Hey, Athletes! Do you track your food? What method do you use? This week we look at how good habits are better than just tracking your food all the time!
Episode 102 of The Garage Gym Athlete Podcast is up!
Good Habits Are Most Important For Nutrition
In this week’s episode Jerred, Joe, Kyle, and Ashley are back! This week’s study looked at how three different groups estimated their calorie consumption and which groups were the most successful. Spoiler alert, looks like good habits may be the way to go for nutrition! The coaches give their take on this and give you ways on how to kill comfort with this one! For this week’s topic, the team answered an Ask Me Anything. Dylan asked about being in a calorie deficit and losing strength. The coaches give their answers and how they would handle the situation. It’s Fit Week, which means this week’s Meet Yourself Saturday workout is the EO3 5K! Don’t miss out on this week’s challenge!
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:
- Ask Me Anything
- Good Habits for Nutrition
- EO3 5K
- Calorie Consumption
- Caloric Deficit and Strength
- 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:
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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 mathlete podcast, Jared moon here with the crew. We have Ashley Hicks, Joe, Courtney and Kyle from How’s everyone doing?
Joe Courtney
Good morning. Pretty good.
Tired?
Yeah, I
Jerred Moon
did. It’s irrelevant. Yeah, I was tired yesterday. And I’m not gonna say why. That’s it. We’re just gonna get into you know how to tell us anymore? Yeah, I love Old habits die hard. Alright, so what kind of, you know, bro science are we working through this week here with with the coaches and I don’t know, you’re trying to change your perception on how maybe you track things or how good you think you are at tracking things and how much it even matters when it comes to your diet and nutrition. So we’re going to get into a study that has a lot to do with energy intake, how you estimate those things. And really, if it even matters, I want to get into my takeaway, my personal takeaway, and not so much the takeaway of of what they found in the study. Because I think that this goes like if you have a weight loss goal, muscle gain goal, there’s a lot less science involved than you realize, even though you can get very mathematical with this stuff. And we’ll talk about all of it. So this study, the title is under reporting of energy intake in weight loss maintainers. It was done in 2021. And it was a secondary analysis of data from research carried out at the University of Colorado from 2009 to 2012. They have a lot of ways to exclude people from participation, if they restricted physical activity, if they were taking weight loss medication, had done a lot of fasting, weight loss, surgery, all these things. And it looked like it was my correct and saying primarily females. Yeah, there’s a lot of a lot of ladies. Yes, yeah. So the group consisted of 32 to 57 year olds, who were mainly female and some male participants. And the purpose of the study was to compare objective measurements of total daily energy intake with self reported energy intake in three groups, individuals maintaining at least 30 pounds of weight loss for one year, individuals with a BMI over 25, not maintaining weight loss of 30 pounds or more and individuals would it be my under 25, without a history of obesity. And this so it was a kind of it was a secondary analysis of something that happened earlier. So the study was carried out over a period of eight days, during which the participants completed a bunch of stuff, they had seven day physical activity measured by accelerometer, three day diet diary consisting of two week days and one weekend day, energy expenditure assessment via the doubly labeled water method. And then they did indirect color, color, metree kalama tree to determine resting energy expenditure and event via ventilated hood, I don’t know if you guys have seen one of these sorry for the pronunciation there. But you look like you’re in a spacesuit, you get in it, you lay down. And they put like, what looks like a spacesuit over your body. And then you seriously just lay there. And it’s like, measuring your oxygen intake and all these other things, you’re not supposed to move a lot. And what it does is it gives you a very accurate measurement of kind of what your more of your resting metabolic rate because we all have to, you know, always like, Oh, I’m active, maybe this is my arm or whatever gives you a very accurate version of that. And then they did height, weight body composition. And that was measured by a dexa machine. And then they had a questionnaire. And really, I won’t, I won’t jump into the take the the end result, we will do that in a second. So they’re really just trying to assess how people self report like what they think they’re taking in calorie wise versus what they actually are. And how that contributes to movement and other things is what we’ll discuss. So what did everyone think about this? somewhat complicated study, I think because it was an analysis of previous studies. But what do you guys think?
Joe Courtney
So the three groups that they were looking at, for the estimation for the calories and stuff for people with BMI over 25, who had lost 30 pounds over a year ago, so they lost weight and they were trying to maintain that with their diet. Then there were people that were over to BMI over 25 pounds that hadn’t had a recent weight loss. Then people with under 25, BMI, with no history of being obese. Those are the three different groups that they had watch or journal, their calorie intake their food intake, to see how they estimated what they did. And during that, it was the eight day period, I think they had to at least record three days of journaling, their food, everything they ate, and then three days wearing a that funny word kilometer thingy that that measured activity. So, which I didn’t see much about any at all activity incorporated in the assessment, the breakdown. But yeah, in short, they found that people over or under 25, BMI were better estimated their food. But I think the main takeaway from this not to dive too much deeper for anybody else’s points. But one of the things that they saw that was common was people underestimated their fat intake and overestimated their protein intake. And this is something that I have with me the last couple times I’ve started counting macros is, you know, I’ve counted for a long time before. And I feel like I’ve had a pretty good grasp on it. But the last time I started for a while, I was way over on fat, and my protein was pretty close. It wasn’t like, spot on it. But I mean, I think I was like, 20 under or something like that. Nothing too crazy. But fat was definitely one of those that is really hard to not regulate, right, unless you’re actually reading and paying attention, because there could be way more fat and things that you even realize. And like even like dry baked goods or anything like that, because you know, fat can be in anything. So that’s one main thing that was, it was I think it was a cool takeaway, or a cool look is very unique, it doesn’t new form, or anything else that we have looked at before. And so I think the paying attention, it just goes to show that you can’t really do intuitive eating, you can’t estimate, if you are actually serious, you need to actually like measure and do your due diligence, because what you think, is completely false. And I and Funny enough, I just last week, I saw a post on Instagram, that was talking about this, and how you know, if you’re trying to only eat 1200 calories, and you’re kind of eyeballing your food, it’s, you know, you might think you’re having one serving of peanut butter. But that one scoop, one serving you’re having that you haven’t measured is actually three times the size that you think it is. And that goes to show you for you know, coffee cream or salad dressings. And also the last part that we always talk about is that all calories still count on the weekends. Cutting news. I have a post to go on your social media post to go along with this when I first go.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, so this is, um, this is something interesting as well, what you were talking about with, with portion sizes, right? So when I was making pandas lunches for school, obviously, it’s summertime and on in school, so I don’t make lunches anymore. But when Hannah was on now, Hannah will go through cycles, she’ll go through cycles of macro counting, and I’ll go through cycles and macro Canyon to based on my goals. But when Hannah’s on the women’s health track, specifically, and she’s doing the carb cycling, and she’s counting your macros, and, and so Hannah would have almonds were their lunch every day, but one serving of almonds, and she made sure that when I was packing her lunch, it was only one serving of almonds. Don’t just give me some almond almonds. Like Give me one serving? Does anyone here know how many almonds is in one serving?
