Are you all in or all out when it comes to your fitness and nutrition? In this episode, Giacomo and Coach Ben unpack the sneaky ways black-and-white thinking shows up in routines, training plans, and even your meal prep. We’re talking perfectionism, fear of change, identity attachment, and why you might be too loyal to your oatmeal and tofu scramble.
We explore how being a creature of habit can be a superpower—but also a trap when it stops you from evolving. Giacomo shares how sticking to “his foods” became more about mental bandwidth than macros, and Ben explains why flexibility inside structure is the real key to progress.
If you’ve ever felt like missing one workout or going off-plan means you’ve “ruined everything,” this one’s for you.
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Ep 218 – AUDIO The Dichotomy Trap
[Ben]
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Vegan Protein Muscles by Brussels
Radio. My name is Ben.
[Giacomo]
And I’m Giacomo.
[Ben]
Okay, Giacomo. Long time no see, except I did see you a couple weeks ago on the cruise, which
was a blast. And I think maybe it just feels like a little while because I’ve been back and forth
and here and there and all over the place, but I’m back now in Massachusetts.
[Giacomo]
For how long?
[Ben]
TBD. I’m not putting timelines on anything these days.
[Giacomo]
It’s just a word that he says. He’s like, yeah, I’m moving here, I’m moving there. And all of a
sudden, he’s like, so much conviction.
And three months later, you’re in a whole new location.
[Ben]
I go where the wind takes me now, which is so funny because I used to be very rigid or very like
set in my ways and not open to kind of doing things more spontaneous and more on a whim.
And I’m still like that in some respects. But I think things have changed for some reason or
another.
In terms of being a little bit more rigid with my thinking, I think that ties into what we wanted to
talk about today, which is dichotomous thinking, and black and white thinking.
[Giacomo]
Well, that’s news to me, because in typical me fashion, I came to the table completely
unprepared. And you and Danny before this episode, before we started recording, you, she
mentioned what we were gonna be talking about. And I like purposely, I think, blocked it out.[Ben]
You were just so excited to tell me about a potential new member of the vegan proteins
community. So I don’t blame you for that. I’m excited, too.
So we’re talking about dichotomous thinking, in terms of fitness, and I think we can tie it into
life, too, because I think they’re related. Oftentimes, how we think in one realm of our life can
spread to other areas. So where I want to start with this is thinking about myself, and how I
have tend to view the world and how that’s related to nutrition and training and all of that.
And I know that it’s still a pattern that I fall into, where sometimes I’ll hear somebody say a
certain thing, maybe it’s someone I respect, or I look up to, and then I start thinking, like, oh, I
need to do things that way, or this way. And I get really like, I’m going, just to give an example,
with training, I’m going to do a million sets, or no, I’m going to do minimal sets, I’m going to be
super high intensity, or I’m going to be super whatever it is. With nutrition, it might be I’m
doing all whole foods all the way, or I’m doing, you know, I don’t care about whole foods, I’m
just going to try to hit my macros.
And there’s these different extremes that you can kind of swing back and forth between. Or,
you know, I’m doing 15,000 steps a day, or I’m barely moving throughout my day. And I think it
can be easy for me to kind of get into extremes with certain things.
So just to give, I guess, one example of that, the first thing I ever did when I learned more
about nutrition, I read a book by Mike Matthews, who owns the supplement company Legion.
And he’s wrote a couple books like Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, and a couple of those. So that was
the first book I ever read really about fitness and working out and nutrition.
And so right after I read that book, I wrote myself a meal plan. And I followed that meal plan
exactly to the T for like three months in a row. And I would not deviate or really make any
changes at all.
Somebody offered me like a bite of food or something, I would be like, No, like I, in my mind, it
was like, I can’t have that. And I won’t get results, not necessarily like, you know, had I had
more experience, I probably would have realized, okay, it’s not that big of a deal to do that or to
go out for a meal with friends, like I would turn down social opportunities, or maybe somebody
came over to cook dinner with my roommates. And I would opt out of that because I was like,
No, I have to do it this certain way.
I have to go to the gym at the same time every single day, stuff like that. And I think it can be a
big stressor when you feel like things have to be a certain way. Yes.
And it can be a big relief and a weight off your back when you realize that if you deviate from
that, it’s not going to throw everything off and it’s not going to be a disaster. But it can be hard
to get out of that mindset when you’ve been in there for a while.[Giacomo]
Because routine and being a creature of habit is a way to accomplish really exceptional things.
