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Coming up on the get lean, eat clean podcast.
1 (4s):</>
When I got into bodybuilding and I actually kind of, like I said, incorporate, it started incorporating more of like a metabolic flexibility side of things, more of a balance in my, you know, overall nutrition and training is really where I started to see my body composition change in the way that I wanted it to. And a lot of that came from actually following like a structured training plan and actually being intentional about my training, implementing progressive overload actually started working with my own coach and I still have my own coach to kind of help me through these things. I think that's super important if you are kind of looking to take, you know, your training and your body condition to the next level, and you've been trying all these things and nothing's been working, asking for help is there's no, there's nothing wrong with that.
1 (48s):
And I continued will continue to have my own coach for as long as probably forever, just because there's so much value in having someone else kind of looking in and saying, Hey, you know, maybe we should try this or maybe we can do this a little bit differently and allowing you to kind of get out of your own head.
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Hello and welcome to the get clean, eat clean podcast. I'm Brian grin. And I'm here to give you actionable tips to get your body back to what it once was five, 10, even 15 years ago each week. I'll give you an in-depth interview with a health expert from around the world to cut through the fluff and get you long-term sustainable results. This week I interviewed board certified nutritionists, strength and conditioning specialist, podcaster and founder of Netflix life. Rachel Gregory. She's also the author of the international best-selling book 21 day ketogenic diet weight loss challenge. We discussed how to become fat adapted fasting pros and cons. The importance of building strength.
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Why make protein a priority? Do you need to have a high fat diet women and fasting and her one tip to get your body back to what it once was. This was a great interview with Rachel with tons of tips that you could apply right to your life. I know you'll enjoy this. I did to have a great day and enjoy the interview. Thanks so much. All right, Rachel Gregory. Welcome to the get lean clean podcast.
1 (2m 11s):
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
0 (2m 13s):
I'm excited to have you. I think we have a lot in common and some great tips that we're going to share for everybody before we get into that. Why don't you maybe give the listeners a little bit of background, how you got into nutrition and coaching. I know you're an author as well. How did that all come about?
1 (2m 28s):
Yeah, absolutely. So I, I try to keep this as short as possible. I tend to ramble on a little bit, so feel free to cut me off, but I grew up in Manhattan, New York. I grew up in a very kind of sports dominant household. I played sports my whole life. My dad played football in college and he had two daughters. So I was the daughter who was kind of like the son as well in terms of like the sports side of things. And I went on to get my undergrad degree in athletic training at the university, Miami. I knew that I wanted to focus in on sports medicine and athletic training as my career. I thought that I wanted to be an athletic trainer as my, you know, full-time career.
1 (3m 12s):
So that's what I went to school for. And I soon realized as I was kind of halfway through my journey in athletic training about sophomore year, I started to take some more nutrition classes and I started to get really interested in the nutrition side of things. And at that time I was also doing triathlons for the university of Miami club team. So I started to kind of get into that whole endurance nutrition side of things realized quickly that I didn't think that I wanted to continue on with athletic train forever. So I decided to look into getting my master's degree in nutrition and exercise physiology. So I went on to get back at James Madison university and I was working as an athletic trainer as well.
1 (3m 54s):
And that is where I actually transitioned from triathlons to CrossFit. I got into grad school. I needed something that was just like a quick workout, something that was fun, competitive. I knew I didn't have time to do triathlons anymore. I wanted to try something else out. So I got into CrossFit training and that is also when I kind of came across the ketogenic diet. So for my master's thesis. So I went, I did two year program at James Madison university and we had to do a master's thesis study. And a lot of my classmates were doing more survey-based studies. And I knew that I wasn't going to be super interested in that, in that for two years.
1 (4m 36s):
So I, I talked to my advisor and he, he basically said, you know, find something that you can be interested in for the next two years, because you're going to be spending a lot of your time in that area. And he, and I basically said, I wanted to do an, an interventional study, a diet intervention in a exercise population. And at that point I was just getting into CrossFit. So I figured that would be a great exercise population to, to use. And I was getting into the ketogenic diet as it was just coming, becoming popular. At that time, it was like back in 20, this was in 20 14, 20 14, 20 15. And so I ended up doing the first human clinical trial, looking at the ketogenic diet in a non elite in non elite CrossFit athletes.
1 (5m 22s):
That study was very successful. Lots of cool stuff came out of that, which we can dive into if you want. And then after I graduated, I kind of just continued on in the low carb keto space. This is when it really started to get popular, kind of in the mainstream. And I adopted a lower carb lifestyle for myself. And I started working with clients who were interested in that. And throughout that period of time, and throughout the years, I just kind of went down a lot of different rabbit holes. And I started to find that for myself, I was going way way on the ends of like low carb, keto and a bit too, too extreme. And I started to find clients were doing that as well. And they were starting to get, they had positive results in the beginning, and then they were starting at some negative negative results and just not able to sustain it.
1 (6m 8s):
And so I started experimenting with myself with incorporating more carbs, a little bit less fasting, and kind of using different tools and strategies to fit with what I was doing, and then started implementing that with my clients. And that's where I kind of developed this metabolic flexibility side of things where we're really just looking to kind of be able to utilize both fuel sources appropriately and efficiently for the, the activity that we are doing for our lifestyle, all of that. And that kind of brings me to, oh, I ended up writing a book and starting a podcast, and now I'm here today talking to you.
0 (6m 45s):
All right. Well, your whole life in about two minutes there, that was good.
1 (6m 49s):
That was the fastest that I've ever gone with. That
0 (6m 52s):
That was great. Well, thanks for that. And so, you know, you talk about keto and CrossFit. Are you currently continue? Do you do CrossFit still or is that something you've changed?