Joe Courtney
I think it’s five out how many can fit in my hand
Jerred Moon
1528 28 almonds
Kyle Shrum
in one serving. And so that is stuck in my brain. Like I know what one serving of almonds is. Yeah. So
Jerred Moon
then count would not be dependent on the
Kyle Shrum
it would be dependent on which elements you’re buying. But the almonds that we were buying. It was 2828 pieces. So it’s like, it’s exactly what Joe was saying. And so that when it when it comes to counting macros when it comes to tracking your nutrition, there’s a lot that goes into it. And I think a lot of people don’t realize that I think a lot of people don’t realize how much it how much actually goes into tracking everything that goes in your body. And so, for me, with coaching, specifically here, I’m just going to kind of ignore the study and just skip to what I want to say. Because Because Joe pretty much covered what the study said. And, but I would just say most people are not ready for macro counting. Like that’s just what I’m like, I know that macro counting is kind of a it’s, I don’t I don’t want to call it a trendy thing, but it’s kind of a trendy thing right now I’d like everybody that’s coming from Cochin wants a macro plan. And it’s like, well, I would love to give you a macro plan. And I can give you a macro plan. But let’s talk about some other things first, and let me see if you’re actually ready for a macro plan. And the truth of it is, most people are not. And so what I would say, for most people is macro counting is not where you need to go. It’s definitely not where you need to start, in my opinion, when it comes to balancing your nutrition, I think you just need to build some steady habits, some solid habits and stick to those things and focus on a couple of different things, and make a couple of small changes over time before you try to jump into macro Canada. Because as we see, in the study, most people were not reporting, they were under reporting, most people weren’t reporting exactly what was happening. And because they didn’t actually realize what was what was actually happening. And so I think there’s some psychological stuff that comes into that too. Maybe it’s your coaching, or in coaching or doing something for a study, and you’re, you know, maybe just psychologically, you’re like, Well, I didn’t actually hit my number. But if I tell my coach that I didn’t hit my number, then I’ll be in trouble. So let me do something here and kind of fudge the numbers a little bit. You know, I think some people do that. You don’t mean sometimes it gets in their head. But also, I just think that most people are not taught or not coached, and trained to understand what is actually in the food that they’re eating. And so they wind up either under reporting or over recording, and so they need some help with that. And so, but my, my big takeaway was just that. Most people probably don’t need to start with macro counting anyway, that you need some different habits instead, before you go to macro counting. Actually. Sorry, I kind of went No,
Ashley Hicks
that’s fine. And I mean, to kind of further your point, like, in women’s health track, we do. We do count macros, we do some carb cycling. But we also do weekly goals. And a lot of it is let’s focus on like, the quality of food you’re eating. So we’ll even talk about like, here’s a vegetable goal for the week, let’s try to hit this or fiber goal, or even like hydration. Because when a lot of ladies come in, especially like looking at the study to that’s the hardest things, the first couple of weeks that like, Oh, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to hit this macro, because you’re right, you know, if you’re especially if you’re starting from scratch, it can be hard. And what I tried to do as well is if they are able to join, while we’re doing fit week is go ahead and download that my macros plus or My Fitness Pal and just track like you don’t have a macro count, just track to see like what you eat normally, and kind of get in that routine. But then it also is super eye opening what Joe was talking about, like how much fat you’ve been eating, how much protein you have not been eating, stuff like that. And especially with like Joe talked about, you know, even like peanut butter servings, but even like oil and cooking, you know, people don’t think to track that stuff. And it’s like, well, you have to track every single thing that’s going on in your body and that oil is still going into your body, even if it’s a tablespoon of olive oil. Yeah, it’s
Joe Courtney
a joke, because it’s related. When we were doing our macro counting for a while. I’m just so used to cooking like Sartain, something’s up, I put the oil in a pan and Lizzie like, how much was that? Cooking? Like, no, we need to measure that. So many times she would get on me about that I just always forget. So I just like has a tailspin. Yeah, that’s the table. Sorry, guys.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, that’s something that’s something to actually that, that I do as well. Like when people first come in, and want nutrition coaching, I’m like, Alright, the first thing you’re gonna do is you’re going to attract a week of everything that you eat, and everything that you drink. And there’s a couple things to that I want them to see what’s actually what they’re actually eating and drinking. And also, I want them to see what it takes to actually track everything. Because a lot of people aren’t used to it, you know, and so they need some experience. And so I just say, just a week and don’t make any changes, like just whatever your normal week would be. track it for a week and just see see all those things?
