Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1930: Nine Ways to Pick the Best Foods for Fitness & Health

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover nine different ways to choose the best foods to support your individual fitness and health needs. The BEST diet for you, is the BEST diet for YOU! (1:59) �� Nine Ways to Pick the Best Foods for Fitness/Health.   #1 – Digestibility. (12:35) #2 - Energy (immediate and long term). (18:54) #3 – Palatability. (23:09) #4 - Emotional connection (good and bad). (28:15) #5 - Skin and hair. (34:39) #6 - Athletic performance. (37:46) #7 – Sleep. (40:38) #8 - Satiety (Protein). (43:42) #9 – Adherence. (48:18) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit NutriSense for the exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! **Code MINDPUMP at checkout** Special Promotion Launch MAPS 15 Minutes! (ENDS AT 11:59 PM 10/23) Build an Amazing Body in Only 15 Minutes a Day (includes BONUS: Advanced workout ~20 minutes/day) + (Includes two eBooks ($74 value) The Power of Sleep & the Occlusion Training Guide) **Promo Code: 15SPECIAL for $20 OFF! October Promotion: MAPS Symmetry or MAPS Strong HALF OFF! **Promo code OCTOBER50 at checkout** MP Holistic Health Why We Engage in Unhealthy Habits – Mind Pump Blog 10 Characteristics of Emotionally Strong People – Mind Pump Blog Mind Pump #1220: The 4 Best Sources Of Protein Mind Pump #1705: How To Stick To Your Diet Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Jason Phillips (@jasonphillipsisnutrition) Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness south and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump Rain today's episode. We talk about the ways you can pick the best diet for your body, for the best results, long term, and even in the short term. Now, this episode was brought to you by one of our sponsors, Nutrisense.

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All right, here comes a show. The best diet for you is the best diet for you. It's not the best diet for somebody else. In other words, diets can be extremely individual. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about the things you should pay attention to to help you decide what foods are best for you as an individual, best for your fitness,

best for your performance, and best for your health. Are you gonna clip that, Andrew? Best, the best diets are the best diets for you. Yeah. It's a, it's a little deep right there. It's super well. You know what? Yeah, you, well, you know why diets are, or I mean, they're massively individual.

I mean, how many times did you guys have to get hit with this with clients? Yeah. Yeah, where a client would follow, and look, by the way, this is why you'll, you'll have a friend that follows one diet, let's say it's keto, then you have another friend that follows another diet, let's say it's vegan. And both of them are like, they feel good, they're healthy. This diet's amazing. One super inappropriate for the other person. Yeah, it's just like, you hear all these different diets and all these different people saying

there's the best thing in the world. You've got studies showing and supporting so many different diets. And it can be quite challenging to figure out, well, which one's kind of best for me and what's going on? And the problem is people really don't know what to pay attention to or how to judge what works best for them, except for maybe calories and macros and weight on the scale,

which those will tell you some stuff, but they scratch the surface, right? They barely scratch the surface. There's so much more you want to look at in terms of kind of determining what works best for you. What I like about what you built in this episode is, it reminds me of kind of like the journey I had as a coach and trainer, you know, quickly I realized like how many, I mean, it seemed like at least early on in my career,

it felt like every year there was like a new gimmick diet that was getting popular attraction. And so quickly I was like, oh, this is stupid, you know, and like look at all these people falling for this. And I was really, I was really adverse to even looking into it or utilizing anything from it. I was like anti all of it. And then I had enough people where I saw that like,

you know, they went vegan and it was like life changing for them. Or, you know, or, you know, before keto was popular, they were, you know, doing a, what you're gonna call it. Zone or? No, no, no, no. Accus, accus, accus. And it was like, life changing for them. And so it's like, and you know, when you get somebody

who it's like, changes their life like that, like, try telling that person, oh, you're diet stupid. Or it's, you know, so, so I it's like changed their life like that, like try to tell that person, oh, you're diet's stupid. So I had to accept that, okay, there are some cases here that have really, really helped these people out by switching to this sort of diet. And then I started to go a little bit deeper on all the different diets and realize that we have all these different scenarios and cases where these diets are very applicable to some people and some groups. And then I'm like, okay, well,

how do I apply this as a coach and a trainer? So what I started to do was actually teach the methods all of them, but then I would set the table with my client on why we're doing this and what the whole idea this was. And what to look out for. Yeah, and the things that you listed off are literally the things that I would tell them, like, this is what we're going to do this diet, and I want you to follow the protocol, and I want you to give me the feedback on all these things.

Also, tell me how much you're enjoying it, and you like it too. Like, I want to know that too, right? Yeah, so each one, and I went through that same process with a lot of different clients because you you find like one, like, say it's the Mediterranean diet or whatever, like this worked really well with like the majority of my clients, like initially, and so then I tried to apply that same formula for all the rest of the next clients coming in and then it just didn't have the same effect. And so trying to tease that out, but you but revisiting it later on in my career and like going through all the different types of diets

and kind of navigating through all that, you start to realize there's characteristics between each of these types of diets and like what benefits they provide might be a little bit different and might apply specifically to somebody else. That's seeking those very specific type of characteristics. I need something that's a little more digestible.

That's addressing my food intolerances. Super specific individual things that you identify from those diets that I can then pass on. Well, this is the conclusion that I came to. And then I, and I, and then, but I found was really important though, because I, I probably made mistakes early on of not communicating it well enough, was that I would teach somebody something

and then they would go through that same process of like, oh my God, it's life changing. I love this is, you know, whatever diet, insert whatever diet. And I realized I'd quickly have to explain it like, no, no, no, no, no, it's not the diet. It's that you were eating this way. These types of foods didn't agree with you and you didn't realize it until we eliminated them

in the diet. Your body needed more of these foods over here and then you didn't feel that good until we added it. And so really it's less about, this diet is what did it for you. It's that these foods that we were ignoring before or these foods that you were allowing in the diet. That is what was affecting this.