1 (7m 3s):
Yeah, so I, I stopped doing CrossFit. I believe it's been about two and a half years, so I actually am, or maybe closer to three years, I actually ended up getting injured and this was kind of part of my journey. We all kind of go through periods and we kind of make mistakes and do things and realize, oh man, I could, I could've probably avoided that. And so I actually got injured at a point in my life where I was really kind of stressed out in all areas of my life. And I was still, I was using CrossFit as my outlet and I wasn't paying attention to my recovery. I wasn't paying attention to fueling appropriately for what I was doing. And so I ended up hurting my back and it wasn't like it was more of a chronic type injury, but I ended, I ended up stopping CrossFit and, and, you know, taking some time off and then actually getting more into bodybuilding style training.
1 (7m 52s):
And that's what I've been doing since then. Just kind of hypertrophy focused.
0 (7m 58s):
Excellent. And then you talked about, you know, for Quito going maybe too far down the, down the down the rabbit hole of Quito and maybe perhaps going a little bit overboard and seeing signs of yourself and maybe if your clients were, what kind of signs were you seeing that you thought that perhaps maybe you should start introducing carbs back into your diet a little bit more or more? Yeah.
1 (8m 22s):
Yeah. So I kind of look at it in both in a few different ways in terms of like the physiological signs and then also the psychological signs for me, it was more so like the psychological side of things. And this is what I saw with all of my clients too. Just really being afraid to eat carbs was the biggest thing. And like, I was afraid to eat watermelon or sweet potatoes, like whole food nutrient dense carbs, because I was just so down that kind of rabbit hole for the few years of being strict keto, low carb. And I did find benefits to being low carb for a long time, but I found that the, the, like it can be beneficial and it really just depends on the individual and where you're at and what your, what your overall lifestyle is like, especially what your stress is.
1 (9m 9s):
Like. I think stress plays a huge role and then also activity level and all of that. So I started finding myself just, you know, from the psychological standpoint, being very carb phobic, I started to feel as, as I started to incorporate carbs a little bit more into my lifestyle. I was having some blood sugar dysregulation. So my body was just so used to not having carbs that it adapted to using obviously more fat for fuel, which can be a good thing. But if you go too far down that that rabbit hole, it can kind of backfire on you. So I started to notice that with myself. And obviously, like I mentioned, with a lot of the clients that I was working at, we're working with over the years, all of these kinds of different things started to pop up.
1 (9m 51s):
They, you know, blood sugar, dysregulation, you know, eating carbs and just kind of what we see on, on kind of the side of people who are metabolically inflexible, where they've been using carbs for a long time. And they, they made me have some insulin resistance and they, they can't utilize those carbs effectively anymore. We actually start to see that on the other side as well, when you're just, your body is not used to carbs at all anymore. And so those are a few of the main things that I noticed performance it at first, it was just like kind of variable. But then as I started to incorporate more carbs and start to be more strategic about what was, what I was doing, it's my performance started to increase. I just started to feel better overall.
1 (10m 31s):
My body composition started to actually get better. And then I also took a break from like chronically fasting. I was also down that fastening rabbit hole a lot. So that the break from fasting, I think helped as well. And I think that really just has to do a lot with the stress component of things. So just getting your stress to regulate and paying attention to that was a huge component for me.
0 (10m 55s):
Yeah. I mean, you talked about fasting and I obviously I'm a big, faster myself, but you want to keep an eye on that because it is a stressor just like working out and things like that. And, and when you talk about carbs, I think, you know, we've throw a blanket term for carbs, but really you're talking about like whole foods and things like that. I mean, obviously eating refined carbs, I'm sure you didn't just start eating. Like I dunno, you know, Twinkies and donuts, right?
1 (11m 22s):
Yeah. Definitely not definitely focused. I mean, just overall when we're thinking about nutrition, you know, practically like the more whole foods your diet is no matter what kind of camp you're in, the better off you're going to be with, you know, satiety, you know, having getting enough nutrients, you know, focusing on those whole foods, especially whole foods carbs, bringing those back in, you know, regulation with a blood sugar, all of that. But there was also another component of it where I was kind of on that psychological side of things. I was just like, you know, I thought that if I ate a, a piece of cake or a donut that I would just like blow up or like I was just going to, yeah. Yeah. So that was another side things that I, that I worked on in. And that's what I work on with my clients as well, realizing that like, if we can keep about like 80 and 90% of our overall day, whole foods, you know, as close to nature as possible, I like to say either had to face at some point or grown or have grown from the earth at some point, if you can, majority of your food can fall into those two categories and you're probably doing pretty good.
1 (12m 21s):
And then just bringing you back to reality, like we know, you know, if you go to an event or you have a birthday party or something like that, if you eat a piece of cake, it's not going to be the end of the world. So it's just kind of balancing those things out.
0 (12m 35s):
And I'm curious, let's say you have a new client and because I've run in this a little bit, you know, they're very carb dependent and you know, you talk about having some flexibility as far as leeway, or, you know, if you go to a party, you can have this, but what about early on? Like, do you think it's important to maybe be a little bit stricter early on because what, what, you know, so they don't fall back into their old habits. And so how would you go about dealing with someone like,
1 (13m 2s):
Yeah, absolutely. So I think this really just depends on the individual and where they're coming from. So, you know, depends on, like, I like to say what side of the spectrum they're on and like how they're kind of like, which one they're closer to. So if they, if I have a client who is coming, you know, from just consuming higher carbs their whole life, they never really played around with, you know, a ketogenic diet or they never really played around with fasting before that. And they're having, you know, issues with, you know, if they're trying to change their body composition or lose body fat or whatever it may be, and they haven't been successful at that, with what they're doing, then they're like, okay, so what you're, what you've been doing hasn't been working. So let's maybe, you know, try something else and maybe try a keto approach or a lower carb approach, maybe implement some intermittent fasting to help them become a little bit more or help teach their body to rely on fat for fuel a little bit more.
