 Is your body weight fluctuating big numbers up and down you want to figure out how to speed up your metabolism watch this Our next caller is Allie from Illinois. Allie. What's going on? How can we help you? Hi guys, um, had a quick question. I First want to say thank you for taking my call my question, but um a while back I was listening to an episode and it sparked a thought that Although I know about Macros and have a pretty good idea of how to track I don't have a good idea of what it's like to build metabolism I think I specifically heard you Sal talking about how you helped your wife build metabolism and stay lean With increasing her calories, and that's definitely something that's been difficult for me So I wondered what is the method for that? Yeah, no good question But do you mind if I if I get into a little bit more brown stuff detail because I'm looking at your question here The one that you wrote in do you mind if I go through some of this Allie? Yeah, no problem. Yeah, it says so you grew up as a gymnast And you've been working out for a long time and you've seen your your your body weight go up and down quite a bit So you've seen some some big flesh fluctuations in body weight. Is that correct? Definitely usually a diet phase down to 140 and then just more recently having difficulty Getting back down. Okay. Allie. I'm gonna Get maybe a little bit more personal. Okay, if that's if that's okay. I know the sport of Gymnastics, especially for women is one of the most challenging in terms of body image issues It's there's it's just really hard because yes, you are judged by your performance But body size is often talked about quite a bit. I've known I've coached some athletes Who've actually had their coaches weigh them before practice and all that stuff And so we've had to deal with some of the damage of that after do you feel like you've had some body image issues? As a result of that or is this something that is not an issue Um, I'd say a mix. I feel like I also coached so I kind of have that Like mental space to help other athletes get through it, but definitely as a child it was there to like that pressure to Look a certain way and perform a certain way. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah, and the reason why I'm asking is when you see big weight fluctuations That usually points to a relationship with food. That's this kind of come or go Restrict or you know, everything goes type of attitude because you know, we're talking about a pretty big Swing and body weight. So when it comes to tracking, I'm always hesitant to recommend That someone in this maybe a situation like yours goes and really starts to measure and Track things because what that tends to contribute to is is what you've maybe been experiencing, right? Your track and so everything's like on point and then you get sick of tracking for whatever reason maybe because it's maybe motivated by Self-hate or maybe you're just done with it and then you go way off in the other direction So I would recommend for someone like you to to not pay attention to those things and rather look at behaviors instead And performance so I would what in your workouts? What brings you join your workouts? What part of your workouts do you really enjoy the most? Is it the strength or the stamina or the body control? Do you have anything specific like that? I? Think definitely more of the body control like I enjoy like Also, just like the melodic of it like increasing weight seeing that progress Okay, and then like the workout just I guess yeah seeing games and strengths perfect So there's another thing that you're you're not asking or that I think is important, right? So If she doesn't have body image issues and that's not a problem The other thing that I see with gymnast is their their dedication to training and consistency and intensity is Can be way overdone you have that and that's just athletes in general It's a switch and so if you have been applying that mentality for most of your weight training life I would be that's what I would be looking at right away So let's just say there's I mean for sure Sal is right to look into The body image issues if there's anything there that you feel you're self-conscious and maybe that's driving some of your behaviors But let's say it's not Then the other thing I would say is your athletic background may be driving the way you're programming Which means are you the person who's training? You know six seven days a week and you're doing cardio sessions for an hour for three to five times a week and also Cutting calories down below two thousand if that's you then that's your way over doing it and Somebody like and if we're going to rebuild your metabolism, it's gonna look something completely different I'm gonna cut your cardio sessions. I'm gonna make you only train three days a week doing something like math's anabolic If you need to move and we need to find a way to counter some of the calorie increase that I'm gonna do to you I'm gonna ask you to walk. We're not gonna do any intense cardio and we're gonna focus on building strength and I'm okay with you tracking if you don't have the issues that Sal say if Sal is hitting something that you feel is on point Then I think he's right then going towards a more intuitive way of paying attention like versus weighing and tracking and you know getting out of out of control with being super hyper focused on that but if you feel confident that there isn't Insecurity stuff going on or body image issues going on and it's purely I'm just trying to figure out I'm not what am I not programming right to in order to build my metabolism then I would be looking at the amount of volume intensity that you're doing in your training and how little you're eating in comparison to your your body size and