Hey, Athletes! Thinking of going Keto? Maybe check out this episode of the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast before you do!
Episode 96 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
A Nail In The Coffin For Keto?
This week we have the fabulous four on the podcast. The coaches give us their updates and announcements before going over this week’s study. It goes over a ketogenic diet and how it affects body composition and strength. It may make you think twice before trying out the Keto diet! This week’s topic covers the coaches top 3 simple nutrition advice! Each one has something unique to contribute so make sure to get some good advice/takeaways with this one. Lastly, this week’s Meet Yourself Saturday Workout is called What the RUCK?! The coaches give their best advice for this one and a new challenge for you to tackle!
If you haven’t already, be sure to subscribe to the Garage Gym Athlete podcast either on Stitcher, iTunes, or Google Play by using the link below:
IN THIS 58-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
- Ketogenic Diet
- Kyle’s Camping Trip
- What the RUCK!?
- Top 3 Simple Nutrition Tips
- Hypertrophy
- Tips For MYS
- Updates and Announcements
- And A LOT MORE!!
Diving Deeper
If you want to go a little bit deeper on this episode, here are some links for you:
Study of the Week
Garage Gym Athlete Workout of the Week
Be sure to listen to this week’s episode:
Related Resources at End of Three Fitness:
- S5E5: Nutrition — Fasting, Keto, Low-Carb, Macros, Testing Yourself, and more!
- KETO Athletic Kryptonite or Superpower
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Thanks for listening to the podcast, and if you have any questions be sure to add it to the comments below!
To becoming better!
Jerred
Transcript:
Jerred Moon
All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage mathlete podcast Jerred Moon here with everyone. Sup, everyone.
Joe Courtney
Hello everyone, for everyone says Hello.
Jerred Moon
Yes they are. We’ve had a good start to the day here. And now we’re doing a podcast and Kyle’s low shell shocked right now. So we’re gonna start with Kyle, after the shout outs, but a shout out to Justin moss at the end. This is our last shout out this last one I really had on the list. Other ones have passed. We may do it again. We may not either way, if you’ve been shouted out ID Welcome to that small fraternity brotherhood. Anyway, just in Moscow an eight day back country elk hunt in Colorado. It’s not until September. He said lots of miles with hopefully a really heavy pack coming back. Yeah, it would be heavy on the way back. So that’s awesome. Justin, That’s intense. I’ve always wondered, like, you got to carry that elk out of there. That’s got to be a that’s pretty serious. Right? Now, the only other announcement type things we have two things going on right now. Murph, you can see if you go to garage, gym, athlete comm you’ll see a yellow banner at the top or you can go to garage gym athlete.com slash Murph and be a part of our fundraiser. And a lot of people already have, I just pulled the numbers yesterday. So that was May 3. And we were at just over $13,000 raised I think 13,500, something like that. And I’ll have all the exact numbers when we finish, but that’s quite a bit. So if you’re part of the community, and you’re part of that, that’s awesome. All that go into charity, most of it already there. A lot of people who’ve done direct donations, which means it goes straight, we don’t even touch it. So you don’t they don’t have to wait to get the money and just go straight to the Special Operations warrior foundation. So that’s awesome. And we’re doing it all month. And so even if you weren’t able to start on the Murph burner program track that we have still get in because we’re still gonna donate that money. And it is a program that you can keep for forever. So just watch sandlot with my boys. And then the last thing garage mathlete tours still going on. So if you go to garage mathlete.com slash tour, you can submit your tour Joe, how many do we have so far?
Joe Courtney
Like 25, like a C note.
Jerred Moon
Awesome. And we’re looking for way more than that. Even though that’s quite a bit. So go to garage, nothing on tour, submit them and get a free banner shirt, whatever it is you want from our merchandise store. That’s all I got. Kyle, how’s life?
Kyle Shrum
Life is good. I will say that our workout for this week would be perfect training for an eight day back country outcome. So stay tuned for that. Then I’ll say this, uh, this weekend, my family and I went on a camping trip with some people from our church. The first time the kids have ever gone camping. And they did surprisingly well. Nice and
Ashley Hicks
that her daughter was super chatty.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, yeah. Well, she has this habit of not sleeping with a blanket, which is fine when we’re inside the house. But when you’re outside in a tent, you kind of need to stay inside a sleeping bag to stay warm. So she woke up cold around 4am. Both days we were there. And once she was awake, she there was there was no going back. So pretty sure the whole camp woke up, because she was just jabbering away. Anyway. It was it was a fun time though. I bought some new gear and stuff and bought a new tent got kind of excited about it. So wanted to make sure they enjoyed it. And they did so hopefully more camping in the Shrum family’s future.
Joe Courtney
Besides a 4am wake up, how was your sleep?
Kyle Shrum
My sleep was good. I’m used to just leaving straight on the ground. But I got one of those self inflating sleeping pads. Like Yes, I just mean like camping. No sleep on the ground at home to most nights. I got one of those self inflating sleeping pants and it was excellent. I definitely recommend that. I’m not going to get an air mattress because those things deflate overnight. But that sleeping pad was great. So my sleep was good. Anyway, Ashley, you’re next.
Ashley Hicks
So my update is just more on nutrition journey. And for me, it’s more this time it’s been a mindset change instead of being restrictive and like eliminating a bunch of stuff. I found that I am. I’m very goal oriented. I think most of us probably are here on the team. But um, so we basically made my nutrition plan, more goal focused. So I have like a protein goal, a calorie goal, a, that a servings of vegetable goal every day. And it has made the biggest difference. It’s made me want to do this and actually be excited about doing it as well. So it’s going well, week two, and I feel great. Again, I think it’s a combination of that, and the meds are working, which is wonderful. But yeah, just changing my approach, changing the mindset. And knowing what I needed when I when I approached my nutritionist which was, which was really cool. And then my other update kind of segues into Joe’s update, but humidity is back here in Florida. And my workouts have suffered slightly, and that suffered, but like, it’s harder already. Last week, I felt great. It was wonderful. I mean, it was nice and cool still. And then there’s a big thunderstorm that’s coming this way. And we’re going to hit the panhandle for the next couple of days. And it is so nasty outside and I am dying, like my shins are sweating kind of dying. So yeah.
