Ep 227 – Staying Fit When Life Gets in the Way

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TRANSCRIPT

[Ben]

Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. I’m Ben. And I’m Sawyer.

Welcome to the show. So today, Sawyer, we’re talking about what do you do when life gets really crazy? But before we talk about that topic, and I’m sure it’ll tie in here, what’s up with you?

I know you’re in Costa Rica right now, and so we’ve been going back and forth and talking about how that’s been a little bit of a different environment for you, so I’d love to know. Yeah, man. Three weeks in, coming up on, I guess, what’s your last week there?

What’s your experience been so far, and what are your takeaways?

[Sawyer]

Oh man, it’s been so much. We’ve done so much since we’ve been here. It actually feels like we live here now, but it’s just weird to be going back in a week.

But yeah, you just get used to anywhere. I guess that’s kind of a good theme for today, is basically, wherever you end up, or wherever you are for a while, it just starts feeling more normal after a while. You know, when we first get here, we’re like, whoa, this is amazing.

And it’s still amazing, but it’s just like, you don’t freak out as much. And we kind of just get more used to being here and figuring things out. And I think as long as you remain open to whatever the setup is of where you’re at, you can find out a way to be pretty good.

And what’s interesting is that I’ve, for my entire fitness journey, pretty much, since I was like 19, I started tracking calories and everything. I’ve tried, and I can’t track here. It’s the weirdest thing, man.

And I’m like, it’s just not happening. And it’s like, you know, it was jarring at first. I was almost like, oh, I guess I’m just not gonna care about it.

But I still care about it. It’s just that I can’t make myself track while I’m here. So I’m like, kind of being more intuitive about it since I’ve been here, which you’ll be excited about, I’m sure.

And then trying to stick to a training program, but even that’s been a little bit more iffy too. So it’s been a little less rigid than I’m used to being, but I’m not freaking out. And that’s, I think, a sign of growth.

So that’s pretty cool.

[Ben]

It is interesting, because it’s, I know you, and I know that tracking is something that works for you. It’s generally not a big life stressor, and it brings you more comfort and security than it does negative things. So it’s interesting being put in an environment where it kind of forces it upon you, and you don’t really have much of a choice.

So given that, what kind of habits or things have you still been focusing on, even if you can’t be as precise with what you’re doing? What has kind of been, I guess, what have been some anchoring points for you with nutrition?

[Sawyer]

Yeah, good question. It’s funny, because these things kind of sometimes synthesize themselves, and then you have to look back and be like, what have I been doing? So I guess one thing is that I’m trying not to just indulge idly.

I don’t want to just be bored, or just snacking just a snack, or anything like that. And I’m trying to eat filling meals, so I’m trying to eat things with protein and fiber. I’m trying to, if I notice myself getting hungry, I’m going for those things first instead of snacky things, because if I just go and have at some chips or something like that, it’s like, where does that end?

You know what I mean? So, and I’m also trying to see if I can end up losing some body fat while I’m here. I don’t know how successful I’ve been, I don’t have a scale, but it’ll be interesting to see how my weight has changed over the course of the month.

So yeah, I guess I’m just trying to get full with lower calories, but I’m also allowing myself some, you know, we’ve been eating out, and like, I don’t, obviously I’m not tracking meals. On the training side of things, I’m really trying to plan for the things that I know are coming up. So like, if I know we’re going somewhere for the weekend, which we have been a lot of weekends, I will say, all right, well, it’s going to be a few days before I can train this.

So I’m trying to do more volume per session, because I’m like, I know it’s going to be a while before I can get back to this, or it’s going to take me X amount of days before I can train this muscle group again. But these other ones I could do at the house with some dumbbells, because our friends who were staying near have some dumbbells in the house. So I’m like trying to just do things on the fly a little bit more.

And that’s been actually more annoying than the nutrition, for whatever reason. I like my training programs to be very precise, and it bothers me more that they’re not. I guess because I’m enjoying training, and I like to track everything and make sure that things are getting better.

But it just is what it is right now. And I’ve just accepted like, okay, it’s a month. It’s not the end of the world, kind of thing.