Even though there’s more than one way to do something, and arguably better ways you can get
in your own way, because you’re stuck with this black and white thinking about what you
should do. And you’re afraid to try to step outside of your comfort zone and to critically think
about the different kinds of approaches that other professionals take or what the research says
you’re unwilling to change or inflexible or something else that I think about is how much of
your identity can be tied into what you’re doing.
And that can be an emotional reason for being unwilling to change because you’re afraid, right?
You’re like, well, what if I do things differently, and I don’t get results, for example, or I feel like I
have to do it this way, because serving my needs, because it’s making me feel a certain way
about what I’m doing. And you see this with not just our audience here, but in general, in the
fitness industry, and in fitness circles, where people get stuck, and they can’t get unstuck on
certain kinds of narratives on how they should eat or how they should train or whatever.
And I feel like here at vegan proteins, we’ve spent an exorbitant amount of our time and our
energy standing on ground, yes, with like, evidence based programming, but also challenging
the norm of what people are finding acceptable at any given point in time being like, well, don’t
consume anything with oil in it. Oil is bad for you. It’s toxic, it’s poison, or protein is the hot
button.
I’m using simple things right now to not get lost in the details. But we’re like, no, like you
should think we have not been afraid to go against what is the acceptable norm. We have not
been afraid to go against the grain.
But you get pushback for that. And then over the, over the years, when science proves things to
be less wrong over time, eventually, people come around. But it’s like, don’t you kind of wish
like you could people get there faster, or at least be more open minded and the dogmatic kind
of stuff that can be so pervasive, didn’t persist out there because of this dichotomous way of
thinking because of how people operate.
[Ben]
I think fundamentally, at the base of dichotomous thinking, there’s this fear of missing out, like
you were talking about of, oh, well, you know, there’s something better over there. Or, you
know, I can’t, I can’t deviate from what I’ve been doing, because I’m not going to get results.
Like you said, I think that’s really kind of central to the black or white thinking is just being
afraid, like having having the fear.
And I think that’s why having an outside perspective and a coach to kind of say, like, you know
what, there’s this ideal or this, this optimal that we can shoot for, but it is really context
dependent. It depends on the individual themselves. And I think one reason that this type kindof thinking can hurt someone, it can help someone, like you said, like having a routine is really
important.
But I think you can have structure while still incorporating flexibility into that structure. That’s a
big conversation I find myself having with clients all the time. It doesn’t have to be like, okay,
I’m playing macro Tetris every single meal and thinking about every meal on the fly and having
nothing prepped and nothing planned out because I can do if it fits your macros, there’s that
extreme.
And then there’s also the extreme of everything is meal prepped at the start of the week. I have
every single piece of food planned out to the T that I’m going to eat, and I’m not going to
deviate from it one bit. And I think there’s a middle ground there.
Like maybe you do some batch cooking and some prepping where maybe you have your
dinners planned, or I don’t know, maybe you have your breakfast and lunch planned out, but
dinner can vary a little bit every night within certain macronutrient ranges, which gives you
more social flexibility while still adhering to your goals. And I think where this thinking tends to
hurt people is with perfectionism. And I think people who fall into black or white thinking often
fall into perfectionism.
So they might deviate from their nutrition plan a little bit. And then it’s the, you know, the effort
mentality where, okay, now that I deviated a little bit, there’s no point in sticking to it anymore.
So I’m going to go eat everything because I failed and I let myself down.
So it’s like, I either stuck to the plan. I didn’t, I either exceed it, succeeded, or I failed. And
there’s no room for nuance.
So like, if I didn’t lose this amount of weight this week, or I didn’t get to this body composition
by this time, then everything’s been for nothing. And it’s really not a productive mindset in the
long term, because whatever you have in your brain, isn’t always going to necessarily correlate.
Even if you do everything right, you could still not get to where you think you’re going to get.
And that could throw you off. So I’m, I’m a big fan of, I find myself saying to people to focus on
progress instead of perfection. And I think that tends to resonate with people.
[Giacomo]
Yes, except for when the focus on progress needs to be about and less about the fact that in
order to achieve something, you need to be consistent and have your head wrapped around
what you’re doing and decent routine that works where fitness isn’t the only thing you’re doing,
right? It doesn’t fit neatly into a box, because life, life will life, right? And while life is lifing, you
need to make sure that you can still move with it.