1 (13m 51s):
I think there is a period of time where going into like more of a strict, lower carb diet can be beneficial and testing that out for a little while and, and being strict for a period of time. But then also realizing that like, you don't have to stay there forever. So I think there is definitely, you know, an advantage to implementing the ketogenic diet for, for a good amount of time to become adapted, to really teach your body how to, how to use, not only produce ketones, but use them as a fuel source. And I think that is also going to be dependent on the person, how, you know, how much body fat they have, how, you know, what their activity level is like, what their stress levels are.
1 (14m 32s):
Like, all of those things are gonna play into it, but yeah,
0 (14m 38s):
And you know, you talk about like higher fat, what are you liking the moderate protein camp? I feel like protein has been making a comeback here. I've had like some guests on the name just left, but that are a little more in the, you know, make protein and priority. And I'm sort of in that same camp as well. What are your thoughts around that?
1 (14m 60s):
Yeah, so I am definitely in like the moderate to higher protein approach. I've actually always been there even, you know, back in when I first started to get into keto. And even within the study that I performed, the basis of this study was, Hey, get your carbs under a total of 50 grams per day, don't eat ad libitum, meaning, just focus on the carbs and let protein and fat kind of fall where they may. I didn't, you know, I knew from the beginning, just the research that I did that a high, high, fat keto diet, it was really, you know, more so for people who are looking to treat some type of medical issue or they need to have ketones super, super high, but for your average person, who's, you know, looking to just maybe get the benefits, the overall benefits of ketosis, and maybe lose some body fat, maybe, you know, the mental clarity side of things, you know, appetite control.
1 (15m 52s):
I've seen just in my practice and from a lot of the research that I've dove into that protein is, you know, is not, is something that can be a little bit higher and you don't need to have necessarily a super high fat approach. And I think that that actually is a little bit of a kind of putting you in a place that's not going to make you successful for longterm. If you're going super high fats, super low carb and low protein. Cause we know protein is just, there's just so many benefits to protein that, that can't be overlooked. So,
0 (16m 25s):
Yeah. And how do you go about eating around your workouts for yourself in particular and perhaps your clients? This is something I'm always for myself trying to figure out what would be the best approach for awhile. Now I've been doing fasted workouts and then actually breaking my fast, not right away, but you know, at, maybe in the next hour or two I'll have something, but then I've been playing around with having a little bit something and then maybe an hour or two later doing my workout, seeing how I feel and like how my performances, what are your thoughts around that?
1 (16m 58s):
Yeah, I think that it really just all comes down to the primary goal and the, and the individual again, I know I keep saying it comes down to the individual, but I've worked with a lot of people and I found that some things like that work for some people are just, for example, some people feel amazing fasted training, right. And that they eat something or they, they try to, you know, go the other route and they just don't feel great. And then I have other people who think that they feel great, fast training facet, and then they start to incorporate maybe a little bit of protein and even carbs before their workout. And they're like, oh wow. I feel a lot better. And they can push harder during their workout. Right. So that is something that it really just comes down to testing and assessing.
1 (17m 39s):
But I find kind of in general, if we want to put like a general kind of numbers behind things and for what I try to do is for me, when I'm working out, I work out kind of midday. So like 11 o'clock. Yeah. So I try to, especially with my goals right now, which are to continue to build muscle and optimize my body composition, I find going into my training with some fuel is definitely helps me to push myself a little bit more. And when we're talking about like specific macronutrient distribution throughout the day, I try to get about 50% of my carbs around my workout. So if we're looking at kind of the whole day, and this will depend on the person, obviously like how many carbs they're consuming or not.
1 (18m 24s):
So, but in general, a good kind of rule of thumb is like, all right, let's place 50% of your carbohydrate intake around your workout. And that is going to help for pre-workout to facilitate a little bit more energy, give you a little bit more energy for the workout. And then post-workout facilitate that recovery side of things. If you are going into your training fasted, I think that it is more important to think about what you're consuming afterwards in terms of protein. Specifically, if you are consuming carbs, you know, if you are more in the, like not in like a super low carb diet, then you're kind of creating you're, you're getting carbs in after that to help with that recovery. So get you out of that sympathetic state when you're in training.
1 (19m 6s):
Cause we know training is a stress on the body, right? It's a good stress, but you want to get into that recovery state afterwards, it's kind of as fast as possible. So consuming one protein, obviously to kind of start that muscle protein synthesis response and get that going, get some carbs in. If, if that's what works for you to help kind of mitigate that cortisol response and bring you more into that rest and digest mode. And then I try to kind of space my, the majority of my fat intake a little bit further away from my workout. And that just you think about it practically just kind of makes sense, like, you know, not zero fat around my workouts, but if more of my carbs are going to be around my workouts and more of my fat's going to be kind of on the other end of it, but you, you don't want to have zero fat around your workout, especially pre-workout because that might actually have a little bit of issue.
1 (19m 56s):
Some people think, oh, I shouldn't have any fat before my workout because it's gonna slow me down or anything like that. There are some, you know, flat fat does slow digestion, but if you have zero fat, you could have an adverse response in terms of blood sugar spikes and dips during your workout, which we obviously don't want that. So yeah, that's kind of how I would, I would structure nutrition, but that's a very generalized approach, obviously.