Ashley Hicks
Yeah. So I think because of the whole under estimating that they did not give the correct amount of what they actually took, as an even award and take whatever. I think that you need. I think that you need to track correctly. And Jared kind of talked about this the last time because Joe touched on it about like still tracking over the weekends because they only did three days out of the week. Right? And so I love the idea that Jared kind of brought it was like take the average over seven days of what you’ve done because if you only tracking let’s say for the two days out of the week that they did in one day of the week, who knows what they would have what they were doing the other Four days out of the week, which can completely blow everything out of the water, especially if you have goals to I want to continue to lose weight, like, you know, the maintainers that were not able to accurately say what they were into. And then it also not surprised me. But it was just shocking. I guess that how the people who were not over the BMI that they were under were able to calculate better their intake, I guess. So, interesting study, I’ll give my killing comfort after Jared gives his takeaways, I’m quite interested to see what you have to say about this turn.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, so I’m going to jump back into the study at the conclusion was the actual conclusion from the study, weight loss maintainers under reported energy intake in both absolute and relative terms to a greater extent than normal body weight and controls with overweight slash obesity. These findings call into question the accuracy of self reported energy intake and weight loss maintainers published in previous studies and align with recent data suggesting that weight loss maintenance rely less on chronic energy intake, restriction and more on high levels of physical activity to maintain weight loss. Sorry, that was a hard paragraph to read, because half of it was in acronyms. And so I had to like, recall what they were. But ultimately, they’re saying they think that it’s more, there’s more to it than because the weight loss maintainers are supposed to be the winners here. Right? They’re the ones who have, they have lost the weight. And they’ve kept it off for a year. So they should be the champions of knowing how much calories are consuming, burning all these things. But they weren’t, they did not win this, if it was a contest, they lost, you know, compared to the other two groups. But they’re ultimately the winners because they have lost a bunch of weight, what was greater than 25 pounds, or 30 pounds, whichever one it was, and they’ve kept it off for a year, which is an impressive thing to do. Because most people when they lose weight, they gain it right back. That’s just what the stats say. That’s what the data says. So I think my takeaway similar to the conclusion is there’s a lot more going on here than calories in calories out estimating all these things. Because if you look at everything that we use, or you could use to track your calories, there are studies saying that your fitness tracker is off, can be off up to 30% in estimating your calorie calorie expenditure during the day. Okay, great. Per federal law. nutrition labels can be off by 20% in calories. Okay, awesome. And if you’re a food manufacturer, you’re probably going to want to be off on the low end, because no one’s gonna want to favor a high calorie food, right? So they This is probably a conscious decision a lot of food companies make they’re like, Oh, shit, that’s 300 calories, like, Can we bump that down by 20%, because we’ll still be within, you know, what’s regulated. So there’s that there’s nutrition labels working against you, your tracker doesn’t know how much you’re burning. And the only real way to do this, if on your own is to go to some untrustworthy website that has some sort of calorie calculator on there, and 400 different ads and hope that you got a good source for estimating your calories, and then track and then now we bring to you eating things like Joe mentioned, are you did you track how much oil went in the pan? And also, when you’re putting the food back on your plate? Did all the oil get out of the pan? Or did some of the oil stay in the pan? When you make a shake? Did you consume that entire shake? Or was the shake so thick that there’s still a lot left around the edges in the blender, and to where some of the calories are being lost? And so I’m just painting a picture for you here that it seems relatively impossible to be 100% accurate in these things. And so it should be okay with you to not even try to be accurate. Not, don’t try, just try to be accurate. Because that’s just going to stress you out. hitting on Kyle’s point with who’s ready for macro plan and who’s not is really good because a lot of people are not something that we teach in our coaching course is the mental toughness assessment or audit, where we kind of track when we start working with you. We want to know what your ability to take on new behaviors or new habits like where we think that you are in that and if you’re kind of overloaded are you and this is in the book killing comfort if you want to read we put the mental toughness audit in there, because it’s something I’ve used over and over again. So giving someone who’s not training these things, the macronutrient plan is not changing one habit. It’s not like, Okay, you got a macro plan. This changes like 47 habits all at once to give you a macro plan, you’re tracking, which is hard, you’re using a new app, which is another added habit, you’re eating things you don’t normally do your shopping away, you don’t normally shop, you’re probably breaking. Yeah, you’re probably breaking some bad habits of eating out or not. So like to go on a macronutrient plan is not one thing. It’s a lot of things. And it’s very hard to stick to. So how on earth can these people who lost a lot of weight, maintain this weight loss, but suck at estimating it when they’re actually eating it. And so my ultimate takeaway for this is just it’s a lifestyle. And if you want radical change, you’re going to have to implement a radical lifestyle change. And I wish there was some easier button. But that’s not what we do. Here. We don’t sit around and tell you the easy button, we always tell you the unsexy things. And somehow this business still exists, we’re the we’re the antithesis of a regular fitness company. But somehow we still succeed. So what I’m telling you is if you or someone in your life wants a radical change, it’s going to take a radical lifestyle change. But that doesn’t mean you can’t start small. Okay, it doesn’t mean that you have to do the overhaul and expect to succeed, you have to start with the smaller habits that build one after the other, and it’s going to take a very long time is the unfortunate truth. But that’s what you have to do. If you really want to see change, and you don’t need to worry so much about the mathematics of perfection. Instead, you can just need to get comfortable with doing the simple things that are going to lead to your success. And don’t worry so much about that perfectionist mentality.
Kyle Shrum
So thanks for taking my killing comfort.
