 All right. Our first question is from Jake Parker Fit. Why do bodybuilders always, almost always seem to opt for strictly clean eating as opposed to a flexible dieting approach? I picked this question just to piss Justin off. Oh yeah, I got so much for this. No, I think, no, I think there's a good point here. First of all, we've talked before on this podcast and this person probably has not heard us talk about this. So I figured this would be a good topic for labels and fast food and eating food that you did not weigh, measure and cook yourself can be off and can be dramatically off. You're talking 20 to 30% different from what the label says or what the fast food restaurant tells you. When you are competing or if you're bodybuilding, if you really take that shit serious and you're tracking weighing and measuring and you have quote unquote flexible dieting to where that allows you fast food every week inside your diet or a cheat day or whatever that in the diet on a consistent basis, really tough to be precise. I mean, there's no way. So I had like a, when I was competing, I had a, I would say I, you know, and I hate flexible dieting and all these terms and so that, but if we were going to, if we're going to use that, I had a flexible diet up until probably the last four to six weeks, because I could still be off by 20% of my calorie intake and still be seeing progress. If I was, you know, changing my programming up really well, I was, you know, increasing my, my steps and movement and slowly starting to restrict overall calories and I would be fine. Even if I was off, give or take 20 or 30% on a meal or two, it wasn't a big deal. But once I hit about four weeks out for sure, sometimes even about six weeks out, depending on how, how for sure I, or how precise I needed to be or how far out I was body fat percentage, I would, I would not do any flexible dieting. I would cook and make everything that I was going to consume. And I would just, it really comes down to how serious you, you take bodybuilding. If you want to be the best at it, or you want to have full control of your results and know why or why not, you're not seeing the, the change that you should be. You don't take the chance of, you know, even Chipotle, weighing, you know, scooping your food. And have you ever gone through a Chipotle line and watched what one kid makes for your fucking burrito bowl and then what another one does? Yeah, you got the heavy handed kid and you got the, I memorized the heavy handed one. I'm like, I'm going when he's working. And what people need to understand is that the label that the, that, that Chipotle or five guys puts up there, that they, they, they have measurements that everybody is, you know, supposed to be following that that those, those macro nutrients are supposed to be within 20 to 30%. Right. So, but that doesn't take an account also that the kid who's been trained to scoop exactly a quarter cup is scooping a quarter cup. So not only can the macro nutrients be off on the label because FDA allows that much flexibility for restaurants and labels, but then in addition to that, you have human error that's in there also. So, I mean, I, and I've done this before where I've taken a Chipotle bowl and I've gone home and I've separated it out. I've measured it and waited and seen, I mean, we're talking like a three 500 calorie swing. That's fucking crazy. Yeah. And it's usually more. Yeah. Oh yeah. It's almost always because the other direction, it's in the best interest of a food company to under less. Yeah. Under report calories. So they'll put together their meal to get tested or whatever, and they'll report 500 calories. But then when they make the food, it's also in their best interest to give you more than the calories say. And the reason why they do that is because, you know, you, you get more food, you're more likely to buy more food. So because you think it's more value. So the, the, the measurements can definitely be off. I mean, one thing you need to understand about bodybuilding is of all of all sports I can think of off the top of my head, bodybuilding, nutrition plays the most important role in bodybuilding more than any other sport. Because with bodybuilding, when you're down to 3% body fat and you're on stage, a little bit of water retention can make you lose a contest. You know, the difference between your mom, your muscles looking a little bit fuller can make you lose a contest. And this all boils down to precision. It's like precision engineering with your nutrition. So an easy way to do that for a bodybuilder is to weigh and measure whole natural foods. They know exactly what's in it. And if you look at bodybuilder's diets, which by the way, I don't think anybody should follow bodybuilder diet except for a bodybuilder is competing. When you look at the meals and stuff that they, that they post on social media, what you end up with, what you typically see are the same meal measured out five or six times. So you'll see five or six containers of identical looking, you know, chicken, rice and broccoli or something like that. And then they want it to be predictable. It is. So what they're doing is they're sitting down, they're saying, okay, you know, I'm now I'm down to 6%. I got to drop 300 calories. I need, you know, this many grams of protein, this many grams of carbs, I need this much fiber and this much fat. And so then they take all the protein that they need and they just divide it by five. So one here, one here, one here, and they have their all their meals planned out. It's definitely not a long term approach for success. It's definitely can contribute to a bad relationship with food. I've met more than my share of ex bodybuilders and competitors who have really, really