 And today's episode, we talk about how to get lean and fit without counting a single calorie and without having to pay attention to tracking everything. Check this out. Okay, look, here's a fact. In order to lose weight, you have to take in less calories than you burn. However, counting calories is often a failing strategy for people. When it comes to long-term success with weight loss. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about all the different ways you can get lean and healthy without ever having to count a single calorie. Yeah, maintain flexibility. That's it right there. You know, the first point I made is, is definitely true. And this is where people get tripped up is that it is true. You have to take in less, less energy than you burn. It's, it's, it's what's called an energy imbalance. So to put it plainly, if you burn 2000 calories through just being alive and activity and everything else, and then you eat 1000 calories, your body has to make up the difference. And ideally what we would like for it to do is to tap into fat because body fat is a way your body stores energy. And so that's how weight loss happens. So it sounds very logical that in order to lose weight, you just figure out how many calories you're burning and then count calories and make sure you stay under that. And then boom, you lose weight and it does work. The problem is it's got a very high fail rate over time. Right. So it works in the short term at long term. It tends to not work very long. What was your, your personal journey with like figuring out macros and calories? Like, were you somebody who, because I know, um, you really don't, you never really, even when you, I think you were getting shredded. I don't think you, you tracked really, did you? No, I don't because I've done it before. I've done it before, um, just so I know how to do it in, um, you know, counting macro nutrients and being aware of that kind of stuff. So I, I'm aware of what some food, but I never liked it because it always felt, um, what's the word I want to use? For lack of a return unnatural, like you didn't feel like life. It's like robotic. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, and I could be that way. Like I could totally be robotic when it comes to fitness, but it just fell, you know, you can consider my, where I come from and my culture and my, and my family. We do so much with food and we celebrate so much with food. And I already had food intolerance issues. So I already put parameters on things. Like I had to tell my Italian mom that dairy and gluten bothered me. So that wouldn't, that didn't go over so well, but you know, and then I'm going to start counting calories and macros when we have weekly Sunday dinner or my mom would cook dinner every night when I was a kid. Remember, I started working out as a kid. So it just felt like, gosh, who would do this? You know, uh, for, it just didn't feel right. Now the irony of that Adam is I had my clients initially count calories and I'd give them meal plans, but I'd see them fail. I'd see them do well for a few months and then fail. What about you, Justin? Well, I mean, I, I definitely kind of went through the, the counting calories thing just to, to get a good awareness of it and to be able to see like how I could, how I could manipulate it and shave down and wait and try and get leaner. I, I, I've never been a big fan of it, but again, I know the value is there in terms of like, if I could figure this out specifically to my own habits and, and, um, really identify some of those food groups and things that are contributing the most. Like, you know, it's usually on the fat side for me is like, where all those calories really kind of come up. Um, and, uh, that was something that I was able to kind of just slowly adjust from there. And like, I guess for me, the value is finding the ways to just tighten screws in what my normal habits were. If I wanted to then, um, make it a little bit more sustainable approach later when I wanted to manipulate my weight and get leaner. So I did enjoy the, uh, peering into that and seeing like what I tended to gravitate towards and like, what kind of, if I had coffee, I tend to have it a little bit with some sweetener or something. And like, I just tapered off of that and then reduced, you know, that from a calorie perspective and also like, you know, just little things that I could do that, uh, made a big impact and difference. I translated that to my clients a lot more effectively. Now, Adam, you, you, aside from competing, because obviously you competed at, uh, really some of the highest levels when it came to physique, you got yourself a pro card and that requires that you just, you have to dial everything in and gets to a really extreme body fat percentage and obviously compete against other people doing this besides that period of time, which I think tracking is essential. Did you do it outside of that a lot as well? Or were you much more different? I did leading up. Um, I did leading even so even before competing, I had, I had already, you know, I mean, we've talked before on the show about, you know, calorieking.com. And I used to have before it was.com. I had the little booklet, uh, with all the macros in it. I used to buy a hand, used to track it. This was well before the My Fitness Pals and Fat Secrets came along. So I was a on and off tracker, but it was used to be like when I was on my kick, I was tracking when I wasn't on my kick. I was totally off the rails. My relationship with it now, and that's why I really, I liked this episode that you prepared because I'm a big advocate of tracking. I just think that, um, it's a, it's a good part of like educating yourself on your, your habits. What is a protein? What is a carb? What is a fat? How many calories do each of them hold? Like, I think there's, I think there's a tremendous value in, in figuring some of those. Then once you kind of have an idea or a baseline in that, I think it's even healthier to move away from it. So I, I think like the, like the tips that you have written out or the hacks you have written out today, um, I would say this is how I live my life now. Like I can still get leaner and build muscle and get in shape and I don't need to weigh and measure and track. I just have some, a handful