And so that's the real takeaway from here is not that you need to live in this box for the rest of your life and say you're a so and so whatever you're done. And again, insert diet. It's more about what did you learn about those, you know, specific foods? Oh, I need it up my fiber intake. Right. That's what I learned from this diet. Exactly. Look, there's no two people are identical. Okay, no two people are identical. Not even identical twins, by the way, are identical. They still have different experiences. And food, food, our relationship

to food and how it affects this is actually extremely complex. So the start of physiology, your physiology is unique. You have a microbiome, for example, that's unique. So how you digest foods, your immune system is unique. How it reacts or doesn't react to certain foods, okay? Your psychology is unique. Is psychology an important factor when it comes to diet? Yeah, you better believe it, right? How you feel, how foods affect you.

What about the connections you have with foods? I have certain connections to foods that you guys don't have because you didn't grow up eating those types of foods, right? Or how about this? Here's a good example of that. You ever eat something that you always eat, but then for some reason it makes you sick once,

and then you can never eat it again for years. So that means that connection, that psychological connection to that food might have changed. Food relationships are extremely unique. So you're a unique individual, and although humans were all generally very similar, especially when you compare to other animals, we're very, very similar, we're also extremely unique. And if we don't pay attention to all these factors we're about to talk about, what you'll be stuck in is this, let me follow this diet, let me follow this diet, let me follow this diet, and not really knowing what you don't know

because you don't know what to pay attention to. And you've fallen this in and out type of thing. This, I'm on the wagon, off the wagon. I gain weight, I lose weight, I feel good, I don't feel good, or I feel good right now, and then this diet stopped working. All of a sudden, I don't feel good, or I feel good right now, and then this diet stopped working, all of a sudden, I don't feel good anymore.

What the hell is going on? Because everything I just said, as unique as you are physiologically, psychologically, the connections and your food relationship, those change as you get older and as the circumstances and context of your life changes as well. Whole other layer of complexity would you say that?

That's right, so you may be thinking, or hearing this right now, how the hell do I figure this out? That sounds really complex and it changes. So once I figured out, I got to figure it out again. Well, yes and no. Yes, it's complex. However, we're about to explain to you and go over, really simple things to pay attention to

that are actually in the long term more important than many of the things that you're told to pay attention to that are actually in the long term more important than many of the things that you're told to pay attention to when it comes to food. So first off, I don't want to discredit things that calories and proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Those are obviously very important. But I'm not going to discredit those. But what we're about to go through when it comes to long term success actually plays a bigger role in finding the diet that works best for you and finding the one that's going to work for you for the rest of your life. You know, I don't even think that statement exists.

In fact, I'm going to say something that's going to be very unpopular or controversial, which is I think if you have landed on a diet and you think it's the best diet for you and you've stayed there, I think you're being misled because what I have seen in the past that has happened time and time again is Okay, just a minute example of like the fiber. So let's let's go down that way So I have a client their digestion is off and so that and they And I put them on the vegan diet, right? And they go and we go vegan and oh my god Digesting has never been great before and then okay was because they were eating like no no fruits and vegetables They weren't getting harder, any fiber in their diet. And so now that,

but what now dramatically shifted was, now protein became like a really challenging thing, but they don't feel these effects. Not really. It takes sometimes months, sometimes years of eating this way, and being depleted, and not quite hitting your RDA on a regular basis

for a long time before the hair starts to kind of fall out or skin feels weird or they can't build muscle or something doesn't feel right about their body. And they don't connect it to the diet because the diet made them feel so amazing initially. So I feel like this never stops. Like I'm never, I don't land on, oh, this is how I eat. This is what has made me feel, okay, for the time being, this has made me feel better than anything else.

We can say that, but it's more about investigating the foods that you're eating and how they're affected. Well, a good point. And then being aware that it may be temporarily making you feel better than what you did before, but also making sure you're watching out that, okay, now and somebody else. Not me. You might not be, that might be getting neglected.

Yes, that's such a good point. I mean, take it even a step further. You could have a nutrient deficiency, like magnesium, change your diet to get a lot of magnesium, feel amazing until you're eating too much magnesium because your body stores it. Now it becomes too much magnesium, now it becomes detrimental.

So what we're about to talk to are the things that pay attention to that will always keep you on track. That'll help you find the perfect diet for your body. When you find the perfect diet for your body, you feel the best, you get the best results, and it's the easiest to stick to. It's all three of those things. And really what we're about to talk about isn't as much as pay attention to these things. It's literally just don't ignore these things. Because the ones I'm about to go through oftentimes we ignore because we're paying attention

to the scale only, to the gym only, and maybe only to macros and calories, and we ignore these other ones. So let's start with the first one. This one's the most important, which is digestibility. There's a saying that is, you are what you eat. It's actually not true. You are what you eat. It's actually not true.

You are what you digest. That's what you are. If your body can't properly break something down or if what you eat, and I don't care what the food is, it can be the greatest super food in the planet. If it causes inflammation, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or an immune response, that food is not only not right for you, it's actually bad for you. To use an extreme example, a healthy food, they go a very healthy food like eggs or a fruit, like strawberries, right? Well, if you're allergic to those foods, it goes from a healthy food to donate this so you'll die, right?

