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Welcome back everybody to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Alice and I’m Giacomo and welcome to the show.
[Giacomo]We’re back at it. I love this. This is so cool and I don’t have to worry about what we’re doing because Ben is basically taking over the entire podcast.
I want to thank everyone so much for tuning in and I hope that you’ve been enjoying these new episodes and the change of pace over here. Gosh, Alice, there’s nothing for you and I to catch up on because we’ve just been basically spending all of our time together. You, the whole team, we were all here, like with the exception of Ben, we were all under one roof day and night, like a week straight.
I wish real life was like that, honestly.
[Alice]Right, right. We just all need to have a little community where we’re all just like next to our neighbors and seeing each other on the daily and that would be a happy world.
[Giacomo]And then imagine everyone here that’s part of our Vegan Proteins team, if you will, all of y’all, like we all have this like one big, I don’t know, is that, that’s not pop, maybe, maybe, maybe.
[Alice]Some major life goals changing, but hey, hey, I mean, we would all be happy. I mean, it’s so hard to find like-minded vegans. I mean, I guess, I guess there are some places that have really, really good vegan community, but even, even so, like we’re even more niche because we have like the vegan, like strength base and the vegan, like athlete community, like little, like sub, sub niche.
Right. So it’s, it’s really hard to, to find like, you know, people that eat like, like each other, you know, like as far as eating high protein and, and I don’t know, there could be, there can be a lot of differences within the vegan community about how different other people eat, you know, different vegans eat differently. So yeah, but that, I don’t know, I wish we were, we all live closer, but we’re all, all the way across the U.S. right now. But thankfully, technology, social media, recording content together, trips, Vegan Strong, Plant Bill, it all helps us come together a few times a year, at least.
[Giacomo]Although right now I have to say, I’m pretty happy about not traveling. We’ve traveled most of the year and I’m like, nope, I just want to chill. And last week was my do nothing week.
Take my, I’m literally dead to the world. Pretty much. I don’t want to think about anything I normally do, my routine.
I don’t want to think about work. I just taking just pure time off. Usually what I do, Alice, when I take time off, I’m like, Ooh, now I can focus all this desire to achieve and be productive.
And I could focus on keeping up with my normal routine that I’m usually fighting to keep up with. My laundry, fold the fasten up, set up my outfits for the next week. Nope.
I’m going to watch all of my chores pile up in front of me. I’m not going to do anything. And it was everything that I hoped it could be.
And then some what’s that’s kind of a lie. I was so used to my routine that the second I didn’t have it, I started rebelling and just doing stupid things and making like bad life choices. Like, Oh, I’m just going to eat 10 snacks in a row because I have no rhyme or reason to be in any routine right now.
And it feels like crap because that’s who I am. And I need to keep, I didn’t even know it was coming for me, but boy, did it come for me. But then eventually I settled in.
I’m like, Oh, this is nice. And I can just chill. So that’s what my week was kind of like, as far as how it felt last week.
You know, you were with your family and it sounded magical. Congratulations to your sister. That’s incredible.
[Alice]Yes.
[Giacomo]Newlywed.
[Alice]We had an amazing, beautiful wedding. And we stayed the whole weekend at this venue and staying there with my family. You know, that’s like a perfect ideal world, being able to be super close to my loved ones, like at all times.
So I’m sad it’s over, but we have so many amazing photos. And my gosh, it was just fun dressing up because I really never dress up. I used to be a person that loved to have a bunch of different outfits and stuff for all kinds of different occasions.
But now I’m very minimalist. I have very few clothes. I was bridesmaid, so I had a full length evening gown on.
My sister was generous enough to have bridesmaids get hair and makeup done. So I had Lagertha braids, some Viking braids, had a full face of makeup, which I never wear makeup. It’s invisible since they’re so blonde.
And that’s it. That’s the extent of my normal makeup. So I felt very glamorous.
And we got lots of compliments. Everyone loved my braids. Yeah, yeah.
I wish we should go back and do it all over again. Because even after like the food and everything was over, we were just dancing as much as we humanly possibly could. We barely sat down like the whole night.
[Giacomo]To be a fly on the wall for that event. I get to live vicariously through you. I love weddings.
I’m a sucker for big celebrations and parties. You actually have me thinking back though, to some of the times where there were giant events, but it was like, okay, well, it’s my cousin Vinny’s wedding. No, not ironically, literally, my cousin Vinny.
[Alice]It’s a cute movie.