of like, I think principles that I follow or pay attention to when I know I want to move the needle a little bit. Yeah, you said it actually really well. I, I agree. I think, um, it's an important part of, knowing what's in food and seeing what's in food, right? Cause calories, besides calorie counting, calories count. In other words, there's no such thing as this whole, like there's this movement where calories don't matter. Okay. That's baloney. They do matter their energy. And if that energy discrepancy is in the negative, you're going to gain body fat regardless of what your diet's made up of macro nutrients matter. I mean, proteins and fats are essential. I mean, if you don't get the right amount of them, you'll, you actually will fail to thrive. You can actually have terrible health consequences. Carbohydrates are not essential, but carbohydrates do contribute to things like athletic performance. And besides that, calories and macro nutrients are important for health, um, muscle gain or preservation, satiety, subjective feelings of energy, um, and health, which how you feel is a huge part. And that's where the challenge comes in. This is the trouble that comes from counting calories. When people count calories, they often, this is the answer it's all I'm going to do where, and it's almost like they forget or they don't regard the fact that humans, we're not robots where you can plug in a program. We're behavior based emotional creatures and food for the most part. Okay. Except for the small percentage of people who are competitive, who compete in bodybuilding or physique or stage presentation sports or athletes have to make weight, for example, for maybe wrestling or boxing. Besides that small percentage of people, nobody eats with this, this, you know, this formula long term. Everybody eats based off their behaviors, right? It's all behavior and emotional base. So it makes no sense to ignore that and go totally with calorie counting or I should put it differently. It makes no sense to focus most of your energy on the behaviors. It's good to have the information to use as data, but since we're behavior based creatures and we eat based off the behaviors and emotions, we need to focus most of our efforts on that. And that's where we find success. So, you know, I want to ask you guys, when did you see this switch with your clients where you saw that, oh, this is actually, this maybe changing my strategy because I used to give clients meal plans and tell them to get calories and that stuff. And they'd see results in the short term, but long term they always failed. It wasn't until I did what we're going to talk about on this episode. I did that later and I just saw a bunch better long term success. Yeah, it's funny. I think the theme remains the same with being a good coach is that I figured it out much earlier for my clients than I did for myself. Yeah, that's true. You know, so I started to realize this, you know, very early on, riding a diet, handing it to a client and having, you know, follow this to a tee was extremely unsuccessful and that starting to piece together some of the stuff that we talk about that all addresses behavior stuff was way more beneficial. In fact, one of the things that is highly contested or debated in the fitness space is the multiple several small meals and how it doesn't make a difference. I'm actually somebody who would argue the other side and advocate for it. Not for the reasons that I think that was argued in the past, which is it, you know, stokes the fire of your metabolism and if you eat more meals for the day, you got this roaring metabolism and it speeds them. None of that because if calories are all equated the same, then it doesn't make a difference if you have two huge meals or six small ones. But what I realized was when my clients had, you know, five to six prepared small meals and they had something ready to go and they were eating every two, three hours, they never got really, really hungry. They never got to that point where they were fighting cravings off. They were always eating before they were feeling that come on. Plus they planned it and they had it all planned out and so they made better decisions. And so even though there was this crazy movement early on to put, you know, make the small meals and then all of a sudden we shit on that science and everybody went away from that again. I'm still one of those people that are like, I'm still a fan of that for a lot of people because again, I think it addresses some behaviors that we have created around eating that I don't think are good behaviors and this is a simple hack in my opinion. I don't think that was on your list. No, that's a great one. But that's one that I'm still very pro for, for that exact reason. Yeah, I think it's the key here or what should I say, the goal is to figure out how to modify your behaviors so that you automatically get close to calorie and macro targets. In other words, are there ways that I can get my behaviors to change where I feel good about it and it feels natural, which lead to I'm meeting the right amount. I'm meeting the right amount of proteins, fats and carbohydrates and I feel good. And I do want to say this, if your goal is to get to 5% body fat, this probably won't work for you. This works very well long term. So this is a very good, like generally relatively lean, I'm a man, I'm around 12, 13% body fat. I'm a woman, I'm around, you know, 18 to 22% body fat. If you want to get super ultra shredded, you're going to have to try. I'm going to argue that a little bit. That's partially true because and your very first point we're going to move into is to eating protein first. I would make the case. So let's just say, even though I'm not, but let's just say I like, I do want to get down to 5% body fat again. I actually would still start here. So I still would start with all the behavior things first before I actually really try and hone in. When would you start tracking at what body fat percent generally? What do you think? When I start to struggle with plateaus. Okay. So whatever that is. That's right. Because I think you can get really far with this. I agree. I think you can get really, really lean and in good shape. Some people better than others. I think you're probably even a better