Jerred Moon
So let’s get into it. That’s a new thing that we want to do. How can all the listeners kill some comfort and apply what we have gone over here in this study? Joe, I definitely want to hear you first,
Joe Courtney
a whole thing. And it’s probably gonna be this similar same to everybody’s but I was gonna say, do actual tracking for seven days, including the weekend, just to see what the difference is. or do a journal like this for seven days, and then go back and calculate every day after the seven days and see what the difference is. So live your normal five days, and your normal weekend, what you would normally do write down the quantities of everything, then calculated afterwards and see if and how they’re if there’s a difference for your weekend self and your daily during the week self. Oh, Ashley,
Ashley Hicks
you forgot the rule. I said for killing comfort, you have to put in the hard work. And whether that be kind of what Jared talked about, where you’re just living the lifestyle and doing small things. Or if you’re taking the plunge and you’re actually tracking, you know, make sure to estimate, I’m going to say estimate because you’re right, it’s not going to be 100% accurate. But the results will come if you if you put in the hard work. Kyle,
Kyle Shrum
my, my killing comfort tip for the athletes. And this is speaking from experience having been an athlete with garage, gym athlete, and having lost a lot of weight. And having maintained that weight loss for years now is the open to experimentation. Which is is uncomfortable. Sometimes people just want to eat what they are comfortable eating. And I would also say Be patient enough to spend the time to learn what’s right for you and what’s not what what works for you. And what does. being patient, I think is probably pretty uncomfortable for most people. I don’t know, maybe not. Maybe you guys are patient, you listeners or patient. I’m not. And so that was definitely uncomfortable for me. And during my time as just an athlete before join the coaching team. It took me nine months, I lost 65 pounds. But it took me nine months to do it. And I don’t have time on this podcast to tell you how many habits I had to form how many habits I had to break. I can’t tell you how many you know, I don’t know how, you know, frustrated Jerry got with me while he was coaching me but you know, with some of my check ins and things like that, like there were things that I had to learn to do. And things I had to learn to not do and what the killing the comfort that I had to kill was being patient and understanding that there are going to be ups and downs and then it’s going to take time and being open to experimenting with new things and things I thought would work didn’t work things I didn’t think would work did all those kinds of things. So that’s, that’s my, that’s my kaylynn comfort to cheered.
Jerred Moon
Yeah, I’m just gonna go really painful here and just say change your lifestyle. Yeah, how about that, that’s pretty uncomfortable thing. So you’re gonna have to change you’re like I don’t like I don’t actually understand why. Like, what I don’t I haven’t tracked macros in a very long time now, I used to do it periodically. And now I don’t even touch it because I was just like, so mad at it. I don’t like doing it at all. Because I’ve done it really strict time periods of my life that probably broke my brain a little bit. But I my weight, like, it just stays the same. And then I’m not saying like, Oh, look at me, I’m so awesome. I’m just saying it stays the same. But it’s through breaking my brain and going through those habits that eventually made it a lifestyle to where I knew what was too much. And I knew what was too little hum in and I can make those adjustments. But it’s been a pain in the ass. And it’s been a lot of time. I don’t mean, I don’t know, I need to like count up the years. But I think we’re getting close to it is getting very close to 20 years of doing this stuff. Because I started at a pretty young age. And that’s a long time. And that’s another very unsexy thing I’m trying to sell you there. Should I try really hard for decades, and maybe you won’t have to count macros is that’s the that’s the takeaway there. But no, I think changing your lifestyle is the only option for people succeeding. And this is just what I’ve seen throughout coaching over and over again, I want to give people a macro plan or I want to give them this fitness plan. I want to give them the one thing but it’s not. And I realized this more, the more and more I train with my, my brother, who’s, you know, I mentioned on the podcast, he’s starting to come with me, he’s pretty overweight, he’s losing some weight now. But I’m like, Bro, I have to get into so many like, I have to invade your life for you to see results. Like you can’t just come You can come exercise with me for an hour a day, that’s fine, you’re gonna lose some weight, just because you’re inactivity being at like, all time low to now working out, yeah, you’re gonna lose some weight. But if you want this radical change, I’m gonna have to talk to you about your sleep, your water intake, what you’re eating on a daily basis, your stress levels, like we have to talk about everything, and you have to change it all. But we have to start small. So start small, but do make the ultimate goal, not this losing 50 pounds or running this fast or whatever make it a lifestyle. I want fitness and health to be a lifestyle. And that’s very uncomfortable. thing to do. Alright incur to the topic. This is from Dylan. Are we going to do all of them? Well, there’s only I guess there’s three questions. Okay.
Joe Courtney
somewhat related.
Jerred Moon
Yeah. So we’re bringing the AMA section of the podcast that we used to publish weekly. Occasionally, we’re bringing it in here as the topic unless recovering a book or something else that we would like to cover. So this is from Dylan, and it is a question. There are a few questions that I think are all related. I’m coming off about a full cycle of cut slash calorie deficit. And I found that my performance during this fit week was not where I was wanting it to be. My lips were all down from the previous fit week squat was 30 pounds lower, for example, and push ups, pull ups and dips, were all down several reps as well. Is it common to see a loss in strength and a drop in performance like that during or immediately after a cut? If so, are there things to do when cutting to help minimize a loss of strength? also related for lifts that call for a percentage of Max? Should I keep using my previous fit week Max, or the newer, lower max set this fit week?
Joe Courtney
All right.
