Hey, Athletes! This week we talk about eating small, frequent meals and how it’s not all it’s cracked up to be! Make sure to check out this week’s episode of the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast!
Episode 101 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
Don’t Focus On Meal Timing & Frequency
On this week’s episode we have the fabulous four back at it again! They dive right into the study which compares strength and hypertrophy gains with athletes who eat 3 meals or 6 meals a day in a calorie surplus. Each coach gives their takeaways on this one and how our athletes can kill comfort from the study! This week’s topic is all about marketing terms and what to look out for. The team focuses on nutrition and fitness marketing terms in order to make the athletes more aware and know what to avoid! Lastly, this week’s Meet Yourself Saturday workout is the 25-Minute Lunge Test. It’s one of those that are simple, but not easy!
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 59-MINUTE EPISODE WE DISCUSS:
- New Podcast Flow
- Marketing Terms
- Meal Timing
- 25 Minute Lunge Test
- Meal Frequency
- 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:
- Is breakfast REALLY the most important meal of the day?
- Does Intermittent Fasting Limit Strength and Muscle Gains?
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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
Alright, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the garage gym athlete podcast. So we are post Episode 100 We are going, I don’t know if we’re going up from here down from here. I don’t really know what it would be considered.
Joe Courtney
But we’re at 199.
Jerred Moon
I, I’m just talking about like, where we go from here.
Joe Courtney
Oh, yeah, I
Jerred Moon
don’t know if we can get better or we’re gonna get worse as we continue another 100 episodes, but we are gonna change the format. A little bit. Yeah, super awkward statement to throw off my flow right at the beginning, Joe. So nothing’s changed, I guess. No, we are. We are changing up just the format a little bit. We are putting our updates down towards the end of the podcast. So if you’re annoyed about Kyle’s painting the cabinets or me talking about the HQ bill that just seems to never end you go, you can still hear about those things. But it’s not till the end. So we’re saving that more for really just a team meeting that you guys get to listen to. That’s, that’s essentially what that is. So just a reminder, the big purpose of the podcast, you know, we’re here to cut through all the BS, bro science, it’s out there and try to reduce some of that information overload. Really just by tackling the science and not going into only our thoughts and opinions. We like to see how the science can change our minds on a lot of things. And, you know, that’s the main way we’re going to we’re going to help every single garage mathlete listening to this and we have four excellent coaches to help us through that process. So Joe Courtney, Ashley Hicks and Kyle Shrum Welcome to the podcast a little bit different intro today, but we’re gonna get right into it, which is going to be hard. It says like, it’s like going for a max deadlift without a warm up, but we’re gonna, we’re gonna do we kind of did it last week. So we’ll try it, try it out. So you know, we’re going to be talking about meal frequency, really three meals versus six meals a day and how that relates to muscle gain. But I know we’ve all heard it before this, eating small frequent meals throughout the day to speed up your metabolism, which I just love, like your, like your metabolism is some sort of like, machine that you can just kind of like, you know, foster and take a bit Come on speed up, man, let’s let’s go a little faster. But metabolism is just breaking things down right in the end using them for energy. So it doesn’t even really makes sense. But it’s bro science has been perpetuated in not only weight loss circles, but also muscle gain. It’s like it’s everywhere. You know, when I was getting into fitness, that was the if you want to gain weight, eat six to eight meals. And then if you want to lose weight, do the same thing to just smaller meals. And this study specifically covered gaining weight. So the researchers recruited 11 healthy male lightweight rowers from a university rowing team, and people who wanted to gain weight, one of them dropped out. So they ended up for 1010 for the study. And what they did was some crazy high intensity row training, which I think is a little bit weird for wanting to gain weight. They put them on some really high caloric diets, and they had them either eat three meals per day or six meals per day. And it was a crossover design, which means every participant did both versions. And so how I understood it was there was a five week kind of washed out or baseline period at the beginning, meaning they just did normal training, normal eating, there was eight weeks of a diet, meaning they did eight weeks of three meals per day at a given amount of calories. Then there was another five week washout period where they kind of just normalize, stabilize, to get back to normal, and then another eight weeks where they did three or six, the opposite of what they did the first time. And they had cool macro breakdowns and everything else. I won’t jump straight to the takeaway this time. But what did all of you think about this study?
Joe Courtney
They’re gonna be the biggest rowers ever. Like rows are always the key. If you’re a rower, then you’re already tall. And then I was putting these on a weight gain protocol, like 15 5200 calories, what they’re eating today, which is absolutely ridiculous. So it wasn’t sure why they had I don’t know why they chose to hypertrophy for this type of study, I will, I would have been interested to see what performance they did for them over the time, just give me load up on so many calories and doing this intensity training. They were doing resistance training twice a day or twice a week, as well. Not from the study. But one thing that I really wanted to highlight and talk about is just what you said in the beginning about you know, the science of meal timing, and getting those specifics of being three hours or eating for three hours of every two hours, three meals or six meals, whatever it is. If you’re worried about that little thing, then you should probably not and focus on other bigger things because those things are probably not what’s dialed in anyway. So meal timing isn’t really going to do much for you. It’s just going to If anything stress, you’re more worried more, but you should really be looking at either programming or protein total. And that’s one thing that they were talking about here is that they focused on making sure that the proteins were equal. And the results were basically equal across these. So that’s just one thing that I wanted to bring up as well. their, their macro breakdown was, they were like it percentage wise, their protein seemed a bit low to me. But I guess that’s because their calories just so ridiculously high. You’re I’m guessing that percentage for protein, they can’t just like keep adding on protein calories, they have to add it to carbs and fat, but their carb count was ridiculously high. Like their carb count was almost like a week of carbs. For me.