[Ben]

I’ll start with nutrition. I think what you mentioned about focusing on protein and fiber, sometimes a catchy little, I guess alliteration I’ll use is like protein and plants with people, and just saying, hey, if you can’t track something, or you’re not sure exactly what’s in this, and is this going to help me towards my goals or whatever, just what you were talking about, focusing on kind of those lower calorie density foods, which are fruits and vegetables, which are high in fiber. They’ve got a lot of water, so they’re gonna be more filling.

Again, this is stuff most people know, and it can also be hard to remember that when there’s other, like you said, more palatable foods around. So I think if somebody starts a meal, just thinking about what’s my protein source gonna be, what fruits and vegetables can I include in this meal, and starting there. And then after you have that, we all know like when you’re stuffed, or at least when you’re like full or satiated, you’re a lot less likely to go for something, even if it’s tasty, as opposed to if you’re starting a meal from that point of being really hungry, and you have that super tasty thing, you’re just gonna wanna eat a ton of it, and it’s gonna be easy to eat a ton of it.

So I think you’re taking a smart approach to it, and you’re not just saying, okay, I can’t track, so all the habits that I typically do are just out the window, right? Like you’re still doing a lot of the things you would be doing normally, but you’re being cautious as well, because if you are concerned that, hey, my hunger or my cravings are gonna get the best of me, then trying to kind of dampen those down a little bit by choosing foods that are, what you know are going to be in alignment with your goals just makes sense.

[Sawyer]

Right, and I think the worst thing you could do is try to use willpower, like every time you go, you know what I mean? Like if you’re just like, oh, I’m just not going to eat snacky foods like when I’m hungry at all or anything like that. Like you have to address that hunger.

That’s a stressor that needs to be addressed. It’s like, you know, being sleepy and trying not to sleep. It’s like, you’re going to do the thing, so you might as well do it in the best way possible and not guilt yourself into like not doing it.

You know what I mean? So I think a lot of people treat hunger like it’s like optional almost, or like that they can just like portion control their way to being reasonable calories or whatever their goals are. But I just don’t think that’s possible.

I think long-term you need to get really good at getting full with fewer calories. And then one of the themes I want to talk about today is like regression to the mean. Whatever you’re doing most of the time is going to be how your body ends up looking.

You know what I mean? And how feeling and all that stuff. So if you can remember that, like you don’t have to be perfect.

You can just think, as long as I have a system that like I naturally kind of go to most of the time, if I’m improving over time at getting lower calories, or in this instance, getting lower calories with more fullness, then I’m going to get leaner over time just by the pure and simple fact that I’m getting better at eating fewer calories but staying full.

[Ben]

That’s a really good point. And something that I thought about while you were talking was, okay, let’s say you find yourself in a scenario where you’re faced with the choice of a couple of different options. And yeah, there might be, you know, you might have to use a little willpower and say, I’m going to go for the, you know, the option that I think is going to be a little bit, you know, more alignment with what I’m trying to do here versus the one that I want because it tastes good.

So there’s, you know, there’s always going to be some degree of that but it’s not the same as saying I’m not going to have anything at all or I’m only going to choose the more palatable option and just, you know, cut down on my portion sizes. I think a component of making the right choice also comes back to being prepared. And I think with a lot of the clients that I work with and even with myself too, I noticed that if I don’t have anything prepared in the fridge and everything is taking time to cook, I’m always going to default to the convenient option which is usually the option that is less, you know, less with what I want to be doing.

So just because, you know, the pre-packaged goods, of course there’s processed foods that are healthy and processed foods that are not as healthy but oftentimes they are ones that are, you know, barrier to entry when it comes to prep time because, you know, you’re more likely to buy it and eat it quickly and, you know, that’s consumerism, right? If you can carve out some time, especially talking about the theme of this podcast, when you’re, if things are really crazy, life is busy, you’re running around all the time or you’re just in a new environment, having something that is already prepared and that’s cooked that you can go to when you are hungry and you just need to grab something and go, I think is a really valuable thing to do. So whether that’s on a weekend or a weekday, if you can find some time to batch cook a recipe or, you know, you could find 15, 20 minutes here, even if it’s just, hey, let me cook some rice and veggies, throw them in the fridge and then I have them for later, whatever it is, that’s gonna be super helpful for those times where, hey, I just need to grab something quickly and go.

