Ep 276 – Ben Coaches Sawyer in Real Time

Ben and Sawyer sit down for an in-depth look at what coaching actually looks like in practice. They revisit Sawyer’s successful cut from the upper 170s to the mid-160s, the challenges of hunger and fear of muscle loss, and how slowing down the transition out of a cut helped him maintain his results.

They also discuss the impact of adding steps and cardio, adjusting training frequency and volume, managing joint health, and using autoregulation. Finally, they map out Sawyer’s return to coaching as he begins a gradual muscle-building phase focused on making progress without rushing the process or getting caught up in second-guessing every decision.

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TRANSCRIPT

Ben (00:00)
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Russell’s Radio. Today I am joined by Sawyer, and we are going to be doing a little bit of an experiment today with the podcast. So, Sawyer and I have been working together for a period of time now, and Sawyer had taken a brief hiatus from myself, kind of overviewing his process, and now we are restarting.

Ben (00:25)
things back up together after a few months. So I had the idea of, hey, we had planned on jumping on a call together to kind of just discuss what’s happened since we took a little bit of a pause and now coming back. And I thought this might just be a really good opportunity for folks to see an insight live time into

Ben (00:42)
Coaching and what coaching can look like. So usually when we’re doing our coaching, we’ll just send video messages back and forth between our clients. So it’s unusual, I would say for us to do live calls, but because of the podcast medium and because Sawyer and I obviously we chat in this way from time to time anyways, we figured, hey, why not turn it try to turn it into a podcast? So we’ll see if this ends up getting aired. and if you guys enjoy this, please let me know and we can do maybe more sort of case studies or similar things.

Ben (01:11)
sort of, you know, live coaching out of one little off the beaten path podcast sort of explorations. So with that said, before we get into the nitty-gritty and talking about the whole coaching process and what we’ve been through together and where we’re gonna go from here, Sawyer, how’s your day going, man?

Coach Sawyer (01:27)
Pretty good. Yeah. Some progress being made on the Spanish visa stuff, which is really exciting. So that felt good. had a little bit of a chill weekend, I guess you could say, ’cause Mia’s been visiting a friend in the Canary Islands of Spain, so that’s cool. and it’s nice to miss your partner a little bit. You know what I mean? You’re like, you know, you kinda are together all day every day, and you kinda gets a little mundane, but like when she’s gone, I’m like

Coach Sawyer (01:51)
You know, like you kinda it’s kinda nice. So yeah, I’m excited for her to come back tonight. gonna make some ramen after this. Life is good, man, you know? Can’t complain too much right now.

Ben (02:01)
You’re the king of ramen. What’s your other go to ramen recipe?

Coach Sawyer (02:03)
Yeah.

Coach Sawyer (02:03)
my gosh. I’m I’m so lazy. I just do well if if I were in the States, I would probably get that like Chef Woo high protein ramen. I don’t know if you’ve seen that one. Yeah. Pretty good. Honestly, pretty impressed with that one. but since I’m in Europe, it’s not really available. I haven’t seen any like protein ramens here, but I’m not worried about it because I can fit it in my macros right now anyway.

Coach Sawyer (02:24)
actually to be honest, I was doing it when I was cutting for a long a long time too, because I love it that much. even though it’s like you know, 500 calories just for the friggin’ noodles. so I do I do packet ramen with there’s a a brand here called Jin, J I N. That’s amazing. and add bok choy, mushrooms, carrots, you know, broccoli sometimes, and then tofu.

Coach Sawyer (02:47)
And then or sometimes like these little daring chicken equivalent here. so yeah, like one of the things that like a staple for us now, honestly. So

Ben (02:55)
Yeah, we we we love the Chef Woo ramen. We get them occasionally

Coach Sawyer (02:58)
Yeah.

Ben (03:00)
kind of just as like hey, last minute, if I can’t pack Dana like an actual lunch, I’ll throw one of those in there, or like

Coach Sawyer (03:05)
Yeah, yeah.

Ben (03:06)
we’re just in the mood for it. So we’ll keep usually one or two of the chicken and the beef ones around. But I think that’s

Coach Sawyer (03:11)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (03:12)
a really great idea of taking a food or a meal that some people might look at it and say, well, that’s just, you know, a processed food or a processed meal, but then you’re bulking it out with

Ben (03:22)
vegetables and tofu and you really enjoy it and you look forward to it and those things are so

Coach Sawyer (03:26)
Yeah.

Ben (03:26)
important.

Coach Sawyer (03:27)
Big time. And it hydrates me a lot, you know. we’ve been talking about like sodium intake as well and how that’s kind of been demonized, I think, in in context that it necess shouldn’t necessarily be. So I’ve been like kind of leaning into that and I really I really enjoy it and it’s one of those things that helps me feel like and I can have more control over my diet too. Like obviously if I could get more protein in the in a less calorie package, I would probably go for that because I’m not like

Coach Sawyer (03:52)
too much of a stickler about it has to be this brand or whatever. but like, yeah, it feels a little bit cheaty, but it’s like, yeah, I can I can put so much healthy food in there that I probably wouldn’t be eating that many vegetables if I didn’t. So on balance I feel pretty good about it. I mean, as long as my blood work stays good and all that, I’ll be I’ll be happy. You know? Yeah.

Ben (04:09)
Yeah. It’s a net positive. On that topic,

Ben (04:12)
I’m curious, how often do you try to get blood work done?

Coach Sawyer (04:14)
Okay, so okay, this is super embarrassing, but every time I get needles, I every time I get blood work done, actually, it’s not just needles, it’s like when my blood gets taken out, I actually pass out. Like actually. Are you like my god. I didn’t realize we were the same person.

Ben (04:27)
I’m ki I’m kind of similar. Like I I think I’ve only actually

Ben (04:32)
passed out or fainted once, but I always get really lightheaded and dizzy and I have to sit down and the nurse comes over with the juice and the crackers and whatever.

Coach Sawyer (04:37)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We’re

Coach Sawyer (04:41)
like, thank you. Yeah, man. It’s like, it’s super weird. Like, even the last time I did it to get my blood work done, Mia was with me and she’s like, all right, we’re gonna we’re gonna figure this out. What the hell’s going on here? And so I didn’t even look at it. I was just like, okay, it’s cool, no big deal. After the needle was out, I passed out.

Coach Sawyer (04:59)
It was the weirdest. I hadn’t even looked at it. She was like, my god, you’re passing out right now. I was like, Yep. It went down. Like, it’s the weirdest thing. so yeah, I don’t do it that often. But last time I did it, I think was five or six years ago. So I it’s it’s time for me to do it again. Yeah.

Ben (05:14)
Yeah, I’ve got my first appointment with my PCP. my god, it was so bad because I switched off my parents’ insurance when I turned twenty-six or

Coach Sawyer (05:22)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (05:23)
twenty seven. Yeah, I think it was when I turned twenty six,

Coach Sawyer (05:25)
Twenty six.

Ben (05:26)
like a year or two ago, and I was just basically

Ben (05:29)
Delaying and pushing it back and just being, I’ll do

Coach Sawyer (05:31)
Yeah.

Ben (05:32)
it, you know, do it tomorrow, I’ll do it whenever. And it was just really bad for finding a new PCP and finding a new dentist as well. So I finally went to my new dentist last week and it was great. They were awesome. So I was really glad that I found one right off the bat who was like husband and wife, asked me

Coach Sawyer (05:48)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (05:49)
about myself, took an interest in my job and what I do for a living. He was training one of the local dental students because Boston has a ton of universities, and Boston University, I think.

Ben (05:59)
Because of pretty big dental program as well. So new student, kind of like freshman, was in there asking questions while they were doing the whole checkup, which is kind of fun. And then I have my new appointment for my PCP in a couple weeks here. So I’m probably gonna see if they can do some sort of blood work because it’s been a year

Coach Sawyer (06:15)
Yeah.

Ben (06:16)
or two or something. And I think like the basic panel is

Coach Sawyer (06:18)
Okay.

Ben (06:18)
covered by insurance. And even if it wasn’t, I would probably pay a little bit out of pocket just to.

Ben (06:23)
see what things are at. And of course there are those like concierge one-off sort of services like trying to think of some of the Quest or Lab Core, whatever. I forget the the names of them, where you can go and you can get panels done and it’s pretty affordable. We actually might have some sort of like affiliate link for that for vegan proteins I’ll have to look into that. You might be able to find that on our website.

Coach Sawyer (06:41)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben (06:44)
But I think it’s just yeah it’s a good practice to do every every now and then even if I think

Ben (06:49)
things are in a good range, it’s never a bad idea to get that checked up.