That’s my chin sweat.
Chin sweat. Remember, I sweat like a man. Alright, Joe, your turn?
Joe Courtney
Yeah, it’s very hot here. No, it’s, it’s in the 90s. And humidity is still like 50s, the 60s close to 70 sometimes, and it’ll still that’ll still increase as well. Yeah, I post a picture to you guys just to show you the visual but so consistently over winter and like for the last five months, I was doing like four miles on two runs every Thursday or something like that. And pretty consistent. My pacing was under nine minutes on a nine minute miles for the four for the four minutes. So 815 hours on this is a max of two. And so after we came back from Tanzania, last week was my first time running during the four miles again and dropped to or increased whatever you wanted to add an entire minute more per mile pace on that same run that I was doing for so long. And at first I thought it was okay. You know, I got my first dose of the vaccine. I haven’t ran in like three weeks. And as I used to it well I did the 15 minutes zone to for Murph burner track today. And it was also like 10 minute mile pace for five miles exactly as holy crap. So yeah, he is kicked up only like my first mile I can do sub nine minutes or so maybe maybe, like partially the second but after that it just it escalates or, yeah, quickly. But it’s okay. I mean, yes, crazy hot. And I’m actually avoiding running on the side of the street with shadows, like in the shade, because I know it’s just gonna get hotter. Not that that’s going to help much. But yeah, it’s not quite unbearable yet. So I’m still okay going and working out that because I still have to work out outside for the most part anyway. But that also segues into merner doing that this week, I have done the first three, four. I don’t even know what date is three days, let’s say three days. Yeah, the first three days or so. And yeah, it’s good. I gives me a chance to use my sandbag. And I know this is a question a lot of people about when you wear a vest and I’m just wearing a vest, whenever there’s weighted stuff and whenever I just feel like I can improve with the vest also so that I can get used to breathing with a vest. Because that is a terrible part. Just just reading with the vest is is not fun. I really want to get those curved plates. But that’s not in the in the docket. Yeah. I mean, it’s fine. But I just I just don’t know how shipping would be out here in PAETEC three or four weeks just to get out of here anyway, so
Ashley Hicks
I think they should do for free. I could be wrong if it’s broke.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, yeah. That’s our, our sandbag, we ship to rogue AP or whatever. I just don’t know what shipping was. But that is what’s up with me. So Jerred back, no, it
Jerred Moon
was best to do the Condor century. We’re. So if you tighten it down really tight, and you switch between breathing from your chest or breathing from your diaphragm, it allows you to breathe better. So like if you breed, open up your chest, then you can hold that you’re able to get more of a belly breath. And then if you push your belly out, you’re able to get more of a chest breath. I’m not kidding around either. This is something I learned doing a lot of mercs with Condor century and could not breathe literally could not breathe. We’re talking zone five middle of Murph. I had to figure out how to breathe. And that helped. So it might be confusing, but just put a vest on and practice it a few times and you realize oh, I can’t Get a little bit more oxygen. If I do it this way,
Joe Courtney
I’m gonna have to do this the TV watching.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, just practice some breathing with a vest on and you’ll, you’ll nail it. But, ya know, it’s same in Texas, not as hot as where you’re at. But uh, no PR is in the summertime. That’s not when it happens. No PR is on anything conditioning wise at least. And that’s what’s coming. I think my only update, I was gonna update people on the office progress in the backyard. Because last I mentioned it, I think I we were dried in. And we’re so dried in. So that’s, that’s it. Now, they’ve run plumbing there. So we have an active water line. And they installed the bathtub, which I didn’t know that they did, like nothing else is done inside. But they’re like bathtubs working. So I don’t know, I’m not a construction guy. I don’t, I don’t know why they’re doing it that way. Electrical is good. And they’ve probably sealed everything, which means they’re about to do insulation. So a lot of Oh, and the air conditioning ductwork is all done as well. So a lot of the bigger interior things are done. And that means I according to my calculations, I have exactly no clue how much time is left until we’re done. So. But that’s where we’re at if you are familiar with the construction process, you know how close I am better than any better than I do?
Ashley Hicks
What are you going to do with that front room, if you’re going to transition over front room trends like where you’re at? Right now?
Kyle Shrum
We’re sitting. Oh, this
Jerred Moon
is a giant room that I’m in that is multipurpose at the moment. And it will just be a room for the kids.
Joe Courtney
So one less multipurpose.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, I don’t like multipurpose rooms. I like rooms with a singular purpose. Especially when one of the purposes plural is per buy. I think one of the purpose is me working. Oh, this is something I think I need to explain. Before we get into the study. I have the absolute driest sense of humor on the planet. And I’ll never explain when I’m kidding. Ever. I can never, ever be like that was a joke. I just watched your face and let you eat it. You either think I’m an idiot. Or you can’t believe I said, Oh, no, yeah,
Joe Courtney
we that’s how
Jerred Moon
my sense of humor works. I’m doing this for the listeners not for you guys. You guys get it by now. I think it took Kyle a good year and a half though. Before he was like, I don’t know what’s wrong with this guy. But I will just literally and confirm, hold the joke until you you don’t even know anymore. Like Is he serious? I don’t know if he’s serious. So anyway, for the listeners, if you see that happen on the podcast. I’m either incredibly stupid at times, or just holding out holding out with a really dry sense of humor. It could be there. I’ll let you I’ll let you venture guess. All right, let’s get into the study effects of two months of very low carbohydrate ketogenic diet on body composition, muscle strength, muscle area, and blood parameters and competitive natural bodybuilders. This was done in 2021. I’m not going to jump into too many of the details because I did peek into everyone’s notes. And I think everyone had awesome notes. So I don’t want to get too far into stealing Thunder from anybody. I’m just gonna go over the basics of what this study was ketogenic diet, they had 19 people go through it, and they were either on a ketogenic diet or a quote unquote, Western diet. And then they followed a, a think a non standardized bodybuilding training program for two months. Time correct. And that’s all I really want to say. And then I want to hear what everyone else has to say. We’re really just looking at hypertrophy and ketogenic diets and whether or not like if you have the goal of building muscle getting bigger, leaner or something like that. Is ketogenic. A good route for you is the question we want to answer. So what do you guys think?