But the thing that I’m grabbing is something that I’ve already pre-made and I know, you know, what’s in it. And it could even be stuff that you batch cook when you really have time and put it in the freezer and then it’s like a freezer thing that you can heat up whenever you need it. So I often find that taking advantage of the time that you have and filling it with ways to like save time later, it’s almost like you’re banking that time than, you know, being able to cash in on it when you really need it.

And I think that that can make a huge difference for people.

[Sawyer]

I think that’s always a good reminder too, because sometimes I forget, like, I’ll be like bored for a day and I’ll be like, what am I even gonna do? And I’m like, oh, I could have been prepping like all this stuff. So it’s good to just remind yourself or like have reminders of like, there’s so much stuff you could be doing, not just to stay busy, but like something that could actually just save you time and energy later that could really set you up for success.

And shameless self plug, Vegan Protein’s YouTube channel is full of that kind of stuff. Like that’s our bread and butter on that platform is just like making stuff that is quick, easy, delicious, like just, I think saves a lot of people who are especially on the busier side from falling into poorer habits because they have the, they’ve kind of banked that stuff already, which so definitely get on that if you guys haven’t checked it out.

[Ben]

And I think a caveat for that too, because we’re surely gonna have new listeners who haven’t heard this podcast before is when you’re thinking about different ways that you can prepare food ahead of time, it doesn’t have to be the Instagram meal prep where you’re eating the same breakfast, lunch and dinner, seven meals in a row, right? You can batch cook a huge recipe, figure out the macros of that entire recipe and then just divide it as you take it or divide it as it needs to be into Tupperware and just have those on hand. You can batch cook proteins, you can pre-cut your fruit and veg.

Like there’s different ways to save time that doesn’t mean that you have to be a robot and do the same thing every single day. It’s just, hey, when I’m going to have a meal, I can mix and match these different things or I can take one of these recipes that I’ve made and slot this in here. So I’ve heard people say on both sides, like whether that’s meal prep doesn’t work for me or flexible dieting doesn’t work for me, I need to just eat the same thing all the time.

Like there’s different ways to apply these strategies. There’s not a one size fits all.

[Sawyer]

That’s exactly what my other point was gonna be aside from aggression to the mean is that you have to be open. Like there are a lot of people I work with who are trying to kind of recapture something from the past, like something that worked for them or something that felt really good for them at a time in their lives, but their lives have just changed so much since then. And so if you’re kind of stuck on something that worked for you one time, it can inform really good things.

It can help teach you about yourself. Like for instance, if yeah, like you said, how the meal plan versus like if it fits your macros kind of thing, like somebody can kind of know which one stresses them out more, which one feels better to them and they can lean more in that direction. But if you’re trying to recreate something and it’s not really clicking into your life the same way it did, you have to just roll with that.

You can’t just like, you can’t be like on for a month and then off again for two months and then on again for a month. Like that adherence issues like that are the clearest sign of like the plan you have right now is not working. It’s usually not that the people don’t want it bad enough or whatever.

It’s usually that something that they’re doing is like a thorn in their side that they’re trying to ignore. And it just eventually gets the best of them and then they beat themselves up about it and they go back to it. But you have to keep exploring and experimenting with new things.

And I like what you said about like, okay, well, how do we like systematize? Like how do we create a system that works for you? I think we always have to be thinking about that.

And if you ever get to the point where you’re starting to realize, oh, there’s some adherence issues happening here, that’s really the red flag or the canary in the coal mine of like, okay, that’s, if it’s consistently happening anyway, it’s probably something I need to change like about the system that I’m using instead of thinking or like internalizing it and like shaming yourself. I just don’t think that’s productive, you know?

[Ben]

When you get somebody who comes to you or talks to you and they say, I really wanna do things this way because this is what worked for me in the past or this is what I’ve always done. How do you get somebody to be more open to trying new things or trying different strategies that they haven’t done before?

[Sawyer]

Well, I mean, if this is my first time working with them and we’re kind of new, I’ll be like, yeah, let’s try the way that you have the idea for because I’m like, I’m not going to say no. If, you know, I always say that they’re the expert on them and I’m the expert on fitness and we’re just trying to marry the two, right? So like, if they think they have an idea in their head of like, no, I think I could really do it if I had your support and we’re going through that, I’ll be like, all right, let’s try it.