Coach Sawyer (06:53)
Yeah. Yeah, I mean it my results last time were really encouraging. So I think I’m kinda like, I’m fine, but I should I it’s just a good habit to be in, you know what I mean? Like getting your teeth cleaned and checked on and stuff. Like you just you never know what’s happening and it’s a good idea to check. So yeah, I’m definitely gonna do that soon.

Ben (07:10)
Absolutely. So okay. I would love to get into talking now about what we came here for today, which is coaching. So

Coach Sawyer (07:17)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (07:18)
maybe we could start by going back to when we first started working together, which based on my recollection, I think was late fall, maybe winter sort of period of last year. Was it like October, November, somewhere around there that we started working together? Okay, awesome.

Coach Sawyer (07:31)
Actually it was right about a year ago. So right now it’s September. We

Coach Sawyer (07:36)
started talking about it. Yeah, in September and we started like officially in the beginning of October. ‘Cause I didn’t I was in Costa Rica for the entire month of September last year and then when got back

Ben (07:45)
That’s right.

Coach Sawyer (07:46)
is when we started, so October. so yeah, right around a year from yeah, from now. I know.

Ben (07:51)
Time flies, man. That’s crazy.

Coach Sawyer (07:53)
I know, it’s

Coach Sawyer (07:54)
crazy. So I had just come back from Costa Rica and I was feeling not so fabulous about my body composition. I was like, I wanted to be leaner. and I had been trying for a while at that point, and and it was like starting to really affect my confidence as a coach. You know what I mean? I was like, this is weird. Like, I know all the tools, but I keep getting skittish around certain things like losing strength or

Coach Sawyer (08:19)
feeling a little tired or whatever. Like it was just like, or feeling hungry. There were a lot of fears that I had accumulated for whatever reason. And so the last time I was, I was really pretty lean was like 2018. And I was starting to be like, wait, am I even capable of this anymore? Like this is crazy. Has my set point moved up? Am I too old? I was starting to get all these questions and I was like, you know what? Screw this noise. I’m gonna talk to Ben. He’s gonna help me because he knows how my brain works. And sure enough, like you

Coach Sawyer (08:45)
just guided me through the process with so much grace and like you just knew what my brain was doing. And it wasn’t like we reinvented the wheel or did anything crazy. Probably the biggest thing we did was just reduce my freight training frequency, which was awesome. and that that really helped with recovery. but the yeah in terms of like the calories and stuff, it was just patience and diligent like and just not freaking out. You know, when I saw the

Coach Sawyer (09:07)
I remember what like there are a couple of times where like my arm measurement went down or something. You’re like, dude, I know, but it’s okay. You know, I’m losing muscle. Like it’s just leverages changing and fat changing and stuff like that. And sure enough, like at the other side of it, super happy with my body composition, like happier than I’ve been in years. And I was like so glad I did it. And have honestly had some a little bit of flare-ups of fear since then, but honestly have been able to maintain it.

Coach Sawyer (09:32)
For the most part, since then. I’m not quite as dry as I was at the like end of the year or or beginning of the year. But I think that’s a good thing because I was pretty hungry. and so, and now I’m not really hungry anymore. I’m feeling better, more recovered. I have less injuries, and I’m also making progressions in the gym again. And I just want to make sure that continues, and I want to make sure that I don’t

Coach Sawyer (09:55)
have any oversights going forward. But maybe you want to get into the details of the cut a little bit more or something like that or coaching?

Ben (10:01)
Yeah, yeah. I also wanted to mention and just give some kind of context and background about the relationship that you and I have, because a a lot

Coach Sawyer (10:07)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (10:08)
of people might not know that we have known each other before we started working here at Vegan Proteins together. So we met

Coach Sawyer (10:12)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Ben (10:13)
back in early 2022 at another job and we worked there together for a handful of months and we kept in contact after that job and

Ben (10:23)
We started a podcast together and we recorded an episode every single week for like 80 weeks. If you wanna if listeners are curious and you wanna go listen back

Coach Sawyer (10:29)
That was crazy.

Ben (10:31)
to that, the name of the podcast is Where Do You Get Your Protein? And you can

Coach Sawyer (10:35)
Yeah.

Ben (10:35)
probably find it still on Spotify. All the episodes I think are still up there. And so eventually, I came to work at Vegan Protein Sawyer then shortly afterwards. And so we had the opportunity to to chat through the podcast here. So we kind of just transitioned over to

Ben (10:50)
to this sort of medium and style, but we often talk about and reminisce on those days. Like it was fun to just

Coach Sawyer (10:54)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (10:54)
have a time each week where we would get together and catch up and chat. And some weeks it was more just casual and talking about our own process. And that’s something that we’re kind of

Ben (11:03)
Starting to get back to we’ve had some requests for having episodes of the podcast where the coaches are just sitting down and chatting and talking about our own goals and our process. So that

Coach Sawyer (11:11)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (11:12)
you can look forward to to that coming. And if that’s not your thing, no worries. We’ll have plenty of other episodes that are more informational based. And so Sawyer and I have known each other for a long time. And I think through the podcast that we did.

Ben (11:24)
previously and just all of our conversations over time, I feel like I’ve gotten to know you and your psychology and your holdups with fitness really well, especially through that podcast medium, I think, because we

Coach Sawyer (11:34)
I think it

Ben (11:34)
were just talking about it every week, like how things were going and how we were feeling,

Coach Sawyer (11:37)
Yeah.

Ben (11:37)
and having those conversations. And I think when you reached out

Ben (11:41)
to think about starting coaching, I was thinking about all of those things and I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on where your sticking points would be and where I could kind of push you and what you were already doing well and I didn’t really need to focus on. Like I think

Ben (11:55)
For the most part, your exercise, execution, and your intensity is really great. And it’s really just a matter of, like you said, finding a way to prioritize the recovery so you don’t do too much. I think for you, doing too much on the training front is is often where sort of the the wheels have started to fall off in the past. And so that was

Coach Sawyer (12:12)
yeah.

Ben (12:12)
kind of an identified area, especially when we were in a deficit. And then yeah, some of like the the fears around body image and some of the maybe.

Ben (12:22)
self-limiting beliefs around that and and being able to, persevere through the hunger or through the low energy on some of those days and knowing that you’re just gonna be okay. So maybe we can start

Coach Sawyer (12:30)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (12:31)
with specifics and talk about like kind of what body weight you started the cut at, how long it took us, how,

Coach Sawyer (12:36)
Yeah.

Ben (12:37)
you know, where we came down to. I don’t think we really need to get into like

Ben (12:40)
calories and macros because it’s gonna be individual for everyone anyways. You can maybe talk about

Coach Sawyer (12:43)
Sure. Sure.

Ben (12:44)
protein intake and stuff like that. But maybe also touching on we can talk about the change to steps in cardio because I feel like that was a big you know, kind of shift

Coach Sawyer (12:52)
That was a big one. Mm-hmm.

Ben (12:53)
that we made as well.

Coach Sawyer (12:54)
Right. Yeah. So when I got back from Costa Rica, I was around I was in the upper one seventies. I remember when I left for Costa Rica, I like in the low 180s. Got back in the upper one seventies. I was already starting to lose some body fat because I was already kind of uncomfortable. And I was like, Yeah, you know, like I want to get down to a linear body mass or body weight. and so we started around one seventy seven, one seventy-eight or so, and then I think when we finished

Coach Sawyer (13:18)
We started so beginning of October, upper 170s. We finished the cut around it was only around New Year’s or something. It wasn’t that well, you started to pull me out of the cut slowly, which I think was really smart that you did, by the way. you started pulling me out of the cut slowly around New Year’s or so, and at that point I had gone from one seventy-seven to I think one sixty-seven. I think I lost about ten pounds in a couple of months. Yeah.

Coach Sawyer (13:45)
I think so. I’d have to check my I can check my spreadsheets real quick actually. Let me Does it

Ben (13:49)
That sounds about right to me. And then,

Ben (13:51)
like you were saying, we had you in a deficit. I think we started out kind of moderate. And then I remember we increased your deficit a little bit more as we kind of got into it to keep that progress coming. And then we

Coach Sawyer (14:04)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (14:04)
got to a point where I think the food focus was a little bit higher. Some of those

Coach Sawyer (14:08)
Mm.

Ben (14:08)
symptoms of dieting were starting to creep up. And I think there was honestly a point where you were starting to experience some of that. And I was like, we kind of just have to keep.

Ben (14:17)
pushing through and then we got to a point where it didn’t make sense anymore to keep pushing because we got to a body composition that you were happy with. Cause I think previously

Coach Sawyer (14:24)
Yeah.