That's an extreme case. But it could be as easy as, you know, I get a little heartburn, or I feel a bit inflamed, or this makes me feel lethargic for some reason this causes a blood sugar crash, which by the way is very individual. We're learning this now with these continuing glucos. I'm also gonna add to that to make this even more complex,

but it also sometimes can be a food that didn't bother you for a very long time. Correct. And then now it's something that you've consumed. And this is what I think is most common, most common. Yeah, but this never bothered me before. Exactly. Because I've been eating this my whole life.

How could it be that? It can't be that food. Well, it's absolutely can be that. Look, anybody over the age of 30 knows that the foods that they could eat before are not the same as the foods that they could eat now. So digestibility is extremely important. Digestibility is more important than food quality. What do you mean by food quality?

Well, protein quality or how many essential fatty acids are there? Or vitamins and minerals or organic. Well, if you can't break it down properly and if it causes inflammation and bloating, it really doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that the quality in a lab is shown to be better. If it affects your body poorly digest, you know, with your digestion, it's not going to be good for you. So one of the things I look out for. Well, um, you have really bad flatulence. Does it smell really bad? Do you have bad stool, right? Are you not passing good stool as a painful,

as it constipated as a diarrhea? Do you have heartburn? Do you get skin issues, oftentimes skin issues from, come from digestion type issues? So am I getting rashes or dryness or oiliness? Like these are all things that pay attention to. And even if the food that you're eating is supposedly a super healthy food,

if it causes digestion issues, then don't eat it. And on the flip side, if you eat something that just digests so well, where you eat it and you're like, oh my God, that just, I feel like I, even though I'm satisfied, I feel like I ate air. It just, I don't feel bloated.

My digestion's incredible. That's a good food, that's a good food. Yeah, because look at all the downstream effects that causes, I mean, it gets, it finds its way into your sleeping patterns. It finds when you're recovery into your performance in the gym, performance at work, the way that you think, the way you walk around during the day, your self-confidence, like it's, there's so many psychological factors to that. You don't really know that until you've really focused on just consuming foods that are

easily digestible and how you can then move forward and thrive with that type of energy. You also said something at the beginning that I think is important that it makes it easier for people to adhere to, to stick to this diet. If it's, if it's a diet that feels good or checks some of these boxes that we're talking about, right? And this is something that just like literally happened this last week. You know, Katrina and I have been busy. We've had some long nights where we didn't get a lot of rest. We've talked about it before. She obviously is in the social. She knows of shared where, you know, when you're lack of sleep, those when the cravings kick up her go to three her go to thing is five guys, five is in the social. She knows of shared where, you know, when you're lack of sleep, those when the cravings kick up her go to three, her go to thing is five

guys, five guys in french fries. That's like a major treat in our house. It's normally her who brings it up and says she wants it. I normally say, yeah, if we haven't had in a while, I'm down to have it. I knew that we had been inconsistent with our sleep for the week. I also knew that I only had one day of training in the last three or four days at that point. And she's like, oh, burger. Can we do burgers? And I'm like, no, just, and I'll tell you what, what makes me say no is I actually can, I can visually imagine what I feel like after I eat it. It point going down. It is amazing. And so initially I think that like, who that does sound good right now. You're right. That sounds good.

But what I instantly switch over to is the like, but every time I do that, like, whoo, that does sound good right now. You're right, that sounds good. But what I instantly switch over to is the like, but every time I do that, it feels like a rock is just sitting in my stomach. And it normally will throw my stool off and I won't feel good for another good 24 hours after that. Switch over to what we had, which was bison, sweet potato, and just some onion, some of my boring bodybuilding type of diet food.

And, you know, going down, doesn't have that same burger, juicy taste, but like you mentioned, it felt like air. I felt satisfied. I have no longer hungry, but didn't it felt so good afterwards. And so learning to connect those things is so important to making that choice because it's hard to make that choice when you feel like that, especially if you're tired and the cravings are strong and you haven't ate yet, but this to me is one of the biggest keys to being successful with making good food choices

is exactly being able to connect these dogs. When your digestion is off, you're more inflamed, you have higher levels of stress hormones, lower levels of the anabolic rebuilding hormones, sleep becomes worse, blood sugar becomes more erratic, it affects lots and lots of different things. Cravings go up. So, poor digestion makes you either not hungry at all, and then when that goes away, cravings go through the roof. So it's the

most important thing to consider. Now, here's the thing. Most people, it's not even that they don't think that they don't think about digestion. They ignore it. They'll follow a diet. I had people would follow keto diet when that became popular. And they'd be like, hey, when is the constipation going to go away? Well, it's probably not for you. Right? It's probably not for you. I don't think you should eat it or I'm following this great diet. I've lost lots of weight. You know, I've got this terrible heartburn, but it's probably not for you, right? It's probably not for you. I don't think you should eat it. Or I'm following this great diet. I've lost lots of weight. You know, I've got this terrible heartburn, but it's okay because they take priceless sac

or whatever every single day and say, well, it's not working for you, right? So digestion's number one. Here's the second one, energy. Not just long-term energy, but also immediate energy. If you eat something and you notice that an hour or two later, you feel sluggish or tired or you need to take an app. So this happens to me when I eat a large serving,

especially a large servings of gluten containing carbohydrates. So if I ate like a pasta or bread, and I love, I mean, my family's from Italy, I love pasta, I love bread. I know about an hour to two later, I need to take an app. I feel so lethargic. I feel so tired. I have to either take caffeine or go and take an app. Now, long term energy, this one, obvious, right? So if you're following a diet over time, you start to feel less and less energetic. You feel more and more lethargic. And by the way, feeling lethargic and low energy, it will stir up cravings because your body's trying

to seek something to pick up again a little bit. Now, we have CGMs now, continue a glucose monitor that people can wear. And this is giving us some ideas as to what's going on with energy with some people. And this is very individual. Somebody could wear a CGM. And so with that,