Jerred Moon
What’s funny is when you’re eating this many calories, you’re right, you can’t you can’t just keep going off percentages on on protein. And that’s why would how I’ve always taught it and told athletes, you lock protein in first, like we have you locked protein in and then you feel fill the rest with carbs and fat. Because if you only ever go off percentages, if you are for some reason eating a 5000 calorie diet, and I say Yeah, go ahead and do hit up 30% of that as protein. That could be a great recommendation on a 2000 calorie diet, but a complete trash recommendation on a 5000 calorie diet. So yeah, you I looked at their macro breakdowns too, and was a little surprised that I think it was 14% protein, which is generally pretty low, but their overall actual protein grams per kilogram wasn’t wasn’t off, too much like
Joe Courtney
2.2 and a half 2.4 or something like that per per kilogram. But one thing that I really like about this study that I think I would like to see with almost every study that we do, or a lot of other studies was the parameters. And that is they were doing their intense sport training. So the the same intense, awesome trainer, they’re doing not knee extensions. They were they each had dieticians, and meals provided. And they lived in the same dorms. So everything was controlled, it was a great amount of time. I mean, he said, What, eight weeks, then a five weeks in between then another eight weeks. So I think they could have done a lot with this study versus just how much weight did you gain. So I think this primers were really cool, I think it’d be cool to do more, it would be cool if they did more with it. And future studies should use you know, athletes of these sports and in these college situations to do more. But yeah, don’t focus on these little things to get, you know, timing wise isn’t gonna isn’t gonna do that much with all the other things that are gonna add up to it. But, Kyle, what you got.
Kyle Shrum
So they first thing to say, and we’ve already kind of talked about it. But like these, these athletes were trying to gain weight. Like, I think a lot of people, you know, most of that most people, maybe not athletes, like people who are like on an athletic team like these guys were, and probably just the general population, like, you’re not looking for ways to gain weight. Right. So this one might be a little bit this study might be a little out there for you. And but because most people are probably trying to either maintain or lose weight, and so. But that’s kind of the thing that we’re talking about today is and I’ve heard the same thing like what what Jerry was talking about, like, I’ve heard the real science of well, you need to eat more meals in order to keep your metabolism going and all that kind of stuff. And, and I’ve heard it applied to both gaining weight and losing weight. And I was like, Well, which one is you know, which 1am I supposed to do here like I don’t really know. But this specific study, they were they were trying to gain weight. And so but both approaches, whether they were eating three meals, or six meals, yielded similar results. And so but they were also training regularly. So this study actually quoted some other studies that found that eating more meals per day was better for sedentary individuals with regard to appetite control. And so it really depends on what your training frequency is. Now, most of people listening to us are people who are probably training most of the time, they’re probably training pretty frequently. But at the same time, even those of us that are training frequently might still be sitting down a lot during the day. You know what I mean? And so I think that you kind of have to take it with a grain of salt of like, well, they ate three meals, or they ate six meals and they had the same results. Well, these guys were their their collegiate athletes, you know what I mean? And so how does this actually apply to you? Who are not a collegiate athlete? Like, are you sitting down more than you’re moving? Even if you’re moving, you know, five days a week? Are you sitting down the rest of the day? And so kind of be mindful of that as well? Is it going to be better for you to eat smaller meals or larger meals? I’ve actually found that for me, just eating larger meals during the day is fine. It works for me, it helps me with my goals. It helps me Maintain appetite, it better satiated, all that kind of stuff. That’s what works for me. So just seeing a couple three times a day works for me, some people, it may work better to eat more, more often during the day. And so as normal also, like what, like what Joe was saying focus on your food quality, it doesn’t matter how many meals you’re eating a day, if you’re eating garbage, like these guys, this is kind of like my ideal situation, like, I would rather somebody just, like make all my food for me and just give it to me, like, hey, these are your goals, this is what you need to do. Here’s your food, like, Here you go, like, this is the kind of study that if I was going to participate in the study, this is what I would want to do. Like, you’re gonna make all my food for me, you’re going to design everything, and you’re going to give me the food and all I have to do is eat it. And but you know, life isn’t like that. So, man, that would be great, though, if life was just like that somebody just made all my food for me, and just gave it to me and just get to eat it. But anyway, I would just say work on it for yourself and kind of figure out what works for you based on your your training and your your goals as well. I don’t know if I actually really said anything there. But there you go. Actually, your turn.
Ashley Hicks
Oh, gracious. I’m so not trying to reiterate some of the points that you and Joe hit. So I’ll just go with the whole five week break thing for me, was just kind of like, I guess they were trying to have a reset in between, for like, you know, someone had three weeks, or three meals a day versus six meals a day and then swap them and just kind of have a reset. I don’t know, like, if you were kind of used to what they were doing. Like I wish that would have still been monitored. But whatever they said, they went back to the way they ate the weight the way they trained as well. And then the whole appetite, how they measured their appetite was basically visually and then ask them like if they were full, or if they needed more food. And I don’t know how I would do this differently. Like maybe it would have been like the amount of because they were given the amounts of food, I guess that they needed to, to have. I don’t know, I just didn’t feel like that wasn’t as I guess as good as it could have possibly been? I don’t know. But just like they said, it doesn’t seem to matter between how many meals they took. But I would just caution people, you know, whether you’re trying to lose weight or gain weight, or whatever it is, between the whole more meals a day, I just feel like it makes more sense. Like if your body is trying to break stuff down, like it needs a couple more hours in between, like it just I don’t know, it just makes sense to me. So for me, I think you just need to have the correct goals like, hey, I want to bulk I want to add so exactly what the boy said, like you need to have a protein goal first and foremost. And then you need to figure out like, Okay, I need to add in some complex carbs that I have not been eating, like, let’s say you’ve been, you know, going a little bit low carb, like Jared going low carb now, you know, adding some stuff, maybe add some creatine, you know, just have these little goals. And again, eat holistic nutrition. And I think that’s how it’s the best way to accomplish that goal versus meal timing. I wouldn’t ever I don’t know, as a coach or as a, as someone that tries to help athletes out I wouldn’t just be like, hey, you need me to eat more meals or whatnot, I would focus on again on the on the smaller parts and say, let’s hit this first. Let’s hit this first.