Ben (14:24)
what would happen is you would start feeling these things, but you weren’t necessarily at the the desired body composition just quite yet. And so

Coach Sawyer (14:32)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (14:32)
then it would be like, okay, let’s go back into a build. But then again, you weren’t necessarily super satisfied with the end result. and then

Coach Sawyer (14:39)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (14:39)
maybe, you know, just looking forward to building and getting a little bit too

Ben (14:43)
maybe aggressive or assertive or antsy with that and then the build would happen a little bit too quickly. And so kind of

Coach Sawyer (14:48)
Well.

Ben (14:48)
going back and forth and never really finding like you were in a true groove or getting, you know, to the

Coach Sawyer (14:54)
Yeah.

Ben (14:54)
end result with these things. So I think the goal for me was to get you to a point where you felt really solid at the end of the cut and slowly transition you back into a build. So when we got down to that 167, instead of immediately increasing your calories back up to maintenance, we kind of slowly tapered them back up over the course of

Ben (15:12)
weeks and months really. And interestingly enough, I feel like your body weight kind of started to even continue or I should say continue to to drop a little bit and it would, kind of fluctuate up and down. And I also remember you switched gyms and the lighting was different. And there was a time where you were like kind of feeling like you had lost the the leanness there. But maybe before

Coach Sawyer (15:30)
Yeah.

Ben (15:32)
we get into all of that, we we’ll just talk about like the the cut itself and then we can come back to like that transition period.

Coach Sawyer (15:38)
Yeah. Yeah, no, it was really it was the the most challenging part was the hunger and the and well and the fear around losing muscle mass. Those were two big things. yeah, but it was it was really, really helpful to have you just kind of reminding me like steady. Like I always say you’re very grounding, and you knew that you needed to be very grounding because my mind was going to do this, and you had to just be like, hey, calm down.

Coach Sawyer (16:03)
And it was just, yeah, it was a really, really effective thing. I felt like I kept getting reminded good reminders what I needed to hear every time I needed to hear it. And I was able to stay the course until it, yeah, it was just like kind of painful. And I was like, okay. You know. but at that point I had already made more progress than I had made in the past like, I don’t know, I want to say year or two of trying to like get to a leaner body mass and maintain it.

Coach Sawyer (16:26)
Yeah, the other thing is, yeah, I was always rushing like the hunger was so intense that I was always rushing back to maintenance calories and then getting fluffy again and being like, what the heck? but this time around, you know, now it’s we’re in September again and it’s it was January where we kind of decided to start pulling the other cut. I mostly maintained that that leanness and and also become less and less and less diet fatigued, you know. but I did it.

Coach Sawyer (16:51)
like slower than I’ve ever done it coming out of a cut. And that was just something that was really noticeably different this time that I really loved because I’ve always struggled to be a more patient person when it comes to a literally anything, but especially like with myself. so that was a definitely a different, different experience than I’ve ever had with cutting.

Ben (17:10)
Yeah, and I remember that was a big fear, but also thing that you just really wanted to lock in on was after I finish this fat loss phase, I want to

Coach Sawyer (17:19)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (17:19)
try to hold that body composition for a period of time and see what is

Coach Sawyer (17:23)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (17:23)
kind of this lower lean point that I can stay at and still feel

Coach Sawyer (17:27)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (17:28)
okay. And I think you’ve done that, which I’m sure feels good from a self-efficacy standpoint. And now,

Coach Sawyer (17:33)
For sure.

Ben (17:34)
you know, you’re really

Ben (17:35)
confident in the fact that you can do that. And it’s like, okay, let’s move on to the next thing now. you know, let’s commit to to

Coach Sawyer (17:39)
Yep. Mm-hmm.

Ben (17:40)
doing a build. Whereas I think if sometimes we rush that process, we don’t learn the skills that could be gained from just holding

Coach Sawyer (17:47)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (17:48)
for a little period of time and understanding, okay, you know what? I actually could probably maintain this body composition. Am I going to? No, not necessarily because I have other goals that I want to work on now. But

Coach Sawyer (17:57)
Yeah.

Ben (17:58)
sometimes just taking a second to breathe and sit there and

Ben (18:01)
just experience what it’s like to live at that body weight. I think there’s a lot of lessons that can be learned from that.

Coach Sawyer (18:06)
For sure, yeah. And for for the first at least few months post cut, I was still pretty hungry, well on average. Like I was like, this is uncomfortable, uncomfortably hungry. I was pretty pretty lean, shredded by my standards. But the discomfort started to be like, it’s not all that it’s worth, you know, hyped up to be. And then I started just feeling like, you know, I feel like I want a little more fullness. I want to see more progressions in the gym. And so I s slowly become less

Coach Sawyer (18:32)
Enamored with the driest, leanest look, and I’m like okay with losing some of that for the sake of like feeling better, performing better, recovering better. but I will touch on the fact that like, yeah, you had me doing 8,000 steps a day, and I think it was just two cardio sessions for 20 minutes each. and historically, I would never do cardio, which was something I’d been trying for years to implement.

Coach Sawyer (18:54)
which was really cool. And then steps were just something I didn’t really think about. But implementing both of those things not only helped me get the results, but they helped me keep them and they helped me just get healthier overall. I remember one time I checked in with you. I was like, dude, I just did a hike like so easily, like going uphill and everybody else was huffing and puffing. I was just doing it. And I was like, that was such a confidence boost for me of like, my gosh, just twice a week for 20 minutes has paid off huge. So I think from then on,

Coach Sawyer (19:21)
It became much easier to talk myself into doing the cardio. And yeah, before I think I was beating myself up because I wasn’t like immediately again, the patience thing. I wasn’t immediately good at cardio and I couldn’t run a mile without being out of breath. So I was pissed at myself, you know. And so it was just cool to have you along the way, just being like, dude, it’s it’s normal to feel these ways. Your fears are valid, but they’re they’re not real. You know what I mean? Like it was just a very what exactly what I needed.

Coach Sawyer (19:47)
You know what I mean? It was so cool. And it really did help me restore my confidence because I was just like, how can I be coaching people and failing it at my own fitness journey? But it’s just so it’s so emotional when it’s you. You know what I mean? You cannot be objective when it’s your lived experience. And so having you be like outside being like, hey, this is what’s happening, and you’re spiraling because of this thing you’re imagining. It was just like, okay. And then moving on.

Coach Sawyer (20:14)
You know, it was so nice. So that’s what I’m craving again.

Ben (20:19)
Yeah,

Ben (20:19)
the the steps in the cardio thing I think

Ben (20:22)
If nothing else, it just allows you to eat a little bit more and still be in a deficit. And those couple

Coach Sawyer (20:26)
Mm.

Ben (20:27)
hundred calories can make a huge difference. There’s also research that just

Coach Sawyer (20:29)
I think they get remote.

Ben (20:30)
shows that like a base, a good baseline level of physical activity helps to regulate your hunger. Actually, like oftentimes people who are completely sedentary have worse hunger regulation than people who

Coach Sawyer (20:40)
Mm.

Ben (20:41)
move a little bit. There’s an interesting study on this in Bengali mill workers, if anyone wants to look that up. I won’t go too much into that now because that’s very sciencey and nerdy. However, it’s just to say like there are

Ben (20:51)
also the health benefits of just generally being physically act active outside of lifting. And like you were saying, that minimum dose for cardio, it’s kinda like minimum dose with lifting. If you’re not lifting right now, you will get so much out of two times a week for twenty to thirty minutes. So much. You’ll go probably get seventy five to eighty percent of the the results from

Ben (21:10)
From strength training, just from a health perspective. And just understanding that that goes for cardio too. And of course, there were times where you were like, man, like I didn’t really feel like doing the cardio today or this week. And it was a little bit of a struggle. And I think just understanding that that those habits take time to form, and you might not ever love it necessarily, but you can find a way to bake it into your routine in the way that is the most tolerable. And

Ben (21:33)
Once it’s in there, I think you start to realize the benefits. Sometimes there’s a latency period where you have to kind of keep it in there for a period of time and be consistent with it before you start

Coach Sawyer (21:40)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (21:41)
seeing the results. And this this applies generally because I think a lot of times people will say, I’ve been doing this for, you know, two or three weeks and I’m just not seeing the changes or seeing the benefits. And you really have to stick with it for an extended period of time. And I remember you also saying with the steps that your lower back, which was kind of an area that

Ben (21:57)
perhaps you felt was a bit weak or not as strong. I remember

Coach Sawyer (21:59)
Okay.

Ben (22:00)
in addition to programming some specific lifts that were going to help you with that, the walking I think helped to relieve some kind of general tightness there. Is that

Coach Sawyer (22:08)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (22:08)
right?