[Giacomo]I don’t know if it was my, I think it was my first competition ever, I want to say. And I was like, I’ll be damned if I’m not bringing my Tupperware and my meals and like everyone’s inside having their catering. I’m outside by the car.
And he’s like, bro, he’s like trying to show me and talk to me. He’s like, come inside. And I’m like, no, I’m eating my asparagus out of my thing because I’m competing in three weeks.
And to stick with my routine and my habits. I’m hoping that for you, or I’m assuming I should say, although I shouldn’t assume that you were able to perhaps check out of like your normal habits and your normal routine while you were there. And I honestly, I feel like this is kind of a nice way to get into what we’re talking about, which is how to keep forward momentum with habits, right?
Because I mean, you and I are, okay, I’m not, I can’t speak for you. I think, I feel like you and I are pretty similar where we rock routine and we like being creatures of habit and we like our habits to be very detailed and clear. Like this is what we’ll be doing for the week and we have it planned out.
Right. But like, how can you, how can you force that out of life? You know what I mean?
[Alice]Yeah. Yeah. I feel like habits are, this can be a more challenging topic for some.
But if you are, you know, into fitness, if you’re a person who, you know, has the right habits, that’s really what I wanted to start this off with was like, you know, your habits are your health and your fitness. When we cut, when it comes down to it, habits are the foundation. Without your habits, like you can, you can toss all that out the window, really.
Habits are your lifestyle. Habits are your priorities. I mean, as it should be, I think fitness should be at least one of life’s priorities.
I think, I think that’s another problem. A lot of people hear, oh, fitness should be a priority. They think that fitness should, we’re saying that fitness should be the only priority and that’s, that’s not it at all.
When you make fitness one of, one of your life’s priorities, then that is going to equate to better quality of life, right? So like, that’s really like the heart and soul of, of fitness. I mean, starting there are behaviors.
I think, I don’t know, you want to talk about diet culture a little bit?
[Giacomo]What about it?
[Alice]I think people, diet culture has sort of taught, sort of brainwashed us, sort of tricked everyone into thinking that, you know, they’ll sell you a program and you just have to get with this program. It’ll teach you how to get from point A to point B and say like, you know, lose da, da, da, da, amount of weight in six weeks, eight weeks, however long they’re trying to market at you, right? And so they convince you that like, the diet is short.
The diet is easy. And then like, you don’t need anything else other than this diet, but it’s so short-sighted. It’s so short-sighted that it leaves us totally unprepared for real life.
Think about what’s after the diet. It doesn’t prepare us for the maintenance phase. So habits, habits are super, super like, that’s it.
That’s, that’s the bones of like your whole, I mean, your whole fitness programs.
[Giacomo]I think- Well, I like where you’re starting this conversation to circle back to you saying that your habits are your everything, basically. And you’re absolutely right because it’s so easy to negotiate away from your priorities when your habits seem like they’re a chore or they’re unreasonable, or they’re things that you plug into what you do. It’s like, oh no, these are the things that get you healthier and keep you healthy.
And if fitness is important to you and you can’t have your health without your fitness, I’m a strong, yes, I’m biased. I’m a fitness coach, but I’m a strong believer in that one has to be complemented by the other for both, for either or to exist. You absolutely need to uncompromisingly find a way for your habits to be a part of your life.
That doesn’t mean that you have to be in a set routine. That doesn’t mean you have to do X, Y, and Z every single day for it to work. Habits should change.
The way that you engage with your habits, whatever they are, that you need to drink water and you need to get a certain amount of water and you know that you need to get a certain amount of protein every day, whatever it is. You can do it the same way for a year straight. And then all of a sudden, maybe there’s an emotional reason why it just stops working.
Or maybe there’s a life event that throws you off. Or maybe the resources that you have, you don’t know, you no longer have access to. Or maybe you get bored or any number of reasons.
There’s any number of reasons why your habits can, you can start to look at it and be like, this feels like work. These things are not possible. Why am I doing these things?
And that’s why I want to, again, just go back and be like, yeah, totally, Alice. It’s really important to understand first and foremost that your habits are your everything. That is your health.
[Alice]Yeah. So this is kind of a tough topic. When I, when I first was, I remember, I remember getting like the assignment, you know, we got the list of like what the next like eight podcasts we’re all going to do.
And it’s, and I remember plugging them into my calendar and I didn’t even really like take a hard look at all of them. Probably because this one is the last one on this little chunk of list. Right.