But if they start having adherence issues and it’s for this, this and this reason and I’m like listening and I’m actually paying attention to them, I’ll say, okay, well, what if we did it this way? Because you’re saying, I can’t exactly explain what my go-tos are. It depends on the situation, but say maybe for example, somebody saying, yeah, I think doing macros is the best way.

Like, I like doing protein, carbs, fats, all the whole thing. Like, it feels the best to me. I feel, you know, great when I do it that way, but they keep falling off and they keep, you know, kind of fudging the numbers a little bit.

And like, and they’re like telling me, yeah, it’s just sometimes it gets away from me and I end up just kind of like letting it fall where it may. I might be like, well, hey, I think most of the results could happen from like protein and calories tracking. And I think if you like the tracking thing, but you don’t wanna be quite as like exact with the number amounts and stuff, we can just say, hey, I have a minimum protein amount and I have a hundred calorie range to kind of fit in between.

That is a lot more reasonable for a lot more days for people, especially if they’re busier now than they used to be when they were doing the macros exactly to the point where it becomes more, you know, just more sustainable for them. But you still get the majority of the benefits that they were getting before. So that would be something that I would be like, hey, let’s try that out.

Especially once they get to the point of like, yeah, I’m actually not really doing the thing that I said I was gonna be doing and it’s becoming an issue. So we just kind of move into the direction of like, let’s smooth over the things that we don’t really need to be worrying about and focus on the big rocks, you know, to make it a little more sustainable. So that’s just an example of something I would do.

If, you know, somebody came to me and said, I really wanna do this, I would say, all right, let’s see how it goes. And then as it starts to fall apart, like we kind of knew it was going to, I would say, let’s do this instead. I’d be ready with the explanation and the alternative.

And if that other one didn’t work, we’d move to another one. We have to stay adaptable to whatever the environment is and whatever the problem becomes.

[Ben]

I think what you touched on in terms of making clients feel autonomous, like they have decision-making, their part, it’s a collaborative process. It’s not just you being the drill sergeant and tell them what to do. I think that’s really important.

And you might get two kinds of people who come to you and say, I wanna do this thing that I’ve done before in the past because I feel like it’s worked for me. You might get somebody who says that and then you kind of give them, you know, maybe a little like, basically you lay out the pros and cons and you say like, okay, we can do it this way. Here’s what I see of potential benefits of this.

Here’s what I see as the potential negatives. And maybe they say, you know what? You know, I hired you for a reason.

You’re a coach, you know, you’re the expert. Let’s do what you think. But I also think that there can be the kind that they wanna see how you’re gonna respond to that.

And if you are really insistent about, you know, it needs to be my way or the highway, then they might be kind of pushing back and saying, no, I really wanna try this. So sometimes I think people just want to be reassured that you’re going to be able to like give them the encouragement or give them the support and that you’re not going to be that kind of drill sergeant type. And by actually letting them then do that and then see for themselves, maybe it does actually work because you’re able to help them whatever this thing is that they are attached to.

Maybe they just haven’t done it in a way that maybe just needs a little bit more support or just tweaking it slightly that way that they’re doing it. And so maybe it does actually work. But I think more often it’s, hey, they need to actually explore it themselves and see even when I have a coach helping me do this thing, maybe it’s just not, you know, not the right way to go about it.

But if you don’t let them go down that path themselves and be there and support them through that, then, you know, there might be some internal resistance that you’re not even aware of that’s kind of underneath the surface where it’s like, oh, you know, this person’s just going to tell me what to do. They don’t really, you know, care about what I think or, you know, what’s important to me. So I think it’s an important part of the coaching relationship to be able to say to somebody, I value your opinion, I value your input.

Hey, here’s how I see it. Let’s give it a go. We can always adjust from there.

[Sawyer]

Yeah, 100%. Like, I think just a couple of like extra points on that is that I think when you’re self-coached or you’re a newer coach or something, you’re less experienced with like lots of different types of people. It’s easy to think, oh man, I really need to be, you know, harder on myself or I really need to be all one way or another, right?

And I think as I’ve become more experienced as a coach, I’ve realized, okay, there’s certain personality types and biases and we’re really trying to get in the middle. Like we’re really trying to, yes, I might with some person, they’re more on this side and I have to keep nudging them this way. But once they’re there, I’m like, let’s stay there because it’s very easy to think you have an emotional experience, right?