bad eating patterns after they stopped competing because the only way they know how to eat, aside from eat, whatever you want is to eat that way. So it's like, you're either, you know, extreme in one direction. It's on or off the wagon. Yeah, or extreme in the other direction. But if you look, if you're confused about flexible dieting versus strict clean eating, real quick, easy breakdown, right? So flexible dieting, you're just trying to hit your macro targets. That's it. So I'm eating, my goal is 100 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbs, 60 grams of fat. And then I can whatever I can put in that, as long as I hit those numbers, I'm all good. Bodybuilders do that as well. But the difference is, the way they go about it is not by just throwing whatever they want. They will typically stick to whole unprocessed foods that they can fit within there that they can they can measure with like Adam said, with absolute perfect precision, that in fact is what separates oftentimes what separates the winner first place from second place is was the first the first place guy typically was more perfect and more anal about their their food than the other guy. Well, the average anal, please, the average American that you know, we know everybody knows that the average American diet is terrible. So the average American that that eats terrible that decides they're going to flexible diet and diet, any diet in that in a sense is probably better than what they're currently doing is is going to see pretty good results. And so there's a there's a lot of room and a little a lot more flexibility for just the average person doesn't have to get on stage in exactly six weeks and present the best version of themselves. So you know, who cares if they overeat by 300 calories one day, and they stall their progress for a day, it's not a big deal if that person, you know, got the heavy handed Timmy at Chipotle for that one day. Like, it's not a big fucking deal. You've got the heavy hand. Yeah, I mean, you're still gonna you're still gonna if you're making good choices, and you're trying to follow a macro, you know, your macros, and you're you're even being off by 20%. If you're doing everything else, right, exercise and staying in a calorie sugar diet, you're probably going to be just fine. But you know, if you're if you were a bodybuilder, your your timing is everything. And you also got to think about this, okay, when you know, I've only only one time on my I've gotten down to single digit body fat many times, but I've never only once that I ever get down below like 65%. There's only one time. And the thing that tripped me out the most about there's a lot of weird things by the way that happened your body. When you get that lean, and I was quite aware I was an adult, you know, when I did it and I remember tripping out over a few things. One of the main things that I tripped out over was this. If you're 15% body fat, and you go up by a half percent or percent is you can't really tell can't really tell that much. You're 4% body fat, you go up a percent you just you just went up 20 25% more body fat on your body than you had before. Yes, 25% because 1% is a lot more when you only have 4% body fat than when you have 15%. So it was like, I had to be like, I had to be very, very perfect with my nutrition because I go up a percent when you see the difference between a 4% and 5% body fat on stage is glaring. Yeah, the difference between 15 and 16% you can't you can't you can't tell at all. Not only that, but when you're really, really lean water retention can look like it adds 2% body fat on you just stuff that makes you hold water. And one thing that body builders are really, really exceptional at is identifying the changes in their and water and their body by foods. So you'll see a lot of body builders like avoid or you know, zero calorie sodas says zero calories, but they'll avoid them because like, nah, it makes me hold water. Or they'll avoid, you know, protein shakes or other things that even though the calories are all calculated, and it still will keep them the same macros. Like, if I when I eat that, I don't look as sharp and it sounds silly. But it's it's a real thing. I told you I tested this like I did a prep where I allowed shakes and bars in every single day. Every single day, I had at least one or two shakes or bars. And I had less whole foods. And I dieted for a show. And then I had another show where I didn't allow any shakes or bars and I did nothing but whole foods. And the show that I did all whole foods, I looked better. I you know, I can't explain it to you. I can't for sure tell you why that is. But you do when you when you get that lean, you notice the most subtle differences. And for the average person, that doesn't matter at all. Yeah, it doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. No, you want to go based off of health, how the food makes you feel. Does it make you want to eat more? Does it make you want to eat less? But yeah, I think some some of the stuff you'll hear from bodybuilders that sounds silly to people who understand nutrition, like, you know, eating fish, thins the skin, right? You hear it from bodybuilders, you roll your eyes and like what are you talking about? I think what they're talking about is that some people will will will eat only a certain food or avoid other foods. And just notice they're holding less water. They're just less inflamed. And it could very well be that they went from eating chicken to eating fish. And that's what did it because there's a lot of very complex things that happen the body. So bodybuilders are the most extreme dieters in the world. And that's why you see them following a particular way of eating versus flexible dieting.