So the topic being like how to keep that forward momentum with your habits. I’m like, dang, that’s a really tough thing to talk about. But I think, I think I got, I think I got some good tips here.
One of the things I guess I kind of alluded to this is making fitness a part of your personality. And I say a part of, because again, people hear this and they’re going to be like, I’m not going to make fitness my entire personality. I’m not just going to be like, I’m the gym bro or the gym girl, you know, that’s fine.
I’m not asking for it to be your, your whole, whole thing. But it does have to resonate with you some way. It does have to define you in a little bit of a way, as far as just like you take pride in your health, you take pride in some people.
Some people might go the direction of taking pride in their physique, but I hope that if you are one of those people that takes pride in your physique, that you have something else, a little more like intrinsic, a little more like bringing you joy on the inside, because if we are just coming at this from a physique perspective, these habits are not going to last, right?
[Giacomo]I’m thinking about myself and I’m, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I remember having this conversation with myself and with others here with our audience, with Danny and just in general, in the fitness industry, the way that we talked about it. And it was like, fall in love with the process.
It’s about the process, not the goal. And I’m just thinking about what you’re saying here to myself and I’m saying to myself, darn it, I’m just still obsessed with the goal and the outcome and I can’t see what’s on the other side because that’s me. That’s what I get out of it.
I’m sure there’s more, I just can’t think about it right now. Like there has to be something about your process that you feel strong, you feel capable, are looking forward to gym culture and hanging out with others or being around others that are, whatever it is. I don’t know.
But there’s got to be reasons for you to think about your long-term health. I mean, whatever they are, right? And I like what you’re saying also about it being a part of your personality.
No, it doesn’t mean that it has to be your identity or it has to define you. But to your point, like you get to challenge your level of confidence in what you’re doing. You get to rise to the occasion and say, this isn’t something that is, that I’m hoping for or reaching for.
This is a part of who I am and what I do. You become who you want to be without it being your, like you said, your only or even necessarily your main priority, but it becomes something that is a part of you essentially.
[Alice]I love that. Right. I mean, like, you know, what are we ultimately like?
Habits are the building blocks to get us to our goals, right? So I think part of the, another part of this, like another side of the coin would be like, they always say this, right? Set small goals.
So, you know, we talk about physique goals. That’s something that comes up so much in the fitness industry. It’s almost like it’s all fitness is about is your physique.
No, no, no, it’s not. You know, I challenge you to find something that has nothing to do with your physique, right? I challenge you to come up with some kind of maybe strength goals.
Maybe I want to be able to squat or deadlift my body weight within the first eight months of my fitness program, right? One that gets a lot of people excited. I want to be able to do a pull-up, right?
I want to be able to do a dip. I want to be able to do a pistol squat or some of you yoga peeps out there, like I want to be able to do the yoga handstand. I mean, we could take it even further.
You know, you could pick up like casual crossfit and start learning all kinds of really cool tricks, right? People get really, really motivated by the cool stuff that we, like the physical, like tricks that you can learn, right? So whether that be from yoga, whether that be from crossfit, whether that be I want to learn how to do a clean jerk, right?
Find something that gets you excited. What else? Oh, oh, so we’re going to a lot of marathons with the Vegan Strong Booth.
[Giacomo]Yes.
[Alice]And so that, it really inspires me a lot because these runners, like the running community, that’s really special. And the coolest thing I think about the running community is that like you don’t have to be like top, top, top pro doing the best, be the fastest, be the most famous. There are tons of people that are in the marathon community that are just like, I’m just here to walk.
And that’s accepted and it’s welcomed. And I find that to just be like so beautiful. I don’t know.
Can you think of any others?
[Giacomo]Well, I’m wondering, do you not, what do you, are you comparing and contrasting that to gym culture?
[Alice]I mean, it’s definitely a culture. What would you say? I mean, yes, yes, yes.
There’s a running culture.
[Giacomo]Same gym culture, for sure, because I love it. And I think there’s a special place, there could be a special place that anyone’s heart for it. It is a different kind of vibe though, than a race.
Yeah, for sure. Now I’m thinking about practice too, like, because you’re talking about race day or you’re talking about X, but I’m thinking about, because I used to run, I’m thinking about when you practice, when you go out to your track and field area, if you run over there, or if you go on the trail or the path where people are running and there’s that unspoken kind of, we’re here to train together or cycling, for example.