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, I think hitting on who the athletes were like Kyle did is really important. Because they are their activity levels are just off the charts. I think. I’ve also seen a study on like Army Rangers that they monitored and I think they burned like 6000 7000 calories a day during Army Ranger like school. And so those kind of like how much can you really take away from it but ultimately what we learn here is that you can gain weight gain muscle mass doing either version, you know three meals per day or six meals per day. So if you do want to gain muscle mass it’s not as important as other people out there may have you believe the ultimate conclusion was both diets led to statistically significant increases in body weight, body fat percentage fat mass and fat free mass. So very similar across the two different ones. So I think we can drop the whole speed up your metabolism or slow it down. I think the fasting coming onto the scene in the health and fitness world has kind of proven that point and also just the science here. It’s like you do whatever you want and and I do think what’s the thing I would caution Number six meals per day, would go back to the book, why we got sick, why we get sick. by Ben bickman just talking about insulin, the the big downside with eating six meals a day is just jacking up your insulin, like, basically all day because if you are eating in a 16 hour window, let’s just say that’s your awake period, I’m not even saying you’re fasting, I’m saying you’re awake, you’re gonna just be constantly spiking that insulin over and over, which has its problems, you know, and you can hear all about insulin in that book if you want to cover all of that. So that would be my biggest caution against the six meals per day. And that’s also why coaches or people in the nutrition world typically recommend against snacking, I know if I’m left with no plan, like no meal prep done, I don’t have the materials to make my shake. I will snack that day. And they might all be healthy snacks. It’s not like I’m grabbing bags of Doritos, but then I will basically just not even eat any meals, and I will just snack all day. And when I do that, I feel like trash. Because I think it’s insulin related. I don’t actually know why cuz it could be I mean, it could also be almonds, and you know other stuff, but I ultimately feel like crap. If I just eat, eat, eat, you know, every hour every other hour or something like that. It’s just, it’s really bad. So my ultimate takeaway were kind of a few things even outside of this, if you’re if you’re worried about your bodyweight in any capacity, losing, gaining, that’s fine. But the first thing that you need to do is you need to weigh in, if you do if, again, this is if you’re concerned about your body weight. And that’s important to you, I’m not getting into an argument about whether or not you should track your weight. If it is important to you, and you do track your weight, you need to take your average over seven day period, your weight average over a seven day period, these giant fluctuations in weight have a lot to do with Yeah, it could be your protein intake, your carbohydrate intake retaining water, it could be it could be a lot of different things. So your average weight over a seven day period is your most likely your actual weight. Because you don’t you think that you actually gain three pounds of fat from one day to the next. Like people do this, you know, they hop on a scale that I gained three pounds, like in a day. Well, what do you think that you did? Did it just like all those those fat cells just like shoved in there 24 hours, and now you’re fatter, like you actually think that that happened, or you lose that amount of weight you like you think you just pissed out all that fat, one workout one good day of dieting all gone. It’s not, that’s not what’s happening, your body’s going to change it. So you have to take the seven day average. And then also the same with total calories consumed. So you need to take your seven day average. And I think this is the biggest mistake that people make in trying to lose weight or gain muscle mass, you need to look at your calories averaged out over a seven day period. Because you can absolutely under eat for five days, and overeat for two and bust how many calories you should have had on a seven day average, it’s actually very easy to do, it only takes an extra like, depending on where you’re at 500 600 calories on a Saturday and Sunday to bust that overall average that you wanted for losing weight or gaining muscle if you didn’t eat enough. So pay attention to that. Now, with weigh ins and calories. I’m saying look at a seven day average. Bigger takeaway from this study on Protein Protein is not like that. Protein is actually very important on a per meal basis. Because we’ve talked about leucine a lot before, you need to make sure that you’re getting those two to three grams of leucine per serving, having around 20 to 30 grams of total protein. each meal, this has to do with muscle protein synthesis actually taking place it needs that amount of leucine to achieve that effect. And so you don’t have to look at I mean, you can look at a 70 average, if you want, that’d be helpful, just like in the other two cases. But you want to make sure that you’re consuming enough total protein each day and specifically in each sitting. Because if you are like Oh crap, I didn’t I’m 100 grams short on protein. And it’s 7pm. And so you do 100 grams of protein right before bed, your body can’t even use it all. Like it’s it just kind of maxes out that muscle protein synthesis, it’s the rest of it’s not getting used, there’s not as much benefit. So there is a benefit to having you know, more protein at per serving. If you do eat, whether you’re doing three grams, or six grams per day that is still important in the typical recommendation for us, is going to be around 1.8 grams per kilogram or point eight grams per pound of body weight. So for me, I’m 185 pounds actually might be like 190 now, but anyway, it’s about 150 grams of protein, so not as much. And that’s kind of like the base level. That’s where I think I should be 150 grams of protein. And then I could go up to one gram per pound if I really wanted to, but I don’t typically go beyond that. So the main takeaway for me, and I’ll ask all of you, for the athletes, how can they kill some comfort? And take action on this specific study? Like what would be? How could they get uncomfortable this information and use it in their in their lives? Do I need to call on somebody? Yeah, yeah, you’re ready.