Jerred Moon
I know you guys think they’re all related. But I could probably spend 10 minutes in each question. So Sure. Let’s, let’s just take our broad picture what we are answered to do and how how we each see it and how we think we can help him kind of navigate this issue. So I think
Ashley Hicks
the goals are different from each other. Like I think there’s if you’re going to be in a caloric deficit, or your cutting is going to be different than if you want to maintain your strength or even get stronger. I’m not saying that you can’t get stronger, but you’re going to, in my personal opinion, probably see some lower numbers because it’s just the physics where it’s just like more mass is going to be able to move more weight, right. So then you lose mass. And then again, like he saw, potentially your numbers might be lower. So I think if I was giving someone advice on this, I would say what is the more important goal that you’re trying to reach? First? What did you want to do? Did you want to cut shed the weight? And then focus on your strengths or, or vice versa or what it is. So, um, and then not every foot week is the same is the other thing I was going to say like, Don’t get discouraged because one foot week looked different from the others. And yeah, that’s my big overall picture. I can go further. But Kyle, what, what is your overall picture?
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, so I agree with you with with fit week, like, there’s so many factors that go into a max attempt, right, there’s so many things that that go into into fit week and going into reestablishing your maxes, and in your your run times, and all those kinds of things. There’s so many factors that go into that. And honestly, if you did fit week, you know, a couple of weeks in a row, like you would get different results. And maybe those results would be higher one week, maybe, you know, maybe not whatever. But there’s a lot of things that go into that. And so from one fit week to the next is different for for everybody. And so, like, like Ashley said, don’t be discouraged by your max is going down, I would say, I would say reassess what, what you really want, like what you truly want? Do you truly want body composition? Or do you want to build strength and reassess what you truly want and then go from there. I would say as far as like your your maxes being lower, I always take whatever my max from that fit week is, those are going to be my numbers for the cycle moving forward, whether they’re lower or higher than they were the previous fit week doesn’t matter to me what it because the cycle moving forward is based on where I was during that fit where you could immediately previous so that’s what I would say, I would say, if your squat went down 30 pounds, that’s that’s a bummer. But that’s where you, that’s the number that you need to use for squats moving forward. And it’ll come back. Like, if you’ve been there, you know, you’ll get back there again, like that’s just how it goes. So that that’s what I would say. And I would also say, just understand what it like I said reassess your goals and understand what you’re what you’re trying to accomplish. And so don’t have contradicting goals, or things like that, try to focus on one thing and move towards that thing when you achieve that reassess, and move towards a new goal.
Joe Courtney
So, cycle to cycle and day to day maxes, prs and efforts can can change on the fly. Just don’t know how you’re feeling. And especially with the deficit, it can be that way. For example, this past week, Liz was like seven, eight, day eight or nine days after the second vaccine shot and she barely even got 90% of her weights. But then this past week, she hit like three reps on 90 of squats or whatever. So like, strength can bounce back, if if you hear I just having a bad week, whether it was not enough energy, not enough calories, not, you know, sick, whatever, strength can bounce back pretty fast. And I’m going to kind of take you in the opposite direction as Kyle and that is I’ve never lowered my max, when I’m wanted set Unless Unless I’m like, injured or whatever. I’ve never actually like had to lower my max cycle to cycle because I, I figure, okay, I probably just wasn’t feeling it that day or something. And I can also adjust on the fly. So there’s, there’s gonna be days where I might, if I need to lower the weight for a little bit for whatever the reps are doing, as long as I’m hitting that right? stimulus of those sets, unless I’m lucky that the sets right, that I’m fine, but I know that strength can bounce back. And that if you’re coming off of your calorie deficit, and you’re going back to maintaining that I think your strength can bounce back as well. And so you can adjust day to day on the actual strength portions if you need to, like come down like 10% starting off, but go by how it feels and try and get close to those numbers. As long as you’re hitting hitting the right. The longest chain sets, right? So the opposite of what Carl said, but that’s just how I go about things, even if I’d like taking time off barbells and stuff, just because I like to try and get back to what I was lifting.
Kyle Shrum
So I’ll clarify, I agree with you, Joe, that that’s just whatever my fit week weight is, that’s what I’m going to put in my app and that’s where the calculations are going to be if I go into into a workout and I’m at this set weight and I’m feeling really good and and that weight is not heavy for me anymore. Or I’m able to move and I feel like I can up the weight a little bit then I’ll up the weight a little bit but that’s based on feel but I’m just I’m not gonna I’m gonna set my my max is my current max. It says whatever my current Max was on fit week in the app and let the app do the calculations for me. And then I can adjust on the fly as well. If I need to, but I just feel like, that’s kind of what the app is for is to do those calculations for you, in those kinds of things. So that’s where that’s at least going to be my starting point. And, and if I really have dropped 30 pounds over a cycle, but I’m trying to work over, I’m trying to work from a previous, you know, from 30 pounds heavier, then I could be running in, you could be running into, you know, technique issues and form issues and things like that. So that’s just kind of, I’d use it as a starting point of whatever my current Max is, is where I start, and if I need to adjust it, I can do,
Jerred Moon