And I guess it’s a lot similar, like when you’re in that kind of environment to the way that it is in the gym, where everyone’s quietly doing their thing. But yeah, yeah. I mean, there are some similarities, there are some differences too, because you have the mirrors and you have people that are trying to change their body composition and there’s a pressure.
But not to get away from what you’re suggesting though, to step outside of what you’re doing, where you’re just focused on getting stronger and training and putting on muscle and finding what your muscles can do for you and enjoy other kinds of things. I think you can also think of the things that I can do because I’m stronger that have nothing to do with sport, nothing to do with exercise, whatever it is, right? In some ways you’re in pain because you’re recovering from training and training can be painful, but in other ways, you’re stronger.
You can get up out of a chair and you could sit down and you’re stronger because you train regularly, right?
[Alice]Yeah, I think lifestyle skills are absolutely huge. There are so many people that, I’d say most people I work with, at some point after, and this is really a pretty quick result, it can be after a month, two months, they’ll be like, you know what? I can lift this bag of mulch.
You know what? I can get down off the ground after gardening. With no help, I can, you name it.
I mean, there’s all kinds of just like things that you really quickly lose these skills sometimes and it sneaks up on you and then suddenly you’re in the gym and you’re lifting and maybe you’re trying to lose weight too, right? But it’s like, okay, you’re doing all these great things for your body and now it’s like, bam, unexpected reward. And remembering these little wins is a huge, huge part of what can keep you going because they’re just going to give you that internal joy, right?
Because when we’re changing our body, that’s going to take time. That’s going to take a long time, longer for some people. I’m looking at freaking putting on as much muscle as I can so I can go from a pro bikini athlete to hopefully a competitive women’s physique competitor.
That’s what I’m doing. And since we don’t take drugs, since we don’t take performance-enhancing drugs, that takes years. If I were to just be focused on that, that would be so draining and so depressing at this point because it’s just so far away.
Man, I don’t get to compete again for another two years. What? Most people would just give up, give up.
[Giacomo]But there is a buy-in phase. And something that we’ve been saying for a very long time is that what you want to see happen in one year will take five years. And that’s if you do everything right.
You learn along the way too. It’s a difference between the year spent training and your training age. If you’re familiar with that theory, the year spent training is how long you’ve been training consistently.
For those of you who are not already familiar with training age, how many years you have on your belt consistently doing pretty much everything right. For example, let’s say that you’ve been training five years consistently, but you have some holes along the way that need to be plugged up. And maybe there’s about 20% of your process that could have been done better.
Well, now your training age is four because you’re missing 20% of your process. So while that can be discouraging, you can also fall in love with the process of ways to not perfect, to make improvements over time, to realize in hindsight, because you will have blind spots, what you can course correct. And also realize that the opportunity is there and the potential is there to really get not just your buy-in, because in the beginning when you start training, that’s when the most results happen, but your long-term, right?
What you’re looking for in the long-term. It can be one of those things where it can really challenge you because again, the thought process, right? Falling in love with the process is something that makes you a better person.
It makes you more capable and better at everything that you do, because you realize what you need to do to take care of yourself. And it’s so easy to neglect yourself, right? It’s so easy to worry about others.
It’s so easy to give to something, whether it’s your job, whether it’s your family, whether it’s a goal that you’re going after that had nothing to do with your fitness or your health. And before you know it, you’re negotiating your time and your energy and your efforts away from taking care of yourself. But if you know that you want to take care of yourself, you find a way to do so, because in order to be able to make fitness a part of who you are and what you do, you have to find a way.
You absolutely have to. And again, it’s a process. Maybe you’re the type of person that you haven’t been able to train for five years consistently.
Maybe it’s been on one year, off for three months, on for six months, off for six months, et cetera, et cetera. And you come back and you’re still putting in all that effort, that effort doesn’t go to waste. Not only does it not go to waste, it’s something that you can look back on and say to yourself, well, what can I do to make this more routine?
I feel like that’s literally the nook and cranny is what we’re talking about, right? Because we started with, okay, well, don’t slip. This is motivating.
Find a way. But what about, Alice, all those times where, for whatever the reasons were that you realized after the fact, you had a long stretch of time where you couldn’t be routine, where you don’t have that momentum, where your habits are, in fact, falling off. What can you speak to the person that experiences that and gets discouraged or self-deprecating or just straight up gives up or doesn’t believe in himself and says, I can’t do this.