Kyle Shrum
Okay, um, I would say, kind of based on exactly what you just said, kill some comfort by not letting your body weight number, the number on the scale dictate your life. I know. That’s something that and that’s kind of why I led what I was saying with these people were specifically trying to gain weight. And it was like, that’s not what most people are trying to do. And most people who are listening to us right now are probably not trying to gain weight specifically. But I know that before, before I joined garage mathlete before I became a coach and learned all this stuff that I know now about nutrition and about training, like, my bodyweight number dictated my life, because that was really the only thing that that I had to, you know, that I had to measure. And it’s like, exactly what you were talking about. Like, I would wake up the next day, and I’m three pounds heavier. I’m like, What the heck happened to me? I guess I don’t need to eat today, or, obviously, none of this stuff is working. So I’m just going to eat whatever I want. You know what I mean? So I would just say worse. That’s, that’s
Jerred Moon
typical. Yeah, yeah. Reaction there. Yeah,
Kyle Shrum
yeah. Like, I’m actually trying, and then I wake up three pounds heavier. The next day, well, nothing works. So just, I’m just going to give up right, that was me for a long time, that was probably a lot of people who are listening to us for a long time. But I would say, go some comfort by not letting your the number on the scale dictate your entire life. That’s what I would say, actually,
Ashley Hicks
kill some comfort by having a goal, whether that be what the study was, and that’s gaining weight, if you want that, or losing weight, whatever it is, and then kind of what Jared talked about and having a plan, a plan of attack is better than just willy nilly just going after it. You know, whether that be you’re going to have a protein goal or a vegetable goal, or whatever it is, and then get after that every day, and then let your body do its thing for at least at least four to eight weeks, like just give it some time, you’re not going to, again, kind of what Jared was talking about what Kyle was talking about, those fluctuations are going to happen day to day, and sometimes you’re not going to see something happened within a couple of days. I mean, not sometimes most of the time, you know, so have a goal with what you want to do. And keep that in mind. And yeah, and then attack it with with a good good plan, good layout, whether that be some meal, prepping. Whether that be you know, I’m going to at least hit this many workouts this week. Yeah, Joe, what you got?
Joe Courtney
Make set meals arbitrary. So you don’t routine for the day. Yeah, I’ve got it. So you have your feeding window, if you’re at a time restricted feeding or whatever it is, when you eat, make sure you eat your protein for the day. He didn’t when you when you want when you can get Make sure your macros have some sort of balance to it, depending on what you’re doing. Whether if you if this isn’t even like counting wise, but like Don’t, don’t go like either super carb or heavier, super fat, heavy, whatever, whatever you’re doing. But just even when you can’t eat your your protein for the day. Breakfast can be whenever lunch can be whatever, you don’t have to have lunch or dinner, you just have it when throughout the day, as long as every day, you’re hitting that same total and you’re remaining consistent on a daily basis, not an hourly, whatever basis like I have my breakfast scramble, which is technically at noon, dinner, and then the gaps are kind of filled in in between there for like a protein shake, and then some other decent snack in between.
Jerred Moon
Awesome, I’ll go with a killing comfort through just doing things how they should be done, as I mentioned. So the actual way to kill comfort, I think would be to track a week of your total calories. I’m not normally a calorie guy, I’m more of a macronutrient guy because macronutrients equal calories. But if we if you do know your caloric goal on a daily basis, I’d love for you to kill some comfort and look at a seven day average, based off of the blowouts you do on the weekends and just see where your average, that might be the biggest eye opening thing you’ve ever done. If you’re trying to lose weight or even gain muscle, you’d be like, wow, like I I completely screwed this up. I’m 300 calories over every single day on average, even though you were great for five or six days out of the week. So no great way To get out of control real fast is alcohol. You had a couple glasses of wine on the weekend because that’s what you do. And it’s crushed, you know, on top of normal eating were one one, quote unquote, cheat meal, right? Yeah. So I was triggered. Yeah, that’s a so that’s, that’s it for this study, some great takeaways from from the team there, we’ll get into the topic now. And so these are just kind of marketing terms that we feel that you should look out for, maybe not pay attention to, or see in cut through. So what I think because we I do feel like this could get out of control. And we could all talk about this for hours on end. We’re gonna go one at a time. So one point per coach, and your given topic, and we’ll just take it from there. So, Joe, let’s kick it off, man, since this was your idea.
Joe Courtney
So the first one that comes to mind and this is I first came to realize some of these is that I really read a lot of nutrition books like plant paradox to shed light on them and some other ones. But one of them that comes up a lot is for eggs, cage free or free range. And it’s just understanding the parameters as to what that means, because it always sounds good. And now they’re slapping those labels on to everything. And you almost can’t buy eggs without it or you know, or they’ll put the label on it, and it’ll jack up the price. But are you what are you paying for and all cage free means is that they’re just in a much larger barn or structure. But they’re still smooshed. And sandwiched together, they’re just not in individual cages. They’re just in one giant cage sharing. And then free range is take that same giant structure that they’re sandwiched in, and have one little one little door that will you know, one drop the size of one chicken and a six by six outdoor fence that counts as free range. Which doesn’t sound like free range if you actually think about it. But that is what the definition parameters of actual free range in cage free are. So knowing the distinction there and after that you’ll have you’d have to research each like the egg companies, the provider, the farmer that they’re coming from, if you really wanted to get the nitty gritty one thing that I like to do especially when you because we know we move around all the time and I’m I always like to get the good quality of things is all try out different egg brands, when we go to the store, he’s I go to brown eggs, but when I buy a couple of them, I’ll actually fry up and compare the yolks in the same pan. And whatever has the darkest yolk is the one that I’m going to buy. Because the darker the yolk, the more nutrition nutrients that are in it. So that should be like a dark, orange. But if there’s like a pale yellow, you don’t want this. So that’s just a quick definition of what cage free and free range are. So that you know at least what you’re what you’re getting, and that they could be kind of jumping you on what you think free ranges.
Jerred Moon
We’re gonna have some true free range chickens at my house once all this construction is over. That’s nice. Emily has let me know there will be more living things for us to take care of soon.
Joe Courtney
I gotta be in front of or behind the tractor tire
Jerred Moon
inside
Joe Courtney
that’s actually going to be there inside the tractor tire.
Jerred Moon
Whatever parameters I have to lock them into to maintain their free range. My bet they’ll all be eaten within three weeks by a like a bobcat. But we’re gonna try now.
Joe Courtney
Especially we’re gonna actual dog.
Jerred Moon
Yeah. And actually, these chickens will hurt my dog, to be honest.
