook.com/groups/459320958216700
- Next Level 5 To Thrive (free course) - ​​https://bit.ly/3xffver
- Next Level U Book Club - https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/next-level-book-club/
- Next Level Monthly Meetup: https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/monthly-meetups/
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Email 💬
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
Alan@nextleveluniverse.com
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Show notes:
[2:46] Talking about maintenance calories and weight loss
[6:14] Thinking in numbers
[9:38] Austin shares his top-notch experience working with Kevin under Next Level Podcast Solutions
[10:30] Starting small and starting with one day
[12:33] Be empowered
[19:34] Outro
Next level nation. Welcome back to another episode of next level university, where we help you level up your life, your love, your health and your wealth. We hope you enjoyed our latest episode, episode number 1434. Life is about choices. I interviewed the wonderful Alan Lazarus today for episode number 1435. One powerful health awareness you may not know yet, as I've mentioned, at what is it at? Not at nausea? At nauseam when you say something very, very often in a short period of time. I have no idea. I need to know that, as a speaker, something I have really beaten to the ground over the last I don't know Year is I am back on my fitness grind. I am training like a bodybuilder, I am doing mobility. Every day, I'm consuming bodybuilding content, fitness content, nutrition content, and that really was the inspiration for this episode. There is a young man who I've been following for a long time, back in my bodybuilder days. His name is Jeff Nippard and Jeff my man Jeff.
Speaker 1:We actually met his girlfriend. In Florida, oh yeah at the supermarket for some reason, and I don't even know how we knew. Are they still together, I believe? So yeah, at the supermarket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we met.
Speaker 1:We met her. I think her name is Stephanie Butterworth buttersworth, something like that. We met her in the supermarket and for some reason we knew who she was. I don't know if we, I have no idea. I have no idea how we knew who she was. Strange days, strange days. So yeah, I've been following him for a long time. Alan, I believe you used to follow him back in the day.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm, he is yeah, he's very data driven. He makes his decisions and he does his coaching and he makes his content based on data, so actual studies of what works best and what doesn't work best. And I came across a Video that just hit different for me because I was thinking of the audience, I was thinking of our community, I was thinking of the NLU family and it was Understanding the importance of your maintenance calories. Now, trigger warning, we're gonna talk about calories and tracking calories and Weight and weight loss and that type of stuff. This isn't gonna be a super in-depth episode on that. It's not gonna be super long, but I know many of our audience members, many of our community, have had negative associations with the scale, with tracking calories, maybe with fitness in general. So I want to throw that that trigger warning, out there. But After he was talking about maintenance calories and how to find them and all these different things, I went online and I typed Something in about calories. I typed in Does Eating in a deficit cause weight loss? Right? So, for those who don't know, there's an energy balance. The theory and the science for the most part proves that if you eat less calories than you need, you will lose weight if you eat more calories than you need, you will gain weight. So, just as a simple understanding and you wouldn't believe how many things popped up that were unreasonably confusing Unreasonably confusing from very reputable websites Harvard, harvard was one of them where it said and it's hard because the fine print is there, but it pretty much said that Tracking calories is not as good as eating whole foods. Pretty much, and the thought behind that is well, if you're eating chicken and you're eating broccoli and you're eating Whole foods, it's harder to consume more calories because you're not eating junk food like pizza and all that stuff. So that's a little bit of a tangent.
Speaker 1:The importance and the the reason I wanted to do this episode and the importance of it is, at the end of the day, many of us don't feel like we're in control of our weight, we're in control of our fitness, we're in control of our nutrition. One of the simplest places for you to start even if you don't want to track calories Obsessively is to understand what is your basic Necessary level of maintenance calories. What is the number where you could eat for the rest of your life and never gain a pound or lose a pound. That is my goal in this episode is to have an open conversation about that, maybe demystify some of the stuff around it and maybe make it more accessible and realistic. If you whether you're watching or listening imagine a world where you knew Exactly how many calories to eat and what would happen to your body.