I would want you to be up towards 25 to 2700 calories not right away But that would be the goal is to get your your body size and type up to that With you not training six days a week with a ton of cardio on top of it Yeah, and you know, here's some nutrition advice that doesn't involve specific tracking. You can try something like this Ali You could try just a few things one Avoid any heavily processed food. So eat only whole natural foods and then eat in disorder protein fat and Vegetables and then carbohydrates So I would go like your meat then your vegetables and if you have room and you're still not satisfied Then eat your carbohydrates that that alone typically gets somebody's eating a little bit more appropriate And then focus on your performance in the gym focus on what's making you feel good And what's making you stronger and that should bring you to a faster metabolism in a Healthy way healthy in the sense that it doesn't make you doesn't cause more dysfunction down the road or or this boomerang effect at the end where You know your everything's on track and then you kind of go off track with everything Are you following any of our programs at all? I do have access to maps out anabolic and I My program before was loosely kind of based on that So I've adapted some of the trigger sessions into what I was already doing. Okay, so you're working out what five days a week then Yeah, five to six and how long your workouts typically Maybe hour and a half including a warm-up. Okay, and so okay. I appreciate your honesty I would so go maps anabolic as it's laid out Yeah, follow it to a T just follow it to a T and then do the things I said with nutrition and then start from this too Before you eat the sound silly, but I swear to God it makes a huge difference, right? Literally you have your meal make sure you sit down to eat it You're not distracted and then ask yourself is this going to nourish me in a healthy way That's it and then eat your food sounds silly But what it does is it bring awareness around what's going on and do this before you eat anything? I think what we tend to do especially when we when we see body weight fluctuations is We don't do that around the foods that we don't want to be around Aware around so I'm not gonna do it right now because I'm gonna eat this you know sleeve of Oreo cookies or I'm gonna overeat this Whatever so just try doing those things and then kind of allow this process to work So, you know based off everything we said again if you feel like that that was your tendency in the past I would go in that direction and I think it'll it'll definitely move you in the right way And those are some of the details I left out when I talked about my wife and speeding up her metabolism She had some of those issues before and we did I did coach her through them through working on behaviors And it was hard it took a year of her to really Finally mentally understand, you know kind of what was going on because she wanted to go back to what she was doing before Allies any is anything striking a chord for you? I mean is anything sound like it's possible you Yeah, I feel like it's maybe halfway like I definitely do have the tendency to be like more driven in like just my past like It has to be this way. I have to train this way and eat this way And then maybe a little bit of the body Self-image as well. Just like I definitely try to be aware when I eat But I know that it's just tendency I slip on my phone and don't think about it And then I go to the kitchen to put something away and I pick up a handful of whatever yeah, and it doesn't go in So yeah, definitely a bit of both seems to be a bit of intensity there I think you know sort of relieving that from you will go a long way and just kind of you know being able to Not be so hyper focused on what's good. What's not good? And just try to find things that'll help nourish you and have you feel good in your performance Yeah, you know, you know Ali you're I'm gonna make a guess here. You said you're a coach I bet I bet you are an excellent coach to the people that you work with and I bet the advice I'm giving you or we're giving you right now is what you would tell One of your athletes if they came to you. Yeah, and I'm and this is true for all coaches and trainers I'm gonna say this right now. Maybe not all but 90 something percent of us We're way better with our clients and we we are with ourselves. I Have practices I do with myself that I would come I would never tell clients to do and I'm fully aware of this It's very challenging. So one of the practice one of the things that I do before I do certain things I say would I have a client do this? How would I advise a Client if they came to me with the same challenge and that usually gives me the best answer Doesn't always mean I'll listen because sometimes or often I don't want to listen to myself But it does give us the best answers. So give that a shot say to yourself, okay If I was a student coming to me saying this, what would I tell them? It's it's also important that you recognize that The greatest Challenge that you're going to have doing this is you probably will see a little bit of weight gain I mean, we're trying to increase calories. You're trying to get stronger. We're hopefully gonna be building muscle I'm glad you said that because yeah, so one of the things that you've got to trust this process And this this is always the most difficult part is you talk to these guys that give you advice about speaking retabolism We tell you something like hey Reduce all the the volume of training you're doing and also let's increase some calories And then you get you're getting on the scale every day and you're like, oh my god I've gone up three to five pounds and you freak out and then you go back to your old behaviors