Ashley Hicks
Like, your dog’s gonna be afraid of the chicken. Yeah.
Joe Courtney
All right, Kyle.
Kyle Shrum
So instead of pointing out one specific thing, I would just say I had a couple points that I wanted to say, but I’ll only do one of them. Because I’ll do them one at a time. Like I’m supposed to
Jerred Moon
make your favorites because who knows if we make it to the end? Yeah.
Kyle Shrum
Okay. Well, my favorite is this. Be mindful of basic marketing practices, everything that you see every product that’s out there, every service that that’s out there, all that stuff, they are marketing to you specifically. And intentionally. So that’s us included marketing in itself is not bad, right. But I’m just saying, especially with just how much marketing we’re exposed to every day now because of the internet because of social media. And because of all that stuff. It is everywhere. And so because it’s everywhere, you can kind of get dulled to it and just go and buy something just because instead of looking deeper into it, and so kind of and that’s kind of exactly what we’re talking about here like with what Joe said about free range and cage free like egg companies put that on their label so that you’ll buy it right and maybe It means that maybe it doesn’t it probably your definition of free range or cage free is different than the actual definition, which is exactly what Joe said. So that’s just kind of my and, and again, like not all marketing is bad, like, just because a business is marketing to you doesn’t mean that it’s bad or it’s trying to trick you or anything like that. My point is, just understand that everything out there is like these companies spend billions of dollars every year. I mean, the industry itself spends billions of dollars, especially when it comes to nutrition and supplements, some billion billions of dollars are spent every single year to figure out exactly what it is that’s going to make customers buy that product. So just understand that and be mindful of that. I’m not saying beware as and be scared of it, but just understand that that company wants you to buy this thing. And so are they actually providing you what they say they’re providing. That’s why on the you know, on the protein, you know, tubs you see professional athletes, or you see, you know, fitness models, or you know, the the color schemes that they use in the fight they use, and all those kinds of things like it’s to draw your attention so that you buy their product. So just understand that all of them are doing that. And investigate beyond just what the label says. That’s why we talk about like, how in your protein powder, how much leucine is in it. If it doesn’t say it on the label, go ask the company, if they won’t tell you don’t buy it, right? Like investigate it a little further. So that just being mindful of basic marketing practices, before we even talk about or I even talked about the my long, long list of things that I could talk about, especially when it comes to nutrition labels.
Joe Courtney
just beware knowledge, they actually have you take like a psychology of colors class, right? Because certain colors elicit certain responses in your brain. And thank you, Gary. So that’s why I like food always has red, because it’s associated with like, even fast food companies and all those, like cereal branded stuff. Red. You always noticed that on there.
Kyle Shrum
Yep. Exactly. Stuff like that.
Ashley?
Ashley Hicks
Yeah, it always makes me think too. Have you guys ever done where you talked about something out loud to somebody, and then all of a sudden, the ads on Facebook or the ads on Instagram is like, the stuff that you were talking about? Sir
Jerred Moon
creepy. You can try it right now. Just say garage, gym athlete in front of your phone 15 times and you start seeing our ads. Yeah, or it works for every company,
Ashley Hicks
or something you Google searched or something like that. So I really like Kyle’s advice for that. Because it’s true. I mean, and it’s trying to get you to potentially purchase or, you know, look into something that you might not have done but you know, spoke about or searched about or what
Jerred Moon
I would say just educate yourself on some of the terms that Kyle and Joe are mentioned, because most people don’t like what I’ll be at someone’s house for dinner or something. And I’ll like jokingly say that it’s free range asparagus, but no one laughs because you have to kind of be in this, this community for that to be funny. But if you say that in front of a bunch of people who are like, like, all like serve me, yeah. Don’t worry that it’s free range asparagus, like oh, that’s that’s great. I’m so glad. I’m like, Okay.
Kyle Shrum
That’s true. You have the driest the Jerred Moon sense of humor.
Jerred Moon
We’re missing here. But yeah, anyway. I didn’t mean to cut you off. Actually.
Ashley Hicks
No, you’re fine. That’s, it was a good one. Um, so I guess my favorite one. And it’s I tell people this all the time because they’ll ask, you know, well, why aren’t you eating that? Or, this past weekend? We went to like a party. And they were playing games because it was a squadron thing. And I didn’t drink and a lot of people were like, Well, why? Why can’t you drink beer? And I’m like, Well, I’m gluten free. All you’re so healthy. Because you’re gluten free. I’m like, No. Have you looked at the ingredients in like a gluten free package or gluten free pizza, or things that they stick in, like foods that, you know, they’re trying to mimic? Real flower right or mimic whatever it is. And sometimes it’s even worse than what you know, the actual product is so yeah, as a gluten free person. I kind of roll my eyes when marketing is on like a bag of potatoes. Gluten free. I yeah, potatoes are natural, gluten free or like, you know, in the produce aisle or whatnot. And again, it’s all marketing gimmicks to be like, well, this is gluten free. This is healthy, you should be eating this way. It’s like no, anyways, so that’s a big pet peeve of mine such a big eye roll of mine, you know, as from someone who’s been eating this way for 10 years. It doesn’t necessarily mean healthy and it’s you still have to eat real food and pay attention to labels. So Jared, what’s yours?