0 (20m 21s):
What's your favorite pre-workout while he sounds like you have a little bit of a meal before the workout, what's your, what do you, what do you like to have?
1 (20m 29s):
Yeah, so my like pre-workout, I would, I would say pre-workout breakfast. I like to call it. So I am a huge fan of squash. I really love like all winter squash and I live in California. So have you ever heard of Kubota squash before?
0 (20m 44s):
I have not.
1 (20m 46s):
So it's, it's known as the Japanese, pumpkin, it's basically like a ver it's like a green pumpkin looking thing. And this is so weird because I always talk about it because it's literally my favorite food and I eat it every day. It's kind of a mix between a sweet potato and like a butternut squash and pumpkin. It's kind of all those kind of mixed into one so that I love it's very nutrient dense. It keeps me full for a long time. So I'll have some kabocha squash with a mixture of Greek yogurt and cottage cheese, which also might sound a little bit weird, but it's really good. So I'll do that. And then I'll add like a little bit of whey protein in there for some flavor. And then I'll also have some berries and a little bit of nuts or nut butter on top.
1 (21m 30s):
So I'm getting a good amount of protein, some carbs from the Kubota squash, some carbs from the fruit, which I like to have a combination of a fruit and a little bit start to your carbs. So that is going to help with just facilitating the different transport systems within your body. So we know that the carbs that come from fruit is obviously, obviously mostly fructose versus glucose and they all kind of end up in the same place. But you can think about it as kind of getting to you're getting digested absorbed a little bit faster than if you were just going to have pure glucose. So I try to kind of combine that and then that I would say I have that like two to two and a half hours before my workout.
1 (22m 14s):
And then if I feel like I am, if it's a longer workout and I feel like I'm kind of getting like right before my workout, if I feel like I need a little bit of a snack, I'll have like a piece of fruit and I'll also have maybe a little bit more yogurt with a little weight protein just to kind of take me through the rest of the workout. So yeah, it kind of varies with that
0 (22m 37s):
Kabocha squash. You know, I wrote that down. I don't know if we have that in Chicago though.
1 (22m 41s):
Well, you actually, so this time of year in the fall, when the winter squash starts to kind of come out, they're they typically have it all, all around. I know in New York, when I go back for the holidays, they have it, but they don't have it any other time of year. I kind of lucked out. And I think one of the reasons why I'm staying in California is because they have a good boat to squash year round sounds, sounds crazy, but
0 (23m 2s):
Maybe they could be, they could be your next sponsor. I'll look into that. And, and so do you normally have, like, do you, like, I know you were into fasting do have some days where you fast, longer, maybe off days, how do you sort of prioritize your fasting?
1 (23m 22s):
Yeah, absolutely. So I do implement some fasting and this is really just to kind of, you know, go back to that whole metabolic flexibility side of things, like being able to kind of use the full spectrum of your metabolism as what I like to call it. And this comes back to, you know, being able to vary your macronutrients throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the year, implementing some fasting to kind of help that as well, to kind of continue to, to facilitate your body being used to using fat for fuel and being able to tap into that, to that reserve. So with fasting, I do, I do try to take just like a day by day basis of how I'm feeling. Sometimes I will like plan out like I'll, I'll generally plan out my week and how my training days are and my off days are so on my off days, I typically just naturally implement a little bit more fasting, you know, go to bed fast overnight, and then, you know, just wake up in the morning, get work done.
1 (24m 21s):
If I'm not going to train at like 11, I might just, you know, continue fasting until I get hungry and just have lunch. If it's a training day, I'll typically try to get a meal in, or at least a snack in before, like I mentioned, and I also implement if I'm in, it also depends like kind of where I'm at in my goals. So if I'm in, you know, for example, I'm just finishing up a fat loss phase for myself. I went through an eight month building phase where I gained about 15 pounds and that was the first time that I went through like an intentional building phase or bulking phase, whatever you want to call it gained about 15 pounds. It was kind of a obviously combination of fat and muscle. And so I just kind of, I'm actually on my last week of my fat loss phase where I'm back down to just above where I started and within a fat loss phase, I do implement PSMF days.
1 (25m 12s):
Cause I find that is a very good adherence tool for myself and for a lot of clients that I work with. Yeah. So PSMF stands for protein sparing modified fast. And if you research it, like if you Google PSMF, you have to just be a little bit careful because the traditional way that a PSMF diet works is that you actually go on, like, you do a PSMF for an extended period of time for like a few weeks. Whereas I implemented it as like a one day or like at the extremes of two day per week type of thing or every other week. And so what it is is basically exactly what it says, protein sparing modified fast. So I typically describe it as consuming about your body weight in protein, maybe a little bit higher and then filling the rest of your calories in with carbs and fats until you hit about for females.
1 (26m 2s):
It's typically about a thousand calories. Keep it really simple for males, maybe about 1200 calories. And this is just to basically help you to, if we're looking at a fat loss phase, for example, if we're looking at having a calorie budget for the week, I like to look at it on a weekly basis versus a daily basis. So if you are someone who knows that you like to go out on the weekends and enjoy, you know, a little bit more food and, and during the week, you're kind of in your routine and you're not really food focused, implementing a day where you have calories on the lower end, but you're keeping protein still pretty high to facilitate, you know, obviously holding onto as much lean body mass as possible muscle mass. All of that helps keep you satiated that will allow you to have a little bit more flexibility for other days when you can bring your calories up a little bit higher.