And that can be hard for people with that, like you said, to your point, like and the rigidity with
needing to do things a way. And then if they’re in, then if they’re not, then all of a sudden,boom, fly off the handle and things seemingly upside down. And obviously, that doesn’t feel
good either.
So what do you do,
[Ben]
you go right back to can you think of an example to bring it back to the practical of your own
life or your own journey with fitness, whether that be nutrition, training, any sort of habit,
where you tend to fall into this like kind of perfectionist black or white thinking,
[Giacomo]
I’m trying to think of an example where I don’t honestly, Danny just did a meal prep for meal
prep video for YouTube. And it this is like the eighth time that she’s done it in the past couple
months.
And I won’t eat, I won’t eat whatever she makes. I’m like, I like what I like, if I enjoy it, I don’t
have to think about it. I know how much I’m eating.
And it’s not like classic bro food. It’s the same food that I eat every day. And we have all this
delicious food that you cooked.
And I’m like, I’m just not in the mood. This is my way of not being food focused. I don’t want to
have to think about what I’m eating.
I don’t have to think about whether I’m getting enough protein. I don’t want to think about it.
It’s not that I’m afraid to eat it.
It’s just like, I don’t want to be food focused. So I’m not even gonna bother eating anything.
And then this past week, I was like, you know what, that’s stupid.
I’m gonna eat everything. Like, do me a favor, Danny, just put put the meal plan up on the
refrigerator. So I can get a decent understanding of I would literally try to eat different foods
and just like not enjoy them different meals and not enjoy them.
This is not my creature comfort food. So that’s one example of training the last year or so.
When I get nervous when I’m not doing like what I have prescriptive for my training, I get a
little less nervous when I’m the one making the changes and get a little more nervous, I should
say, because I’m not ready.
I’m not ready to change. Oh, what if I don’t do my programming is written? What if I go to the
gym, just have a play day?
And then and then after that, I get even more nervous when someone else but then I just let go
of the control like, you know what, this is about having fun with you or with Danny where I’mgoing to follow your lead. I’m just going to follow you do but some part of me knows that I had
to push myself out of my comfort zone to just be like, Alright, Ben, you train legs, go ahead,
whatever you’re doing, I’m going to do.
[Ben]
I can relate to both of those actually. So with nutrition, I think I’m the same way as you where I
might come up with some sort of meal plan or meal system that I really like, and I feel good,
and I’m in a rhythm and a routine with it. And maybe someone makes it like, Hey, Ben, I made
this like this, this dish, I’d really love for you to try it.
Maybe it’s someone who isn’t vegan, but they made me a vegan dish, and they put a lot of time
and effort into it. And I’m like, Oh, man, like, you know, on the one hand, I’m really liking what
I’m doing here. And I don’t really want to, you know, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it sort of thing.
That’s what I’m thinking in my head. And on the other hand, I’m like, I really want to show my,
you know, my appreciation to this person and incorporate this kind of into my regimen or into
my routine. Just thinking about examples from this in the past, or even currently, you know, I
spend time a lot with my family and living at home.
And so maybe at dinner time, that’s an opportunity for all of us to eat together to share a meal.
And in the past, sometimes I’d be like, I don’t want to have what you’re having, or I don’t want
to, you know, like, we’re trying to come up with ideas for dinner. I’m like, I don’t want to do
that.
I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that. Because maybe one reason is like, Oh, you
know, the, the macronutrient content of that meal is not going to be what I want it to be with
my goals, or like, maybe I’ve already had a lot to eat that day.
And I know it’s gonna like put me over my calories, if we make this certain thing, or if we order
out, and we get food out from this one place. And then I’ll start thinking, it’s either like, you
know, I can’t order, I’m not going out to eat at all, or like, suddenly, I’m going out to eat three,
four or five times a week. And it can be hard for me to really try to like, put it into perspective
and understand, you know, I could go out to eat and make choices that are more in alignment
with my goals and what I want to do or less than alignment, like I still have control.
And it’s not like this, this or that thing, it can be both, where I can try to, you know, make
conscious choices, regardless of what my environment is like, and sometimes it’s going to be
easier or more difficult. But I still, you know, think of it as one way or another, like I can’t
participate in this at all, or I’m participating and I’m, you know, going hog wild with it. So that’s
that’s nutrition.