Jerred Moon
I’ll go with my top two minor fitness related not nutrition related. Be like Mike programs, a hurt my brain and make me want to die. So 1992 Gatorade commercial had Michael Jordan in it with the song saying be like, Mike, you just drink Gatorade, you’d be like, Mike, that’s how to be honest, the fitness industry is almost exclusively built on that style of marketing, more so than any other industry. And I can’t, I can’t do anything, we can’t do anything to change anybody’s mind about that, like, not even most, most of our listeners will even hear me say this in the Big E, that’s nice. But seriously, that guy’s got a six pack, you know, like, they just cannot get their brains out of this be like Mike style program. So I hate it. And it has nothing to do with me feeling insecure about my looks or my performance, it just has to do with knowing the truth about what it took for me to be low percent body fat, or what it takes has taken for me to be able to run a mile. And in the low five minute range, like it is really hard. It’s taken years and years of training, to be able to do these things. And so I get a little heated, when I see some guy, or girl Instagram, amazing body, and they’re just like, do my program, look at me, do my program, you will look like me. They’ve been training for at least 20 years, most of these people, they started in their teens, they’re in their late 20s, early 30s, they’ve literally been training 1520 years consistently with a diet to match and they look amazing. And you’ll never get there ever. You’ll never ever be that person. There’s even genetics that probably factor into some of that stuff. When we’re talking about the top like elite like, like Arnold, there’s, there’s a genetics involved. I won’t doubt the steroids or the work ethic. But you can you could you could load me with my work ethic and steroids, I will never look as good or like Arnold did ever doesn’t matter what I do. And so there’s some of that in there as well. But people fall for over and over again. They’re just like, and the worst case of this, I do have to call out CrossFit is CrossFit. And the reason being is because if I have to, if I’m like hey, Joe, you’ll never be like LeBron James. You’re not going to like really push back and argue like, yeah, no shit. Like, it’s LeBron James. He’s like, a foot taller than me like, what are you it. And that’s how most professional athletes have been. They’re just these larger than life, human beings who can do things that you can’t even dream of. But CrossFit started their own version of professional athlete, right. And I won’t doubt that their performance level, like the things that they do is very impressive. But what happened is you got the characters like Rich froning involved, who are super relatable, and super likable. And he just picked up CrossFit and then became this professional athlete in this new sport. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t have something going for him. Like he had this intrinsic, this amazing ability to be able to do what he does. Also training for five to six hours per day, you know, in the one wad you do for in CrossFit for 20 minutes isn’t going to get you anywhere close to how rich froning looks. Again, ever in your lifetime, not going to happen, or just follow that that person’s programming, and you’ll look like them. Like if there’s any of that in your brain. It’s false. It’s just false. I hope I can help somebody cut through that crap because they’re these be like Mike monkey see, monkey do. programs are the worst thing that’s ever happened to fitness industry. And this is also why everyone thinks that they can, they can teach fitness or you know, they’re like, all they had to do was go get fit. And then after they get fit, they’re like, I can tell everyone what to do now. Because I did it. I did it one time with myself. So I know what everyone should do. And it’s just a bit insane. So don’t fall for any of the be like Mike programs where if you think that because you’re following a professional athlete who happens to put out programming, or whatever, like that doesn’t mean you’ll ever look like them. And to be honest, you won’t. Like that’s why there’s never another picture of someone else from their program. It’s like it’s a picture of rich froning a little bit sweaty, good lighting. But not someone who’s been following froning program for two or three years. Like Look at that guy. No, it’s froning, who’s been training for 25 years and works out five to six hours a day. So anyway, be like my programs don’t fall for him. It’s another one.
Kyle Shrum
Back to Joe. All right.
Jerred Moon
Well, probably not going to do too. So you each know that going in.
Joe Courtney
Okay, all natural. This is on a lot of things there is for all natural, it doesn’t mean anything. There is currently no formal definition for the use of the term natural on food labels as of yet, and basically it just means that like they’re the only loosely defined thing is that you it’s something that you would die expect from food basically. So I mean know what that means. But it’s just how it’s been treated as like food edible food is in it. And pretty much all food is going to be natural, but anything that would you would not expect to see in food, isn’t it? So basically, that means nothing all natural, they can slap on just about everything, too. So and it’s just another one of the things that they they’re just gonna throw around on on everything. So it’s, you know, reading food labels making sure there’s not a whole bunch of crap that you can’t pronounce. This is all been kind of gone over in like, why we why we get sick and some of the books and stuff of you check those out. So just one all natural, doesn’t mean anything has zero, as has actual no definition or regulation to it. Great.
Kyle Shrum
I’m gonna go with heart healthy. Cuz that’s just kind of where my
Jerred Moon
Don’t take my Cheerios away from me.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, well, I’m about to, like that’s about to happen. And this was which, which one of those two books was it? Was it sugar crush? Or? Or why we get sick that because they were called out Cheerios. Thanks. Yeah. So you know, Cheerios say that their heart healthy. And you know, because of the low cholesterol or whatever. Okay, do any kind of I honestly do a Google search, literally just a Google search of cholesterol. And you’ll find out that, like, the jury’s out right now on what cholesterol actually does, and what it actually like, what it actually is for and how it actually affects you and how, like, should you be mindful of cholesterol when it comes to your food? Okay, but that’s what Cheerios does, and especially Honey Nut Cheerios, and I’m just like, Honey Nut Cheerios, like, it’s sugar. That’s all it is it sugar, right? So heart healthy, they can slap it on anything, but they put it on there because they want you to buy it. Right. And it’s like, this whole because it’s the same thing that’s happened with fat, like, fat has, you know, been a demon of the food industry. And then cholesterol became the demon of the food industry. So now everything has to be lower your cholesterol by eating Cheerios. No, no, don’t, don’t fall for that kind of stuff. So I would just say heart healthy.
Jerred Moon
A good night routine for your heart help. big bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios, followed by large glass of red wine. Because both of those things have been proven through the antioxidants and everything. Like, it’s just gonna be amazing for your heart. So add those two things every night and let me know where you’re at six months,
Kyle Shrum
and make sure that you eat that meal at like 10 or 11 o’clock and go to bed. Or it’s no more than 30 minutes before you go to bed. That’s to
Joe Courtney
eat it while in bed.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, that’s to eat it while in bed while watching TV. Last spoonful go to sleep. Exactly.
Ashley
Ashley Hicks
I’m going to go with local, especially if you’re shopping at like a big supermarket or something and it says you know, local honey. And then you actually like turn it around and see it’s in Vermont, that’s not really local.