Coach Sawyer (22:09)
Big time. Yeah. It would be and it still kind of happens when I do a lot, a lot of steps, but like basically now I have a much higher tolerance threshold, you know. basically when I would walk, I would end up being like, my gosh, my back is so tight, I have to like lean over and like stretch it because it’s just like getting so fatigued. because I just it just wasn’t used to the demands that I was putting on it with even just walking, which is kind of crazy to say, you know.

Coach Sawyer (22:33)
but yeah, it it and it improved, you know. I just kind of kept doing it. it’s cool how much easier getting the steps is in Europe too. So I was like, that that’s kind of nice. but you know, even even when I was back in the States, it was like there’s nice places to walk. You just gotta figure out where they are. And a lot of times, to be honest, even in Europe, I’m just walking around the apartment. I’m walking around the place because I’m like, I just know that it’s gonna be good for me to keep this habit. And even though I look like a caged animal.

Coach Sawyer (23:00)
it’s it’s it’s a net benefit for me and you know, I don’t care how silly I look if it’s if it’s working, you know. So

Ben (23:07)
Yeah,

Ben (23:07)
and like if you’re listening to a podcast or you’re on the phone call with people, I notice

Coach Sawyer (23:10)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (23:11)
it the most. When I’m on a phone call, it’s easy for me to just pace around and I don’t

Coach Sawyer (23:15)
the

Ben (23:15)
really notice it because I feel like when my mind’s going, like my body just kind of wants to move and wants to go. That’s why oftentimes

Coach Sawyer (23:20)
Yeah.

Ben (23:21)
if I am out on a walk, sometimes I’ll just call somebody because it’s a great opportunity. I feel like it almost helps my mind as I’m walking and moving my body, or maybe it’s the other way around where it helps maybe some of the anxiety I feel sometimes talking to people, or it helps me.

Ben (23:36)
just kind of get some of that nervous energy out to just move. So steps

Coach Sawyer (23:39)
Tardo.

Ben (23:40)
are another thing that I think can honestly help with emotional regulation too. Getting outside, getting into nature. That is one thing that I miss living in the city and not being a little bit more in nature in the suburbs is getting outside

Coach Sawyer (23:51)
Same.

Ben (23:52)
for walks, especially in the summertime. I’m just not as incentivized and when time is a little bit more crunched too. Those are all reasons why

Ben (23:59)
Steps in the past have been great, but currently I don’t have a step target and that hasn’t been something that I’ve been doing and I’ve been leaning more so into just doing some cardio every day because it’s more time efficient and it’s more convenient based on my routine. So I think it’s just helpful to know that these are all tools and depending on the season of life you’re in and what you have access to and resources, I think

Ben (24:20)
When the time comes and I’m in a place where I enjoy getting the steps and being outside, I’m looking forward to having those walks back again because I love just throwing on some music or a podcast or just having my own thoughts and just walking. I think there is a lot of value in that stillness and that kind of break that you can get. So something

Coach Sawyer (24:37)
I agree.

Ben (24:37)
to consider.

Coach Sawyer (24:38)
Yeah. No, it’s it’s been a really good thing for me overall. So I was grateful for that experience too. And I feel like the the other good thing was like it wasn’t like a huge jump. Like it it didn’t feel like it took up my whole day. And I think that like people sometimes can bite off a little more they can than they can chew with stuff like this ’cause they’re like, this is healthier, this is what the data says is gonna get me to the place I wanna be. But you have to factor in where you’re at currently and try not to too

Coach Sawyer (25:02)
too much have to like make a big jump ’cause and it might be harder to make it stick. You know, you can start with something that’s a little more reasonable and then if once it’s a habit, it might be a little bit easier to do a little more.

Ben (25:13)
Yeah.

Ben (25:13)
Yeah. I mean people like love to shoot for ten thousand steps, but there’s nothing magical about that number. You can look up the history of it. It’s kind of funny. But six to seven thousand is going to get you the vast majority of the health benefits. And no matter where you’re starting, let’s say you’re getting two thousand right now on average, if you bump that up to three or four, you’re gonna see a substantial increase in your

Coach Sawyer (25:33)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (25:33)
Health markers, and maybe not acutely, but like if you look at the data long term, you’re gonna be a healthier individual. And then if you bump that up again, you’re gonna see even more up to again that kind of six to six to eight thousand. And I think it’s just helpful to people know helpful for people to know there’s a range too. Like you don’t have to get to, let’s say, even if 10,000 was the quote unquote optimal, let’s say you’re at five right now, don’t jump all the way to 10 from five. Start trying to get six or seven,

Ben (25:59)
Give yourself a little increase, be consistent with that, nail that. And then once you’ve been consistent with that, you can build on top of that. It’s like the same thing for training. If you haven’t ever

Coach Sawyer (26:06)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (26:06)
trained, start with twice a week for 20 to 30 minutes. And then if that works, either increase the duration or increase the frequency. And then try

Coach Sawyer (26:13)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (26:13)
again and see how that works. And that was something kind of maybe transitioning. We can talk about training a little bit. That

Coach Sawyer (26:20)
Mm.

Ben (26:20)
was a change we made for you in the other direction, actually, where we were finding that.

Ben (26:25)
four, five times a week was just becoming a little bit difficult and like kind of burdensome for you to be consistent with going to the gym. And so I basically said to you, Hey, let’s just alternate rest days and training days. So you train, then you rest, then you train, then you rest. And that worked really well for you, I feel.

Coach Sawyer (26:41)
yeah, big time. That was that was pretty that was probably the biggest thing that worked like because before it was like I would get so run down during cuts because I would still be trying to do my normal like five day split. And so that was always defeating. I was like, man, I don’t want to do less volume, but like it was just like I had to. but this was a really good way of staving off that kind of fatigue and also we were also doing like ab training in between. So I felt like

Coach Sawyer (27:07)
on the rest days. So I felt like it was really good from a mental standpoint to just have like something to hold the place and be like, you’re still doing something. So like my mind being the anxious mind that it is and being like, I want to do something every day. It was good to have something to put my energy towards the steps and the and the abs. And then, you know, check that box and move on. So that that was helpful too mentally. So

Ben (27:29)
Should we also maybe talk about like what muscle groups were the biggest priority for you and what you wanted to bring up? And then maybe this would be a good place to transition into talking about what we’re doing now, kind of coming back together, and you can get me caught up on the training and how that’s been going since we kind of paused things working together. But what were some of the muscles that you wanted to focus on the most while we were starting initially together?

Coach Sawyer (27:51)
Yeah, I can’t remember if it stayed the same as they are now. But I know for right now it was it’s chest, upper back, always want bigger arms and shoulders as well. so pretty much most of my upper body. and and then I was thinking recently, like I should do a leg kind of specialization phase it, but I’m gonna talk to Ben about that ’cause we’ll see. I’m always getting these crazy ideas and

Coach Sawyer (28:14)
you know, changing training without your consent and you were like, hey, what the hell, man? But that’s just kinda how my brain works. So yeah, that that was I think those are the biggest muscle groups. But I think mostly we’re prioritizing chest and upper back. and then shoulders and arms were kind of like falling behind those. yeah, and that’s kind of what I’m still still focused on.

Ben (28:33)
Yeah, that’s that’s what I recall as well. And I remember we swapped out some of those movements, especially the arm movements that you had a little bit of more of an emotional attachment to. So

Coach Sawyer (28:41)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (28:42)
we switched those out for other ones while you were kind of in the deficit. And then once

Coach Sawyer (28:46)
yes.

Ben (28:46)
we had gotten the majority of the fat loss done or we kind of transitioned into reversing you out of that, we slowly started to incorporate some of those movements back in. And I also remember that you were eager to like increase your volume kind of back to where it had been before we started cutting or increasing the frequency, and I pushed back.

Ben (29:03)
Back

Ben (29:03)
on that, and I was kind of more encouraging slow, gradual changes to the

Coach Sawyer (29:07)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (29:07)
training volume or incorporating exercises back in. And I think you you did a good job listening to that and taking some, you know, making some changes so it was so exciting and kept you engaged at the programming, but not going too crazy with it. So I guess maybe we can just talk about where we kind of left things off. So I feel like I don’t remember exactly, was it maybe back in March or April? I think maybe we decided to.

Ben (29:28)
to to put things on pause. And I feel like it was

Coach Sawyer (29:31)
yeah.

Ben (29:32)
you were around maybe one sixty five, one sixty six, somewhere around there. training

Coach Sawyer (29:37)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (29:37)
had been kind of the same as it had been like we’ve been discussing. There weren’t too many changes there. Cardio steps still all getting done.

Coach Sawyer (29:44)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (29:45)
And

Ben (29:46)
I think things were pretty stable, which is why we kind of made the decision

Coach Sawyer (29:49)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (29:50)
that okay, this is a fine place to leave it. I’m gonna go see how I do on my own. And I think you you knew at that time as well, you were like, I do really value having you in my corner for that stability and that groundedness. And at the same time, I wanna see kind of how I do solo with the knowledge that I’ll probably come back to you when I feel like I need you to kind of rein me in and and you know, get back in there. So you wanna talk me through kind of what’s been going on since then?