1 (26m 49s):
So I really like to use it as a tool to continue to enhance that metabolic flexibility, right? So if we have someone who is not even low carb, they're just, you know, maybe they're higher car, but they can implement a PSMF day. That's going to help their body get back into that lower carb state and potentially into ketosis again, if that's their goal. And then from a practical standpoint, if we're just looking at the overall week, a lot of people, like I said, they just like a lot of people are just, you know, in their routine during the week. And they don't really think about food that much, not, not saying they don't think about food, but they have a regimen, right. And they're busy and all of that. And then it comes to the weekend or you want to go out and enjoy some dinner out or whatever it may be.
1 (27m 32s):
And so it just gives a little bit more flexibility. And especially if we're looking at kind of that weekly caloric budget in a fat loss phase, I think that's what matters the most. So yeah, I found a lot of success with that with myself and a lot of my clients.
0 (27m 45s):
So protein sparing modified fast, just to recap, you are cutting your protein in, or you're going up in protein,
1 (27m 56s):
Typically keeping protein around the same for what it is. So I like to say that like for the majority of my clients and for myself, I like to keep protein around body weight, depending on how much they weigh. So 0.8 to 1.2 grams per pound of body weight is a good range. Typically be in for most people.
0 (28m 16s):
So you're keeping protein the same. You're just so what would, okay, go ahead.
1 (28m 22s):
Yeah, no, so you're keeping protein pretty high, like, so it would be around body weight. Right. But it, and it will depend on the person if someone has, if someone's like 300 pounds and it would, we would bring that
0 (28m 32s):
Down a little bit. Yeah.
1 (28m 34s):
We go by their lean mass or just point a. Yeah. And then you're basically just keeping protein at that amount and filling and then just keeping your carbs and fats wherever they fall to get you to that kind of thousand calories. And this is, yeah. And this is kind of sorry.
0 (28m 53s):
No, I was going to say so you're actually, it's, you're, you're not, you're trying not to consume as much.
1 (28m 58s):
It's basically a lower calorie day. It's a form of calorie cycling. I like to call it, but like I was mentioning before, if you just Google PSMs, you might find that cause there is like a PSMF quote-unquote diet and that is just a very low calorie diet for like an extended, like two or three weeks. I don't like to use that because that's just, for me, it's just unsustainable for most people, unless you're like severely overweight and you need to do that for a health reason, but it's just a tool in the toolbox is what I, how, how I refer to it. Yeah.
0 (29m 36s):
Okay. Now, now again, and I just had something I was going to say every time you say PSMF, it sounds like PM, like your
1 (29m 46s):
Proteins very modified fast. It's kind of a long long-term, but it's just a fascinating protocol with emphasizing protein. Really.
0 (29m 54s):
Gotcha. Right. So you're sort of bringing the calories down. Do you count, are you a big counter of calories? Is this something that you track?
1 (30m 1s):
Yeah, so I track macros. I've been doing it for a long time. It's just kind of part of my, my lifestyle for me. It helps, it helps me to have structure. And when I have structure, I feel like I've more control. And so I'm very kind of like that, that's my personality. Like I need structure and if I don't have structure, then I feel like I actually am less in control of what I'm doing on a daily basis. So I like to have, I like to, you know, keep that in check, but I do have more flexibility, you know, if I'm going on vacation or, you know, I have some event or it's a holiday, like I will, I used to be very, very rigid. And this is again, going back to like the mistakes that we all make and the things that we learned from.
1 (30m 44s):
And I found that, you know, being like very, very macro focused is can actually be a detriment in the longterm if you don't know how to balance that out. So I think, you know, everybody's different too. Some people do very well with it. Some people don't. So it really just comes down to how you, how you do with, with that. And there's different approaches. I feel with tracking macros. I, I like to have tears when it comes to that, especially with the clients I'm working with and their expertise in, in that. So there's just, there's not one way to do it. There's so many different ways that you can go about it depending on the individual.
0 (31m 19s):
Yeah. I mean, as far as macros is concerned, like for, for me, like I noticed, I used to have like a bigger salad throughout the day. Like I, as, as that would break my fast with some type of protein, but like I actually found that I was lagging after that. So I've actually tried to push a lot of my carbs towards the end of the day. I've just found that it's worked for me. And if I have a meal in the middle of the day, I'll have some type of like maybe some eggs. If I do add Carr, maybe like an avocado or something. But for the most part, like I've been actually on this run, I've had bread Kerns on a few times a week. We we've talked about like the smash family, like the sardines mackerel anchovies.
0 (31m 60s):
I've actually been on this run with hearing. I don't know if yeah, and it's not for everybody, but, but I don't know, you know, what, the great thing about those, you know, anchovies I just added in, I will say that I wasn't sure if I would like that, but I, I do enjoy them is they're not expensive. You know, people talk about eating healthy and it has to be this, you know, obviously if you're buying wild salmon and ribeye and grass fed rib-eyes every night, it could probably be fairly expensive, but you know, the smash family, you know, startings, Mac roll and stuff like that. And hearing these are not that, and these are not that expensive and it's, there's a ton of nutrition from them. Yeah. Absolutely.
1 (32m 40s):
Lots of nutrients for sure.