Jerred Moon
It’s kind of a company
Ashley Hicks
that no, like, there is a local honey, we have one here in niceville on it’s like, I’m sure it might be in every Walmart actually. And it just says local honey and you turn and it’s in a completely different state. So if you’re looking for something local, like whether that be your meat or your produce or what not like the best kind of sources to go to or if you have any sort of access to a market, maybe on the weekends, that’s kind of when they have here like the farmers will come down and they all like set up their booths here and do that. They do that in the UK a time. But unfortunately, if you’re going to shop at like, you know, a Walmart a Publix a Tom Thumb. I’m trying to think of other you know, he Kroger Yeah, all the things it’s probably not local. It’s it’s something that they have, you know, manufactured and brought in and and slapped determined so you’ll buy it.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, even though Whole Foods here has has local coffee, and some of it is the local coffee and it’s it’s locally roasted, not locally grown. So that’s another gonna say Watch out for because we don’t grow coffee in Chattanooga, Tennessee. But in the local coffee section is also coffee that’s roasted in Atlanta, or Athens, Georgia. And it’s like, okay, those are only a couple hours away. That’s not local. It’s like, Why Why are they Atlanta? Why do they Atlanta stuff in the local section inside? That’s not even here. So yeah, you’re absolutely right. No local thing. I just because that’s a that’s a that’s a popular thing. Right. Like supporting local and I think you should support a local. But yeah, I experienced that as well.
Ashley Hicks
I just cracked up because it’s Florida. And apparently Vermont is local before. Vermont,
Joe Courtney
Vermont. Maple Syrup freeze.
Kyle Shrum
If some connection No, yeah, no offense to the listeners from Vermont.
Ashley Hicks
Yeah, not not dogging on Vermont, but that’s just not local Florida. All right, sure. What’s yours?
Jerred Moon
I don’t know if this is the exact same one as the first one stated in a different way. I’m gonna say it anyway. Any sort of military related appeal to get you into fitness is by far my most maybe because I just was in the military and know that people in the military don’t know shit about fitness. Like it’s bad, but Oh, the biggest the biggest. You know, one is navy seals, as though they’re the worst. So like, I’m just gonna go through Okay, Navy SEALs stage one Naval Special Warfare preparatory school, they swim they run ground physical training. Academic topics are the seal eat those core values professional development cycle of achievement, mental toughness, goal setting military heritage, they go to stage to Naval Special Warfare orientation, just three weeks of getting your stuff together. Phase Three, or stage three is basic crew selection and first phase stage for combat diving and basic crew training just going over. You know how to operate as a swim team and crew qualification training stage 5/3 phase, they’re getting into a little bit more water stuff, because that’s what they do. I’m just trying not to get into all the details. Then they do stage six seal qualification training where they do weapons training, small unit tactics, land navigation, demolition, cold weather training, medical skills, maritime operations, before graduating, they do see or things like that. Did you hear me say anything about fitness or nutrition from the Navy SEALs curriculum of training that they go through? No, they don’t know anything about fitness, what they do, or and are probably good at, if I had to give them credit to anything. And I don’t want to offend anybody but killing people. They’re American warriors. Like that’s what they do. And this is something when I have young people talk to me about joining the military. I asked them this question at the forefront and it makes the conversation very awkward. When they tell me they want to be a fighter pilot. So they’re asking me questions, they’re gonna do something else. I say, Are you okay with killing another human being? Are Is that okay with you? And then they’re like, Whoa, I just want to like, run fast. And you know, do the coolest stuff in the water? No, no, no, these are trained American warriors to kill the enemy. That’s what they do. That’s what they’re amazing at. And they’ve trained their whole life to be good at and they know that’s what they’re good at. This pivot after the military career to pretend like they’re good fitness just cuz they got their asses kicked in buds is stupid. And so no military and I pick on navy seals, because they’re the worst ones who do it post military career and I get I get it, you got to make a living. But you also got to do your research there. I know there are Navy SEALs out there who have done that stuff. I can think of at least three in the fitness industry who who know their shit when it comes to fitness, nutrition post military career, but the ones who are just resting on the fact that I had this qualification or I did this so I can teach you this is trash. So stay away from military, they don’t know anything about fitness. And I’m saying that as someone who is in the military, I was literally picked to be the physical training leader because I was the first one there that that was hilarious. I had been through some, like basic personal training certifications and other things but that was they didn’t even know about those things. I just had the highest PT test score. And I was the first one there. So you’re in charge and I’m like, Okay, I know some other stuff so this will be fine but uh wow now quite a selection process there So anyway, that that’s a that’s a big one for me is military related appeal. Like Don’t Don’t fall for that stuff. We don’t know we collected military don’t know anything about fitness. Like it’s just not
Ashley Hicks
minds may have kill Cliff because he was a navy seal. And you know, this is a recovery drink. And, you know, I mean, it tastes good. Don’t get me wrong, and I’m always like Kilcullen overfit aid I’ll say it again but like, if I’m going to now do something that has electrolytes or something that’s supposed to help me I’ll do like a noon tablet like you know, kind of got off the train but you’re I mean, you’re not wrong. Go look at a food Hall, a chow hall, go look at what they think is important. Like in food in the military and you’ll you’ll quickly realize it’s a it’s not what it is and go look at what an Air Force PT test is like. See what Jared is talking about when he said that he had the best score? That’s, that’s still
Joe Courtney
not very good. We just got rid of the waist measurement.
Jerred Moon
I was seriously like, whatever, you know, a lot of people, a lot of people take the Air Force PT test in the Air Force, they’re like, cool, good. I’m done for the day. Pretty much. I’m like, that was definitely a warm up. I know the run was challenging. But like, come on, we did two minutes worth of calisthenics total. And then we run half as like, okay, but when’s the next workout? But anyway, let’s get the meet yourself Saturday workout OF THE WEEK going, it is the 25 minute lunch test. Can’t remember who said they were going to brief it. But definitely Joe,
Joe Courtney
Joe. All right. 100%. So you’re going to start with a weighted vest or weighted backpack up to 20 pounds. You’re gonna lunge for 500 meters as fast as possible, capping yourself at 25 minutes. If you finish the four meters, you’re going to rest until the 25 minutes is up. And then continue Part Two if you don’t finish the 25 minutes, immediately data part two. And that part two is take off the weighted vest or the weight whatever you’re doing so just your bodyweight and do another four meter. Less with time cap. So
Jerred Moon
breaking up there, Joe? frickin ba rain
Joe Courtney
is already talking about launches somebody else.