Coach Sawyer (30:10)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah,

Coach Sawyer (30:15)
man. Yeah, I will. yeah, so that’s a pretty accurate depiction of where I’ve been. You know, I it’s at some point I had some quite a few joint and some muscle pains, and I was like, dang, that’s really intense. and so I had to be more diligent about that for a while, and I also

Coach Sawyer (30:34)
have pretty much stayed around one f sixty five, one six to one sixty seven since then. but training performance has gone up. I’ve also recovered a lot from from those injuries. I’m not really sure. Maybe I just had tried I got a little too aggressive with the volume increases or something like that. But was able to rehab a lot of those things. Still got a little bit of niggles here and there.

Coach Sawyer (30:55)
my left adductor is still a little bit tender when I’m doing deep squats and you know this elbow is still a little finicky sometimes, but for the most part, and my left knee. So there’s still things that are still there, but for the most part it’s it’s really not preventing me from training hard, which is good. and I have increased volume steadily, but in this program I built in some auto-regulation kind of options for myself.

Coach Sawyer (31:18)
So saying like, okay, I’m gonna do a minimum of this, but if I feel really good, I’m gonna do this. And I think that’s helped me like feel like I’m not just like giving myself the easy way out. if I’m not feeling amazing. and I also have some different exercise selection stuff too, because like for instance, I don’t know, dumbbell skull crushers, especially doing them heavy. yeah, it’s the other thing. I changed some some rep ranges as well. So I’m trying to adapt my training to being, you know, in my mid thirties now.

Coach Sawyer (31:46)
and and also being somebody who likes to push himself hard in the gym. So trying to be smarter about that stuff. But at some point I realized, you know, I feel like I’m starting to question like, am I being aggressive enough with calorie increases or too aggressive? Probably not too aggressive, probably, but there was a moment like last week where I was like, my gosh, I’ve lost all my conditioning. How did this happen? Turns out I was just bloated.

Coach Sawyer (32:11)
but I was like, you know what? I don’t like feeling that panicky. And then also on the back of that being like, maybe I haven’t been aggressive enough. So questions started appearing in my mind again of like, I’m not really bulking that well. I’m maintaining well, which is awesome. That’s really cool. That’s an achievement. But I’m also like, now I’m getting excited to build and seeing progressions as well, but also questioning could I be doing this better? I kind of would like a second set of eyes on this.

Coach Sawyer (32:37)
To make sure that I’m not digging myself into any holes or leaving things on the table that I could be getting out of this time. So it was really just at the end of the day, like, you know what? I learned a lot the last time I worked with him in a cut. I’m probably gonna learn a lot if I do a bulk with him. this is not so like big of a deal for my confidence so much as it is like, I just want to make sure I do it right and I don’t blow up too fast like I have in

Coach Sawyer (33:02)
bulks past or leave things on the table like I feel like I might be because I’m a little hesitant to go in that higher calorie direction and stuff like that. So that’s kind of where I’m at now. I think a much better place than I was last end of last year because I’m like, no, I feel pretty good about how I look and how I feel. But at the end of the day I just am excited about growing. I love this this hobby, whatever you want call it. And even if I can only gain, you know, a handful of pounds

Coach Sawyer (33:29)
muscle the rest of my life, like I’m gonna be working out anyway. I might as well aim for something signific you know, st somewhat better, you know. So that’s kinda where I’m at.

Ben (33:39)
I like that man. So I think let’s go through category by category and I’ll ask you some questions and then we’ll kind of set up initial plans so people can see what that looks like. So what does

Coach Sawyer (33:49)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (33:49)
the current without necessarily we don’t have to go into exactly, you know, exercise sequencing and number of sets and all of that since you give a pretty good overview, but what’s your split looking like currently? How many days per week are you training? What you know, what kind of muscles are you training on each day, etc.

Coach Sawyer (34:02)
Yeah,

Coach Sawyer (34:03)
so currently, let me just remind myself here, because I definitely always check the spreadsheets so I don’t have to remember. basically I’m currently doing four to five days in the gym. and you know the fifth day happens when my joints are feeling good and I have the time and I’ve kind of allocated my days appropriately.

Coach Sawyer (34:24)
But yeah, minimum of four. And then on most of those days, let’s see, we’re doing around the sets that I said, like the range that I give myself. day one is 10 to 18 sets, 13 to 21 on day two, 13 to 19 on day three, eleven to twenty on day four. So it’s like you know, pretty big range there. Like I give myself a lot of room.

Coach Sawyer (34:46)
to be like, yeah, you know, this doesn’t need more, but I’m gonna like lean into this. Or I’m tired. I need to just do the bare minimum. And you know, it’s like as low as like 10 or 11 sets. So yeah, I mean that’s that’s kind of helped me not do too much because that’s been kind of my pattern in the past, especially because I’m always like, well that’s not that many sets objectively, but at the same time the intensity that I bring to these sets and and also just my training age or whatever.

Coach Sawyer (35:13)
maybe my joints are a little more beat up whatever. I need to be not so aggressive with the volume increases and and then same thing with the rep ranges. I’ve kind of slowly nudged my my rep ranges up a little bit and I feel like that’s also helped. So probably by the time I’m seventy I’m gonna be doing thirty to forty reps per set or something, but whatever.

Ben (35:34)
That’s funny. Yeah, I think

Ben (35:36)
two to four is like a probably where I tend to sit for most of the time where I program exercises for people. Yeah,

Coach Sawyer (35:41)
Correct. Yeah.

Ben (35:43)
per exercising, that tends to be generally the sweet spot and kind of depends on the person

Coach Sawyer (35:45)
Makes sense. It’s kind of robust.

Ben (35:48)
and the exercise and all that. But I like that you have the auto-regulation built in so you can do more or less sets. the rep range can also be kind of auto-regulated, the exercise selection itself. I I like all of that. That’s kind of how I tend to program for folks or for myself, for instance. You know, I think oftentimes it’s

Ben (36:03)
It

Ben (36:03)
comes up practically like, hey, this piece of equipment was taken at the gym. It’s, you know, let’s say it’s like a preacher curl machine. Okay, let’s just go do a different bicep variation. It’s not going to be a huge difference there. So I think what I’ll do is after the call today, I’ll have you send over your program to me and I’ll just look everything over and see if there’s anything that is really standing out to me. and what is the general split that you’re following so people kind of know, like what muscles are you training on each of those days?

Coach Sawyer (36:27)
Yeah, good question. So it’s kind of like a push-pull split. So I’ve got like chest, shoulders, triceps, and quads on days one and three. And then I’ve got like back, biceps, I think no, wait, I think shoulders on that day. Whatever. And then like, you know, abs and calves thrown in and and like hamstrings glutes on that day. So yeah, push pull, kind of alternating. And

Coach Sawyer (36:50)
Yeah, the most of the volume is allocated to the the chest upper back and then and then a little bit of arms, like kind of moderate amount of volume and then legs is kind of like on the back burner

Ben (36:59)
Hmm.

Coach Sawyer (37:00)
right now.

Ben (37:00)
And would you say usually you’re training your upper body first and lower body second for those days?

Coach Sawyer (37:04)
Most

Coach Sawyer (37:04)
of the time. Most of the time. Yeah. Although today like it w like Smith Machine was taken, I did my leg press first. It’s like I’m not you know, freaking out about that. Especially ’cause I’m not doing a ton of legs, so it’s not like gonna tank the rest of my energy for the workout. So

Ben (37:17)
Yeah. And then you mentioned,

Ben (37:18)
you know, at some point maybe doing a leg specialization. So for people listening

Ben (37:22)
If we were to do that, I probably wouldn’t massively change up Sawyer split. I would do something like, hey, let’s move the lower body work from the end of the session to the start of the session. Let’s maybe bring down the volume on the upper body for compounds a little bit. Isolations probably end up staying pretty close to where they are now and maybe increasing a couple sets for the lower body. So you don’t have to make these massive programming changes in order to specialize in certain body parts. You know, I might add a couple of exercises, increase the volume a little bit, change the exercise order, and those things.

Ben (37:52)
are usually enough to start ticking along the progress and you pull away a little bit from those other areas that maybe aren’t as prioritized. And that’s something that becomes more important as you get more advanced. So advanced mean not necessarily meaning how many years you’ve been training, but how close you are

Ben (38:06)
To your quote unquote, you know, genetic potential or genetic ceiling of how much muscle mass or strength you could expect to gain, which I think for everyone you have ebbs and flows of like time where you’re making more progress or less progress. But of course, you know, consume you know, assuming you’re doing things right, the longer that you go on in your training career, the closer you’re going to to get to that kind of limit or ceiling, I guess you could say. Right.