master at it than I am because I think you've trained yourself to use the behavior ways. I would have to probably switch over to tracking when I get around 9%. I would probably say, I could probably get all the way to 9% relatively easy. Not easy as in it wouldn't take discipline and consistency. Easy as in if I just followed some of these steps that we're going to talk about in the very first one. Eat protein first. That is the very first thing I do. So I'm glad you labeled that as the first one. It's like when I decide I'm going to dial in. I really want to change my body composition. I haven't been paying attention to my protein and take it all. That's the very first thing that starts to shift over. Yeah. So what this basically means is when you have your meal in front of you, the protein portion of your meal which usually is the meat portion. So it's either beef or chicken or eggs or dairy. The protein portion of your meal eat that first and that modifies your behaviors a couple different ways. One is it and this is huge. It manages your blood sugar levels or your blood glucose levels. Right. When you get these highs and lows that effect in blood sugar that affects your behaviors by making you feel irritable, lethargic and having cravings. So that's one. Number two, immediately protein is very satiating. If you eat 30 grams of protein or 50 grams of protein before you eat the rest of your meal that protein and studies have shown this very, very clearly that protein blunts your appetite and makes it so that you don't just don't want to eat as much. So when clients or would eat protein first it would lead to a behavior that naturally made them eat less overall. It was a very, very easy hack with this one right here. I want to add to that because what happens when someone hears that or when I teach this to a client they go, oh, okay, okay, I get it. And then they would make this effort that when they have breakfast, lunch, or dinner that they would eat the protein first and then move to the other macros. The challenge becomes when people have the temptation to want to snack in between meals. And so my rule to add to this this is the rule that I have for myself. When I start making protein a priority that means I actually won't even eat anything unless I have a protein with it. So I will not like protein really works for this. Yeah, it does. It's just a simple, like, for example, if I want some grapes right now I will not just sit down and just like chomp away grapes. You know, it's a fruit. You're like a meat stick first. That's right. I would eat a piece of big jerky with it or I get four to six ounces of a meat and then have the grapes. So I won't allow myself just to sit down and snack even on a carbohydrate that somebody would consider as quote unquote healthy or a better choice because what ends up happening is I then if I if I allow myself to do that then I end up feeling filling my behavior. So it's not me tracking just naturally fill my calories up with carbohydrates and I never hit my protein intake. So anytime I sit down to eat protein first and if I really, really want those carbs again I got to pair it with the protein first and eat it first even when I'm snacking. Yeah, for the record protein provides the most satiety so it blunts appetite the most and you get full fastest on it and the longest second would be fat third is carbohydrates. So carbohydrates are the least satiety producing and I think that's why you're talking about these carb snacks in between because they do tend to you know, I feel like it actually makes me hungrier it does as a result. Here's a giveaway for today's episode maps anywhere. It's the equipment free workout program do it anywhere. It's great for beginners intermediate and it's also great for advanced people through our modifications to make the workouts really kick your butt. Anyway, here's how you can win leave a comment below this video. Make sure it's a good comment and do so in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode subscribe to this channel turn on notifications do all those things if we like your comment we'll notify you in the comment section we'll comment under your comment to let you know that you won maps anywhere. Also we got a sale going on right now we have two workout program bundles that are 50% off the skinny guy bundle which has all this amazing stuff and the fit mom bundle which has all this other amazing stuff both are 50% off if you want to get signed up click on the link below at the top of the description to get yourself that discount. All right, here comes the show. All right, this next one this is a powerful one and this one I figured out before I figured out all the other ones we're about to talk about right now and that was to avoid heavily processed foods like if you have one rule in your diet it's just I'll eat as much as I want I'm just not going to eat these ultra processed foods. Okay, so ultra processed foods are in boxes or wrappers they have long shelf lives they have ingredient lists that are you know it's like all the inside portion of the grocery store yes, yes and studies now show why there's such a big deal these foods are engineered to make you overeat and they're so good at it they're so effective at making you overeat that studies show now pretty clearly that people will eat 500 more calories a day just because they're eating these foods not because they're high calorie foods but because they make you eat more in other words I could take a whole natural foods that are high calorie give me some avocados and steak those are very calorie dense foods and then put next to ultra processed foods and you'll end up eating more calories with the ultra processed foods even though these are more calorie dense because they're engineered remember there's more engineering there to really get your palate to go crazy and it just prompts you to seek out more novelty and more foods that are going to fit these very specific sweet or salty type of high level of flavors to give an example and this is an ultra processed food but it is processed in comparison to its whole natural part think of how many apples you can eat and one sitting now think about how much apple juice you could drink in one sitting so apple juice removes the fiber removes the skin and