This is too much to start all over again. What do you say to that?
[Alice]What I say to them, I’d say, all right, let’s talk about psychology for a minute here. There’s something that we have that people don’t really put a name to or really even sometimes even realize it’s happening. But all of us have this inner narrative, this inner dialogue that’s going on in our heads.
And I will tell you that this inner narrative, this inner dialogue can be the biggest thing that holds people back from getting started, from pushing really hard to make these big changes, to keep going at it, even though the journey is going to be a long journey. Because this inner dialogue, this inner narrative that’s going on, it’s going to constantly be saying insults to yourself. We look in the mirror and we’re like, I look so fat in this outfit.
I hate the way my legs look. How could I let my butt get so big? It’s terrible things that are just playing in our brains.
And then maybe you do start to even see some success. And maybe you have started to lose some weight. Maybe you have started to put on some muscle.
Maybe you have started to build some skills. That inner dialogue is still going to be there being like, you’re never going to reach your goals, Alice. You should just give up and go back to the way things were because you were happier doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and putting yourself last.
It’s constantly, constantly going to be tearing you down. And I challenge you to even put a name, name that psyche and start to recognize it and start to like, stop it. There’s no way that you can completely erase this, but you can have, you can build these skills to, you know, catch it, correct it, have a more positive self-image, have more self-confidence.
Because when we start to catch that and we start to, you know, for me, I’ll say something out loud to correct it sometimes if it’s really, really just like something ugly going on in my own head. Like instead, I will counter that with, all right, let me find something positive that’s happened. Let me talk about how my legs have changed in this positive way.
Let me talk about how my body is able to now have me like run across the parking lot so I can go get my freaking wallet out of the car in time while my partner is standing in line because I forgot my wallet in my car. These little wins, appreciating your body for like your physical abilities, for being able to, you know, go hike, hike a mountain, go pick up your kids, play with your kids, you know, to hug your family. Like these things, these things can help us just like appreciate our body and appreciate ourselves and learn to start talking to ourselves with more respect.
Like talk to yourself like you would talk to a very good friend, right? What kind of, I mean, you go, you talk to me about like what are your challenges with this? How do you deal with it?
[Giacomo]Well, you’ve opened up a giant can of vegan sour gummy worms over here because I do understand finding the parts of your inner monologue that you choose to repress and that you’re too afraid to, there’s too much fear or shame around putting it in them because then they become real and then you have to face them. But it’s the same reason why you don’t take pictures of yourself or you don’t look at yourself in the mirror because now you have to face not only what you feel, you also have to face what you want. And until you’re ready, and I know this is tough love speaking also, but I think it’s important, until you’re ready to face what you want, you’re not going to get it.
And then the other part is how are you supposed to understand what you feel and how you feel if you’re not willing to go through those feelings, for example. And then the bravest part about all of it is literally what you’re saying where you take the power away and you truly understand your inner voice and it no longer controls you. You get to call the shots and you get to not just reframe, but you get to change who you are fundamentally.
And then after all that, guess what? That’s where the behavior starts to change, right? It doesn’t change because, well, that’s a lie.
It can change because you are able to, I think this is where it starts. I think, Alice, as a starting point, you take the easy ones, the low-hanging fruit, and you do the things that are simple. Eat three squares.
Have 20 to 40 grams of protein in each one of those squares. Eat a vegetable once a day. Eat a piece of fruit once a day.
And then start to get more detail with it. Count your calories, blah, blah, blah. Be aware of your portions and apply the same principle to your training, for example.
But these things will only discipline and knowing what your habits need to look like on the surface, on paper, will only take you so far. If that critic inside of you that you are perhaps even unaware of or you’re fueling the negative inner critic and thinking it’s going to help you, but it’s biting you in the butt in some ways that you don’t even understand, it can also be the death of you. And what are you going to do at the end?
You’re going to blame yourself because who else is going to take responsibility for your actions? Literally, no one. You are.
And what a vicious cycle that could be. So I love that you’re encouraging the work to be done as opposed to just relying on the simple, straightforward habits and being like, well, if there’s a break in them, okay, get back on your thing. Get back on the, what’s that?
I’m trying to make it non-English, but failing miserably. I don’t know, your horse or something. I don’t know.
The gym thing, the horse. Stop me, please. I’m not making sense.