it measures glucose in the blood. And they could eat oatmeal, or they could eat ice cream. So you would think, well, oatmeal is gonna be much better on blood glucose than ice cream. Well, for the most part, that's true, but there's cases,

and we've seen this where it's not. The oatmeal causes the crazy spike and drop. So somebody in this case might ignore that, because we're like, but oatmeal is a healthy. Everybody says oatmeal is really good, and so I don't know why I'm tired. I don't know what's going on, right? So not paying attention to these things means

you're gonna continue to push yourself down the wrong path. Have you guys identified foods for yourselves like that? Yeah. For me, it's gluten for sure. It's very similar to you. And I was just thinking about what was funny was, was how we still load so much with, with those types of cars before games, thinking that we were doing ourselves a service. And I would get to the game. I'd be so lethargic and tired and was always battling that once I got into the game and didn't find,

like, figured that out till a weight later on in my career, whereas I could have been a lot sharper, a lot more energetic if I would have just got better sources of carbohydrates like say, even like white rice for me or potatoes as a different source versus, you know, having like something like a gluten-filled pancake, like I'd mentioned, or pasta.

So yeah, that was a very interesting shift for me is to, you know, you go through that and you figure out which times the carbs. And you ignored it for a long time. Yeah, because everybody told you you were supposed to eat it. Completely crash. It would be like so tired I wanna go to sleep. That's the same thing.

I'm gonna stick with, for the audience, I'm gonna stick with the analogy that is like so recent for me that go to sleep. That's the same. So I'm going to stick with, for the audience, I'm going to stick with the analogy that is like so recent for me that it, because I just went through it. And as we're having this conversation, and I know the bullet points that are coming up, it's interesting because I'm going like, this is so funny because obviously we're having to articulate this right now.

But this whole conversation happens in my head when this moment comes on. When the wife says, let's go have five guys, sounds how they're good to me. And then right away my brain starts to get up like, you know, I didn't have it done this, I'm done that. Oh, I'll fill this way, I'll fill that way, and this is all happening.

Even to this point, the energy, right? So at that point, it's like, I think five or six o'clock at the night, I know at the end of the night, one of my routines is like, clean the house, some of the cars, I think five or six o'clock at the night. I know at the end of the night, one of my routines is like, clean the house, some of the cars, I straighten everything up, I do the dishes,

and it's like, if I have that burger meal, I know exactly what I normally want to do. That's normally what I like to do, like on Friday nights, after house is all clean done, because I know I don't fucking want to move. It makes me just,

it's not always it's like a rock, but then I just want to plop down on the couch and just be a vegetable. And I know that's part of that process. If I choose to go down that path, it's like, and so here we are in the middle of a weekday, I've got things to do still. The house isn't clean completely, and we eat that way too. Not only am I going to feel that way, but I also know that I'm not going to have the energy to want to do the stuff that I really do, which also will put me in a bad mood

after that. So it's like all these things and I'll touch on all of them as you do the list, like that conversation happened in my head to make that decision. All right, so this next one is gonna seem obvious, but I listed it because what I'm about to say is not so obvious. So this is palatability. All right, what does that mean?

How enjoyable is the food for you to eat? So you might be thinking, well yeah, no shit, like I definitely choose foods based off of hell, how much I enjoy them. Okay, here's my illicit palatability. Palatability isn't just flavor. So when people think something palatable, they think it's just the taste. Palatability includes the experience and how much you enjoy eating whatever you're eating.

So it's not just the taste, it's also the texture, it's also the mouth feel, it's also the connection, it's also the memories, it's also the mouth feel, it's also the connection, it's also the memories, it's also all those things. For example, that bison dish you were talking about, you probably find more palatable because you know how good it makes you feel. So you want it more because of that. So paying attention to all the other things

we're gonna talk about will actually change the palatability of certain foods. So the reason why I listed this is, yes, you want to definitely think about the foods you enjoy eating, but also think how you can make the foods that make you feel good more enjoyable by connecting the dots to all these other incredible things. I've made that's why I brought up that and I said that my boring bodybuilder food, but I have now made the connection of, there's a handful of consistent dishes that I ate and bison sweet potato and onions is one of them,

with just some seasoning on it, is like one of the staple. So I have this connection of not only does that feel good going down, by the way, when you're dieting that strict, that is sweet potato and that's a rich meal for me. So being able to have something that I know I like to in replace of the burger and fries

was a must for me. If I, it would be even more difficult for me if I didn't have an alternative option of a good choice for my body that I actually like also. So it does play a factor in that. Like if we had, if Katrina is like, well, we have nothing at the house, or you know, all we have is chicken breasts

and or tilapia and asparagus. It would have been much harder. Yeah, yeah. It would have been much harder to do that. But I love the bison and sweet potato. So it was an easy like, you know what? I'm gonna feel so much better. I'll feel better after it while I'm doing it the day after.

I'm eating it like, let's go that way. Palatability is a value, it's a real value of food. It's an important one, but on its own, it's not very good because it doesn't take into a lot of other things into account. But we do want to be quite honest and palatability is very important. So let's talk about an extreme case here.

You're following a diet and you hate the experience of eating all the food. I mean, does anything else matters at that point, right? Yeah, nothing matters. But the silver lining to it is you can actually, you know, build those associations. You can actually increase your desire, like, it'll taste better at the end of the day once you, like, build those firm associations that this, you know, helps me to digest food a lot more effectively.