Joe Courtney
I think it was crazy how they had a 5% carbs and a 55% carbs like there’s that as a huge disparity and I don’t think anybody in our programming is doing either of those things. But I guess to get both extremes shows you which which direction you would go in and I only an eight week study, I guess that was decent, but it would be cool to see a middle ground which is basically where most of us live in like the 25 to 35% range but it was cool how much they took from like blood levels and like cholesterol and whatever the brain one was and another amino acid that I don’t understand. Yeah, I’m doing real good right now. But it was it was just cool to see I’d have a test it all on how at all It wasn’t just like strength, which I’ll let you guys talk more about wasn’t just you know, who got stronger who got more more mass who got lost the most fat but they saw like Okay, this one PT keto, improve the cholesterol, and it did decrease the testosterone a little bit, which I’m not sure if that was significant or what exactly that might entail. But it also improved on whatever the brain marker was to, you know. And there was an amino acid also that I wasn’t sure what that one was, but it improved that. So that was I was really cool to see more in depth than just, oh, hey, this one, they got stronger, and this one just got a little bit more stronger or something like that. And this is also, you know, with the strength gains compared to fat mass and lean mass is kind of what we’re talking about with how we say, sure our shred track can do both. And that carbs is kind of the governor of two, which which direction we’re gonna go with how shred track is because these were bodybuilders doing hypertrophy training, and shred is probably gonna have the most hypertrophy out of all of our tracks. But you know, it’s either going to be better for body composition, composition, if you’re going low carb or better for hypertrophy and gaining mass by going high carb. So I think this was a kind of a cool way to see what you know, can articulate better, or a study that shows all we mean as well with how I can go with the shred track for us, specifically. And what else do I have, they took all the metrics fasted, also a good thing. I’m gonna pass it on over to Ashley. Next,
Jerred Moon
I just want to jump in with the the test that they did. Since you’re a little vague on the on the blood stuff. So standard blood, biochemistry doses are just everything that you would typically test in a in a blood panel, which is things like cholesterol, like white blood cells, like all those kinds of things. They looked at testosterone insulin growth, like factor one, brain derived neurotrophic factor, BDNF and inflammation, inflammatory cytokines. So those are the things that they measured.
Ashley Hicks
Yeah. And fasting kids, you know, they didn’t want food, or you know, anything to the off. So. So for the keto, again, I’m gonna just kind of hit on what Joe did a little bit. But keto for fat loss. And then I said, the western gain lean muscle mass. So again, it’s kind of two different ways to obtain your goals. But you just have to know what your agenda is. So you can kind of go lower carb to, again, what josha, you can use shred track, right, when we’re going to do that, use our track, go lower carb, lose that weight. And then kind of, you know, after I don’t know, a cycle, or maybe six weeks, or whatever it is that you’ve hit what you needed to hit, you can then gain that lean muscle mass and do that, since I know that’s, we get a lot of people that want to do both. Strength games, we’re similar on both sides. And I expected it to be in just, you know, coming into it cold before reading, I would expect it the strength numbers to be higher for the Western diet. But I loved that they tested the bench and the squat. And I said it wasn’t something dumb, like an a leg leg extension or some sort of like machine weight thing. Like it was a free weight, something that we you know, something that we implement in our training. But I think the important thing for me that I found, I call it protein, aka protein, the amount of protein that they made them eat was 2.5 grams per kilogram of weight. That’s a lot of protein. And we talked about, if you want to hit goals or in your diet, you need to make sure that you’re getting the sufficient amount of protein to help that like I think it played an important role when you’re trying to cut or even gain lean muscle mass protein is is huge. And then the one biomarker that I was going to just hit was the BDNF was increased with keto and a lot of that is beneficial for like memory and cognitive functions. So a lot of good things here, when they cut out the carbs, you know, the inflammation markers, so on and so forth. But I won’t keep talking, I will let Kyle
Kyle Shrum
get. So the thing about this study to understand going into it is these are bodybuilders, right? We don’t have very many, if any that I know bodybuilders in our community, but this study specifically focused on bodybuilders and to be included in the study. They had to have at least five years worth of bodybuilding experience and also be competitive. They had to be competing in a bodybuilding Federation and in a bodybuilding. I don’t even know what to call it anyway. There had to be competitive bodybuilders who had at least five years of experience. And so these guys are and when I say guys, I’m not excluding anybody. They were all males. Sorry, Ashley. They were all guys.
Ashley Hicks
Okay, it’s my study. Yeah.
Kyle Shrum
But these guys are used to strict diets. And so to get the, to get the results that they got in this study, like these guys had to do what bodybuilders do and that’s I measure absolutely everything that went in their bodies. And so that’s what I liked about the study is I know that they’re these you didn’t have actually everybody that was included, that was approved to be included in the study made it all the way through, because none of them like fudged the numbers or didn’t do what they were supposed to do, because all of them were very strict and used to that kind of regimen anyway. And so that’s what I liked about this was the people who were included in the study actually stuck to what they were supposed to do. And there wasn’t a whole lot of discrepancy there. So you can actually see what really, what really came from it seems that the ketogenic diet was a good way, at least for them was a good way to, to cut to shred body fat and maintain strength, but it didn’t seem so great for building hypertrophy for like hypertrophy, the ketogenic diet specifically, and that’s what they were focusing on was keto. What is keto? Good for hypertrophy, or is it not, that’s basically kind of what they were looking for. And so keto was good, a good way to cut. And especially for bodybuilders who are cycling through their diet regimen anyway, where they’re going through a boat phase, and then a cut phase before competition and things like that, it seemed like a keto diet was actually better for them than maybe the way that they have been doing it in a way that was kind of safer and kind of helped them to stay healthy as well, instead of just dumping a bunch of weight and standing on stage. So that was good to see. But my takeaway from this would be and I think, and we’ve talked about this as well, just with keto in general, the keto diet is probably not something good to stick with long term. It’s not something that you should go keto and you should stay there, it’s probably going to be better to kind of cycle it on and off. Unless you have some kind of limiting factors that that prevent you from eating, you know, high or a normal level of carbs. And you just need to stay keto, you know, low all the time. But I think a lot of people get mixed up that you know, that in a low carb diet versus a keto diet, like keto is very, very specific, low carb, I mean, it’s it’s 5% or less of your total caloric intake for the day is keto. And so you can go low carb without actually being keto. And so I would say that, and we’ve said this before, that keto is probably not something to stick with constantly. But is is a good tool to use to cycle on and off.