0 (32m 42s):
Yeah. So, so I've been adding that to my diet, but it is interesting how you evolve over time and it is about just seeing how you feel. I think if you, like you said, you'd talk about like, I don't know, you hear intuitive eating a lot, but I feel like when you're metabolically flexible and not right, and you've maybe done some fasting and you've mixed, mixed up your, your macros, you start to feel like, okay, what works best for me after workouts or during the day or at night? Like for me at night, I don't do as much work. Like I do all my work in the mornings in the mid day. So I like to be in a fastest state cause I've, I'm more alert and I get more done, more, more things done. So, yeah,
1 (33m 21s):
Absolutely. And I think that is, there's so much leverage behind that in terms of the mental focus and clarity of, you know, being more in that lower carb, you know, stable blood sugar and being able to utilize that. And then, you know, at night, you know, maybe having more carbs or not, I really just, like you said, depends on the person. I think the intuitive side of eating, I think a lot of people get confused with what that actually means. And I think from, from my perspective, the more metabolically flexible you are that actually the easier it is to kind of pay attention to those things. And S and like you said, find what works for you. And, you know, for you, for example, you, you enjoy the mental clarity side of things and not having carbs during the day. And I go, there's some days where I do that too.
1 (34m 2s):
And then if I want to have carbs later on the day, that is a, it's a good strategy as well. And, and that's a strategy that I use to some of my clients where they want to actually backload their carbs and have more at night because it helps them to actually wind down a little bit more helps with that release of serotonin, helps them to sleep more throughout the night. Sometimes having a little bit, I found one, one strategy that I implement with some of my clients is implementing a little bit of fruit at night, if they are on that lower carb side of things. And they feel better with that, having a little bit more carbs at night, implementing a little bit of fruit or fruit toast, because that's going to actually help fuel your liver throughout the night. And so that can help with managing blood sugar levels throughout the night.
1 (34m 43s):
So that's a good strategy for some people who might be, might be waking up in the middle of the night, or they might feel kind of like restless, you know, at night, trying to, you know, wind down for bed. So having a little bit more carbs to help, like I said, facilitate a little bit more serotonin production and then also actually fuel you throughout the night. So you're not having, you know, dips in blood sugar that could be causing you to wake up.
0 (35m 8s):
Yeah, no, that's a great tip. I used to eat a little bit more fruit. I don't implement fruit as much, but from time to time, I'll have the berries and things like that. And perhaps later in the day as well. And what would you say around, I know you have a lot of clients that are women, and I actually tend to have many clients that are men. Is there, do you implement a different strategy between men and men and women?
1 (35m 32s):
Yeah. So this is also going to come down to, there are some things that I definitely make sure I look for with women, but again, it also just comes back to the individual person because everybody has such a different lifestyle activity level, but with women in general, from, you know, from the years of working with clients and, and mostly women, I do work with some men. I've just seen that fascinating can be a little bit harder for women in the sense of the longer fasts can be a little bit more stressful. We know that women have a little bit more like our hormones are obviously different throughout the month versus males are kind of the same. So that can play a role in how we, and how we do with fasting, how we deal with lower carb and, and using carbs strategically with that again, in that sense, there's, there's people who kind of say like, oh, you can implement carbs around certain parts of your cycle.
1 (36m 21s):
And I've, I've tried that before with, with my clients. And I found that, you know, there is some studies that show some things, but when we put it into practicality, we put it into the actual individual. It seems to be so variable depending on the female, same for myself. And it really, for me, it definitely comes down to that overall stress load that that person is experiencing. And that will actually determine how well they do with fasting protocols, how well they do with a little bit lower carb versus maybe higher carb. And then in terms of just, you know, eating enough food in general is one of the things that I work with. A lot of my female clients with is realizing that we don't have to continuously restrict food 24 7 and how that can be an issue in itself, especially if we are looking to change your body composition and maybe build some more muscle.
1 (37m 11s):
I think that's super important for females to, to kind of realize that if you want to look, you know, the way that you see other females, like looking toned or whatever it may be, that comes from having muscle right underneath the body fat. So kind of going down that, that kind of rabbit, that's a whole other rabbit hole, but I think that's super important for females. Of course.
0 (37m 33s):
Yeah. And I was actually going to bring that up a little bit, cause yeah, I mean, I think there's this misconception around women and lifting, like, for example, like my wife was a big runner and I've gotten her into lifting and I mean, like, it's amazing how much, I mean, how much better she looks just overall, like, you know, structurally not only our joints and things like that, but just, you know, just from the outside looking in, I mean, you know, when you have some, especially if you're lean or if you've put on muscle and just how important that is and, and is that we work with a lot of your clients on is just like putting on muscle because you know, a lot of women are like afraid of that.
1 (38m 12s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it's so important and I kind of came, like I mentioned, I came from endurance side of things with triathlons and then went into the CrossFit side of things and then got into bodybuilding. And when I, when I got into bodybuilding and I actually kind of, like I said, incorporate, it started incorporating more of like a metabolic flexibility side of things, more of a balance in my, you know, overall nutrition and training, really where I started to see my body composition change in the way that I wanted it to. And a lot of that came from actually following like a structured training plan and actually being intentional about my training, implementing progressive overload actually started working with my own coach and I still have my own coach to kind of help me through these things.
1 (38m 55s):
I think that's super important if you are kind of looking to take, you know, your training and your body condition to the next level, and you've been trying all these things and nothing's been working, asking for help is there's no, there's nothing wrong with that. And I continued will continue to have my own coach for as long as probably forever, just because there's so much value in having someone else kind of looking in and saying, Hey, you know, maybe we should try this or maybe we can do this a little bit differently and allowing you to kind of get out of your own head. So yeah, I actually put together a muscle science for woman program with my friend Ashley van Howten. I don't know if you know, on
0 (39m 31s):
The podcast.