yeah, I lose weight on lifts all the time, and make adjustments. It seems to if I’m not focusing a lot on my squat, or I’m not wanting to go heavy, like I’ll my, like, resting max squat, if you will, is somewhere in the 375 to four or five range, and then I have to work really hard to get it above that. But that’s just kind of where it’s at. Which could be like, if I were squat today, and I got 375, that would be 90 pounds off what I did a few months ago, and I wouldn’t be that upset about it. You know, you can, you can come back, like pretty fast. So do know those things, but I have your athlete profile pulled up down, and I’m not gonna read off any personal information, don’t worry. But I was just trying to look at your numbers, right to get better context, because a drop of 30 pounds in the squat, I need to know what you’re wanting to know what how much that matters. And for you, it does seem like that would matter. So that was a it was a significant in just to brag on Dylan. He’s incredibly consistent. He’s fast, and he’s pretty strong. But I won’t, like I said, reveal any other other information about her beyond what he wanted us to share. But um, I think that you probably went my honest takeaways, you went way too aggressive on the cut. I think that’s it, I think, just kind of going back to what we were talking about. Really, I mean, probably over the last few podcasts, podcast episodes is just take a little bit more of a long term approach. And don’t worry, if you want to lose some weight, you can do that a little bit more slowly in the future, and spread it out over a couple of cycles instead of this aggressive cut, because they are conflicting goals. Trying to cut a bunch of weight but also gained strength. I’m not gonna say it’s impossible, because we’re not talking about hypertrophy, those are directly conflicting their opposite ends of the spectrum. That’s not like I lost some muscle mass, I’ll try and lose weight as well, that happens. You got weaker in you’re not seeing as much performance. So I’ll echo a lot of what the rest of the coaches said, as you know, things can be different week to week, depending on how stressful your job was, how much you slept, how your nutrition was, what you ate all those things. But in this case, I really feel like you just went too aggressive on the cut. And it was it was too much and your body wasn’t ready for is probably a lot of stress, actual physiological stress on your body to try and do both. But like I said, I could honestly be 90 pounds down on my squat right now. And I know I can close that gap and in eight to 12 weeks, and you’re you’re going to be no different. If you really want that strength to come back. Once you’ve been there, it’s a lot easier to get back unless you just stopped working out. That’s where it’s different. If you’ve like, if you take a five year break and fitness, you know, you’re basically starting back over. But if you’ve been there before you can get back pretty easily. And so I wouldn’t be too discouraged. Just if you want to continue to weight loss, spread it out over a longer time period. If you don’t cool go all in on strength, maybe just go and maintain from there. But giving your body weight I think that your where your squat is at is perfectly fine. And you can get back pretty easily.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, I would throw into like understand, like, where you’re where you’re getting your information from. If you’re coming to us, you know, for coaching, then we’re going to try to dislike Jared said we’re going to coach you towards a longer, longer term view. If you’re just going to the internet in general, as far as like information on how to cut, then you’re gonna run into advice from people who are more bodybuilders or people who are fitness models or people who are maybe combat athletes or something like that, because like a cut for them is much much different than somebody who’s just trying to lose some extra body fat. You know what I mean? Like for bodybuilders, like they’re gonna cut for a show and like, strength is not their focus. They don’t care how strong they are. Because a bodybuilding competition is not about how strong you are. It’s about how defined your muscles are. That’s it. It’d be the same thing for like, fitness models, you know, or it’d be the same thing for fighters. It doesn’t matter in a fight, how much strength you can. It doesn’t matter how in a fight how much Wait, you can move, it matters. Can you beat that other person in the ring, right and so, understand where your information is coming from as well. And don’t go, you know, be Be careful about how you do a cut as a normal person who’s just going about everyday life trying to lose a little extra body fat versus a professional who’s down, you know, dialing in for something specific that you’re not doing.
Jerred Moon
Alright, let’s get into the workout. Fantastic Joseph, who’s briefing it.
Joe Courtney
In my case, this is Ashley’s baby.
Ashley Hicks
That’s right, it’s my favorite. Six, it’s six rounds 035 days. So it’s six rounds of an 800 meter run. And after the run, you do three rounds of five push ups 10 sit ups and 15 air squats. Once you are done with that six rounds, you rest three minutes and do 100 meter spread. Then rest another 60 seconds 60 seconds and then do your last one on a meter sprint. And that’s the three five key
Jerred Moon
tips tricks strategies where we have like we’ve probably given our robot tipped out on this one just because we we we do
Ashley Hicks
it every 12 weeks.
Jerred Moon
It is something that we test during fit week to see improvement on so what do we have
Joe Courtney
to dust off by a regular one and that is to go at the run about 80 to 85 to 90% effort even the first one and try and keep that same pace for all six because the first couple runs by feel good usually the first one I’ve done this the first few runs, I’m feeling fast, I’m feeling good but then it catches up to you especially if you’re doing calisthenics as fast as possible which you should because the calisthenics are probably the easiest part but it’s maintaining that 90% pace on the run so you know much like we say with Murph don’t go hot out the gate in the on your first run because you need to do it over and over again. So set a pretty good good pace on the first couple runs and try and maintain that for all of them and then if you need me go faster on the later ones if you can. Dial
Kyle Shrum
Oh, okay. Um I would say the last two Sprint’s are Sprint’s all caps, everything that they
Jerred Moon
are there they exist,
Kyle Shrum
they are there they actually are there, you’re not done after the six rounds right you gotta you gotta rest and then sprint and then rest and then sprint make sure that you’re doing that part. But like I said they are Sprint’s everything you got 100% This isn’t a pace cut thing anymore. I actually, I would also talk about this mindset a little bit for me when I do this one like those Sprint’s at the end like even though I’m tired, because of all the running and calisthenics and all that stuff that I’ve already done. Like I kind of actually get frustrated with the with the rest time at the end of this one.
Joe Courtney
Because your your time I just want to
Kyle Shrum
do the Sprint’s and be done with it. Yeah, yeah, well, that but like, I just want to, I want to go ahead and do the Sprint’s and get them over with. So like, I would just say, My challenge would kind of be, you know, can you be patient? Can you recover the way that you spoke, you should during that rest time, like, really focus on your breathing, getting it regulated? Take that time, you know, especially that three minute time before that first sprint, take that time to really focus on practicing some breathing, practicing getting your heart rate back in rhythm and those other things that we talked about. take that time to really focus on that and don’t just, you know, hate your life and things like that, man, we still got a we still got a sprint at the end of this. So that’s what I would say, actually.
