 Our first caller is Nick from New York, Nick. What's happening man? How can we help you? Hey guys? How are you? I Started my fitness journey in 2017 around like to 75 pounds I am a hundred and ninety now and I got into OCR training in Spartan races a lot Since COVID started I've been doing the same regimen with a very heavy hit focus doing like a lot of burpees and rows and a lot of intense cardio with Two days or I would do heavy lifting with leg day and a back and chest day and I also did intermittent fasting with a one-hour eating window along with keto and My I noticed that my weight would fluctuate a lot when I deviated from that and I had listened to Your podcast with the seven-day maps plan and I'm gonna be trying that out My question is am I shooting myself in the foot by working so heavy? Alongside and terminate fasting in keto while also training for Spartans I feel like maybe I'm going in the wrong direction with this regimen Yes, especially since I want to perform well at the Spartans But also get the aesthetic that I want. Yeah, so Yes, your intuition is correct you are And when I say shooting yourself in the foot, I don't mean you're screwed I mean you've just you know You've taken everything but the kitchen sink or maybe even the kitchen sink and thrown at yourself and so now you're in a position where Sustainability is going to become an issue and this Nick is the main reason Why people eventually fall off as they they do so many things to Accomplish a particular goal and it's just unsustainable either because it's too much to dedicate yourself to or because the person's body mind, you know or mind burns out so Here's what I suggest you do now. I know you like the OCR race. You can still do that Trained specifically for the OCR race if that's what you want to do and do nothing else or if you want to start going down the path of Sustainability, I'm gonna recommend you start to eliminate the high intensity hit type training Focus on three full-body workouts a day like a map's anabolic type of routine Slowly increase your calories and allow your metabolism to start to recover because that's a much more Sustainable approach. Will you gain some weight doing it? Maybe a little bit, but My prediction is if you don't move in this direction You're gonna you're gonna have a huge rebound sometime in the future. You have to you have to go this way Nick Would you have any idea where your calories are? I? When I'm doing when I was doing the hit regimen. I was at like 1900 calories and since I've been listening to you guys I Heard time and again, you know bump up the calories bump up the calories. So I've been slowly bumping them up I went I just did like 1900 to 2400 Okay, and then what did you notice anything and how do you feel what's what's going on since then I? Notice that I did gain a little weight But it's mostly muscle like I gained four pounds in the past three weeks But like three of those pounds are muscle. That's excellent that you're okay So you know the good a couple things that are really good news one For you to go as far as you've gone already It it just highlights your discipline and consistency Which is all as a trainer You're always excited when you have somebody who can stick to something and you've been really kicking ass for a long time the heart the hardest part is going to be the mental challenge here is to get you to kind of Calm down with all the crazy movement and honestly I know Sal said that you could do the OCR program and keep doing the Spartan race training stuff like that Personally, if you were my client, I would I would want you not to so if you fought me on it Then you know at the end of the day like you're hiring me And so I've got to kind of bend the best of it. Yeah, but if I had full control of your plan It would be let's actually just and I would either do anabolic or even like power lift Like I would want your mindset around let's build muscle now You've done so well for so long of cutting cutting and leaning out and losing weight losing weight Let's shift our focus for a couple months on Building some muscle and getting strong as hell in the gym and that and I wouldn't worry about the scale I wouldn't get caught up on whether you go up or down a few pounds honestly as long as I actually don't want you to Go down I'd want you to actually maintain your weight Maybe even possibly go up a few pounds like you have currently and the main goal would be how high can we get these calories without you Putting on any body fat or excess body fat I should say and how strong can we get in the gym and that is our main goal walking is fine So if you've already trained yourself to be Running every day and doing lots of stuff to ask a client like that to go from seven days a week of crazy Movement down to three days of strength training. That's it But what I would say is listen on your off foundational days I guess anabolic's a three-day program trigger sessions and walking. That's it. Yeah. Yeah, I think Yeah, I definitely would echo it what Adams kind of suggesting with that But I mean you did all the work to get to where you are now and and losing the weight and You know in your busy body and you want to keep active and really like the the psychological challenge for you right now Is to find what out there is sustainable for your lifestyle So what activities what things can you promote that you can continue from here on out? You know with a healthier body and that's that's always a challenge when Because we don't want to perpetually go through this gain weight lose weight You know kind of trap that that a lot of times we get into with this kind of intensity that it took to get to there So, you know to be able to find if OCR is something that's really enjoyable And it's like a continual thing you want to kind of keep challenging yourself with great But it has to be something like that has to be something that you really enjoy You know that will be able to kind of maintain all this momentum that you have right now Yeah, Nick, I'm gonna make some guesses. Okay, you tell me if I'm if I'm wrong or right, okay? I'm gonna I'm gonna guess that the reason why you started OCR and the reason why you went keto and the reason Why you started intermittent fasting was all to help you lose weight. Am I correct? Correct. Okay. So now here's some just honest tough love, but I'm gonna at the end. I'm gonna help you Convert this a little bit. Okay Though that's probably the worst reason to do any of those three things. Okay OCR motivating yourself by doing events is a almost guaranteed way to Not have sustainable weight loss at some point. You're chasing this competition and at some point It's gonna stop working for you either because your body Rejects it or because you burn out mentally the same thing is true with keto and intermittent fasting now to get to where you started Which was 275 You probably