Jerred Moon
And this might even be a higher ketogenic carbohydrate diet than some keto people actually do because they did. I mean, they did 5% carbohydrate, right, but that dependent on how many calories you’re eating, because a lot of times when you read ketogenic stuff, they’re just like, it’s like 10 grams or five or 15 grams of carbohydrate no matter what across the board for every single person, no matter your body fat. That’s how you do ketogenic and that’s very incredibly low carb. So I do like that they had a more you know, if it was 5% of your, of your carbohydrates and not like a set amount of carbs. The thing that I find really interesting about this study is I, it just shows again, that keto is just not great. It’s not great for a lot of things. And and I wish that people would know when to use them and not get in these camps. Because what happens is, keto might be awesome for you and your goals. Say me say keto helped you lose a ton of weight, and you become a huge advocate for keto. And so keto worked in your situation and worked for that great, but let’s not try and pretend that science is agreeing with you that keto is great for performance is great for bodybuilding is great for hypertrophy. And I see these arguments all the time from people the the Guru’s, right, the keto gurus, like no, no, it’s nice, it’d be fine for for performance and it’d be fine for this. And there’s this study that says that you can do it but there’s really not like I, to me, this is kinda I’m kind of done even. And we could talk more about keto on the podcast, but I’m done talking to people about it, like keto is what it is. It’s a tool in the toolbox. I think it’s great for probably weight loss, some health markers, it looks like from this study. It’s it’s great for those things. But if you’re not in that situation, and you’re like okay, now how do I use keto for performance? Or and when I mean performance, I mean, you know, moving Faster, doing a certain workload faster amount of time like a like Murph like a lot of tests that we do a 2000 meter row, things like that. I’m talking about performance increasing those things. Or if you’re trying to build muscle, could you argue that the ketogenic diet might work for you in some cases, maybe. But it’s not the ideal way. It’s not the the way where you’re going to see the most results. And so I just think that people should know that that’s my biggest takeaway is just kind of like, Alright, keto, it worked for a very small amount of things, its health, and then it could possibly help endurance athletes who never get to high intensity zones. And you know, they basically, they can operate off of almost purely fat. And that’s fine, because the whole premise behind ketogenic diets working for high intensity stuff is gluconeogenesis. just ridiculous. I mean, think it’s awesome that your body can turn protein into carbohydrate, but like, why are we trying to force our bodies to do something like that to exercise at a higher intensity when we could just eat an apple, you know, like, just eat an apple instead of forcing your your body through these ridiculous biochemical processes. So that’s it. I don’t think that it’s I don’t think it’s great for a lot of things, I think. So the actual conclusion I had written I took from the study, it says ketogenic diets may be used during bodybuilding preparation for health and leaning purposes, but with the caution, that hyper hypertrophic muscle response could be blunted, so not great for gaining muscle, decent for health and leading purposes. And I agree, just overall, that’s kinda if you want to do cool stuff, maybe not keto, if you if performance in it, performance is a goal of yours. You’re going to need some carbohydrates. Again, I don’t fit into any particular diet camp. I just feel like, like, Kyle, are you still keto? You were kind of carnivore. carnac Woods, same thing? Yeah. Are you carnivore? Huh? No. So you’re just fully off? Yeah.
Kyle Shrum
I mean, I’m low carb, but I’m not in the keto camp. And so why did you come off of that? I’m
Jerred Moon
just curious, putting you on the spot.
Kyle Shrum
I mean, there are several reasons. My energy took a deal. I guess I didn’t stick with carnivore for long enough to kind of like see the energy come back up.
Jerred Moon
I don’t know if that’s true, though, either. But I know, that’s just what they all say. I haven’t seen the study on that, though.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah. Yeah. I got really bored with eating that way. And I kind of talked about this, you know, a couple podcasts ago, it was my update talking about carnivore. And, um, but yeah, there, there’s, there were some other things. reasons that I’ve just decided not to go that way. Really, I was trying to eliminate some things and then kind of work things back in to try to narrow down what carbs I can eat and what cards I can’t. And so that’s kind of that was a big a big piece of it as well.
Jerred Moon
No, I think I used it as perfect. Like how it probably should be used, you know, it’s like a, it’s like slamming the gas pedal. Yeah, to get on the highway. But then you let go. And then you like, Okay, I’m here. Let’s you know, it’s kind of like a reset. So, overall, I think it’s use keto wisely. But finally, it’s not that new or novel anymore. And we can just put it aside and we can all say, hey, keto works great for X, Y, and Z. But it’s not great for A, B, and C. And that’s it. So let’s move to the topic. Joe, what are we talking about?
Joe Courtney
So we are talking about our actual staple, staple nutrition advice. So top three simple nutrition advice. If we were to just like, kind of write it on a post it note and hand it to somebody our top three simple and I really want to make it simple and not like these convoluted psychological kind of things to dive into. Although anything with you did not
Kyle Shrum
study did not specify.
Joe Courtney
Well, the word, but simple, not easy. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, there’s either way with nutrition, there’s going to be a level of explanation and such. So we also voted without him agreeing that Kyle would go first. So Kyle, top three simple, more non simple nutrition advice.