Like I had a bad coaching experience before I became a coach. And I remember feeling not listened to and I remember feeling kind of just like talked at. And so that pushed me in the complete opposite direction, right?

When I was a new coach and I was like, I’m gonna listen to everything, I’m gonna be very supportive. But there are legit reasons to be like, we should not do just what feels good, right? And so I had to realize, okay, you definitely need to make somebody people feel heard and validated and all that stuff.

But you also need to come back to objective reality at some point and like what is working and what’s not working. Because if somebody tells you, I really just feel better when I don’t track or when I don’t do anything like systemic, but they’re not getting results, it’s like, okay, well, I have to have a problem with that because my job is to get you results. So like at the end of the day, it’s all about balance.

And so if you’re self-coached and you’re kind of going through that process too, just remember like there is a lot of middle ground between those two extremes and you have to explore all of it before I think you find something that works the best for you. That doesn’t mean it’s gonna be perfect. That doesn’t mean you’re gonna like wake up and be so excited to do everything that you have on your plan like every day.

But if you don’t experiment, you’re gonna end up thinking that you need to fit a square peg in a round hole time and time and time again, because it worked for you at one point in your life for like a couple of months or whatever. And you’ll end up missing out on all this other middle area that can be really beneficial to you and you’ll have a way better time maintaining and making progress with than this one strategy that kind of worked but didn’t really.

[Ben]

And I think when you do find yourself in a life position or in a new environment or new context where things are kind of crazy and all over the place, that’s probably a good time to, I could actually see it going one or two ways. It might be a good time to lean on things you’ve done in the past and to really like say, okay, this strategy seems to really suit me, let me like lean into this. But it might also be a time where, like you said, it forces you into something that you haven’t tried before and that can be a little bit uncomfortable, but sometimes it can actually benefit you just to one thing that’s coming to mind is I have a client who they just started college and so they’re moving from home and they’re learning how to navigate eating at a dining hall that maybe doesn’t have all the vegan options that they would want and they’re used to tracking their macros or following a meal plan pretty meticulously. And so they don’t know exactly what’s in all the food that they’re getting at the dining hall and also they have to train at a new gym that’s not as maybe as high quality as gyms they’ve trained in at the past.

And so it’s all these kinds of new things and they were pretty stressed about, how is this gonna affect my progress or how is it gonna affect what I’m gonna do? And I just said to them, and they’re a bodybuilding client, they’ve competed and I said to them, I just said, hey, you’re gonna be doing this thing for the next 20, 30, 40 years, however long you want to be, of course, living this lifestyle, but even just thinking about a competitive career and you’re gonna be in environments where it’s not optimal, it’s not exactly how you would want it to be set up. And so this is a good opportunity for us to work on adapting and being flexible and having to kind of play things by ear and figure it out on the fly.

And that makes you resilient and it makes you better in circumstances where maybe you had a certain plan, but plans got thrown off, something came up, you had to go pick someone up at a time you didn’t expect to, or you had to run out to do this errand or you had to go take a work call. Like there’s so many things that could come up and disrupt the schedule or the flow that you had in your mind. And if you’re not able to be a little bit more adaptable because you haven’t been in those circumstances or you haven’t been in those environments before and figure something out, it’s gonna really throw you for a loop.

And then that’s when you can probably just be like, F it and all the habits that you’ve built kind of tend to go out the window because I think we tend to be very momentum-based as humans and as creatures. I’ve noticed this a lot with people that I coach. It’s like when you’re on a good roll and things are feeling good, you’re checking in consistently, you’re tracking your food, you’re hitting your workouts, whatever, you’re feeling really good about things.

But then maybe you have a couple of days or a week where things start to fall off and it can be really hard to get back on that course again and to feel good about what you’re doing. So I think that continuing to build momentum, even if it’s not what you were doing before, that can be the hardest part is when somebody deviates from what they believe was optimal for them and they have to kind of like readjust their expectations. I think that’s part of it as well.

It’s like adjusting your expectations of what is realistic for you to be able to do in this new environment, in this new context, then I think that can really throw people for a loop.

[Sawyer]

Yeah, I think, yeah, we’re talking a lot about the habits themselves and being open-minded with those, but I think a lot of it is emotional, mental resilience. It is just being able to say, all right, I can figure this out because nothing will kill your progress faster than you just being like, oh, what’s the point? Things are not perfect.