Ashley Hicks
Yeah, I think we all joke that it should at least take you four minutes to do this workout because it takes four minutes of rest. I guess I would just challenge people to when you’re doing the calisthenics to three rounds, like try not to break it up, do it exactly, you know, the 510 15 and just go for it. And just crush it as fast as you can. That would be my little my challenge. I’m I think Joe and I are in the same camp as this one. And I think Kyle injured around the same time we were evenly divided last time. Maybe not. Okay,
Joe Courtney
what are you talking about? Uh, that the ratnagiri vdr. Team run as fast as you can. That’s
Ashley Hicks
what it was BD Nevermind. Here. Right. So that’s my little challenge chair. Do you have a challenge?
Jerred Moon
Yeah, I do. Actually, it was a it was a challenge for me this week, and similar to Joe. But with more strict parameters. He was mentioning keep pacing the 800 meters a little bit and I think a true challenge here. set a time for your 800 meter runs. And try and keep plus or minus five seconds for all six rounds. Actually See if you can do that. That means You’re gonna have to pick an appropriate pace for the first one, it doesn’t mean you have to pick a faster pace for the first one and then pray to God that you make it for the rest of them. It means you’re gonna have to be smart about your pacing. But, you know, if you’ve been an athlete for a long time, or like all of us, we do this workout pretty regularly, you kind of have to find new ways to challenge yourself because I don’t, I don’t want to just go faster. I don’t I don’t want that to be my goal. Like I would love to PR every time but that’s just not realistic for the rest of my life to always do PR that three 5k. So I find other ways to make workouts interesting and still challenged me. And so if I go into this workout, knowing my only goal is plus or minus five seconds from the first 800 meter run, that’s my change how I do the calisthenics. Maybe I’m like, Okay, that was hard. I’m gonna go a little bit slower on the calisthenics. And then I’m, so this is like, becomes a different workout, right? Like I’m no, I’m only focusing on this sustainability, and repeatability to where the next time I do this workout, and another 12 weeks, I maybe I can just go full on, I’m gonna keep this pace. Because I’m smarter. I’ve learned more from the last time and to keep this pace and go faster on the calisthenics. And then I’m going to PR, so it’s like fixing one part of the workout out of time to be able to PR later. And so that’s my challenge to you, especially for the longtime athletes, see if you can get that plus or minus five seconds on 100 meter run. And then punish yourself if you don’t, you know, some optional, or base runs or something like that
Joe Courtney
represent punishment.
Jerred Moon
Yeah. I said specifically punish you. And I also didn’t suggest burpees you punish yourself however you want to, maybe a cold plunge. But let’s, let’s get into updates because the community misses us. And so if, if you’re listening, if you’re just listening for the basic study, topic, and in workout stuff that’s kind of over, we’re gonna get to how life’s going for the team. And then and then we’re gonna get out of here. So, Joe, how’s life updates?
Joe Courtney
Fine. Oh, man, I actually had a workout this week on two workouts this week that were less than 100 degrees. So that looks nice. I had a cold to come through. website wise. So it is fit week, even though sort of you know, it’s here through Friday. That means it’s a bit weak. So to jump on in that week, I have one quick update to the My one that was burning me a little bit yesterday that I wanted to say the update and the team meeting, but it didn’t. And that was yesterday at the gym. I saw a guy using the GHD to do dumbbell preacher curls. And through two and a half.
Jerred Moon
He’s just getting creative. Don’t be me.
Joe Courtney
That’s another problem with it being less than 100 degrees because like, like, Yeah, all the bros they actually like, Oh, we actually go to the outdoor gym now. So now I actually want it to get hotter. So that I have my space, because less people are there. Only the serious athletes come when it’s 100 degrees. So that’s those things, and then
Kyle Shrum
you’re educated, or did you just like do about it?
Joe Courtney
And say, I just couldn’t even man I was trying to figure out if I could take a picture of it. But no, that’s not me. No, I just let it go. Cuz I wanted to get my workout in. And then because it’s been a while, just a I guess humblebrag on this one. But I yeah, I can’t wait for these updates for Right. Yeah. So last week, in March, I paired my back squat by 20 pounds. And then the week after that, I left the country for two and a half weeks didn’t really work out, came back had like one week of workouts and then did Murph burner. So I essentially did back squats once since up in my back squat PR. And whenever you do that, obviously all of your percentage base lifts have gone up. So we were doing some heavy lifting in strength and I was pretty scared to just jump jump back in. I was like, man, I gotta lift 85 and 90% today, and I haven’t really touched a barbell in a while. Well, I guess this goes for you know on the subject really of strength gains or you don’t lose them that quick. And also, the ridiculous amount of air squat volume we did in Murph burner. And then I crushed my squats. I was doing 85 just fine without a belt and 90 felt like butter. It was fantastic.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah, awesome. Yes. Yeah, that’s 85 and 90%. Not 85 and 90 pounds, right. Let’s clear that up. Just clean that up. humblebrag that 85 pounds felt like
Joe Courtney
my press is the exact opposite going on right now.
Kyle Shrum
Because everybody’s presses that sucks.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, I mean, I’ve had to dial my press a whole lot back. For months because of my shoulder injury or just like pain that’s going on, but the pain is finally cleared out, which also cleared up from Murph burner because I had to do a shit ton of pull ups. So men really work on that mobility. So gay to the Murph burner.
Jerred Moon
Yeah. That you can’t be part of mouth or purchase. So
Joe Courtney
sorry
Kyle Shrum
you missed out on was really good for me.