1 (39m 32s):
Oh, okay, cool. Yeah. The muscle Maven. Yeah. We put together this program and it was really just, it's geared towards women to teach them the benefits of, you know, learning the proper way to go about building muscle and how, you know, it comes down to not just like, obviously nutrition is a huge component of it, but also realizing like what you should be focused on in your training and how to do that in a way that is sustainable and also fun and enjoyable and helps you to become more confident in every other aspect of your life. So,
0 (40m 3s):
Yeah. Yeah. Ashley was on the podcast. She was great a little while back.
1 (40m 7s):
Awesome.
0 (40m 10s):
So what would you say some of the, you know, as far as working out some of the tips that you give for hypertrophy, I know you went from the CrossFit world into, you know, into a different type of training. Obviously CrossFit can have tons of benefits I've used, you know, as, as what happened with you with injury. I've seen that quite a bit as well. Maybe perhaps a bit of over-training can happen in that, in that venue. What, what kind of recommendations would you make for someone starting out? Yeah.
1 (40m 37s):
Yeah. So I think CrossFit is great as a kind of community. You know, you have that community, you have that competition and if people enjoy CrossFit and they, they want to continue doing that, I think that it's definitely beneficial. I think there can be a component where there is a little bit of an overtraining component. If you are, you know, getting kind of, you know, you're going to CrossFit five or six days a week, and this is what I, I was out it's really, you really have to be careful with that. And then if you're trying to also maybe go into a fat loss phase or a diet, you do have to really just pay attention to your like nutrition side of things. If you're going into a deficit and you're pairing, you know, intense training on top of that, especially high intensity training, sometimes that can be a recipe for disaster.
1 (41m 21s):
And you're, you're kind of getting away from that recovery side of things. That's something I've learned the hard way over the years is recovery is a huge part of everything. And I find with a lot of the females that I work with and this used be me where I, I feel like, you know, doing more is always better. That's how I was in that kind of camp. Like, oh, if I go to CrossFit three days a week, then I'll like, if I go four or five, like that's gonna be better. Right. And if I reduce my calories this much, well, if I reduced them more, I can get faster results and that's better. Well, it doesn't really work like that. So that's what I found. Recovery is a huge thing to pay attention to. That would be one of the, one of the main components that I work on with my clients and moving more into a hypertrophy style training, you know, CrossFit is, and we don't have to necessarily go down the CROs rabbit hole, but it is a performance sport versus like an aesthetic sport.
1 (42m 9s):
So if you really are looking to build muscle and do it in the most efficient way possible, then CrossFit might not be your best route hypertrophy training and following a progressive training program where you can, you know, track your training over time and continue to improve, you know, week after week after week. That is where that muscle growth is going to come from. Not saying you can't do it in other ways, but if you're looking for the most efficient route, that's probably going to be obviously your number one, making sure that you're actually eating enough food in general. Like I mentioned with female clients, if you're looking to build muscle, eating enough food, if you don't have fuel coming in to facilitate that muscle growth, you're just going to continue to work hard.
1 (42m 49s):
And you're not going to be seeing the results that you should be seen. So you need some fuel to come in to be able to support that recovery. Because I always say this, like when you're in the gym training, you're breaking down your muscles, like you're literally tearing your muscle fibers apart. You're breaking them down. The muscle growth happens when you're sleeping, when you're recovering. Right? So that's something that, you know, if you can switch your mindset to like, Hey, I need to recover and I need to fuel myself appropriately. If I want to see the adaptations from what I'm putting onto my, the, the, the stress and put them onto my body. If I'm not recovering, then I'm doing all this work really for, for nothing just to burn out. And yeah, maybe I'll see a little bit of results, but it's going to end up not being so great in the end.
1 (43m 33s):
So feel enough? Yeah. Protein intake is huge. Those would probably be the, some of the tops that I would focus on.
0 (43m 41s):
Yeah. I found that with myself as well. I actually used to be in like the pescatarian camp for awhile and I was under eating protein cause I was fairly active and I, and then probably around the corn team last year, I started implementing some good, good quality meats into my diet and upping that protein intake. Because if you think about if, you know, 0.8 to one, a one gram per, per pound of lean mass, it's a decent amount of protein for everybody. I find with, with the males that I work with, they're definitely under eating it. And as you get older, you actually need to, it needs to be more of an like a priority.
0 (44m 24s):
Is that something that you see with a lot of females that they're under eating their protein?
1 (44m 28s):
Yeah, absolutely. I have. I mean, I would say like 80% of the clients that come to me, maybe even more are severely under eating protein, no matter if they're coming from a low carb or high carb diet, I, I am definitely in the camp of a higher protein approach. We know from countless research studies that have come out that, you know, there's no detriments to high protein, especially like the only kind of area that we see, maybe a little bit of concern is if you have like a pre-existing kidney issue, but that even with that, there's still some of that research is, you know, cause people are like, oh, I can't eat that much protein because you know, kidneys and all that. But we found that, that, you know, the more research that comes out on that, it's kind of like, oh, that's not really that true.
1 (45m 11s):
So there's just so many benefits to protein that I think keeping it on the higher end. And I even recommend, like I said, you know, with some clients we go up to even like 1.2 grams per pound of body weight, depending on how lean they are. I find that the leaner you are, the more protein can be beneficial, especially depending on what phase you're in. So if you're looking to actually lose body fat, right, having more protein to preserve that lean muscle mass to just make sure that you're feeling satiated enough, you know, on the calories that you're consuming, we know that protein has the highest thermic effect of food. So it takes more energy to digest and absorb protein than it does carbs and fats.