I’m not set up for success here. I think it’s something that’s trainable too. I’m not just trying to say like, oh, some people have got it and some people don’t, like emotional resilience.

I think you putting yourself intentionally into situations or maybe even not intentionally into situations where you feel a little bit off balance, but you still remanage to gain your footing again. I think the more situations you can do and that turns out well, the more confidence you will have to be able to deal with any unforeseen situations in the future like that. So I think if you are somebody who feels like, man, everything’s gotta be perfect for me to be on point, I think you could set yourself up mostly perfect, but like try to set some things a little bit differently.

Like maybe try a challenge where you can only do, I don’t know, you gotta keep your budget under a certain amount or you gotta do, you know what I mean? You can’t go to this fancy gym. You gotta go to this other gym because then you could realize, oh, you know what?

I actually can still make progress in a bunch of different scenarios. I just need to be open to what I got to work with. Yeah, and I just think that’s a life skill in general.

[Ben]

Yeah, and I think if you’re not open-minded to trying it when things are kind of stable and like playing around with these different things, at least when you’re taken out of your environment, like view it as an opportunity rather than this sucks, this is a setback, this is pain in the ass, whatever it is, and viewing it as an opportunity for growth, I think that’s a helpful way to-

[Sawyer]

Absolutely, even with like objectively bad things, like you get injured, you know what I mean? That sucks.

There’s no way around that sucking, but there’s also some silver linings too, which is like maybe you could really improve your upper body training volume while your leg is hurt or something like that. There’s always a creative way to look at it. And if you get really creative with that, I think that just gives people the most longevity and the most success over the longterm.

No matter how good their genetics are, if people are defeated the second that they are thrown off a little bit or they realize, oh, I’m not gonna be a career bodybuilder and that now they’re destroyed, it’s like there’s so many other things you could be, so many other ways to inspire and achieve success, you know, financial or otherwise. So it’s like to just think, to just have like a one track mind, it is a bit of a handicap if you think about it that way, actually.

[Ben]

Totally is. I wanted to come back to the practical side of things if people are running short on time and maybe they find that they’re all over the place, what are some things that people can do to kind of prepare themselves ahead of time? Kind of like we talked about meal prepping or maybe applying those strategies to training or just life.

And so I’m gonna rattle off a bunch of things and then I’d like to hear your thoughts or maybe something comes up for you. So I think just outside of the gym stuff, like let’s say, you know, you have a certain routine with your supplements and you take a bunch of them every single morning, even just getting like a pill tray and putting them all into one thing, you know, at the start of the week, maybe you lay out your gym clothes or your work clothes for the week or at least, you know, the night before so you don’t have to do it the next morning.

If you make yourself a cup of coffee, you know, grind the coffee the night before, get it all set up, get it all prepped in the machine next to it, whatever you’re having for breakfast, maybe like lay out the different ingredients and your food scale, whatever, just like stage, you know, get rid of ahead of time as much of the, you know, resistance or as much of the other stuff going on that you have. And that is going to make it so that when you actually are in the moment, you can just go ahead and execute. So that’s like some out of the gym stuff.

Before I get into like training in the gym, was there any other kind of random things that popped into your mind in terms of like what people can do to, you know, prepare themselves just, you know, for life in general, like if they’re low on time? I kind of just said some random ones, I’m not sure, maybe nothing comes to mind.

[Sawyer]

I’m trying to think, I think maybe just having, I mean, this is probably kind of training related, but just having more equipment or more like maybe even appliances at home, like I feel like my air fryer is a hack. There’s just like things that just make life easier and, you know, if you spend a little bit of money for a lot of benefit or, you know, a lot of payoff later and you can just kind of like set and forget things, especially when cooking, oh man, that’s really nice to just have a timer go off and it’s done and not have to like check on it all the time. Because then you’re, when you’re doing that calculation in your mind of like, do I want to make this?

Do I want to make that? You can at least factor that in and be like, oh, but I just set a timer and I can go do something completely different. So there’s, I think, yeah, stuff like that, where you have like things in the kitchen that make it easier to cook.

I think that would be just like a big overall one, I would say.

[Ben]

Yeah, no, that’s a really good one. Like, you know, one pot recipes, you can just throw a bunch of stuff in the Instant Pot, hit start, and then you’re done. That can be a huge time saver for sure.