Kyle Shrum
So I’ll, I’ll pull these back from athlete days, back when I was just an athlete, as well, just an athlete, not a coach as well. But there, there were some things that that Jerry passed along to me and just some of the things that I’ve learned about nutrition with losing weight and just getting in shape in general. And the first one that came to mind when you presented this topic, was a stop saying cheat day. And we I’ve talked about I’ve had a lot of this on the podcast before but I just think this is one that this is one that kind of blows people’s minds because everybody He knows what a cheat day is, or a cheat meal is or whatever. And even like, fitness professionals use it all the time. And but stop saying a cheat day, because it’s not, you’re not cheating on a cheat day. And cheating is something that’s against the norm, maybe against the rules, but it gives you a positive advantage when people get mad about cheaters. Because cheaters win, like the what they do to cheat, puts them ahead of the competition, and it helps them win whatever it was they were competing at. And so, but in nutrition, a cheat day is typically something that’s off the diet plan, right? It’s something that you’re not supposed to have, it’s something sweet, or it’s something just indulgent, something that you’re not usually supposed to have. So it’s your cheat day, right? Well, that that non nutritional food that you’re having on your quote, unquote, cheat day, is not giving you a positive advantage. And so it’s not a cheat, really, your cheat days are the days that you actually stick to the nutritional stuff, and you stick to the plan to getting in shape. So those are your actual cheat days, because they’re giving you if you wanted to say cheat day, those would be your actual cheat days, because they’re giving you the positive advantage over everybody else who’s not eating that way and not doing making those decisions. So just kind of reversing your your thinking on that, but not reversing it and then calling your your nutritional days, your cheat days, just eliminate cheat day altogether. Because this idea of cheating, it kind of brings about guilt and shame, and things like that in your brain. And those things have no place in your brain anyway. And they definitely don’t shouldn’t have a place when it comes to your nutrition. I just don’t, I just don’t think so I think people should be happy and satisfied and they eat. I mean, it doesn’t mean just go eat a bunch of Oreos or something like that, because it makes you happy. It’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that you should eat because it makes you feel better. And feeling better makes you happy and things like that you shouldn’t be associated guilt and shame with the food that you eat. So, Joe, now you see where this whole non convoluted nonsense that you just threw in the podcast doesn’t work. Like
Joe Courtney
really simple. You just you’re just giving a giving good explanation.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah. Stop eating when, when you’re satisfied. Like when you’re eating a meal, stop eating, when you’re satiated. Like don’t keep eating beyond being full. So don’t just keep eating that something that I grew up with is like if you put it on your plate, you have to eat it, right. And so I was like, well, when I’m making my plate, I’m really hungry. So I fill my plate up. And then I get about halfway done with it. And I’m full, but I have to eat it because I put it on my plate. So anyway, get rid of that. And stop overeating. Just stop eating, when you feel satisfied. Stop eating, slowing down and not eating as fast, we’ll help you with this, it will help you feel satisfied, more quickly, so that you can stop eating at the right time. And then my third one would be it’s okay to make slow changes. It’s not something that everybody when it comes to nutrition, not everybody can just quit cold turkey. See what I did there. Now everybody can just quit cold turkey, when it comes to nutrition, it’s okay to make slow changes. And you don’t have to just throw everything out the window. And, and make a bunch of drastic changes overnight, you can change one little thing over time and get used to that thing, and then move on to something else and make slow changes when it comes to nutrition. So those are my three things.
Jerred Moon
I want to go back to the one that you mentioned. Stop eating when you’re full. Because this is something I picked up, I picked up growing up as well, that was just like my mom to this day. If I eat at her house and don’t finish the food on my plate, she’s like, offended, you know, and we cannot throw that away. And yeah, that’s how my mom operates. And so it’s really in me, but now I see. I have good nutritional habits. But Emily has recently pointed out, you know, for our kids, because I’d be the same way with my kids, but you gotta eat all that. And then she’s like, No, they don’t. They’re full. You know, but to me, it’s like you don’t waste it right and but then we have adjusted the rule recently to where you can stop eating when you’re full. You don’t have to finish everything on your plate. Unless it’s vegetables, because they were using our own rule against us. Like little slippery snakes, but we we close that loophole. Because they would they would be they’re big. Oh, I’m full. Like all the broccoli still there. I’m like, you’re not full. You got some ice cream? like yeah, I’m like, ah, gotcha. You know,
Joe Courtney
play on the counter. So 20 minutes later. Oh, you’re hungry. Cool. We still have your dinner.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, I’ve done that before. So anyway, I just I picked that one up and that one’s like, deep deep in me on the don’t waste food don’t. Yeah, so that that’s a tough one to get over.
Kyle Shrum
I’m gonna pick Joe.
Joe Courtney
Oh, I was not expecting that. So first one, avoid fad diets, like the aforementioned keto, or anything else. That’s if you can explain your diet and one word, because it’s it’s some it’s just a marketing word, then that’s you probably shouldn’t, I don’t think any diet should be boiled down to just one word because somebody made up that diet for maybe either them or a client or something. But every everybody has a different nutrition, needs profile, everything. So just doing one fad diet and half half the time, it’s a marketing thing anyway, you know, you go to the store now and either you see either vegan or keto or whatever labels on everything. And you just don’t follow anything that just has that. I mean, you can use it as a loose starting point. But fad diets fad, you know, cleanses, things like that. It should be more individual.
Jerred Moon
I love that. I’m just gonna go ahead and tell you how much I love it. The if you can describe your diet in one word, you’re wrong. Like I love that. Because it should be a little bit more complex than that, right? You know, like, even if you’re like, Hey, I’m paleo, but then you have to explain a couple other things like that. Cool. You have your own philosophy. But if you’re just like, vegan, vegetarian, paleo. carnivore, keto? Yeah, you probably are drinking a little bit too much of the kool aid from somewhere.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, because half the time people don’t probably know how to explain the actual nuances of those. Next, learn to cook and food prep, this probably should have been my number one, because I just love it so much. And I guess because I learned to cook very or at a very early age, but it’s going to be make your life a whole lot better. And I think it’s a life skill that everybody should have at least some point of, and you can make food prep really simple and easy. I mean, Jared can do it by himself. And it’s fine.