And then I think with training, I’m similar to you, where sometimes I’ve turned down
opportunities to train with friends or with other people. Because I’m like, No, I’m making good
progress on my program, I want to stick to my program. It’s like this like safety blanket, it’s likea binky, you’re like, Oh, I know, I know that I’m doing the right, like the quote, unquote, the
right thing, if I’m sticking to my program, exactly, it can even come down to, I have my program
at the gym, and I don’t want to switch my exercise order.
So you end up waiting half an hour for a piece of equipment, because you don’t want to, you
know, let’s say you were supposed to do squat than leg press, but the, you know, the squat rats
taken, the leg presses open, well, I don’t want to do leg press than squat, because then if when
I go to squat, I’m not gonna be able to lift as much weight. And I don’t know how to track that.
And I don’t know how to, you know, measure that.
So I’m, you know, I’m it up on one day, it’s not going to make a huge deal. Like I, it comes back
to the effort that you’re putting forth and training that that muscle, even if it’s in a slightly
different way. And also understanding that maybe training with somebody is not only a social
opportunity, but an opportunity to learn from them.
And I could pick up one cue or one little way that they do something that can then help me in
the long run. So I think it’s, it’s taking that perspective and saying, what can I learn from this
instead of what is this going to take away from me, like having it be an additive mindset versus
a subtractive mindset, I guess you could say.
[Giacomo]
And with the training, I’m reading you, right, at least the way that I think about it with the
training, it’s so much easier to keep doing that and justify what you’re doing, because food is a
little more complicated. And training is just so can be so calculating, so routine for the not for
everyone, there probably are. There are some people out there that can literally do that with
food, but I find that it’s a little harder.
So the unraveling of that, if you will, when they when someone falls out of their routine with
food, and it’s a choice, or it’s not a choice, not to accept and be like this, I’m trying to think of so
what would you say to somebody who is struggling with eating in a way where they just were
not were not not comfortable making the choice to eat differently, or just be a little flexible,
being more flexible with themselves?
[Ben]
I think usually I try to everyone’s a little bit different, right? So their personality, you got to kind
of got to speak to them with, you know, what kind of get a read on them. So for some people, it
might be providing a combination of my own personal experience with this and saying, you
know, I can relate to you, I felt the same way.
And this is how I kind of tackled it. Or this sort of tip or trick seemed to work for these other
clients that I worked with. And sometimes that speaks to them.
But sometimes people have to go through it themselves to really understand that. So it mightbe that I say, Okay, we can try it your way and see what happens up to a given point. And then
they realize that, man, you know, I am feeling kind of restricted, like I can’t go out to eat with
my partner, or I’m feeling like, you know, after a time, I was really excited about doing this, but
it’s really hard to eat the same things all the time, or it’s really hard to be on it all the time.
And so sometimes they have to come to that themselves before they’re willing to, like deviate a
little bit, like you might have somebody who’s like, I want to try to switch things up. But again,
I’m scared of the fact that I might lose out on some results here. A common example of this is
maybe somebody has been getting really good results, but they’re going on a vacation for a
week, and they’re going to be away and out of their routine.
And so they’re kind of fearful of I’m going to revert back to my old ways. And I’m not going to,
you know, I’m going to deviate, and I’m gonna have a really hard time kind of getting back on
track and getting back on schedule. And so I’ll try to say to them, you know, you might be going
out for more meals, you might be out of your environment, but what can you control?
Can you still bring like protein with you and kind of maybe order, you know, get a shopping cart
order for where you’re going ahead of time to pick up there? What can you kind of plan out?
And so try to help them understand that like, they still have a lot of control over the situation,
and it doesn’t have to completely derail them.
But usually, I’ll try to just see if I can nudge them a little bit in that direction. So maybe right
now, they’re following a really like rigid meal plan. And I’ll say, okay, can we maybe try like, you
know, one, like Friday nights or Saturday nights, can we try to maybe make like a macro meal
where we cook with our significant other, turn it into a date night, and let’s allot this amount of
calories and protein and macros and stuff.
And you say to your partner, like, hey, you know, I’d love to cook for you tonight. I was thinking
about making a couple different things. What do you think about one of these?