And I feel better overall in general when I eat these foods. And so as I'm doing that, I'm consuming it. And I'm kind of reiterating that to my mind. So I mean, and this is like you've mentioned before too, like I've had a hard time with fish. And that's just something I'm just constantly, like still, like really trying to program my mind

to be like, okay, this is good. I need the megas from this. I need the health benefits from this, the nutrients. This is doing things for me. So that way too, the flavor of it actually kind of changes. Yeah, and you know what's funny. Now you might not be able to work miracles,

but I bet you, because Justin hates fish or hated fish, I bet you didn't go from hate to love, but you probably went from hate to I can tolerate. Yeah. And that's the key, that's the thing that I'm talking about. So yeah, you're not gonna be able to take a food that's super gross. Yeah, exactly.

And all of a sudden make it like taste good, but you may take something that at first you didn't like and then make it into something that, well, I can eat this, I can actually eat this. But palatability, again, it's very important, it's a real value, so you definitely wanna consider it. And by the way, you can improve But palatability, again, it's very important. It's a real value, so you definitely want to consider it. And by the way, you can improve the palatability of most foods, very simple with salt, seasonings, and if you don't mind adding calories, olive oil. Olive oil makes almost anything that's healthy tastes better. Seriously. And those are one, those

two things, salt and fat right there, thrown onto foods will make a big difference. That only increased the penalty. You know, we're talking about the positive things with good healthy choices and stuff like that, but you have me thinking about something that I think most people have experienced. Most anybody I've ever met that drank beer for the first time or drank wine for the first time.

Did not like it. I've never heard him go like, oh man, the first time I had a glass of wine, it was so amazing. Nobody liked it. Right, so it's especially beer. So what is it? What is it that made us love? Eventually love. Love it, right? We've learned to attach positive associations to that thing enough times that you eventually ended up not only like you, but loving it, right? So it goes both ways.

Same thing with black coffee. You're training yourself to like it. Black coffee too. I don't know anybody that drank black coffee for the first time was like, this is delicious. Most people are like, oh, this is gross. Then you get the caffeine, the effects, and all of a sudden you start to like the taste. Start out with frappuccinos,

you're in an outro. Exactly. All right, so this next one is another one that's important and you have to validate this and that's your emotional connection. Both good and bad to foods. I gave an example earlier where you eat something, you get sick, all of a sudden you don't want that food anymore because it reminds you of When you got sick, right? That's the power of something like this. Here's here's something else

There's probably foods that you have a good connection to that you ate as a kid That if you were really honest with yourself and you just got introduced to them for the first time as an adult, they're not that good. But the reason why you like them is craft mac and cheese. Yeah, or cookies. Yeah, exactly. Because you have a connection to those things, they actually, you know, you kind of enjoy them.

By the way, food manufacturers do this all the time. This is why we crave popcorn at the movie theater or you know, there's birthday foods and stuff like that. So emotional connection is very important and it's important to highlight the good and the bad connections that you have to food because this will help you become, remember all the things that we're talking about

is gonna help you develop a much broader, complete view of the values of food for your body and the emotional connection that you have to foods, by the way, here's another one, okay? Do I, here's some of the bad potential emotional connections? When I'm stressed, what foods do I reach for? When I'm sad, when I'm anxious, what about when I'm bored?

What are the foods that I reach for? What about when I'm happy, or I feel confident, or when I feel insecure? Pay attention to these patterns, because what you may uncover is that you may uncover that you're either numbing yourself or self-medicating yourself or eating foods, maybe not so much

because you want the foods, but because of the emotional state that you're in. And that can help prevent things that can pulse a eating or using food as a drug, which, I mean, that's the most commonly abused jug in Western societies, is food? No, this is exactly, I actually pointed it out, and she knew, when she asked me,

do you wanna have five guys? And again, I'm processing all the stuff and I look back at her, you do know why you want that, right? She goes, I know, she goes 100%, she goes, I haven't slept, we've had stressful days back then. So to me, it's just, the first step

is becoming, is the point you're making, which is becoming aware of how powerful the psychology is, that you know, you tend to gravitate to certain things based off of these emotional connections that we have and or stress and or lack of sleep and being aware of that makes it easier for you to make a better choice because you're on, oh wow, that's, it's not just because I want it

because I deserve it or it's a good time to have it. It's because these other factors are playing a role now and do I have the mental discipline to make the better choice? Yeah, here's an example of emotional connection when for me, it outweighs some of the other ones. Now, it usually doesn't and it's usually a blend of things and then the situation in my life

of the context of what's going on, some maybe are more valuable than others, and that's what's wonderful about this is as you go through these and pay attention to these, some will be more important, depending on the circumstances, my digestion's bad. Well, then the digestibility's gonna be much more important. I'm at my mom's house for Sunday dinner.

Guess what matters, very important to me, my emotional connection. I just talked about how gluten-containing carbohydrates make me feel like crap. But when mom is making homemade pasta sauce and homemade lasagna, my emotional connection to that food with my family is so important to me and it's so valuable to me that I'll trade one for the other.

It's not only just that. One of the things that I love that we've done is the beginning that we've started this thing as we've always been very transparent and honest with our audience because we're not trying to sell you this idea or image. It's a lifestyle and it doesn't mean that I don't choose the burger. That's right. I do choose to. There's been plenty of times where I choose the burger. So there's lots of times where that's what it does look like. It's Friday, Katrina and I had a killer week. We crushed it. We trained three or four times. We handled all kinds

of bullshit in our relationship. We killed it. Like, her and I about to sit down and watch a good movie or binge something that we hadn't watched. It's like, yeah, I'm going to let it sit like a rock in my stomach today. I'm going to have a bad shit tomorrow. Like, yeah, because I'm going to, and I'm going to enjoy that burger going down, because I want it right now. And so the problem is, and I think is that people justify that too much or ignore all the things we're talking about. And the real secret to all this is just having the awareness

and learning to have balance in your life. With this, exactly, with this leads to his balance, this leads to balance. And that's why there's so many of these, and that's why it's important to pay attention, all these. Yeah, well, one thing I wanted to bring up is just like, when we allow some of these emotional foods like to get too much hype.