Jerred Moon
It’s so easy, Jared can do it. Well, I will admit, I am like the worst cook on the planet. So I know how to cook like three things. It’s not in that category goes to paleo, Nick. Yeah, it’s good. It’s getting farmed out.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, but I mean, you could do super simple stuff. The book cook once eat for a week is some of them are more complicated. But there’s a lot of simple things you can do from there. I, I can cook very well, but I’m still pretty lazy with it. And even on the weekends, when we food prep, it’s you know, I throw a giant tray of vegetables in the oven. And I put two whole chickens in a tray and throw that in the oven and then pick the chickens clean. And that’s my meat. Like it’s super, it’s like 10 minutes of work. And then I’m done.
Jerred Moon
When are we going to have your segment of the Joe cooking show on our YouTube channel?
Joe Courtney
Oh, I should do that new segment. Yeah,
Ashley Hicks
I had that bone broth in there too.
Joe Courtney
I every time I make a bone broth, I’m like halfway through and I’m like shit, I should have videoed this. Because it is such a process. But it’s it’s after you get through once or twice. It’s not that bad. And my bone broth is bomb. And let’s just say that. So learn to cook, learn to prep, it can be simple. And you can even get like those hellofresh things to where they send you the food, they send you the portions, they they tell you step by step instructions and is done. And then you can just take that framework and even reuse those cards to cook again. So definitely do that. And then learn to read food labels. This one is slightly not simple. And I almost went with don’t eat anything with any kind of label. But which has the easiest way to Yeah, this easiest way to do it. But if you learn to read the food label with like, you know, less than five ingredients, nothing that you can’t pronounce no sugar, no advice, vegetable oils, those are like the basic things to pay attention to, then then you’ll be you’ll be a whole lot better off, you’ll notice that you can only purchase like 15% of the stuff in the grocery store, because they’re gonna have all kinds of other junk in it. So that one will take a little bit more finagling but you can just take it once you learn a concept it’s just you can just keep learning more and then it’s not that hard to get into making sure a label is fairly clean.
Kyle Shrum
bonus tip on that one stick to the outside edge of the grocery store.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, that’s kind of where I was going with my avoid all labels and that’s usually what it is stick the outside. But um, yeah. All right, actually.
Ashley Hicks
Um, so mine was protein had hit a sufficient amount of protein goal. Make sure you’re getting good quality sources of protein. But protein helps balance out your blood sugar and keeps you more full and satiated and you don’t want to reach for random snacks throughout the day. And I just said for good sources like for supplements of protein. I echo exactly what Joe just said. Pick something that is when you’re reading the ingredients you understand what you’re reading None of this craziness that you see from like gold standard way or something, I, you know, I’m trying to think of other protein sources that are just not that great for you try to stick with stuff like mine has, my protein has seven ingredients in it, and I know what all seven ingredients are. And then losing content. We’ve talked about that before, too. With supplements, you can look that up on their website, or you can go the Jared route and contact their customer service and ask them
Jerred Moon
about it. Lucien do you have?
Your Lucy
Ashley Hicks
um, my second tip would be water, again, to kind of balance everything out. But it also flushes a lot of stuff out. It’s great for detoxification, it flushes those toxins out, helps keep you regular. And one of my things I’ve implemented since being a graduate mathlete Kyle is putting is basically drinking water before I drink my coffee or anything else in the morning, making sure that you get that in first, you know, anywhere from 16 to 32 ounces, whatever it is that you can get in make sure you start the day out with some water. And then my last tip is real food. The closer to its natural state, the better. I said any process that adds or removes components always makes it worse. So stay as close as possible to the original food, for example, in sub chips, eat potatoes, you know, fruit, sugary drinks, why don’t you just eat real fruit? And then you know, in sub cereal, eat oatmeal, you know, stuff like that you can make those small changes that Kyle was talking about, but do it with real holistic food? Those are my tips, Jared, what are yours?
Jerred Moon
Or do you want to say on the protein front? So when I supplement protein, it can’t be way because my body doesn’t hand away that well. So I’ve had to go on all these tangents of trying to find a good protein source with enough leucine. But I will say taking now. I’m actually I think it’s just orgain right now because they and what I wanted to say overall was a lot of these companies have up their losing game. I don’t intend to some of them intentionally, some of them? Probably not. But they’re starting to mix together more seeds and NPS and all this stuff. But what I saw was marketed it you know, no, not a sponsor, right? Was this the new onit plant protein they like. I’m a little skeptical about it still. But they specifically added more leucine even talked about it on their sales page. They’re like, it’s a couple of different plant proteins, they mix together they added leucine. So it’s well over two grams per serving of serving of protein for the leucine, which is, which is huge. So that one looks very promising. I might give that a try. But if anybody else wants to check it out, but a lot of these companies are doing a really good job. Like they’re just starting to have more athletic based proteins. I feel like vegan protein over the last like decade or so was more like a shot of 10 grams, like some random person doing vegan could just add to their diet. But now that more athletically minded people are getting into the vegan scene, and I’m not vegan by by any stretch, but I have to take vegan proteins because I everything else has weigh in it. So anyway, that was another one to check out. And a lot of them are upping their their losing game.
So a I to them off away. Can’t do it.
Jerred Moon
Kyle, you have to wait yet? Nope.
Joe Courtney
Yes, way. Yes.