And they’re like, oh, that sounds great. And then you can, you know, you make it, you make it
an interactive experience, but you still kind of have some control over, you know, the, you
know, the portions and the macros of that meal. So it’s getting away from eating the same
things every single meal all the time.
But you’re still giving them some control over, I’m still cooking the meal, I’m still prepping it.
Their significant other might not care about like the nutritional content of the meal or
whatever, but they’re still going to enjoy it. And then you’re going to enjoy it, because you
know, that you’re still kind of working towards those goals and making progress.
And once you do that enough, and you see nothing bad happens, nothing catastrophically goes
wrong, then you’re like, oh, I can, you know, go out for a meal, or I can cook it. And then they
slowly start to get that confidence. And you can say, all right, maybe we can do that for a couple
more time.Maybe it’s dinner every night that we can do that thing. Or you just kind of find these little ways
to move someone along that that spectrum. And then what’s nice about it is, you know, these
are all tools that we have.
So then if somebody, maybe they’re a competitive bodybuilder, maybe that’s what their off
season looks like. And then when they’re 10 weeks out, eight weeks out in a prep, you start to
bring them back towards maybe more rigidity and more structure. So it’s not that any of these
things are bad.
It’s just it depends on the certain person and the phase that they’re in. Sometimes you have to
be a little bit more rigid. And sometimes you want to be a little bit more loose, even if it’s not
the easy thing for you.
Like it might be the easy thing for you to be super rigid and to be super disciplined. But that
might not be the sustainable thing in the long term, especially if you’ve got people around you
that are maybe suffering as a result of that.
[Giacomo]
Exactly. And it’s so easy when you surround yourself, which we all do, right? You surround
yourself around people and you create an environment that is conducive to what you want to
do.
So you wind up having, how do I say, you wind up being in a position where you’re unable to
see outside yourself. But then you get put in a position where you have conversation with
somebody that has that can sometimes give you pause when you can see how they’re judging
you and how you’re eating to try to understand like where you’re coming from, or just helps
you reflect on how you’re eating like oh crap, like what I do is not is okay, but it is also not the
norm. And I go through that line of thinking when I start to think about other clients and the
goals that I have for them and for myself.
And just like the idea of eating, what has the saying go eat to live, live to eat, like the eat to live
thing. And now your food is fuel, food is a tool, food can get you to a goal, food and tracking
helps you become aware of how much you’re eating, it can get you healthy, like these things all
give you conviction to eat a certain way. And to program for yourself in a certain way where
you’re like calories, not very specific, but like you pretty much know what you’re going to eat
and how you’re going to eat.
It’s all reason to do that. But the thing that’s a little harder to talk about is the idea of how do
you make this sustainable? How do you make this a lifestyle?
How do you do this in an enjoyable way? How do you establish healthy eating habits and
healthy eating patterns that can exist where like, even though you have these goals, and
they’re big goals, you can still eat pretty much whatever you want within reason, be flexible
with yourself. It’s a much harder path to send the client down.But it’s in I feel like a lot of people don’t really want like they like the idea of it, but they’re
scared of it. Or they just straight up don’t want to do the work. They just rebel.
And they’re like, No, like this got me results. Why would I do things differently? Or I’m afraid of
this?
What if everything like we were talking about in this discussion, what if that starts to start to go
off the deep end, you know, so they double down and go back, or they’re just too afraid to
make those leaps. And that’s where working with a coach who can help you see past yourself
and help you they’ve had experience with this, it can make a difference. And it can get you
somewhere where like you’re eating in a more balanced way, I guess, for lack of a better way of
framing it.
[Ben]
No, it’s a good discussion to have. Because it’s easier for somebody to say, Oh, well, I did this 12
week program, or I had this coach who put me on this protocol. And I got results that way.
And then they’re coming to us. And maybe they’ve kind of reverted back to where they were
before. And it’s hard to have that conversation about, well, okay, you got those results, but
were you actually able to maintain those results?
And maybe because you were able to follow that rigid structure for a short period of time? Sure,
it worked. But how are we going to set you up to be able to do this in the long term?
And it’s not an easy sell, like you said, and it’s not the same approach for every person, there
are going to be different approaches that work better for different personalities. And that’s
where having a coach at Vegan Proteins, where we take a custom personalized methodology,
where we’re getting to know the person, we’re getting to know their lifestyle, what makes them
tick, and we can set up these different strategies and these different routines and structure for
them. Whether that is some combination of meal prepping, flexible dieting, whatever it is that’s
working for them, we have all these different tools that we can give somebody and help them
from where they’re at right now to where they want to be.