So like in terms of like, this is again, my problem with cheat meals and all these things. We're putting too much emphasis on our availability of, like, I get to have this, I get to have this and just becomes like one of these things where we just completely indulge and go excessive and overboat. I spoke out since day one on that

when I first got on social media and then, so I didn't even know that was a thing until I got into the competitive world. The whole like, the cheat meals of soul. Cheat meal cheat day thing was never a... So ridiculous. Yeah, I didn't know any,

I've never heard that in my life for the first 10 years of a trainer. It was until the back 10 when I got into the competitive world and this becoming, and the minute I saw and heard it, I was against it. Cause it's just, it's so obvious to me what you're doing.

You're not addressing a good relationship. If anything, you're promoting the bench restrict. That mentality, and that mentality, I've already seen that in clients struggle their whole life with these crazy restrictive diets and then going off. All that is a condensed version of that. So what people normally do is this, diet really hard for weeks or maybe months

if they're really good, getting good shape and then fall hard off the wagon. Doing a cheat day or meal or whatever you want to call it is literally building that into a week. And it's what you're doing. It's just fine. And it's not flexibility. No, it's not balance.

It's not balance. Balance would be, it's a meal, right? Oh, you're eating pizza right now. Yeah, it's a meal. Not my cheat meal, it's just a meal. And okay, well, you want me to break down why I'm eating it? Well, I'm connecting with my friends. We're having a good time. That's why I think it's valuable.

Situational is not like you're like scheduling it. Correct. Alright, so the next one, this one's funny to me because for a long time, and maybe even now, although I think people are starting to wise up a little bit, for a long time, when I would have clients that would talk about changes in their hair or their skin, and they'd go to the doctor and they'd ask them things like, could my diet be affecting my skin?

Do you think my diet could be giving me acne or some of these rashes or inflammation? And the doctors would be like, no, has nothing to do with your skin, has nothing to do with your skin, has nothing to do with your hair. And as a trainer, I was trained people over and over again. I was like, oh my God.

So fresh, hey. That's so frustrating. Pay attention to your skin and hair. Your skin and hair, first off your skin, which is the largest organ in your body. Your skin, it's like a delayed reaction, but it will tell you if you're inflamed or if you have gut issues.

It's actually, in fact, you go to a functional medicine practitioner with chronic skin issues. One of the first things you're going to do is look at your gut. So skin and hair are actually great measures of things like nutrient deficiencies. Am I getting the right amount of fatty acids? Am I getting a good amount of protein?

Do I have good digestion? So if you're eating a particular way and your skin is like cracked or dry or oily or itchy and your hair is stringy or not full, it doesn't feel quote unquote healthy, look at your diet, your diet may be the culprit for some of this stuff. I mean, this is easy for me,

easy because my autoimmune is psoriasis. So one of the quickest ways for me to know, I mean, anytime someone sees my psoriasis and they're like, oh my god, what's that? Or I didn't know you had that. Or yeah, my response always is, yeah, my diet's not that old right now. If I'm eating out of balance, more often than not, it quickly reminds me of that. And so to me, it's always been kind of a blessing in disguise. Of course, I hate it.

I don't like it. It's not ideal. But it also keeps me in check because it's a visual representation. It's really easy sometimes, I think, for people to ignore the stuff inside. Oh, my digestion's off. I'm just going to ignore all that stuff because I can't see it. But I see these visual dry spots and itchy skin on me. And then it happens almost.

I mean, I know you say it takes a little while to kick in. I can eat something and within two hours, I'm picking. You're the more streaming right right away. I mean, within two hours, I've seen it. You've told us you've said you've actually pointed it out and said, watch what happened. Yeah. I'll ride away. It'll it'll get it'll get bad.

And so yeah,, no absolutely effects. You know, back to your point too about the darkening. That's still hasn't changed unfortunately. I mean, my dermatologist who specializes in the skin shit, it didn't tell me diet. I mean, that's the part that is crazy to me. It's crazy to me that even in the fields that like, this is your specialty is that we weren't ever talking about diet.

It was always. You know it's funny about the creams and shots. You know it's funny about this or medication that they're testing. You guys have dogs? Yeah. veterinarians know that the dogs diet affects their coat. Right. And they're skin.

Yeah. It's really weird how humans, are we different animals or something? Yeah, different organisms completely. I don't know about that. It's so strange. All right, the next one is athletic performance. Different types of foods, different compositions of foods, will affect your athletic performance differently.

For me, for example, what may make me feel best, digestion wise, what may make me feel best, mentally or whatever, may not be what makes me feel best Athletically and vice versa. So again, this is all about balance But for me athletic wise Starche carbure hydrates usually rice Some good lean proteins and some fats not a ton of fats And then I just have the best athletic performance. Why is this important to pay attention to I work out I work out right I work out on a daily basis. Also athletic performance can give you a nice gauge

on your just overall fitness. So if I want to be stronger, feel better, have more stamina. Well, there's certain foods that I'm gonna eat that are gonna make me feel this way. So this is definitely something you wanna pay attention to if you exercise and you should exercise. So if you exercise, pay attention like am I stronger?