had some bad relationship with food stuff going on which most of us do right? So that's what led to the 275 and what you did is you traded a bad relationship with food that led to 275 To another bad relationship with food that led to 180 pounds 190 pounds So what I want you to really focus on is Don't be afraid of the you know, 10-15 bound weight gain that may happen I want you to forget about that and think about sustainability. That's the thing that is going to threaten your long-term success It's not the oh no I gained 10 pounds because I stopped doing all these hit workouts and I'm you know doing strength training Don't worry about that. Think sustainability. You have you know, how old are you Nick if you don't mind me asking? I'm 36 years old. Yeah, dude You do you want to do you want to keep this body fat off for the rest of your life, right? Do you want to have yeah, of course, right? And you want to have it in you maybe you have a family now if you don't maybe have one in the future You know friends and other things in life that are very important and it's you want to create your fitness needs to Not just support your life, but improve your quality of life now Of course part of that is your improved health But the other part of it is you know, it's very hard to do when you're stress You're stressed out about diet and I can only eat in one hour window and I can't have any carbs and I got to do this OCR rate, you know, four years five years ten years. That's becomes a stressful situation So remember that and I want you to do the right thing which means you're gonna have to go against Some of your fears and most of your fears are probably centered around going back to where you were before And yeah, and that fear is actually gonna get you to where you were before so Check yourself there take our advice and I would say for the next three months Do maps and a ball look do the walking on the off days eliminate the other stuff Don't do the OCR race unless it's super important to which case it's a fine Do this one last one and don't weigh yourself for the next three months. Don't even weigh yourself. Just look at strength Look at your health. How do I feel and my enjoying things? Do I feel just whatever and then as far as diets concerned? I say this I wouldn't go I wouldn't take the pendulum and swing it all the way in the other direction because that's a recipe for disaster I would say Include a little bit of carbs post workout as far as intermittent fasting is concerned I would have a little bit of food Normally when you fast you're not going in the opposite direction, but slowly move yourself to a more Normal balanced way of living so that you move towards sustainability I'm gonna be even more specific with this and tell you what what a massive win for us would look like is if I got You to cut out a lot of this stuff that you're doing Follow maps and a ball to a tee which means you're doing the three foundational days It means you're doing the trigger sessions You're allowed to walk if you want to go out and walk. I'm totally good with that You're you consistently start with about 2400 calories You've already proven that you can kind of eat there and your body's responded. Well, it's added three pounds of muscle And only one of fat. That's an incredible ratio So get to consistently eating 2400 calories while following that program and then our next goal for the next two months or So is can I get from 2400 to about 2800 and get stronger in the gym If you came back to me and let's say we didn't weigh at all, right? I tell you just like Sal said throw the fucking scale away I don't care about that just talk to me about you getting stronger talk to me about you being able to eat and your energy levels And then in two months we hop on the scale and as long as you're not up probably over 15 pounds You're up anywhere between 7 to 12 pound range and you're eating 2800 calories You and I are high-fiving and I'm telling you how much you're kicking ass because that Would be the most successful two to three months from now is to be able to do that for you to be able to say You're eating 2800 calories doing way less cardio Strength training and stronger you you have completely Started to change the trajectory of your your fitness journey for sure And you're getting stronger and building more muscle and for sure will have a faster metabolism Nick Do you have maps anabolic? I actually do I bought the anabolic and Aesthetic package like a couple days ago. All right. Well, I want to give you something for free So I'm gonna I'm gonna let you in in the private forum because I'd like you I would love if you could Give us a you know updates every other week or so and post it in the private forum and then just tag us. Okay Absolutely. All right my friend. Thanks for calling Thank you guys so much. No problem. Look forward to seeing you in the forum, man that's that's a what a challenge right because You get you know, you're you're at a particular way, you know In his case to 275 and then he probably had a moment where he's like, that's it I'm I gotta I gotta get rid of this. I got to change my life And so you do what you do when you feel that way, which is everything everything at once Yes, and it definitely got him to lose weight But that mental state that he's riding right now doesn't last forever So I'm so glad he called in because now we can move him in the right way I'm so glad that we answer a question like this too because it's something that we we talk about on the show all the time Like this. He's actually so normal, you know Sub in whatever weight sex age that changes of course put as far as like Somebody who has put on a lot of weight over the last years or decades and is trying to lose lose weight This is the approach is exactly what happens. I guarantee you didn't start here with all that stuff It's probably started with right away cutting calories like crazy doing cardio And then saw the first initial 10 20 pounds go down and then okay, let's well, how can I do? Yeah, let's add OCR and let's add hit and let's do intermittent. I'm on fire Right and and now what's cool about when I get a client like this is and what I was telling him is that He's got the discipline right so if you've done that for the last year So whatever how long did you say he could take him to get to this point? Yeah, I was uh 2017. I think he started but uh, if I'm not mistaken I'm trying to look up there. It was mostly in the last Yeah, yeah, so I mean this guy's been consistently getting after it So if I can just get him to shift his focus because that's the the first hardest thing is to get a client to be consistent With whatever it is that we're trying to do so he's already proven that he could be consistent That'll just be the mental hurdle You know not getting caught up if the scale goes up five to 15 pounds and just get stronger in the gym