Jerred Moon
Okay, so I’ll go over my three tips. probably heard me say some of them on the podcast before. And they kind of do overlap in some regard to what everyone else has said here, but dropped the all or nothing mentality is a big thing I have with nutrition and fitness is just this. Once we’re not perfect, we decide that we’re going to scrap the whole thing and not pursue it anymore. And I was just thinking about this yesterday, because I had a conversation with with an athlete. And I just wonder what goes through people’s heads. Like if you had for breakfast, like you know, maybe you just had a shake like I normally do and you had like a there’s like spinach and blueberries and like all these awesome things for you in it. And then for lunch you had you know, vegetables and a healthy source of meat, but then dinner you like really screwed up and you had something awful, like just some sort of fast food or something because you were coming home from work and that’s what you ended up with. Do you really think that those first two meals are like negated from that? And I’m just talking, I’m talking about more from like a health perspective. Like, do you think your body’s like no, no, okay. We’re because of that we refuse to use any of these micronutrients you gave us earlier in the day, and you will continue to be unhealthy. That’s just not how any of these things work. And we get into these all or nothing mentalities. I think it’s due to our competitive nature like growing up like you either win a game or you lose a game. There is no middle ground. And that’s how things work in careers. That’s, that’s how a lot of the world works, I get it. But when it comes to fitness 15 minutes is better than zero minutes. 15 minutes is better than 15 minutes, yes, but 15 minutes is still something. And same in nutrition. If you have do something that’s good for you in the morning, but then something bad in the evening, it’s not a habit you want to maintain. But something is always gonna be better than nothing. And so keep going with that drop this all or nothing mentality in all things health and fitness, and you’ll start to see progress. Because going back to doing nothing is a great way to die an early death. My next was disconnect emotions and food. And that’s the one that’s like, it’s hard. That is just crazy, right like that. But I I have coached a lot of people on nutrition. I do not suffer from this at all. But I realized from coaching that this is wildly prevalent in almost every person I’ve ever worked with. And I don’t know how I didn’t get that. I think it’s because I started in health and fitness at a very early age. I did suffer from some like, like body dysmorphia type psychological issues from bodybuilding. But with food, I’ve always just seen it as like a I use this, you know, as fuel I use this to like, there’s always an angle with it. There was never like, Oh, it’s movie time, I got to have this snack. And I’m sad, I gotta eat this thing, or Yeah, I never had those connections. But I see. It’s almost like you, you feel like you’re removing a family member. And once I kind of realized that, and I gained some empathy with people that I’ve worked with, I realize it’s not just like, Hey, be different than you are, you can’t like that’s not a solution, right? Like you people are, you’re like taking something out of their life that’s always been there. For them as a comfort. It’s almost like removing, like when a parent dies or something not quite as dramatic, but like that person’s always been there, they’ve kind of been a big milestone of a, you know, big part of your life. So I’m not saying that this is easy, and that you just need to be different, but I’m saying that it needs to get done. So if you need to go seek therapy, work with a nutrition coach, whatever it is, just first you got to really admit that there is some sort of psychological issue here keeping you from achieving your goals nutritionally. So try and disconnect as much of those emotions of food and you may need professional help to do that. And I’m talking about real professional help not even just Hey, go work with us. It might be it might be a legitimate, you know, licensed therapist, in some cases, depending on how deep it is. And then kind of with Joe’s my last one with Joe’s like keto and everything never but become this, you know, diehard you know, Guru on it on any of these diets, like keep an open mind, I think is the ultimate like one liner for my last one. I have ventured down that path a little bit I did with paleo, several years ago, you know, it’s more like, Hey, this is the way this is how it’s done. Everyone else is wrong. But then, if you just like, read another book that’s outside of what you know, and, you know, read some scientific studies here and there, you’ll be like, Okay, well, maybe there’s not a perfect, you know, maybe we just need to look at all of these things together and see what works, do some individual testing. So don’t go down that road either. thinking there’s only one answer nutritionally because there’s not and it’s really easy to be sold on that no matter where you go. If you’re like, I’m gonna jump into keto camp, they have an answer for everything. Like that. Same with paleo same with vegan, there will be an answer to every question you have. And you will like that makes logical sense. But like Why does a conflicting was carnivore diet able to answer the same question with the opposite answer right? And it’s that’s where things get really confusing so that’s where it also becomes kind of like religion to people where they’re getting so offended it’s absurd hence why I don’t like talking about nutrition that much to people. But anyway, those those my three, drop the all or nothing mentality, disconnect your emotions from food and keep an open mind.
Ashley Hicks
I will say with the what you’re talking about with the diets even paleo has changed their outlook on what should be accepted or not accepted within their diet parameters now to
Jerred Moon
what I say like rice is okay, like what the potatoes,
Ashley Hicks
rice and potatoes. I added. Yep. So,
I mean,
Ashley Hicks
that’s changing it. So it’s like, clearly, I don’t know, The Open Mind for that. That is huge. That’s, yeah.
Joe Courtney
I have the last bonus one. My other ones were kind of like, learn to do things to do. So my last one is going to that just thought of as Jared said, think about books is what not to do. And that is do not either watch or take any documentaries seriously, at all. 100% as much as a nutrition book can have the author’s bias in it, they have, you know, 300 so pages, and you’re still going to be able to pick out some good information because there’s going to be a lot of references and such in there and documentaries. They’ve got you know, 19 minutes or less to entertain you but also fee basically fearmonger you to believe what they want you to believe. So absolutely do not. I don’t even watch the documentary. Now I just like look at their debunking article I
Jerred Moon
asked him like, Hey, you wanna watch this? She’s like, nope,
Ashley Hicks
it just makes me so angry. I can’t do it.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, but the debunking articles are like, so entertaining afterwards. And then all the talk that happens that Yeah, the so just don’t watch documentaries. Those.
Jerred Moon
Well watch him just don’t take them as, like, just it’s one little thing that you learned. And they just know that there could be some misinformation in it or partial truth or, you know, I see that nalo I see that in the Paleo ones. I see that in the vegan ones. They’re all kind of they cherry pick what they want to put in there to make it sound really good to you. Their way is the only way. Yeah.
workout
Jerred Moon
workout time. Is what the rock
Kyle Shrum
by doing it,
Jerred Moon
I think that she volunteered you. That’s
Ashley Hicks
okay. He alluded to it in the beginning, so I thought he was doing it.
Kyle Shrum
Okay, that’s what that means.
I’m bringing it back full circle.
Kyle Shrum
The workout is what the rock. And it’s very, very simple. It’s a three mile road, two to three mile road. No, that’s not it. The way a competitor for male and female are 55 and 35 pounds for established are 35 and 25 pounds for recruit are 25 and 15 pounds. But the real fun for some people, not for me. But the real fun for some people of this workout is there’s a buy in before you do your three mile ruck and the buy in is 60 pull ups giving is allowed 70 hand release push ups 80 squats, 90 setups, and then 100 burpees because everybody loves burpees those are the best, right? You cannot partition these, you have to do them in order. So you gotta go 60 7080 9100 That’s it. So you got your buy in. Then you got your three mile ruck at the weight described and that is what the motto is just freakin do it.