But anyways, yeah, get silly, like get back onto your discipline and do those simple habits. Like, yes, but there’s a lot more work that you can do in that whole while, whether you journal, whether you have a supportive friend who will listen, however, also engage you in conversation, or perhaps you seek the support of professionals. You come here, get a coach, for example, any one of the above can help.
[Alice]Community. Community, guys, is another huge, huge thing. Before I go on to community, it’s like connecting that inner, that narrative we have to your habits.
When your inner narrative is constantly telling you, you suck, you’re never going to do this. You’re never going to be able to build the habits that you need to get to where you want to go. And so that’s that relationship between those two things, right?
Trying to be kinder to yourself, trying to maybe just start with one or two habits a day, right? Usually you start a fitness program and it’s like this whole revamp of your whole lifestyle. And sometimes that can be really rough.
But if you just start by choosing like one or two habits in the beginning and then just sticking with it, now you can prove to yourself like, I can do it. Actually, I am capable. I am competent, you know, building that self-confidence, building that trust in yourself and hanging on to that and using that to change that inner narrative is what’s going to keep you going in the long, in the big picture, in the long journey.
It’s going to help you really, really like reach your goals now that you have now and reach your goals that you’re going to have in six months. Because believe me, they’re going to change. Your goals are going to evolve.
You know, you’re going to come up with all kinds of new things for yourself, but community, community is another huge thing that can help you stay on top of your habits. Finding someone to go on walks with you, finding someone to go to the gym with you, or just finding someone that is like-minded, who you guys can be friends and, you know, even just hanging out with someone who is like-minded and has fitness goals. Like it can be, it can be so encouraging and it can keep you going because you inspire one another.
You build off of each other’s energy. This is why fitness classes are so powerful for so many, right? There’s a lot of camaraderie in that and there’s a lot of encouragement in community and that’s one of the coolest things about our community, Vegan Proteins.
We have the fitness community on Facebook. We have people come into the Plant Built and the Plant Built competitions and the Vegan Strong booth and we do really, and we have our team calls. All these things can really help just like provide you with that support and that sense of like, I have friends that are doing this too and it can, man, that’s, that’s a big one.
[Giacomo]What kind of rabbit holes have you found people go down when they’re unintentionally comparing and contrasting or getting wrapped up in social circles, whether it’s social media or whether it’s people at the gym or whether it’s different kinds of research or things they’re looking up and they’re starting to get in their own way because of all this external noise when it comes to whether, how they see themselves, why they’re doing it, whatever the case, whatever it is.
[Alice]The biggest thing with women I’d say is we’ve all been brainwashed into believing that smaller is better no matter what, thinner is better no matter what. You’ve always got to lose weight but so many of you understand, are starting to understand like how important muscle is for health. I tell you, the physique of your dreams that you are coming to us looking for is not 10 pounds down, it’s probably 15 pounds up and that terrifies people and it takes people years and years to accept that and to really, really commit to that and to commit to, you know, being uncomfortable for a little while in order to reach your ultimate, ultimate physique in your ultimate dreams.
[Giacomo]Super scary and the hard part from our perspective is when you know what someone needs to hear and you really probably need to say it but you also know that you’re probably going to push them away and wind up continuing to do what they do but the alternative is to either lie to them or hope that eventually they get it and then you feel like you’re doing them a disservice. So it is really tricky to know how to find that opening, you just hope there’s enough trust with someone. Maybe you’re watching this or listening to this podcast and you’re like, you know what, I’m going to give that, going to give this a shot and see what someone else has to say and be open to some feedback because you’re right and then you can have it on the opposite end too where the stereotypical male client or lifter or whomever cannot be ever big enough, right?
Whether it’s, you know, we call it bigorexia, right? Right. Can’t possibly be big enough or the textbook definition for it is muscle dysphoria disorder.
Yeah, there’s no amount of pump, there’s no amount of muscle size.
[Alice]Oh yeah. I think no matter who you are working on your physique, that’s going to be a thing at some point in time. I think women will reach that point eventually but they’re still going to be confused, they’re still going to be thinking, if I just lose 10 more pounds and it’s going to show off my muscle, but you don’t have that muscle, it’s not there to start by default because you’ve been, again, you’ve been, you’ve probably been sedentary for the past 10 plus years.