Jerred Moon
Did we get through the workout? For
Kyle Shrum
the most part, though? I didn’t hear the whole thing.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, so it’s it’s a bunch of lunching with a vest. So what tips can we give on this? Alright, and you can take the vest off of the second part, right? So
Kyle Shrum
well, and the only part that matters is the second part. Because that’s your score, the time for the second half of it is your score. Got it. That’s the important part.
Ashley Hicks
Go ahead, after you go for the first part, the more rest you get in between, that’s my thing. So just saying it’s true, like this is that is for me. And also just don’t stop. Like if you have to lunge Put your feet together, lunge, put your feet together, like find a rhythm. Keep going. Just don’t stop with that pack on your back. For me,
Joe Courtney
it is. Sorry, I’m sorry, guy, you understand that reference? That’s fine.
Ashley Hicks
I was never seen Cool Runnings folks. Okay, anyways, so for me, it would be like a rock mix, just push me through this, because I need something that’s gonna just motivate me to like, just keep going. And then afterwards, you know, when you’re going for your second one, I don’t know it just you’re obviously gonna feel lighter, because you’re taking the pack off. So just go again. But after the entire workout mobility, you’re going to need it. Like, I feel like the next day or the even the second day after that, when you’re coming back to train on Monday, you’re gonna feel that soreness. So make sure that you take the time to really get some good mobility in, whether that be stretching, whether that be rolling, you know, getting in with, like a good lacrosse ball or whatever you have going on. And then, you know, pay attention to hydration, water consumption, so that way you can recover pretty well. Or tart cherry juice. Let’s go with that.
Jerred Moon
Yeah. downs of it.
Kyle Shrum
rolling it back.
Ashley Hicks
Anyone else? Sorry, am I supposed to be
Jerred Moon
Yeah, I’ll take a tip. No,
Kyle Shrum
actually just covered everything. Yeah. What else to say?
Jerred Moon
I do want to hit on to one of our things. One of the things that she mentioned, normally when I’m talking about or let’s just say briefing, walking lunges, I say don’t take that step in the middle. So just step to the next lunch to the next lunch to the next one. What is that? Yeah, I so don’t take that step, as my recommendation is just go from one lunch to the next lunch. But in this workout, I don’t give that recommendation. Because normally when I say that we’re talking about doing like 20, you know, 20 weighted lunges or something. So it’s just more painful to go from one giant step to the next directly into another lunge. And so this stopping at the top is not something you want to do, I would say like in training, but absolutely use it to your advantage in this workout. Because it is going to save some of that fatigue a little bit. So I do think that you can get in a good rhythm, like you mentioned, and do it. Also wear some nice leaves, I think are helpful. And then think about lunges. If you feel any, like discomfort in the knee. Just go ahead and stop. Alright, because this is this is high volume. And if you’re like, oh, there’s just like pain on the outside or inside of my knee when I’m doing these, let’s just go ahead and not do it anymore. Or you know, correct your form to where it doesn’t hurt and then try again. Because what I think could happen in a workout like this is if you have very improper form, like you’re swinging your knee, you know, way out or maybe it’s it’s caving in, or maybe the knees going too far forward. And you’re just taking an awkward step. Maybe you Steps to big and it’s it’s putting pressure on your knee to wear hurts. Let’s not add hundreds of repetitions to that. Okay, so let’s be smart about it and don’t just push through it on this one fix fix it to where it doesn’t hurt the only thing that lunges should hurt quads, maybe your ass a little bit. And that’s about it. Maybe it can’t can’t be hamstrings depends how you’re doing. But that’s that’s all I got.
Joe Courtney
Elevate your feet in between when you when you if you can get to your rest period. Because you’re gonna build a lot of blood. Like, lay down some of the blood out. Yeah, yeah.
Kyle Shrum
And there you go.
Jerred Moon
All right. So that’s Joe’s Tip of the day, and we’re going to round it out on this. This podcast. That was like, a full hour. I don’t know if we you guys want to do updates? Should we go through them quickly? Or? Let’s take a team vote.
Ashley Hicks
That’s all right. I feel like you know, people are not super interested in a personalized Let’s move on.
Joe Courtney
I don’t have an update prepared. So
Jerred Moon
yeah. Yeah, my, I do. Okay, so we’re skipping updates.
Joe Courtney
And we’re just gonna, just gonna first time said it would wait till the end.
Jerred Moon
Well, we’re gonna cut anything short, it should be the updates, not not anything else. So if you do like the podcast you want, some not be like Mike training, go to garage gym athlete. We don’t want you to be like us. We want you to be like every other athlete. The hundreds of people we’ve had on the podcast, who are just putting in the work, getting the green dots being consistent drinking enough water, getting enough sleep, hitting some prs. Like, these are the things that we’re encouraging athletes to do. While I will not lie to you, when I started the first program, one man, one barbell had to almost rely exclusively on me and my strength in my progressions. Like I said, that’s the fitness industry. And that’s how I had to crack into it. But as quick as I possibly could, we moved away from that 100% we’re all about the athletes. It’s not about what I can do. It’s not about what actually can do or Joe or Kyle. It’s everything about what our athletes can do. And that’s what we’re focused on the community. So if you want to support us in the show in what we’re doing, go to garage, gym, athlete comm you can sign up for a free trial and get started. And then as a reminder, I’ll leave you with if you don’t kill comfort, comfort will kill you.