Joe Courtney
Yeah, just next year
Ashley Hicks
was good. Here we are. We are selling one of the property on multiple properties. So we’re selling one of the properties and we’re hopefully going to close at the end of this month. But like always, we’ve always got some hiccups, some, you know, fun things to deal with as you are going through the process. But my little update is I love my child a lot. But it’s like, they’ve got a sixth sense. When the other parent is out of town. that things have I call it the TTY curse. Emily and I talked about all the time, Jared, when you’re gone, stuff just happens. And I feel like that is what has happened to the Hicks household with my little one. he transitioned into a toddler bed very easy, and sleeps, nap Senate. That’s fine. But in the morning, he turns his little sound machine off and opens his door and comes out. So that means at 515 in the morning when he thinks he’s awake. That this is what he does. So I don’t know. We’re trying to figure things out with him trying to keep him in his room a little longer. Because Scott and I get up pretty early. Scott is normally like a 5am 4:30am guy. I’m more of a 5:36am. So when I’m by myself and my kid wakes me up earlier than what I want. It’s so infuriating, but I feel like a little guerrilla warfare fighters you feel like you’ve learned their tactics, and then all of a sudden they change it up on you like trying to figure this out.
Jerred Moon
They’re unicorns. You’re not wrong. So
Joe Courtney
yes, think about unicorns, man.
Jerred Moon
Dude, I love unicorns. Not as much as the three of you, but I do I am a huge fan of unicorns.
Ashley Hicks
Here we go.
Jerred Moon
I was pissed off the whole team. I should probably just go How do we kick skip the rest of the updates?
Kyle Shrum
Can we kick out the host of them? Yeah. Kyle, what’s
your update?
Kyle Shrum
Um, summertime. Living is great. Heaven Hannon What do you snickering about
Joe Courtney
sounded sarcastic that was your updates not
Kyle Shrum
sir. Summer No, it’s great having him in the kids at home? It’s a it’s an adjustment but I love it here also second this golf tournament in the books from last night
Joe Courtney
we’re disc golf athletes.
Jerred Moon
Did you win?
Kyle Shrum
I did better than last time. But no i didn’t when also related the polar Watch has disc golf as a sport profile so I can track discus specifically when I play Oh it is it is sharp looking.
Jerred Moon
Look at that. This golf is like interval walking.
Joe Courtney
Here’s what you do.
Kyle Shrum
Yeah,
Jerred Moon
do you even get into zone two? I’m just kidding. It was it was
Kyle Shrum
super hot and there were some hills that I had to climb so yeah. Okay, got up a little bit.
Jerred Moon
The heat can do that by itself. Yeah,
Kyle Shrum
but I really just wanted to track how far out I walked in track. A few other things
Ashley Hicks
like vision like 30 seconds on 30 seconds off of just walking stopping Yeah, this
Kyle Shrum
is just this is just this is just my life for the community. Y’all just understand this is my
Jerred Moon
this is what he has to deal with Jared is also in charge of HR so you know when to bring it to
Kyle Shrum
um good one that that booting the host from assuming
Jerred Moon
that everything is it set up to me now. Yeah,
Ashley Hicks
how’s our HQ doing?
Kyle Shrum
I’m not I’m not passing it on to you.
Jerred Moon
h2 is fine. I mean, they’re they’re making as much progress as they could they I don’t remember where we left off they drywall they textured the drywall, they’ve tiled the bathroom. They’re putting in wood floors today making a lot of progress. It’s just yeah, no complaints. It just takes a long time I guess to build things you know, longer than expected but they’re they’re all working we’ve had like flood rains in Texas for several weeks, which were pretty brutal. But then after we had like a slow start to summer, and then we had flooding level rain and then it just summer was here. And so now I’ve been sending Joe my feels like temperatures because it feels like 107109 humidity is literally 90% Plus, it’s 97 degrees, which is like puts it on par with like Death Valley some days. So it’s but it’ll even out the humidity will go down. It’s just because of all that rain that we had. So I’m actually really enjoying the hot weather. I’m hoping my brother survives the summer. Because I’m very accustomed to heat, I’ve just always trained the garage, I do the sauna. And this week, and last week, he was just like, dude, you got to get like a bigger fan or something. And I was like, and he doesn’t know the the half of it, because this is part of my update. insulation in your garage really works. And all it, it’ll keep it. If obviously, if all the doors are open and everything, it’s just gonna maintain the temperature of the outside, it’s if it’s 96 outside, it’ll become 96 in the garage, if you have all the doors open. If I leave the doors closed, it will be several degrees cooler, but then yeah, there’s less airflow, but I’m not seeing any more 120s one fifteens that I was operating in last summer. So if you’re thinking about insulation insulating your garage, it could be worth it if you especially if you have a detached space, like like I did where it was getting brutal. So insulation insulation works, and it was worth it. So
Joe Courtney
the most expensive garage gym edition that you can’t physically use. Yeah, just benefit from like a
Jerred Moon
Yeah, it’s one of those like frustrate, it’s like paying for insurance. It’s like just you have to pay for it. You don’t even want to use it. I don’t want to use my insurance for anything, you know, but you have to pay for anyway,
Joe Courtney
pretty much.
Jerred Moon
Let’s so updates at the end. That was that was nice. I’m gonna get update from everybody. But we’re gonna get out of here. We have a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes for garage, gym, athlete, and a lot of new ways for you guys to get involved. As always, you can check out those things at garage gym athlete.com, you can sign up for a 14 day free trial. And really just learn more. We have a lot of educational articles and stuff on the website. listen to the podcast. There’s just a lot of ways to get involved with garage mathlete. And a lot of you already are 1000s of you in the community. We appreciate each and every single one of you. So thanks for making the community awesome. And for being a part of this. We still are accepting questions. You heard us answer Dylan’s question today. Garage mathlete comm slash ama is another way to get involved. Those questions will be submitted to us and then we can answer them on the show how we did today where each coach gets to chime in and everything else. But that’ll do it for this week. And my weekly reminder, if you don’t kill comfort, comfort will kill you.