And it’s a stepwise process, they might not be ready to track super rigidly on day one, it might
just be more habits and getting them kind of in the consistent flow and just having them have
some sort of routine. So everyone’s coming to us at a different place. And I think it’s meeting
somebody with where they’re at.
And you know, it can be hard, because you can consume a lot of content on social media, where
it’s like, grind all the time. We’ve talked about this on podcast before. But if you’re in this kind of
echo chamber, like you just got to push yourself, you just got to want it bad enough, you just
got to, you know, put your head down and do it and not question it and not think about it.
It can be really hard to have that nuance and to not think in that kind of black and white way,like you’re on the diet, you’re off the diet, you’re doing the thing, you’re not doing the thing. But
as we know very well, nuance and more of these detailed discussions doesn’t necessarily
produce the best soundbites or clickbait for content. And so it’s a lot harder to get somebody to
buy into that.
But if they’re able to stick with it for a certain number of months, start to see the results and
start to buy in and believe in themselves. Those are the people who a couple years from now,
you look at them, and they’ve been able to maintain and continue to progress. Whereas most
people, you know, kind of constantly spend, you know, decades of their life just bouncing back
and forth between extremes and never really getting anywhere and just feeling worse about
themselves throughout the process.
So it can be a thing to get people to buy into, but I think we’ve seen it enough with the people
that we work with that once you kind of get to a certain point and you see the magic, so to
speak, then you’re in.
[Giacomo]
Yeah, exactly. It’s funny because I think people aren’t aware that they’re going in that direction.
And then so that they keep repeating, keep making the same mistake over and over again,
because they got to come to it on their own, right?
They blame themselves, I wasn’t going hard enough, or this was just not the right time in my
life. But if you do things a certain way, again and again, and the same outcome keeps
happening, you’re not. Once you realize that if you were to take a little more of a kind of
approach where you could take your time getting somewhere, as opposed to just like trying to
go hard, you know, you’ll probably get the outcome you’re looking for eventually, as opposed
to seeing yourself out.
Which doesn’t happen for everybody. I don’t think it would happen for someone like you or for
me, as an example. But I have seen it happen to others, wanted it bad, but you know, they
blame life for taking them out of the game.
But in reality, it was because they didn’t find the approach they needed sooner. Maybe they
didn’t get the right kind of support. Maybe they were stuck in there, caught up in their own
way.
But then you could take someone like, well, use me as an example, where I’m willing to just
beat my head against the wall to do something, even though I’m doing it improperly, and then
eventually get the outcome I’m looking for. But that’s still a process also, where I could have
done things better sooner. dichotomous thinking is a limiting factor when it comes to your
progress and your results, because you’re unable to start to play out different scenarios.
And if you’re unable to play out different scenarios, and you’re unable to take a new
information and distill it down and make it work, well, you’re going to wind up staying in thesame lane. And maybe you get results. And the results that you get are the ones that you’re
[Ben]
actually and I think it’s, that’s why it’s helpful to have some people around you that you trust,
that you can get their input from, whether or not that is a coach, or maybe just like a friend
group or a support group, or people who can provide an outside perspective about what you’re
doing, because it might seem like a reasonable thing to you. But it might not be to your friends,
your family. And I think it’s really valuable, even if it’s not comfortable to have somebody say to
you, like, you know, this is a lot, you know, do you think you could do this for another 510 15
years?
And maybe you’re stubborn in that moment? And you say, Oh, yeah, of course I could like this is
a conversation I’ve had, you know, many times with people around me where, you know, I feel
a little bit triggered by what they’re saying. And I have to, you know, in the moment, maybe I’m
not able to stay as rational as I’d like, and I kind of just brush it off.
And maybe I’m a little bit, you know, annoyed by their comment. But then I think about it later.
I’m like, you know, I’m probably a little bit annoyed or triggered by it, because there’s a kernel
of truth to it.
So I have to be really honest and kind of self reflect. And so I think my main point is, it’s helpful
to have some outside perspective here, when you do find yourself getting into that kind of
black and white thinking and challenging, or if you can do that yourself, if you can challenge
your own thoughts and say, Is this really true? Like, am I really?