But you got to trust the process here and stay and if that means that you stay away from the scale for a while Then do that I'm okay with the tracking scale stuff So long as you got the self-awareness to know that to know that this could be a tendency or the things that Sal's kind of alluding to But just be aware of that that that's going to be the first major hurdle is you're gonna probably see a little bit of weight gain But don't be focused on that focus on your strengths focus on yours I'm looking what I'm looking for is you to get stronger and to tell me things like man Adam I'm getting hungry now my appetite's kicking up like these are all positive signs that we're moving in the right direction Regardless of what we're seeing on the scale. Allie. I'm gonna send you the intuitive nutrition guide if you have it I think that'll help you Okay, I don't but thank you. All right. Thanks. All right. Thanks for calling him. Yeah. Thanks guys. Have a great day You too. Did she say she had anabolic? I didn't know she's uh, you know what Doug? Let's send her that too. I think she said she had it. Okay. I'll put it in there. I think she did say she had Yeah, I think she did. You know, I tell you man And I could tell as we're talking her I can tell we're hitting maybe some some, you know some nerves Yeah, I've trained X gymnast. I've trained X like synchronized swimmers and divers Figure skaters synchronized swimmers. They have and they're and they are they're really a man. I tell you you ever watch that So random Yeah, oh, yeah, I can't say I've trained a lot. I've actually trained a lot of gymnast. Have you? Yeah Yeah, I had a client botchy ballers. No shut up. That was directed at me I actually had a client who was an alternate in the Olympics and synchronized swimming But it that growing up in that environment. Yeah, you it's I swear when they became when they came to me It was always like we got to deal with this this these old behaviors This body image issues. It's really really challenging and then what you said Adam so true They have this switch that they've trained so hard where they can literally turn it on ignore pain ignore tiredness Ignore body signals and just go because that's what got them successful. Yeah when they were all eyes are on them I mean they're the center of focus and like you had brought up You know in terms of like weighing in and then also you got to look a certain way You got to move your body a certain way, you know, that sticks with you Like that that kind of intensity and pressure you place on yourself. You know, it's just tough because a lot of times You don't see that about yourself. You don't see that, you know, that may be causing you You know a bit of struggle a hundred percent of time It's either either one of the things that we were talking about or a blend of both. Yeah, right? It's either either we've got major body image issues and that's driving your behaviors and your training in your dieting or You still got that, you know Athletic switch in your head where you know, whenever you go after your workouts or dieting you apply the same type of mentality or nothing Yeah, there's an Olympic athlete, you know, and it's just like so different when we're talking about health and Longevity and body composition like it's a different ball game So I have found that training clients like this It is either either one of those things we talked about or a blend of two always Totally and I do I want to say this too about athletes like this because I've had people ask me this question and say well If if if training too much is detrimental Then why are gymnasts and divers and you know athletes like that, right? Maybe ice skaters Why are they training so many hours during the day? Aren't they over training and my answer is they are however Those sports are so technical that the frequency and volume of training really is about perfecting their skill and technique It's less about training their bodies. They're fit as hell already if anything They have they end up losing some of their fitness and strength because it's so much training But it's about if you watch a gymnast. Yes, they're explosive and strong But look at their lines their body control that comes from so much nuance that comes from addition to yes Sports aren't healthy for you. Yeah, that's true. They're not that's actually that level definitely No, I mean all sports they really are not healthy But does that mean that you can't incorporate some of the sports that you love and have a healthy life That's not what I'm saying, but competitive sports, especially at the high level is not healthy any of them You're you are doing you have to recognize that and be able to move forward. Yeah and live a lifestyle where you know It's totally different than that going into longevity. You have different goals Yeah, when you when you were when you're competitively playing a sport I don't give a shit if my body fat percentage is up or down or I'm getting great sleep or my health or my libido No, that all it cares is I'm I'm better at my sport today than I was yesterday And so and sometimes that means I'm training five hours a day to get to that level It doesn't mean that it's it's bad or wrong It just means you have different goals And so you get these athletes that were highly competitive and good at their sport and they try and apply that same mentality Towards getting in shape or being healthy and they're they're two different worlds You know how many female athletes I've trained who didn't get their period until they stopped their competitive sport Yeah, because their bodies were so hammered all the time So it's just it's one of those things Hey, if you enjoyed that clip you can find the full episode here or you can find other clips over here and be sure to subscribe