I think where I was going with the gym is, and I know you’re big on talking to people about like, okay, what is the amount of, you know, work that you need to do in the gym to at least maintain where you’re at? You know, what is it to make progress? I think both of us are probably on the same page.

You could probably go to the gym once a week and maintain the muscle mass that you have. Just do a couple sets for, you know, the major, you know, movement patterns, and you know, you’ll probably be fine. Then I think like, if you go twice a week, I think you can continue to see progress just maybe at a slower rate than you would if you were going a little bit more frequently.

And then I think once you get up to like three times a week, you’re probably at like 80 to 90%, or at least close to what you could probably hope to get for like a maximum rate of progress, like three to five times a week. In the clients that I work with, I really don’t see a huge difference in terms of like how fast someone is able to progress. And I actually think for people who have really stressful and busy lives, going to the gym less, like going that three times a week, they might actually make better progress than if they were going that five times a week, just because oftentimes I think we need to match the training stress to their life stress in kind of an inverse relationship.

You know, the higher the life stress is, probably the lower the training stress can be so that they can still be able to recover and make progress and vice versa. And, you know, I think another thing that’s important to say is when you’re going into the gym, you might have your plan down on paper, but it can apply even if you’re sick or you’re feeling kind of run down. Going in there, it doesn’t have to be, you know, let’s say you have three sets on paper for every exercise that you’re doing.

Let’s say you’re short on time or whatever it is, you’re feeling crappy. Doing two sets instead of three sets is going to be a very, very minor difference. You know, even if you did that for weeks, you’re still gonna make probably close to as good progress as you would have on three sets.

It’s really more of a long-term thing. Like if you were to do that for months and months and months and months, maybe you would see some sort of a difference, but we can’t even say for certain that that’s the case. And so remembering, okay, you know, if I need to reduce my volume a little bit, if I need to use some sort of a time-saving technique, especially on like an isolation exercise, like a curl or a leg extension, if that means, you know, shorter rest periods and just a couple more sets, you know, because like resting two or three minutes in between sets versus resting like 10 or 15 seconds and just banging out a couple more reps and doing that a few times, that’s gonna be a shorter amount of time taken and you’re gonna be able to still get kind of the same amount of work in. So I feel like there’s so many different things that I’m often like giving to clients as tools that they can use. And, you know, sometimes they’ll be a little bit weary.

Oh, I don’t wanna reduce, you know, the number of sets I’m doing because it feels like I’m taking the easy way out or it feels like I’m not, you know, getting my workout in. But really you have to just look at whatever your current context is and try to maximize based on your current context. That’s what I took that from Jeff Alberts of 3DMJ.

He talks about maximizing your current potential a lot. Not your potential of 10 years ago and not what your potential 10 years from now is gonna look like, but whatever you can do currently right now, like what is your best right now? And looking at that.

[Sawyer]

Yeah, I like that. I like how you were saying like auto-regulation of volume basically is what you’re saying. But I like to, especially for the people who are a little bit more afraid of doing less or tend to be like, well, I can do more than that so I should do more than that.

I’ll wait. Those kinds of people of one I tend to be. I like to put a number on it.

So if it’s like, okay, the number that this, the set number that this program calls for is three sets on each exercise, but they end up doing two like multiple times, like just because of life stress or whatever. I’ll just be like, well, do you wanna make that official? Do you wanna just say that that’s two sets?

You can do another third. You can do a third if you want to, but like we can say let’s make it two because if they make progress and they’re doing two, it kind of defeats that mindset of like, oh, I should be doing three first of all, and I can only make progress with doing three. You know what I mean?

So it can kind of give them more space where they kind of were pigeonholing themselves before. And then I guess in the opposite context, if somebody feels like, oh, I don’t wanna train that much or whatever, giving them a little bit more structure could be good because they find that they kind of tend to not do it if you give them too much freedom or don’t give them enough of a push. But I think most of the time, the people that I end up working with are the people that tend to push it a little too much and giving them less can be a good thing in a lot of cases.

[Ben]

I really liked the first point that you made because ultimately you should be beholden to your results over a certain set volume or a certain split or whatever Joe Schmo or Sally is doing over there. You know, like you’re gonna see so many different opinions on this is the best way to train and this is what you need to be doing, especially if you consume a lot of social media content related to fitness, there’s gonna be a ton of different opinions out there because the reality is a lot of stuff can work for people. So that’s why having somebody to kind of guide you like a coach to be able to say like, this is what we’re doing for you or you know, you can figure it out yourself too.