So we’ve got to literally start from scratch and that means, that means putting on some weight and a coach can help you do that in a way that’s going to keep you in control, keep it looking as good as possible and then when we go through that build phase, you know, sort of cleaning it up at the end, you know, so we can do some amazing things. We have such good science to get your physique where it needs to be but we just get stuck in this, like, I gotta lose weight, I gotta lose weight, I gotta lose weight and you won’t believe anything other than that. Another thing, another thing, I’d say another thing that people get stuck on, again, I’m talking a lot about women but thank you Giacomo for bringing up the guy’s side of the coin on this, is people just don’t eat.
People in this, people in America, like, we just don’t eat. You wake up in the morning, you might have your coffee, you might have a donut at work and then you go all day or you get takeout, you know, at your desk and eat in a hurry at your desk. Then you get home and your is a glass of wine or your dinner is something that is not real food and we just live our lives barely eating.
The calories that we get are all coming from that, you know, ridiculous Starbucks drink that’s probably 600, 700 calories and you think that that’s free calorie-wise. That, that wine that you’re drinking, right? Your evening beer.
People get stuck because it’s like, if you don’t eat, you’re not gonna be able to change anything about your body. If you don’t eat, chances are you’re not gonna be able to lose weight. I mean, I know it’s not like we’re able to completely, like, eat zero calories, right?
We have to have something to survive, but we’ve been starving ourselves for so long, not really nourishing our bodies, right? That your body’s just like, nope, we’re not, we’re not gonna lose bodies that, nope, we’re not gonna put on muscle. So that’s probably the single biggest thing that I’d say most of our potential clients can do on their own is get yourself eating three meals a day.
Real meals. Don’t skip breakfast. Cook the food in your home.
It doesn’t have to be like five-star restaurant meals. You can have the same meals on repeat. You might get a little tired of it, but you’re going to be in a lot better shape if you just eat and make food.
[Giacomo]Totally. Yeah. It’s worth having the routine and getting tired of the routine and then trying to course correct and say, okay, what kind of different meals can I have?
What kind of different things can I buy? Because I’m getting bored of these foods. Then the alternative where, like you said, there’s a fear of eating or you’re not introducing enough structure and routine into your day.
[Alice]Or you’re only eating at restaurants and you’re eating five times as many calories as you think you’re eating.
[Giacomo]Exactly. So obviously the answer lies in between where you have the best of both worlds, but you don’t want to swing too far in either which direction. But if you haven’t done the thing where you have the straight routine and you’re like, these are my five meals for the next two weeks.
I’m just going to do this. And now you build a habit. Then in my opinion, it’s like definitely do that.
Are you going to eat that way for the next five, 10, 20, 30 years? Absolutely not. However, you’re going to become more familiar with how to build a plate and with the process of doing that routinely.
Or maybe you do wind up taking those five meals and having them for the next month or two. Maybe you don’t. But if you don’t, you’ll be much more confident to still incorporate other meals into that kind of routine.
And the opposite is in breaking routine is giving yourself some flexibility as opposed to running, screaming in the opposite direction where you’re like, oh, I’m just going to eat less or I don’t have time for this, or it’s not working, etc., etc., etc. Give it time and you develop a good, healthy routine and you stick it out. That’s another thing actually, Alice, is when someone doesn’t see the results that they’re looking for right away and that’s another way where people lose their momentum as well.
I think that’s incredibly common. People wind up coming to us like that or they come here and the buying phase is done and now the results are slower or they haven’t gotten to their outcome fast enough. That’s something worth talking about too.
[Alice]Oh, yeah. I think diet culture does a really good job of getting people started on the journey. And a lot of these diets are going to be really extreme.
They’re going to be like, don’t eat any carbs. Bad decision. Bad decision.
And then they’re going to find out, man, it’s just too hard. How are you supposed to do that? It’s too hard because it’s a bad idea.
And so you’re going to come to us and we’re going to say, you got to eat carbs and you got to eat fats too and you got to eat protein and you got to have some kind of idea about what’s going into your body. Right. And I tell you, it’s a lot easier to start by like start learning about the things that are on your plate once you’re already in a routine of eating things on a plate.
Right. Because, yeah, a lot of people come like I said, a lot of people come to us and they’re just not eating. And then we can’t we got we got to start like three steps back first.
First, we got to work on eating food and then we got to work on learning like, all right, there’s a lot of fat in X, Y, Z foods or there’s not enough protein in A, B, C foods. Right. And trying to find a balance and trying to find a way to nourish our bodies.
So, yeah, coach can help you just like, you know, you talked about earlier, you know, you may you may have a training age, but if a lot of us start out on this fitness journey, trying to go out about it on our own and trying to figure it out on our own, and then we end up spending a couple of years like maybe seeing a little bit of progress, but we could have been seeing a lot more progress if we had the right plan in front of us the whole time, you know.