Speaker 1:Now things do get confusing because when you lose weight, your metabolism changes and your maintenance calories change. There's a lot of intricacies, but that's why I think the layer one is just saying okay, we spend $1,500 a month. We make $1,500 a month. We're not saving any money. We make $100,000 a month. We only spend $5,000 a month. We're saving $95,000 a month. We think about that when it comes to money and I know our bodies aren't exactly that way, but that's really my thought in this episode. Alan, you did a lot more fitness coaching, nutrition coaching, than I did. Thoughts.
Speaker 2:I think the most basic understanding is just getting the numbers. You mentioned, jeff Nippert, and the data-driven decision making. I took a course back in my master's program called a strategic decision making from financial data-driven decisions, something like that. I butchered that, but it was something along those lines. What I've found fascinating in my coaching and in my life is that every decision I make is data-driven and even if I'm wrong on the data, I still am using a lot of data.
Speaker 2:Layer one, I think, is actually just thinking numbers. When it comes to calories, just start getting in the habit of thinking in numbers. So a banana 120 calories. An apple is 90 calories. One cup of rice cooked is 170 calories. Again, it's plus or minus a percent error, so you don't have to be perfect. The first layer is just start thinking in numbers.
Speaker 2:For Emilia, that has been brand new Emilia and I. Ever since we first met she's been teaching me a lot in the therapy realm, in the inner work realm, in the internal family systems and acceptance and commitment therapy and all the different psychology stuff she's studied. I'm teaching her math. We simply just do probabilities. She says, well, what's the probability that we get this client? I say probably like 65%. She said, okay, how do we bump that probability up? I said let's send them a video. And so she never used to think in numbers and I used to be so ignorant I didn't think anyone didn't think in numbers because I've never thought any other way. And so I think that's layer one is just practice thinking in numbers.
Speaker 1:I would agree. Another thing that really jumped off the page when I was doing, because I wanted to do a little research into what people would search and what answers they would get and whether that would actually help or not. And if I was starting at a base level of not really having the knowledge I have now and I Googled is eating in a deficit necessary for weight loss? And what I saw come up, I would be so confused. One of the things said counting calories is not worth it because a lot of the packages are mislabeled. I understand what you're saying, but then what do you go off of? Even if the numbers are wrong, at least you get a trend on. Even if you track the same way every single time. It doesn't really matter if the numbers are wrong, because then you can just figure out okay, when I eat 2,400 calories, I gain weight. Okay, let me try 2,300 calories. What happens? Even if it's not actually 2,400 calories because the measurement's wrong, you'll still be tracking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'll still be better off for sure.
Speaker 1:I can't imagine a world where you wouldn't, obviously, if you have obsessive behaviors or you have trauma around tracking and weighing yourself. I understand and maybe you're not listening at this point, completely understandable If you haven't had that experience and you're open to it. I believe it would be very, very, very empowering to at least understand how something affects you the way it does. That's my thought.
Speaker 2:Empowering is a good word for this. Empowering is a good word for this. Empowering is a good word for this. Empowering is a good word for this. Empowering is a good word for this. Empowering is a good word for this. Empowering is a good word for this. Empowering is a good word for this. Empowering is a good word for this. Of course, right. So at the end of the day, this is the cheat code, and you will be empowered if you start learning this.
Speaker 1:That's all I've got and that's really what I was feeling when I was consuming this fitness content again is I. That's why I have such a high certainty. I mean, the pizza I get from Domino's is like depends on how I do it, but it's 2200 calories. I can eat that and lose weight. I can eat that every day for the rest of my life and lose weight.
Speaker 2:Now what I Assuming you're working out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Assuming I'm doing everything I'm doing now. Would I die in five years if I only ate pizza every day? Maybe? Yeah, that's that's, and I really want to make that point. I'm not claiming that you should eat terrible things and just make sure you track the calories. That's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying I do believe the empowerment comes with understanding. Today I had four ounces of chicken and I had this much rice, and then I had a wrap for lunch and and you know what I want to do breakfast or dinner, I'm gonna have eggs and sausage and a couple pieces of toast, and you know that you have the freedom and flexibility to do that because it makes sense with the numbers.