Coach Sawyer (38:26)
You could call it just like diminishing returns. Like you still can make progress.

Coach Sawyer (38:30)
It’s just not gonna be like your first year of training and you know, just so on and so on. So but,

Ben (38:33)
Absolutely. Yeah.

Coach Sawyer (38:36)
you know, like I said, even if it is minimal progress, like I I still feel like it’s worth it. It’s still a fun project for me. It’s also just sharpening my skills and making me a better coach, giving me more tools to work with. So yeah, I think it’s kind of cool to to do it, even if it’s not like gonna totally change my physique from here. It’s still like a fun project.

Coach Sawyer (38:56)
me. and yeah, and and you gave some really good tips about how to like shift in terms of priority, but not everybody needs to worry about that and when they first start.

Ben (39:03)
Right.

Coach Sawyer (39:03)
Yeah.

Ben (39:04)
So what we’ll probably do with Sawyer for the listeners is we’ll keep the program mostly the same for now. So I’ll take a look at things. I might suggest a couple tweaks here and there, whether that’s direct ranges or exercises, et cetera. But what I’ll probably do and what I like to do with new clients a lot of times too is not mess with too much, kind of see what they’ve been doing, just get a set of eyes on it and then get their feedback.

Ben (39:23)
On a week to week basis and day-to-day basis on how things are going. And depending on what Sawyer’s telling me, let’s say things are going well, he’s recovering fine. Okay, you know, it’s been X number of weeks have gone by, we’re making good progress. I might try to see, hey, can we can we

Ben (39:36)
Tick up that volume a little bit. Can we add an extra set here or there on those muscle groups that are more important for him and that he wants to prioritize? And being smart about that, maybe not making those sets heavy sets, maybe those are kind of lighter sets, or they’re using

Coach Sawyer (39:49)
And

Ben (39:50)
an exercise that isn’t going to be as harsh on the joints. We might even incorporate some quote unquote intensity techniques. So instead of doing another straight set where you’re resting, you know, let’s say two to three minutes between sets, I might have him do a drop set or a rest pause set. So a rest pause set would be like,

Ben (40:06)
You finish your set, you rest 10 to 15 seconds and you crank out a couple more reps. Those are usually best reserved for lifts that are more.

Ben (40:14)
Isolation based. So you you could think of a bicep curl or a tricep extension, or you could do it on like a leg extension or a leg curl. So those are some things that I’m thinking about in the back of my mind. Perhaps if people are interested in seeing how this goes, we could do a follow-up every couple months and just talk about how things have been going and changes

Coach Sawyer (40:30)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (40:31)
that we made, that sort of thing. So that’s most

Coach Sawyer (40:33)
Nicole.

Ben (40:34)
of what I wanted to comment on the training side of things. Did you have anything to add before I I move on from that Sawyer?

Coach Sawyer (40:39)
just that I am I am trying to put some upward pressure on that volume while trying to also consider my joint health and stuff, ’cause that’s usually the limiting factor. and that’s what that fifth day is for. Like I’m trying to do more volume on those days with exercises that are just not that brutal on the joints, but and and have like kind of

Coach Sawyer (41:01)
Like s like shorter rest periods and stuff. But that’s just kind of something I’m trying for now. I’ve only actually done one of since I programmed it and it was like three or four weeks ago that I started it. So it’s not happening all that often yet, but mostly because of my recovery schedule. Like I think a training frequency of like more than two is kind of tough for me. So that might be something we talk about later, whatever. But yeah.

Ben (41:24)
Yeah, I

Ben (41:24)
like that idea of like a bonus day. I’ve heard people call it like a kitchen sink day where you throw in anything you didn’t get to over the course of the week that’s

Coach Sawyer (41:30)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (41:31)
maybe not mandatory, like isn’t your bare bones minimum. I I want to hit this every single week, but it’s stuff that is a nice bonus, like you were saying. And I think generally this is maybe getting into the realm of being a little bit more sciencey and nerdy. But generally, when an exercise is more potent, as in it creates more.

Ben (41:51)
stress on your muscles, more stimulus, which, you know, theoretically would lead to more growth. Sometimes it can be harder on the joints as well. And those tends to be exercises that expose the muscle to more stretch or more lengthening. So you could think about like a preacher curl.

Ben (42:03)
putting a lot of stress on your bicep kind of at the bottom there. It’s very potent, you know, kind of signal for your muscle, but also sometimes can be a little bit harder on the elbows. The skull crushers like Sawyer mentioned is another example of that. So on that bonus day, we might not, yeah, we might not, we and they’re great

Coach Sawyer (42:14)
Those are my two favorite.

Ben (42:18)
exercises, but we might not choose those for the kind of that bonus day. It might be things that are a little bit easier, like a regular bicep curl. It could be a cable bicep curl where it’s a little bit easier on your joints, it could be some sort of you know cable pushdown where it’s hardest more so.

Ben (42:32)
So at that contracted position, you might focus a little bit more on getting blood flow in there, higher rep ranges, kind of what we were mentioning, shorter rest periods. So that’s all great. And maybe we can answer questions folks have on that if they have any in the comments to drop them down below. Be happy to answer those there. The next thing I wanted to ask you, Sawyer, if you’re okay to move on, would just be steps and cardio. Where are those at right now?

Coach Sawyer (42:54)
Yeah, steps are a minimum of six thousand, but I very often beat that. like I think the other day I got like fourteen or fifteen thousand, not really even trying. It’s just that everything is walkable here. But, you know, pretty often I’m also just hitting that six, six thousand ’cause I’m like, you know, work day or whatever. But the cool thing is that I don’t really need to try to hit that because my gym is about three thousand steps there, three thousand back or so. So it’s like I kinda kinda do that you know.

Coach Sawyer (43:21)
Again, walkable cities are a huge, huge hack for that one. and then cardio. go ahead.

Ben (43:27)
Yeah, absolutely.

Ben (43:29)
I was just wondering, do you take a weekly average for the steps as well so you can see kind of where that tends to fall?

Coach Sawyer (43:36)
Yeah, yeah, I do. or maybe I don’t anymore. No, I don’t anymore. Haha I used to do that. but no, I I would suspect though it’s probably somewhere in the eight to ten ish, because the weekends typically are higher, but the during the week it’s like I don’t know, seven or eight usually or so. yeah.

Ben (43:55)
Yeah, so I like that you have a a minimum. Usually I try to have like a minimum for people. And then I do like the weekly averages because sometimes you might fall beneath that minimum, but you’re making up for it on the other days, whether it’s intentional or not. So that would probably be something that I would say, hey, let’s, you know, start taking a a beat on that as well. Because, you know, we have average

Coach Sawyer (44:11)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (44:13)
body weights, you know, average daily body weights, so or average weekly body weights, I should say. So I think usually it makes sense to

Ben (44:19)
Do that for first steps as well, just so we can see where that tends to come out. and then you were gonna touch on cardio.

Coach Sawyer (44:25)
Yeah, buddy.

Coach Sawyer (44:26)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And cardio I have turned into three sessions and fifteen minutes apiece. And I’m I’m trying to stay in that zone two heart rate. So I’m always I’m checking my watch. I’m like I’ll actually even decrease the intensity sometimes because I notice that if I get too uncomfortable, I kinda wanna I’m like looking at the clock and I’m like trying to get out of it, you know, and I’m trying to talk myself out of it. So I’m like, no, just gotta like stay in this zone.

Coach Sawyer (44:51)
Do it for 15 minutes, not that bad. usually watching a YouTube video or whatever, listening to music. And it goes pretty quickly. So yeah, I just do it after my sessions and again with the not like huge leg emphasis, it’s pretty easy too. So yeah. and sometimes actually if I do want to do it a little faster, I do a 10-minute jog and I’ll just go faster and get my heart rate up a little higher.

Coach Sawyer (45:15)
But I don’t often feel like doing that. So it’s usually the incline walking in zone two. So yeah.

Ben (45:20)
Okay, awesome. So I would

Ben (45:22)
probably say let’s keep that the same. So I won’t I won’t touch that, I won’t mess with that. And we’ll keep kind of that step minimum and and just track the average. And then nutrition, where has that been on average for you?

Coach Sawyer (45:32)
so I actually did something kind of interesting when I was trying to maintain where where because I was like when I was in Tirana, Albania, some days I was getting tons of steps, and I was like, okay, this has gotta factor in somehow. Like I I can’t like for especially if I want to recover and not be hungry all the time. So I was like, okay, I basically set, and I can share my screen with this too, but basically it’s like I set.