Do I really have to do all these things that I’m doing in this exact certain way to get the results
that I’m after? Are there other people who have done it a different way and got great results,
because then the proof is kind of speaking for itself. So get out, get outside your own head,
seek out some outside opinions, you don’t have to do it alone.
And it’s, it’s, it’s helpful to not, you know, live in, live in your own space 24 seven.
[Giacomo]
How do you cut through all the social media when it comes to people constantly just putting
out the same message they want to beat you over the head with? And it’s not necessarily what
you want to take in?
[Ben]
It’s hard. I think you have to seek out multiple opinions. Don’t, like, don’t if all the people you’re
following are saying the same thing like that.
It’s tricky, because it can go, it can go two ways. Like, you can think, Oh, everyone’s saying the
same thing. So this might be the right way.But oftentimes, it’s the people who are speaking in absolutes who say you have to do it this
certain way. That’s what I would look out for when I’m looking at content that I’m consuming.
This is the only way to do it.
This is the way that you have to do it. Those people who are talking in the extremes that the
absolutes, the black or whites, people like it, because it’s easy, and it’s simple. But it’s not, it’s
not the way forward.
And so most of the time, if you’re looking at, you know, these, these coaches that we look up to
that we’ve worked with ourselves, perhaps, there are people who speak in the nuance in the in
the gray, and not in the black and white, and they say, Well, this could be a way to do it, this
could be another way to do it. This is often a good idea. This is usually a good idea, instead of
this is always the way to do it.
[Giacomo]
Yeah, for sure. So it’s the mindset, as much as it is the programming that you Yes,
[Ben]
because if somebody is saying it has to be, it relates, it relates, because it’s like, it has to be high
volume, it has to be high intensity, it has to be, you know, low carb, it has to be low fat, then
that is somebody who is being, you know, they’re being what’s the word I’m looking for
dogmatic, they’re being dogmatic, they, they have to do it this certain way. And that’s not
somebody who, you know, have released a program.
And that’s not somebody who’s speaking in the nuance and the black and white, because it’s
rarely ever one way or one way or the highway, right?
[Giacomo]
And information changes, we learn. And I think it’s good to look back on how information has
changed over the years and be like, we were wrong, we were following what we knew was what
we thought was best at the time. And as information changes, everyone doesn’t get to this, the
better conclusion at the same time, right?
So you, it’s because it’s easy to like, think about like, who’s to blame. And then all of a sudden,
no one’s actually having the right kind of conversation about like, Well, no, this was wrong. We
did it back then this way.
Let’s not do it that way going forward. And let’s think about a better way.
[Ben]
Yeah, you had a good video about that recently with cardio on the YouTube channel.[Giacomo]
And then wouldn’t you know it, one of my past clients reached out said they were watching that
video, because that’s how you reach people. You don’t reach people by saying, I’m right all the
time. And I’m right now.
And this is what you should be doing. Like that doesn’t, you don’t want someone to think like
that. To be your coach.
No, you’re not going to get anywhere other than perhaps you’ll feel good, because you have
some conviction that they’re so convinced. This is the way things have to be done. And you
don’t have to really think about it.
You just head out and do the work. You don’t want that out of a client, either. You want a client
who’s going to challenge and be skeptical and constantly questioned, right?
Because together, you can you can put your heads together and figure out what’s best for that
client over time. I find myself often getting into conversations like that with clients where
they’re, there’s not enough trust yet. And they’re also afraid to question and they also want to
commit, you want to commit to what you’re doing.
And I get that, like commit to your following your program for 12 weeks or whatever. Just like
take, take, do it. Like you don’t want to get into that place where you’re so, where you’re
indecisive and you’re not following a program.
I get that. But while you’re following a certain protocol, question, become skeptic, give
feedback, ask, have a conversation. Like that’s how you’re going to be able to a better outcome
in the future by your programming evolving as you learn more about how it is and isn’t working
for you.
[Ben]
And I think as we’ve been exposed to more people that we work with over time, you see
different approaches work for different people. And it’s kind of this self built-in mechanism to
not think in a dichotomous way or a dogmatic way, because what worked for you is not going
to work for most of the people that you work with, or maybe, you know, some of the people
that you work with. So I think that, you know, we learn as, as much as from our clients, as much
as they learn from us about how to kind of get out of that mindset.
And it makes us better too.