1 (45m 54s):
So protein has about 20 to 30%. It has a TF or thermic effect of 20 to 30% versus carbs are about five to 10%. And fats are about three to 5%. So if you think about that, practically, the more like the protein that you're consuming, it takes 20 to 30% more energy to actually digest that protein than it does for carbs and fats. So that's just another kind of advantage. And if you look at that on a, you know, a daily basis, it might not seem like that much, but then if you kind of compound that over weeks and months, it actually does add up. So just a few few of the, the reasons why I'm, I'm a huge advocate of protein. There's so many more, but those would be the top ones.
1 (46m 35s):
What are some of your favorite sources? So I'm a huge protein of animal protein. I think that, you know, I don't think there's anything wrong with vegetarian or veganism, but I think that it actually, it's a lot harder to get quality protein in that sense. And not just from the sense that, you know, with the foods that you're consuming, if they are plant-based protein, you're going to have a lot of carbs that come with that. And, and sometimes some other fat too. And then also just the bio Ville bioavailability of that protein is going to be a little bit harder to digest depending on the source. So I'm a huge fan of animal protein. So steaks chicken, eggs, Greek yogurt, cottage, cheese, basically anything that's comes from an animal I'm down for.
1 (47m 23s):
I liked the leaner protein to get into a organ meats. I do a little bit. I mean, I am still working on that. Ashley's still pushing me.
0 (47m 33s):
Oh yeah. Oh my God. She came out with a cookbook with it.
1 (47m 37s):
Yeah. She's the origami queen. I'm still like, I, I play around with them a little bit. I know. I need to, to have more they're so nutrient dense, but I'm kind of, that's something that's been lacking in my diet. I, I would say I play around with it, but I have a little bit of a sensitive palate.
0 (47m 57s):
I hear ya. Yeah. If, if it's cooked properly, it's all good. I actually just ordered some liver crisps, so they're like chips, but their liver. So
1 (48m 6s):
Are those the carnivores crisps? I haven't tried those yet. I need to try them.
0 (48m 11s):
Okay. Yeah. They're solid. They're good. Yeah. These have a little bit of onion in them too. So it sort of gets the flavoring better. So awesome. Yeah. There's many ways. Now you can get this stuff into your diet, right. You don't have to be like a chef. It's like, there's, there's something for someone out there. Yeah. Well, this was good. I, I, a question that I asked a lot of my guests who come in w what would be one tip that you would give your clients if, you know, like say they were in their forties, fifties, sixties, and beyond. And they wanted to get their body back to what it was maybe 10, 15 years ago. What, what, what, what one tip would you give to them?
1 (48m 50s):
Ooh, that's a good question. So actually the first thing that comes to mind is my mom. So she's in her, almost in her sixties and she actually just started weight training and resistance training for really the first time in her life. About two years ago. And she's 50. No, she's 60. She's sick. She's under 60. I think she's yeah, like 61. I can't remember if she's six years 61, 1 of those, but yeah, she like has seen so much progress in the last two years in her body composition than she's seen in her whole life, just from finally listening to me and getting a trainer and learning the proper way to lift.
1 (49m 35s):
Cause she used to go to the gym and do spin classes and she, you know, it was kind of, you know, how a lot of females are, which there's something wrong with this, especially in the older, older realm that older, not saying she's old, but when you get up to your fifties, I know, right. She's going to, you know what I mean? But if you are kind of in that, that stage of your life, you know, as we kind of evolved, right. We know that you know, weight training has just become kind of the norm for women over, only over the last, maybe even not, it's not even the norm yet, but even over the last like 20 years, I would say that's probably where it's kind of picked up. So if you're, you know, at that point where you, you know, didn't grow up, you know, weight training or kind of was like looked down on for women to weight train or anything like that.
1 (50m 18s):
So she, so kind of getting back to your question, she has seen this, the most improvement in her body composition from just like a year or two of training. And then she actually hired a trainer and now she knows, you know what she's doing. And she knows how to go into the gym and she's not like intimidated. And she seems such a change in body composition. And not just that, but in her mood, her confidence, right. Just overall health. Right. As you get older, like the more muscle you have, the longer you're going to live, like muscle is that is like the foundation of youth. A lot of people call it because you need to have strong muscles to have strong bones to be able to live to as long as you want to live. Right.
1 (50m 58s):
Exactly. Yeah. So I think that's one of the biggest things. And then like we talked about protein, making sure that you're staying on top of your protein. You mentioned this earlier, like the older you get, the more protein you actually need because your body starts to not use it as efficiently as it did when it was, you know, younger. So having more protein as you age is really important. So those would be the, I know you asked for one, but those would be two that They go hand in hand.
0 (51m 25s):
Yeah, no, they do. That's great. Yeah. Well, hopefully your mom doesn't get upset with you. She listens to this, but I'm sure she'll get over.
1 (51m 34s):
I talk about her a lot in my podcast and she always like texts me after she listens to it. And she's like, you said that and she's like, I'm like, yeah. It's like,
0 (51m 45s):
You know,
1 (51m 46s):
She's like, you talked about my cellulite. I'm like, yeah, we all cellulite relax.
0 (51m 52s):
Right. Well, Rachel, this was good. I felt like we, I feel like we could talk another hour, but either way, I appreciate you coming on. And I know that there's a ton of value that was, that was given. So I'm sure my audience would enjoy this a ton. So thank you so much.
1 (52m 8s):
Yeah. Thanks for having me. I had a blast. Awesome.
0 (52m 12s):
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0 (52m 53s):
If this sounds like a fit for you, email me@bryanatbriangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. That's brian@briangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. Thanks for listening to the get lean eat clean podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there and you've chosen to listen to mine. And I appreciate that. Check out the show notes@briangrin.com for everything that was mentioned in this episode, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member. That's looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again, and have a great day.