Coach Sawyer (45:58)
a range of calories for the range of steps. So and I have like a maintenance ranges, slight deficit ranges and slight surplus ranges. I’m like basically trying to kind of, you know, more or less feel out where my ranges should be based on how many steps I’m getting. but with the, you know, if if you just want to know like where I’m at right now, I am currently at maintenance or what I anticipate to be around maintenance steps and and

Coach Sawyer (46:24)
cardio and calories. So if I’m getting six to eight thousand steps, I’m doing twenty four to twenty seven hundred calories and trying to follow my hunger cues a little bit within that realm. I also find that like sometimes if I try to eat a lot on a certain day, it it can cause a stomach upset and that can kind of be a chain reaction. So I kind of gave myself some wiggle room there.

Coach Sawyer (46:47)
And then eight to ten thousand, I’m getting twenty-five to twenty-eight, ten to twelve thousand, I’m getting twenty-six to twenty-nine. So it’s it’s like that. It’s just like, you know, for every two thousand-step jump, I’m adding a hundred calories. and then to when I was doing a little bit more of a surplus before I had a little freak out about me losing my conditioning, which is kind of what triggered this conversation. I was in looks like tw at at the same

Coach Sawyer (47:10)
six to eight thousand, which is my, you know, normal steps, I would say. I was I aiming for instead of twenty-four to twenty-seven, I was at twenty-seven to twenty-eight. So it wasn’t anything crazy. but I it still caused a freak out because I’m like, I’m still like I was getting more bloated, eating more food. And I was also getting a little bit too lax, I think, with my food choices as well. Like eating out, getting, you know, first of all getting back to Barcelona and being like,

Coach Sawyer (47:34)
There’s so much vegan food here that’s delicious. That was one thing. And then being like, you know, I’m bulking, whatever, this kind of mindset that creeps in when you got more calories to work with. and then I got a little freaked out when I got like, you know, bloated and stuff. And I was like, you know what? I think this might be a thing. I think this might turn into a little bit of a psychosis of some sort, not to self-diagnose, but and I’m being hyperbolic, of course, but

Coach Sawyer (47:58)
I I just was like, I don’t really want to mess with that fear. I wanna, I wanna work with Ben again so that I’m not kind of in a situation where the second the scale goes up, I’m backpedaling. Or the second I don’t take a good picture, I’m backpedaling. Like I want to make consistent progress this year. and I wanna do it at a rate that makes sense. You know, luckily, even in maintenance right now, I am making some progressions. So I am curious to hear like.

Coach Sawyer (48:22)
what your sh recommendations are gonna be, especially ’cause I’m not super hungry at the moment, which is really nice for after, you know, several months of being hungry, like pretty immediately after meals. so yeah, I guess that’s where I’m at, like calories and steps wise. Yeah.

Ben (48:36)
Super helpful. I like the idea that you had of based on my activity for the day, I’m gonna adjust my usage accordingly. Now, if you’re watching this, I don’t think you necessarily need to get so granular because it does end up being about averages over time. So that was one thing that I’m curious, and maybe I could give you as a bit of homework, is like maybe for the past

Ben (48:56)
couple weeks or months just back calculating what did your average steps look like, what was your average calorie intake. And then, you know, I think you have the average body weight probably already in there. And then using those three data points, you can kind of triangulate and figure out, okay, generally what is, you know, the average the average step count and the average nutrition produces this average change in body weight, which which we know is pretty much maintenance. so we could see over that time period, okay, and you know, I think you have a good

Ben (49:24)
range for a good setup for things right now. So this isn’t saying that that is necessarily going to inform that we’re going to change something, but I think it would be good for me to kind of see that, see that data, see that information. And what I would probably start us out doing is taking right now the system that you have at maintenance. So you know you mentioned okay, six to eight thousand steps, I’m 24 to seven 2700.

Ben (49:46)
My first change and something that we can do right now going forward is I just want to bump that up by a hundred. So twenty five to twenty eight hundred would be your new range. And you know, do that the same for each stepwise increase in steps. And then again, you know, there’s gonna be days where it it fluctuates and it goes up more based on your steps and lower based on your steps, but that average should move up then by, you know, if

Ben (50:07)
in a perfect world or in a you know if if everything was controlled, they would move up by about a hundred

Coach Sawyer (50:12)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (50:12)
on average. And so I think that’s a way that you can still make that change. So let’s say you’re somebody who’s just following i eat this number of calories every single day. For you

Coach Sawyer (50:19)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (50:19)
it might be maybe your your activity is super linear, your, you know, your routine is super linear. So for you it’s as simple as just increasing 100 calories every day. For fo for Sawyer, it’s taking the parameters that he has and applying that same principle. So we’re gonna increase the ranges by a hundred calories for what he’s been doing.

Ben (50:37)
And therefore, we’re remaining consistency with all the variables other than this one variable. and that’s going to start moving the needle in the direction we want to go. And I’m always a

Coach Sawyer (50:44)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (50:45)
little bit more conservative, I think, with the changes that I make, unless there’s a super time sensitive goal, then I might be a little bit more assertive and aggressive. And again, there’s a conversation there with the person that I’m working with in terms of the pros and cons of doing that. but that’s the first change that I’m gonna make with nutrition, and we’ll continue to take the weekly averages going forward so we can end up seeing and tracking those changes over time.

Ben (51:06)
it’s just a matter I think also of collecting enough data. Sometimes when I start with somebody, I need to get a couple weeks or a couple months under under my belt, under our belt, of seeing with with this current setup and with this protocol, what are the changes that we’re seeing and getting consistent with that so that we can actually know, okay, these are the inputs, these are the outputs, here’s how we make changes to get where we want to be in the appropriate timeframe.

Coach Sawyer (51:28)
Totally. I always tell people it’s about being both effective. So like making sure the data is showing what we want it to show. and if it’s not, getting it there. and sustainability, right? So like does this feel like something you could do, you know, or sustain for a at least a while, at least a you know, a couple of months or so. because you don’t want them to be like being like, This is working, but I’m feeling like absolute garbage. or

Coach Sawyer (51:48)
I feel fine, but it’s not working. You know, either, either way is not ideal. one thing I do have question about for you is when you are working with a more you know experienced lifter and they’re having some progressions, they’re having some plus ones, especially in the areas that I’m focusing on.

Coach Sawyer (52:05)
And I I, you know, it’s a little bit tough because when I like two weeks ago I had upped my calories by to pretty much to where you said to put And and then after that little freak out I had, I brought them down a little bit, right? And so it’s a little bit hard to tell like what was driving the progress, but I’m like, well, if I’m making plus ones on average and maybe I could stay at maintenance, is that a good idea? Or are you like, well, with the level of leanness.

Coach Sawyer (52:31)
Or whatever, does that mean like you kind of want to be at least in a little bit of a surplus because you just think we’d be kind of fighting over crumbs? Ha ha ha ha Dijon. We’d be

Ben (52:42)
He’s chasing a fly.

Coach Sawyer (52:44)
But you know what I mean, like you’d be fighting over crumbs in terms of calories to to synthesize new muscle tissue with in terms of the body fat percentage that we’re at right now. Is that kind of where your your head is?

Ben (52:54)
I think the thing that I am making that decision based off of is we have enough data to be confident that you’re currently at about maintenance calories in those ranges that you described. And I think realistically, just knowing that, you know, the calories increase by a hundred on average.

Ben (53:10)
You know, just using logic, we know that won’t be enough to accumulate significant amounts of body fat. And even if you’re making progressions with where you at right now, if your long-term goal is to continue to put muscle mass on, I think that at s at a certain point you have to increase your body weight from where it is right now. and the rate at which that happens is obviously again dependent on training age and all of that. But I think that.

Ben (53:33)
Is it necessary for us to increase calories for you to consider continue to see progressions? Not necessarily. But is it something that we’re going to have to do eventually? Yes. So my rationale is start here. Maybe your body weight starts climbing up, but it’s going to get to a point where it then holds again for a period of time. And then you’re a couple, you know, maybe a couple pounds heavier, half a pound, pound heavier. And at that point, again, we go through this process of holding for a period of time, establishing that new maintenance.

Coach Sawyer (54:00)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ben (54:01)
And then once again, we’re confident that that is your new maintenance, we repeat that process. so sometimes it’s not always linear. Sometimes it looks like, okay, we increase the calories, your body weight comes up a little bit, then it holds, we’re confident that that’s a new maintenance, we increase our calories a little bit, body weight continues to climb up a little bit, we hold. and so that’s that’s generally you know what the process looks like.