So it’s just like making that time more efficient because it’s never fast, guys. Changing your body is never going to be fast. Like, yeah, you were able to get up off the floor on your own or, yeah, you were able to lift something around the house and move it.
You know, we need to celebrate these things. And I almost recommend, to a lot of people, I recommend just keeping like a journal of these things because these are the these are more things that are going to help you build that confidence in yourself. What are some other small wins that you would say celebrating?
[Giacomo]Other small wins that I would say are worth celebrating, going shopping and buying healthy groceries. That’s a win.
[Alice]Making yourself dinner. Filling up the week. Filling up that water bottle.
[Giacomo]No, really. Seriously. Getting to the gym.
Literally just getting to the gym.
[Alice]And just giving yourself credit, giving yourself credit for these things. This is how you celebrate, you know. I think a lot of people come to us for like check-ins week after week, and it’s hard because it’s not, you know, you’re not getting, you know, like people on social media trying to sell you, you’re going to get a six pack of abs in six weeks.
Oh, my gosh. And so then they come to us and it’s like, it’s not reality. That’s not going to happen, you know.
And we’ve got to, we’ve got to help you. We’ve got to help encourage you and help you keep going. Right.
But most of the time, you’ll just be ready to like throw in the towel. And it’s like, well, you just proved that you just made yourself dinner every night this week. You filled up that water bottle every morning.
Like you’ve just proved that you have what it takes to get that part of your habits under control, in line. So there are just a few more habits. They’re simple habits, they’re not easy habits.
Celebrating that and giving yourself that credit is huge as far as keeping that forward momentum.
[Giacomo]It is. And not wanting the result and the outcome before you get through the process. And it takes time for anything to take.
Just because you know how to do something and even just because, let’s say you’ve done something before and you know how to do it, doesn’t mean that you are going to be able to right away just because you know exactly what you need to do. I can hand you all the answers on a silver platter. It doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to do it from day one.
Doesn’t mean you’re going to do it on day 366. It just means that you know what you need to do. And over time, the answer will come to you and you will become comfortable with it.
And it will work for you. It will feel achievable and like something that you can do routinely. It will be something that gets you the result you’re looking for down the line.
You could literally stop yourself dead in your tracks before you start. You see it happen time and time again. If you want something really bad and you think it and you have it in your line of sight and you know what you need to do, you have all the pieces of the puzzle.
Doesn’t mean you can be able to put the puzzle together right away. It’s still going to be confusing. Nothing is like that.
We’re not machines. And your feelings will definitely be involved whether you like it or not. It’s a process.
You got to take the time. Put in the time and give things time to take.
[Alice]Give it time. Another one. Another one people get stuck on.
Last thing I can think of. I’m constantly thinking that you want to get back to how you looked in the past. You know, there’s a lot of people being like, oh, well, when I was in high school, I was this size.
When I was in high school, I fit into this dress. When I was in high school, blah, blah, blah, blah. When you were in high school, guys, you were a child in a child’s body and you do not want to look like a child as an adult.
I promise you that. So trying to get away from focusing on the past and where your body has been in the past and think about all the potential positive changes you could make. Building muscle, doing body recomposition, moving forward.
Yeah, it’ll be different. Yeah, it’s uncharted territory. It’s not certain how you’re going to look, right?
But I can also promise you that if and when you do lose that weight, you’re not going to look like you did in high school. So either way is actually not you’re not you’re not certain about what you’re going to look like in either direction. We convince ourselves that we’re going to look like we did in high school when we lose that weight.
It’s just not reality.
[Giacomo]Totally, for sure. I do think we’ve probably given enough on this, but I do hope that y’all have found this topic helpful. And I’m curious to hear your thoughts on.
How you find your challenges when it comes to habits and when it comes to losing momentum, how you get back, how you get back at it, reach out to us, we can support and let us know what else you want us to talk about. Should I take us home, Alice? Yeah, do it.
Thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels radio. Stay in touch with us on the socials at Vegan Proteins and at Muscles by Brussels and hit the contact button on veganproteins.com whenever you’d like and fill out a coaching application and we will get back to you within one day. We can have a conversation and help you reach your goals.
Once again, my name is Giacomo.
[Alice]I’m Alice.
[Giacomo]We’ll talk to you soon.