[Giacomo]
Yeah, exactly. How, what percentage of clients do you think you have are, are, they take a little
pause when you try to get them to challenge you and become skeptical and give you feedback
that isn’t just like, yes, coach, I’ll do whatever you say. Like, you know, the type of person, right?[Ben]
Yeah. The soldier who just like, they’ll just follow orders.
[Giacomo]
And how do you get someone out of that mindset?
[Ben]
Yeah. I think what I would encourage them to do is just continue to give me their opinion about
certain things. What do you think about this?
You know, how did, how did that feel when you did that exercise in the gym? What is this
nutrition setup feel like for you? Because for the, for the, the, the soldier who just follows
orders, they might have these different cues or this feedback that their body is giving them
about these protocols that we’re doing.
And they might have their opinions, but they’re just keeping it to themselves because they feel
like they’re less of a client for questioning us, or they just need to put their head down and do
the work. But I’m like, you know, at a certain point, if you’re doing something over and over and
over that you don’t like, or that isn’t working for you, you might get hurt, you might burn out
with the nutrition protocol and end up like going off the rail. So it’s important for us to know.
And I’m often trying to kind of pull that out of people of like, you know, I’d like for you to share
with me like how you feel this is working for you. And I want your questions and your feedback
and for you to, to actually, you know, bring me into your world a little bit more into your
headspace. So, uh, you know, you can get more out of coaching because the more that
somebody kind of brings us in and, and gives us that feedback.
Like I love when I have clients who tell me like, I’m noticing this, I’m noticing that, um, this
exercise felt great. This one didn’t feel so great. They’re sending me, you know, form feedback
videos.
They’re, um, asking me like, Oh, what, I saw a video on this. Like, what do you think about this?
Or what do you think about that?
And I’m like, you know, the more I’m a resource, like I want you to, I want you to take
advantage of that and not to be afraid and scared of that because, you know, you are going to
become your best by using me more. You’re not going to become your best by just like being a,
you know, a yes man all the time.
[Giacomo]
And you can see the writing on the wall sometimes when someone is following a meal plan as
is, but they’re like talking about how they’re going to eat or how they’re snacking on that.Assume that there’s some amount of guilt there or amount of shame there because they’re not
really saying anything, or at least that’s my fear. And I automatically start to rework what kinds
of meals I’m offering them.
If there aren’t a meal plan, I start to talk about different kinds of foods in an inclusive way, like,
like in a way where this is those foods are gonna be included, like these, this is supposed to be
happening. You’re supposed to be eating like this. If the client’s not discussing it with you first,
right?
Well, also, and then hopefully they start having conversations like that with you too. And you
hope that they can trust themselves to see that yeah, that is in fact how you should be eating.
It’s just a matter of better wrapping your head around it when you’re not eating routinely.
I have a client who’s a perfect example of that, actually. And he’s managed to, I’ve seen the
evolution where he was, he was teasing out the idea of not eating the same way every day. And
then eventually he did it and then but he was afraid, but now he’s like into it.
And it’s it’s nice when you see someone make the connections over time. But it doesn’t work
like that all the time. And I find that this is an ongoing challenge with clients.
And sometimes they they push back, they don’t even push back, they revert all the way back to
the way they were and you’re like, let’s just stick to what’s safe right now. Yeah, what I know
works. So it’s an ongoing thing.
It’s a journey.
[Ben]
It is you want to close this out here?
[Giacomo]
Yeah, let’s do it. Well, thank you so much, everyone for tuning in to another episode of vegan
proteins, muscles by Brussels radio, stay in touch with us on all the socials at vegan proteins, hit
the contact button and submit an application. If you’re interested in one on one coaching on
vegan proteins.com, we will get back to you right away. And we’d love the opportunity to work
with you. Once again, my name is Giacomo. I’m Ben, and we’ll talk to you soon.
Bye. See ya. You know that I didn’t know what the episode was about?
[Ben]
Maybe, maybe not. I mean, I could tell you were kind of in your own world there when Daniel
and I were talking about it. So I was like, I mean, most of the time, we don’t know what we’re
talking about.Yeah, we hop right on.
[Giacomo]
So I really hope you put those bloopers in that we did at the start with the So now that you’re
back, what are like your first things that you want to do while you’re up?
[Ben]
Talking normally about podcast things. We should be doing some testing stuff right now and
mic testing and talking normal voice inside voices.