Speaker 1:I'm not telling you to have pup tarts and ice cream every day. That's not what I'm saying. I just want you to have in life, health, wealth and love. Health, wealth and love. There's a recipe. There's a recipe to improve all of those. This is a very early-stage piece to that recipe. This is one of the first ingredients. If you can start practicing it, I do believe it would be beneficial and it is the fundamental reason you and I can eat a lot of the things we do. And still, I mean, if we're not exercising and we're not exercising hard. We might be in trouble, but we have a lot of certainty around gaining weight. I'm already thinking when I go to Belgium I'm gonna gain weight 100%. I'm not gonna really track my calories there. Intuitively I'm gonna have an idea, you know a lot of food.
Speaker 2:That's gonna be around 3,000 per night. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, there's beer, so we'll see I gotta see how the beer, but when I come back I already have my plan of okay, I'm gonna go back to this amount of calories and then after that, when I get to a certain date, I'm gonna start dieting again. Right now, my back is injured. I'm eating at maintenance or a little bit over. I don't want to be really, really starving myself, and my body's trying to repair itself.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Right, but that the fundamental understanding is. I know what my maintenance is.
Speaker 2:You notice how your back actually hurts less when you eat more? Yes, I can notice. When I'm in a deficit, my body doesn't repair as quickly. It's like noticeable.
Speaker 1:I have been intuitively doing this for years. Same, I sprained my ankle really bad one time and my girlfriend at the time she said do you need anything? And I said I need a lot of food. Just don't give me all the food, as much food as you can get Nutrients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your body can't rebuild without nutrients, makes sense.
Speaker 1:So I'm glad we did this episode Honestly, full disclosure. There's a part of me that was nervous to do it because I do understand much of the NLU family has had issues maybe with nutrition and calories and stuff in the past. So it's never my goal to bring those things up or trigger anyone. But I do want to share a tool that I think would be really empowering. So that was my goal in this episode. Hopefully we did it.
Speaker 1:Next up a nation, as we have been mentioning over the last several weeks, alan is still doing free calls with the wonderful NLU community. If you have ever wanted to talk to Alan behind the scenes, if you've ever wanted to talk to me behind the scenes and you can't get to me, alan is definitely a good number two. I would say so click the link in the show notes and you can book a free call with Alan and bring questions about relationships, bring questions about fitness, bring questions about business, whatever. If you've ever listened to the show and said I really wish I could ask a question. I have a deeper question. I want to know what he's, what he actually means when he says that this is a good chance to connect with Alan and ask that question.
Speaker 2:My main focus is helping you achieve your goals. If you don't feel like you're doing a good job towards your goals, you don't know how to. I've got you. Come and ask me. I can. I can help you reverse engineer the finish line. I can help empower you for sure. Every single week on the week, 126 weeks in a row, we have a next level book club. It is next level books with next level people on a next level day Saturday.
Speaker 1:Friends, don't let friends skip book club.
Speaker 2:That's a fact. Friends never let friends skip book club. We're reading a book called Limitless by Jim Quick, and it is all about the power of meta learning, the power of learning how to learn, the power of your brain, the power of what you are truly capable of. Jim Quick was the boy with the broken brain who had two concussions, who couldn't think straight, and now he is brilliant. And so if he's capable of that, imagine what you're capable of. Book club every Saturday. The link to register will be in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow for episode number 1,436. This is for all the dream chasers out there, which is the majority of our audience how to transition more into your dreams? I think a lot of us get stuck. We get excited about something and maybe we take one or two steps and eventually that excitement fades away. How do you continue to transition more into the dreams that you want to chase? That will be tomorrow's episode. As always, we love you, we appreciate you, Grateful for each and every one of you, and at NLU we turn to fans. We have family. We will talk to you all tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Keep making data-driven decisions, next time on Asia.