Just like think about what are the things that align with your lifestyle? Like what do you have to work with? What does your, you know, lean into your personality, lean into kind of your preferences.

You might have to do some stuff that’s a little uncomfortable, but you’re going to be able to find a way to make progress that feels good for you. And if you haven’t found that yet, keep trying because there is a way.

[Sawyer]

Yeah, I do get worried when people get a little, they take the advice they see online a little too literally where people, cause here’s the thing, people on YouTube, people on Instagram know that you’re looking for the answer. There’s like, there’s one answer and it’s right and here it is, but that’s just not how it works. There’s lots of things that can work for different people.

And so, yeah, I like what you said about like, it needs to just be the thing that’s getting you results at the end of the day. And the best way that I found to measure results over time is just strength progressions, if that’s what we’re looking for. And then also, weigh-ins are a little bit different because you could be building muscle and losing fat simultaneously and that can muddy the numbers a little bit.

But if you have multiple lines of evidence pointing like, okay, people are telling me I look leaner, I’m noticing a flatter stomach in the morning, I’m seeing more lines, like your clothes are fitting different, like if there’s a bunch of different reasons why you can tell you’re getting leaner, you’re getting leaner. And so at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter the exact strategy that you took as so long as you know the basic principles of what you’re doing. So from now on, when you go and listen to these people on YouTube and you know that they’re trying to like, kind of sell you on an idea, a specific idea, you can just say, that’s an interesting, like I still watch those videos because I’m always interested in what people are doing.

Like somebody posted a video I put in my watch later list about like the lazy way to stay lean. And I’m like, oh, that’s, I’m curious about how they do it. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna go and copy that exact person’s thing, like everything they eat or how they think about food.

I’m going to go into that with a mindset of, I know how to get lean already, and I’ve done things that have worked in the past, but I wanna see if there’s a way that I haven’t thought of yet that’s maybe even easier for me. And I think that’s kind of how people have to approach social media is like, everybody’s gonna say, this is the way, do this. But like, just think about you in that context and like, would that be something even worth trying?

And even if it was, it doesn’t mean it’s the only way to make progress. So just remember that. Everything with a grain of salt online.

[Ben]

That’s, I think, yeah, I think that’s a really nice note to kind of wrap things up on. I did wanna kind of just share a personal anecdote lastly, and talk about the fact that even as a coach myself, I go through time periods where, I’m maybe got less on my plate. I’ve got more room to really dial things in with nutrition or with training or my sleep or whatever it is.

The last month or two, a lot of different like life circumstance stuff, like moving, new partner, lots of variables coming in and out of the equation, a lot more like driving and just spending time on the road. And so, for me, I found myself in a position where I’m probably not at the gym as many times during the course of the week. My nutrition’s a little bit more all over the place.

And so I really have to kind of come back to like those big foundational things like, okay, I’m still following a program. I’m still progressing my strength. Maybe if it’s a little bit slower than what I was used to, but I’m still doing my best to get as much sleep as I can within this context.

It’s still trying to get some protein at every meal, get some fruits and some vegetables and being okay with the fact that, hey, this is probably temporary. And I’m gonna have to adjust to this new normal, even if it’s not what I’ve done in the past and that’s okay. And that’s something that’s normal and should be expected.

So if you do, you find yourself in that position where you’re in a new context or even if you’re in the same context, you’ve been kind of spinning your wheels, you’re not really sure where to go and you’re looking for some guidance. That’s what we do here at Vegan Proteins. We’re coaches, we help people figure out that process and get them into the shape that they wanna be in so that they can live their best lives ultimately.

So if you’re interested in coaching, you can head over to veganproteins.com and fill out an application. I will get back to you within 24 hours. You can also find us on YouTube, on Instagram at veganproteins at Muscles by Brussels.

And if you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to share it with somebody. It really helps the podcast grow and get out to more people, spread good information and continue educating people on all things vegan fitness and otherwise. So thank you everyone for tuning into another episode.

I’m Ben. I’m Sawyer. And we’ll catch you on the next one.

Thanks guys.