Do I feel better to have more energy in my workouts? And that'll kind of lead you to the foods that you better have. Yeah, this is back to the whole characteristics thing and what applies best for whatever situation or goal that you have at the time. And for me, it's like, if I've been feeling like my heartburns coming back, all these kind of issues, I'm dealing with again, I'm gonna reduce calories a bit

and I'm gonna focus a little bit more on up in my protein and things like that reducing a lot of inflammatory type carbs that may sneak its way in you know I'm very much adamant about that because I know it works and then the same thing with athletic performance it's like I got to beef up the calories a bit for me and that that introducing of carbohydrates really does help with that and aids into you know my lifts and my training specifically. A lot of our audience might not know this, but our good friend and partner, Jason Phillips, made his bones in the CrossFit community by addressing this. Right.

I don't know if you guys remember that or not. Yeah, because when CrossFit first started, it was about paleo and keto. Yeah. Which is not the best diet for hardcore low carbohydrate diets. Seeds. And now it what originally why it stayed around for as long as it did was because you had, you know, what it did create was pretty lean bodies. And you had, and you had, and it's healthy and you have these athletes that were still pushing through it, but it was not what was optimal for athletic performance. And he came in and completely flipped the nutrition model

on their head. That's how he got really popular. You know the irony of that is, do you know how many athletes, these are athletes by the way. So if you're watching this and you're not a highly competitive athlete, you're even at a greater disadvantage.

These were athletes that were ignoring the signs that their body was telling them. They were completely ignoring the athletic performance. Just pushing through it. That's why these things are so important. Because the average person doesn athletic performance. Just pushing through it. That's why these things are so important. Because the average person doesn't pay attention to all these things. They'll pay attention to the scale. And they'll ignore all this other stuff and they wonder why they can't stick to a particular diet or why the diet doesn't work for them anymore.

So it's really, really crazy one. Here's the next one. Sleep. This one's a big one. Your diet can have profound effects on your sleep, especially the foods that you eat that are closer to bedtime. So I know for me, for example, if I, when I do eat carbohydrates for me, if I want to have good sleep, I'll typically eat them about three or four hours before going to bed. Now I know people are the opposite. They have the low carbohydrates before bed.

For me, you give me some carbs about three hours before bed, by the time bed rolls around, this wonderful, nice evening of sleep. The right types of car behind you. Oh, destroy me. Yeah. But for you with, yeah, there you go. So there's the other job. I have to have them all the morning. They're just like, that's, I just need as many calories as I can. First thing in the morning that really helps me set my day out with good energy. Well, this is another reason why I really like the old advice that had been debunked and now is less popular.

And that's the old, don't eat past six o'clock. Or eat in the morning like a king, afternoon like a queen, like a popper. Yeah. I mean, that's, and of course, we had the science came out to debunk that's stupid. If calories are all equated, this and the same and macros are same, that it doesn't matter if you eat it at midnight or but dude it does. It affects your sleep, you know, what they're measuring and testing what's not the same is the calorie burn and the metabolizing of fat and their pain and tension to that. But what they're not measuring is like is sleep, you know, I bet you if you took the same

person who ate their, the same as that calories, always stopped by six o'clock, and then they always, and then that same person test them again for six months, make them eat till midnight every single night. I guarantee they would report back that their sleep was better when they ate at six. You would see that.

And then if your sleep is not good, then it goes back to that thing that we talked about earlier about cravings kick up, and now it just means that that much harder to make those good choices again. and so it's like this cycle that is really hard to tease out and test somebody in a six to eight week study and say hey this isn't impacting all these things so that's why I like that and I always try and make it a goal to get done with my eating as early as possible six seven o'clock because I know I'm going to be up

till 10 or 11 so so I wanna be, I wanna have been done for a while before I lay down, and when I don't, I always notice a difference on how I feel. Yeah, and to take it a step further, people don't even know that they're eating affects their sleep, unless it's obvious, right? Like I just ate before bed, oh, I feel sick.

People don't realize what they ate in the morning could affect their sleep, or just what they eat on a regular basis could affect their sleep. Like if somebody has sleep issues, there's lots of things that they look at. Food is almost never on the list. And that's my point with this,

is that sleep definitely gets affected by the types of food. It's also compounding, Sal, right? So let me go back to my burger thing that I told you, it's filling it, it's sitting in a rock. Imagine I eat the burger, I go right to bed right afterwards.

So I eat something that doesn't agree with my digestion. Then I lay down horizontally. Oh yeah. And then and high calorie and late at night. Like, yeah, it's gonna disrupt all of that. It's disrupting the sleep, disrupting the digestion and to think that that doesn't make a big difference long term

and then doing it over and over and you're crazy. Totally. All right, this next one, this is extremely important because one of the biggest challenges for people who are trying to maintain a healthy body weight, right? The average person is dealing with, typically dealing with, well, I'm a little heavy or I tend to gain more body fat or maybe I'm trying to lose body fat.

So this next one is very important for these people, which is, again, most people. And that is satiety. How long do I say stay satisfied after eating particular meals? Now, I could, I know there are foods that I will eat when I'm trying to gain weight. And it's not because they're high calories,

because they make me, I get hungry faster after I eat those foods. I know that there's certain foods that make me really satisfied for longer. And I'll choose those foods when I'm trying to eat less food. So if you're trying to bulk for example, well you want to pay attention to the foods that don't give you much satiety. So you can fit in more calories. If you're not trying to bulk and trying to cut, well you want to pick foods that stay with you longer, eat it and you feel better and not so hungry. So for me

for example, a ketogenic diet tends to be the satiety producing one. That's for me. So high protein, by the way, for most people, high protein just increases satiety regardless. But for me, high protein, ketogenic diet, all eat less. If I'm trying to bulk, then I'll drop the fats, I'll keep the protein high, but not as high as I had with keto,

and then I'll bump the carbs. What happens with me? I just get hungry more often. So it's satiety something you wanna pay attention to as well, fats, I'll keep the protein high, but not as high as I had with keto, and then I'll bump the carbs. What happens with me, I just get hungry more often. So it's a tidy something you want to pay attention to as well because you need to manipulate this based on whatever your goals are. So I love this one because if you've listened to the podcast long enough, there was a point where the, I believe both of you, at least I know you did. I think Justin did too, had went keto.