Coach Sawyer (54:18)
Yeah. That

Coach Sawyer (54:19)
makes a lot of sense to me and it makes me feel like, okay, good, like we have a we have a process in place because like I said, I was really afraid that I was just gonna kinda stay here forever and even when I stop seeing progressions, I’m so afraid of losing conditioning or whatever that I’m now sab sabotaging my ability to make gains, that which is the whole purpose of doing all the volume and doing all the stuff that I’m doing. So I think it’s just good to have somebody there just being like, Hey, there’s this is a process and like

Coach Sawyer (54:47)
not letting me go off the deep end in any direction. You know, we used to do dreamer bulks all the time when I had no business doing that. And I also don’t want to just stay put because it feels safe. So having that that middle ground of like, hey, we’re just gonna nudge that in the right direction. We’re gonna be very patient. We’re gonna be very methodical, but it does need to happen, I think is exactly what I was looking for in time in terms of nutrition at this stage of my, you know, lifting journey.

Ben (55:11)
Cool man. I don’t

Coach Sawyer (55:12)
Yeah.

Ben (55:12)
know that I have too much else that was on my mind in terms of getting things started and set up here. Obviously we can talk kind of off the air about setting up check-in day and all the logistics around that, but it’ll be, you know, similar to what we’ve done in the past, just updating on, you know, how the last week has gone holistically.

Coach Sawyer (55:29)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (55:30)
Other than that, was there anything that you wanted to touch on that you felt like we didn’t get to today?

Coach Sawyer (55:35)
think so. I mean, we could talk about total volumes that I’m doing, but I don’t think that would necessarily be applicable to other people.

Ben (55:42)
Yeah.

Ben (55:42)
And you know, when it comes to volume, it’s like whatever again, it’s kind of about baselines. Like what you’re doing right now.

Ben (55:48)
is enough to see progress. And we talked about kind of slowly trying to turn up that dial over time, assuming you’re recovering well, which when we say recovering usually is going to come down to how your joints are feeling. So if we feel like your joints can recover from a little bit more, we’ll add a little bit more volume. Hold there again for a period of time, see how that goes. And then pull back when you need to, you know, in an auto-regulated sense. So maybe we add a little bit of volume. And you can’t always do that on every day, but on general, on average over time we’re doing a little bit more. And then once we establish that things kind of adapt.

Ben (56:18)
you increase it from there. So yeah, I don’t think we need to necessarily get into super specifics ’cause it’s individual to you, but just knowing that it’s kind of similar where you set a baseline, see how you progress from there and then, you know, try to slowly add a little bit more once things kind of stagnate or slow down or you’re feeling like

Coach Sawyer (56:33)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (56:34)
you’re able to do more.

Coach Sawyer (56:34)
Yeah, I like that method methodology because I feel like I I that’s another thing I question in my mind is like, am I holding back because I just don’t want to put the time in, or is it really actually protecting my recovery and like you know what I mean? So sometimes I feel like I should be making better progressions in this, and you know, so I start to go in all kinds of directions. But I think it’ll be good, not even just having a second opinion, but also like having somebody else look at the data and be like

Coach Sawyer (57:00)
You know, I’m looking at the same things and you know, given all these factors, I guess that is a second opinion, you know, but I guess the the data itself can can say different things to the same people and or di different people. And I find that I just it’s just nice to have like confirmation on that. Whereas if I wasn’t working one on one with somebody so closely, it would be very hard to convey like the rate of progression that I’m actually noticing.

Coach Sawyer (57:27)
instance or the rate of gain that i’m achieving because it’s like i don’t know if i’m only checking in with you every month or something like that you you wouldn’t have as much data or or information to go based off of in terms of like yeah this feels like a sustainable pace or that actually looks like a good rate of progression it would be way too much for you to try to figure out in one single sitting you know so it just is like an assurance like a security blanket that like you’re also going to be in the know about all these things and then

Coach Sawyer (57:54)
You know, so even if I start to wig out about something, you’d be like, No, I think this is where we’re gonna stay, and that’s helpful for getting me on the you know, and I can always push back. It’s not like you’re drill sergeant over here, but it’s just nice to have somebody who kind of stands their ground when they really do believe, Hey, things are going well, or hey, we need to we do need to change things, so that I’m not stuck in loops, you know, wasting energy on should I be doing more sets, should I be eating more, should I be eating less? Like I just

Coach Sawyer (58:20)
I did not want to do that this pr this time around with the the surplus like I did with the deficit. So I was just like, you know what? I’m gonna get ahead of it this time. I know how my brain works when I’m trying to make progress somewhere. It’s time. It’s time to call Coach Ben, you know? So

Ben (58:36)
Yeah.

Ben (58:36)
That that mental second guessing gets old really quick. And I get a lot of people who

Ben (58:40)
Come and work with us and they tell me that the biggest thing for them has just been not worrying about am I doing this right or am I doing enough? And it saves them time and it saves them mental bandwidth. They know that they can just outsource it and they just have to execute it. Like you were

Coach Sawyer (58:53)
Mm-hmm.

Ben (58:54)
saying, there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with questioning things. You know, why are you doing things this way? What do you think about this? Because coaching is an open dialogue. And at the same time, I think oftentimes just having somebody to say, Hey, this is what we’re gonna do. Okay, let’s go ahead, let’s do it, let’s see what happens.

Ben (59:09)
I think that’s really valuable.

Coach Sawyer (59:10)
Yeah,

Coach Sawyer (59:10)
I mean the logic that you you give is never going to be like, just because I said so. It’s going to be like, here’s here’s the reasoning that I have. And eventually you hope that that will kind of like seep into the psyche of other people and be like, you know what? I was really freaked out about that before. But after doing this so many times and doing it this way, I know this works. I feel safe. You know. but you know, it’s just a it’s just a nice thing. It’s not a knowledge thing necessarily. It’s not like a, I don’t.

Coach Sawyer (59:35)
I just don’t have the the tools and my toolkit to do this. It’s just that literally my brain tries to sabotage me sometimes because it’s it’s freaked out. I have something that I want to protect. I like my physique. I think things are great, but I also want to make progress. And so if I don’t have this feeling of like I’m safe, I I kind of find myself in this between a rock and a hard place kind of mentality, pretty, pretty easily. So anyway, yeah, I think that’s pretty much it.

Ben (01:00:00)
Well, I’m looking forward to to getting back to things with you and seeing you make that progress and be your your biggest and and leanest that you’ve ever been. I’m excited for that.

Coach Sawyer (01:00:09)
Yeah

Coach Sawyer (01:00:09)
man, I’m I’m excited too. It’s gonna be a lot of fun. Gonna be emotional. Sorry for you, but gonna be great for me.

Ben (01:00:16)
That’s that’s what that’s what we’re here for, man. I love d digging into that with

Ben (01:00:19)
people. That’s where the real change comes through, you know? So

Coach Sawyer (01:00:21)
You’re right.

Coach Sawyer (01:00:22)
And you’re very good at holding holding space, you know, not just like, you know, getting upset and flustered. It’s just like, no, I’m just gonna talk you through it. It’s all good, you know. I appreciate that.

Ben (01:00:30)
Yeah. Sometimes

Ben (01:00:32)
sometimes we just need that like reflective mirror for for us to be able to

Ben (01:00:36)
Think about things and have somebody to kind of bounce that those perspectives off. So okay,

Coach Sawyer (01:00:39)
Totally.

Ben (01:00:40)
I think we can kind of close things out here. So yeah, people let us know down

Coach Sawyer (01:00:43)
Right.

Ben (01:00:43)
below like what you thought about this episode. It’s a little bit, again, exploratory for us. If you’d like to see follow-ups, if you have any questions for myself and the coaching process or Sawyer, please let us know down in the comments below. And as always, it really helps if you share the podcast around, you know, share to your stories, tag Sawyer and I, you know, tag Dani and Giacomo and Alice. So Sawyer is at Soy Boy Fitness Coaching, I’m at Ben A Mitchell.

Ben (01:01:05)
Dani”s at Vegan Proteins. Giacomo is at Muscles by Brussels. And Alice is at Vegan Proteins Alice. Those are all of our Instagram handles. And you can find us active over on there. Dani, maybe not as much, but Giacomo occasionally and the rest of us, I would say, pretty regularly. And you can always reach out to us, coach at veganproteins.com if you have any questions about coaching or otherwise. We just hit 500 subscribers on the YouTube channel, which I was super stoked about.

Ben (01:01:29)
I’m really

Coach Sawyer (01:01:29)
Yeah.

Ben (01:01:29)
excited. So now we’ll try to get that up to a thousand over time. And the other, you know, the main YouTube channel has been growing really well too. So excited to see where all of that goes. rate review, those things all really help too. And thank you guys for tuning in to another episode. We’ll catch you in the next one. Bye guys.

Coach Sawyer (01:01:44)
Thanks guys.