Jerred Moon
Well, I did want to say because we’re we’re repeating a lot of these workouts and I I could cook up 100 new meters of Saturday workouts but I don’t like to lose the benchmarking side to meet yourself Saturday I like if you’re one of our athletes for a while I’d like for you to Hey, I’ve done this one. I’ve done it again. Some you’ll see two times a year sometimes with you see three and a year. But I think I’m going to transition some of my tips, quote unquote tips on these workouts if I’ve done talked about it a lot to a challenge. So just letting you know, that’s what I’m gonna do.
Kyle Shrum
And he’s gonna leave it there.
Jerred Moon
I’ll end with the three of you. If you guys want to join over the next couple of podcasts, it won’t always be challenged it just sometimes it will be.
Kyle Shrum
Okay, my tip is just friggin to the back half of this workout I really enjoy. Just because I like weighted carries the front half of this workout. Not so great. But that’s the meet yourself part for me. The three mile ruck is not a meet yourself for me. I I’ll go do it any day, and I’ll do it in the rain in the snow. I’ll get but the front half of this workout. I don’t like it. So that’s the meet yourself bar for me. But my tip is just do it. Ashley
Ashley Hicks
are you picking because you know that I’m the opposite? The Biden’s my favorite part. It always has been move through it. I said Don’t linger the burpees at the end sec. Just keep going even if it’s slower. I think that this is a great just workout by itself the buy in part and again, you should I think move through the buying part like this is like quickly, which then makes the end I think the more meet yourself in my version because I’m already taxed from the buy in but then I have to now throw on a vessel and then do this three mile ruck and I just said we’ve talked about like the fartlek runs. If you can do it that way. Speed walk however you need to get through it. Just get through it. And I said for me as EDM photo. I need something to keep me moving. Joe.
Joe Courtney
I agree that I don’t like the front part, Kyle. I agree that I don’t like the back part. Ashley.
Have you done that? correctly.
Kyle Shrum
He doesn’t like it in theory.
Joe Courtney
But I have also had issues in the past with rucking I think I’ve gone on like three actual rocks and Two times I’ve come back hurt. Yeah, one of the times it was like a my little bag with a backpack. That was the first one that was just bad. Yeah. But the next time it was actually a couple weeks or a couple months ago, it was early this year. It was in February. We have some better backpacks and actual like waist strap and we distributed the waiting was all fine. But for some reason, halfway through my hip flexor was not okay. I was like having to walk almost like kind of crooked and bent over so that my hip flexor wasn’t, I don’t know what it was. I don’t know what’s up with my hips. But yeah, I just rock. Yeah, they don’t. And I think if I shoot, if I would do this one I might carry I
would do this one.
Jerred Moon
I would do this one.
Joe Courtney
So look, I’m sorry, I totally would but Murph burners five days a week, and I have to stick to my program. You don’t have any tips on that one. Thank you, your rock is situated safely to make sure you have it. Weather distributed safely tied around your waist. So make sure your hips are limber because once you’re out on a rock, and you’re in a painful situation, it’s just gonna get worse when you get back. So stretcher, your hip flexor and your, your quads, because they all kind of connect and make sure your weight is distributed equally unless you have if you don’t have like a proper proper rucksack.
flexor zoom makes me think of Jared after the
Joe Courtney
sport. I thought I was said that too. But I was like I was
Jerred Moon
Yeah, I was thinking about when you’re talking about it, my hip flexors just quit working. PTSD, I’d never experienced that before. It’s like, I want to go faster. I want to walk that he can’t. They’re just done. They’re dead. Okay, my challenge is on the 100 burpees. I want you to time the whole workout. So you have a you know, a benchmark time or maybe a PR time. But I want you to do 100 burpees in 10 minutes or less as my challenge.
Oh, love it.
Jerred Moon
So do your 60 pull up 70 hand release push ups, 80 squats, 90 sit ups, you can rest a little bit if you want. But then start a running clock of 10 minutes and see if you can do 100 burpees in 10 minutes or less. It should be doable. But we are getting into the warmer months. And you’re also going to have completed a good amount of work before you got to those 100 burpees for time, basically. So that’s my challenge. I have no further tips other than what everyone has said here. So see. Take Take my challenge. And if you complete it, you are better for it. That’s the only reward you become a better version of yourself. Love it.
Kyle Shrum
Unless you’re Joe and the challenge is just easy the workout.
Jerred Moon
He just wants to hold the record for at least amount of meters of Saturdays completed.
Ashley Hicks
So sexy Saturdays they get in the way? Yeah.
Joe Courtney
Well, now it’s Murphy Saturdays. All right,
Jerred Moon
more practice Saturdays.
Joe Courtney
Yeah. Speaking of
Jerred Moon
just to roll on out of here, if you want to go check out the things that we’re doing at garage mathlete, go to garage gym, athlete calm, there is a big yellow bar at the top of the website. If this is the month of May, when you’re going there, and you will be able to click on that and be taken to the Murph project thing that we’re doing, which is awesome. Chris Morgan, doing a whole bunch of nerfs 52 might even do more in the month of May raising money. We’re doing the Murph burner, there’s just a lot of stuff going on. So go check it out and get involved. And whether you’re part of the actual, you know, community as in being one of our athletes who follow the programming or not, I think should go check it out. Because it’s all for a good cause. good reason. Also garage mathlete tours. If you’re not subscribed to our YouTube channel, you should go do that, because we’re gonna have people’s tours publishing very soon. If have they already published? We’re in the future. No, not yet. Joe doesn’t know to I don’t know. It’s impossible. So that’s it. And we know technically No, because Monday, technically No. Alright, so you can check that stuff out on YouTube this week.
Hey,
there we go.
Jerred Moon
All right. But that’s it. And if you aren’t a part of the programming, go to garage mathlete.com. fix that problem either by joining the Merv burner project, getting involved in a very small way but also getting back to the Special Operations warrior foundation. And for all those who are part of the community. Thanks for keeping it in. Awesome. And that’s it. Get out of here.