I was just coming out of competing, and I was like at peak metabolism. I was 5,000 calories, I think it was hitting like 600 grams of carbs a day, I mean, and abs, feeling like a champ, right? And I could, I could eat almost anything calorie-wise at that point and still stay pretty linked as my metabolism was roaring. And I remember these guys running the ketogenic diet

and I'm like, why would I, I've held no, I love carbs. And I can eat all, I have this, I have this incredible metabolic flexibility to eat like, why would I do that? And then of course, trying always to be a self-aware as I can, I caught myself going like, okay, well, that's why I should. Just simply because I said I don't need to

or I don't want to or why would I? So, okay, why not challenge myself? What I found that I thought was so interesting and what has, it has completely changed the way I eat today than what I did the previous years before that was I recognized this. I recognized on the ketogenic diet how hard it was actually for me.

I couldn't even hit my chaloric goal. The food was so, the higher fats and the higher protein was so satiating that I couldn't get the calorie intake, which told me right away after I had been doing it for a while, this is not a long-term diet for me, but it definitely went, hmm, made very useful. Very useful. So when I'm not, you know, got a 5,000, you know,

calorie type of metabolism, and I have more like a 3,000, 3,500 calorie metabolism right now, boy, it's a really nice tool to have that I keep my carbs now at 150, 200, I would say 250 would be a really high day, which I would, that was, when I used to carb cycle for competing. Is that your low carb day?

My low carb day was 250. Wow. That was a low carb day, which I would, that was, when I used to carve cycle from competing, is that your low carb day? My low carb day was 250. Wow. That was a low carb day, which has now become the highest carb day that I would have in dining. And what I have found with that is when I target foods that are higher in protein and fat as the primary source of calories from my diet, it's just easier not to overeat,

where if I was to allow carbohydrates in there, the carbohydrates would stimulate the appetite and it would be, it would take way more discipline for me to restrict. And so it's made for a better balance for that. Now, I didn't go adopt keto and say this was the best thing for me, but I took some of the things that I learned from going through that and now modified my current diet. Yeah, and remember, keep in mind, we're talking about our personal experiences.

These are very individual because I know people who go higher fat, lower carbohydrate, and it affects their digestion so poorly, and then they feel terrible, or people who just get low energy on it. So, again, this is all super individual. We're just giving our own personal experiences, but satiety, definitely something you want to pay attention to.

And the data does show that high protein, irrespective of carbohydrates and fats, is very, very satiety producing. So if you're trying to get lean, you should probably experiment with a high protein diet regardless, because that'll probably help you out. Not everybody, but most likely it probably will. All right, the last one, here's the last one.

Adam, you added this one at the very end, and I think I'm glad you did, because this kind of takes into account all the things that we just talked about, which is adherence. Your ability to stay consistent on said diet. So if you're following a diet that feels incredible, gives you great energy, good digestibility, good athletic performance, good sleep, all this other stuff,

but it's like this rare marsupial from Brazil that you have to eat three times a day. You're not going to be able to stick to it, right? So it's not a good diet. Now I'm using an extreme example, but adherence is very important. Can you stick to this diet, or is it so inconvenient, or is it one that just so doesn't work with you, or it's one that doesn't make you feel good, whatever, you have to consider all of that because at the end of the day, the diet that you that you can't stick to is one that doesn't work for you. It's just the bottom line. It's as meaning Tiger. Like what kind of well, it's very similar to the will tagline.

You always say about inferior programs, right? Like a inferior program done consistently is better than a superior program done inconsistently. The same thing about a diet. There could be a better diet for you out there, but if you'll never stick to it, you don't like it. It doesn't matter. You're better off doing a diet that is less optimal for you, but at least better because you're going to add here to it. So I think that's always got to be said, which is why coming full circle in my coaching experience towards the end of my career, the way putting together

diets for clients look like was, I didn't build any diets. I said, you go eat, how you always eat. And I don't, I'm literally, if that means eating skittles at two on certain days, do it. That means going through McDonald's or do it. I want to see how you eat on a regular basis. From there, I'm gonna make subtle modifications to it and move you in the direction that I know is probably gonna be healthier for you. And pay attention to all of the stuff.

And exactly. And then help them make the connections on all these things that were. Better to tighten little screws and get you closer to your goal that way. I had the same experience where it was just like, I had to throw away all the meal planning. Like that was just a big part of personal training.

It was like, here's your meal plan. Here's the list that you're allowed to get and let's avoid these foods. And it's just like, it's such a stark contrast of what they're already doing to where it's like steering a big, huge, you know, steering wheel versus just like making these like tiny little changes that they're more likely to do and are actually going to move the needle so much further. So yeah, I would just take them

to the grocery store and we would shop how they would shop and I would just watch, you know, the behaviors, okay, they're gonna go for this type of food, and then maybe like, look at the back and read the label, maybe let's try this one, and then just make one or two little subtle changes, and it would go so much further. That's perfect. Yeah, so basically if you follow and listen to all these different factors, you can start to begin

to develop a balanced approach to nutrition, and ultimately find the best diet that works for you which will lead to the best results. Look if you like our information, head over to MindPumpFree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find all of us on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at MindPump Justin, Adam is on Instagram at MindPump Adam and you can only find me on Twitter at MindPumpSouth.

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