you don't have to chew on it you could just drink it and you can go much further now the example I always use is a big family bag size of potato chips which is like five or six potatoes I don't know anybody can eat five or six plain potatoes all at once I know a lot of people eat a whole bag of chips so you know I'll raise my hand I could do it right I could eat a whole bag of chips and you know afterwards I'll feel full but if you put five plain potatoes in front of me poo I don't know if I could do it for five thousand dollars it'd be really hard I would gag so these foods make you overeat so just avoiding them naturally brings your calories down so I'm gonna add to that hack also if I am gonna eat something in a wrapper in a bag in a box in a can then the one rule I give myself during this time is that it needs to have 25% or more coming from protein oh I see 25% of calories that's right which is that really limits the processed foods that I'm gonna have but it opens the door for oh you know what I'm a little light on my protein I don't have time to make something I can go have a protein shake I can go have a bar a protein bar I can do some of these things if I absolutely need to even though my goal is always to eat whole foods first but then if I go okay I don't have the time for that I gotta do something really quick okay well then I'm going to limit myself to something that says 25% of the calories come from protein so then it is considered in a protein food it's more likely to or less likely I should say to make you overeat that's right like the other ones that's right all right this next one Adam was one that you actually I heard from you first and I loved it which is rather than taking foods away or out of your diet so you look at your diet like I want to get in shape rather than cutting foods out of your diet think of some really healthy foods and add them in instead and then eat those before you eat the other stuff and what it leads to is naturally I remove some of the bad foods so contrary to what you would think in terms of weight loss coming in to a program and you're a coach and you're like okay let's add some food to your diet and you're trying to get on a diet which is like it's mind-blowing but yeah to the point of it you know having a natural effect behavior wise of changing and making better decisions it's it's quite substantial what it does well part of this the evolution of it or the origin of it for me was actually doing this for myself because you know it goes back to the what the very first thing is right is the eat protein first was the first hack and tip and what I found I naturally do and most all my clients naturally do is when they're off the diet they gravitate towards the carbs and the saturated fats and they under eat protein and me just simply saying target protein add protein in the diet naturally started to clean the diet up so I found it worked really really well for myself then I applied it to my clients saw how well it worked for them vegetables like low-calorie fibers vegetables probably work really well yes yeah proteins and then greens those those are the two things I would add like right away like people were either under eating on their fiber or they were not getting enough protein in their diet and simply telling them no I didn't tell them they couldn't have any certain foods I just said hey we never get x y and z in your diet let's add those in just every day I need you to hit these one or two things and then then let me assess the diet after that low and behold they would magically all of a sudden start to lean out and start to build a little bit of muscle and they would feel great and I and I knew I was playing and you know as a coach in a trainer we've been training people long enough that much of the battle is this psychological battle that you're playing with them like how how do I close them or convince them to eat or train or do the things I want them to do without making them feel like I'm forcing them or manipulate them into that and it was just like one of those trainer hacks of instead of me telling them they can't have stuff I'm going to just focus on the things I know that will create better behaviors in their diet and this was one of them it was like less need that that intrinsic need to rebel right now so it's like you have this you're coming in with less of a restrictive like rigid like concept of what your diet could be and I think it works so well because I just think that we're all kind of rebellious in nature we are and it's just in our nature to want to rebel yeah and if you're watching this right now and you're like oh I don't need to do that I'm self-aware and you still have to lose 30 pounds or you've done diets on and off and they failed no your self-awareness is I need to do this to myself because I feel like I'm otherwise depriving myself or restricting myself and then I end up rebounding afterwards so know yourself enough to know that when I take things out of my diet I end up rebounding so I'm just going to add healthy things and then not even worry about the other stuff and then watch what happens and what almost always happens is you end up removing some of the worst offenders all right this next one this is a bodybuilder piece of advice and bodybuilders used to talk about this all the time at helping them burn body fat and build muscle the problem was the science didn't support it except in the real world it actually worked and I think I know why so the advice was bodybuilders would always tell people to drink a gallon of water every single day now I've changed this a little bit because I'm talking to the average person and I'd say a half a gallon to a gallon because a gallon for some people may be just too much but I noticed when I would tell clients target this much water every single day make this your goal they would end up losing weight why it tends to make you eat less and you don't drink other stuff when you're drinking a gallon of water a day and that's your goal and you got your bottle next to you with the marker I used to have my clients buy like where they'd have to drink four of these bottles and they'd have to track it throughout the day it's like they don't realize but they're not they're drinking less juices less sodas they're moving more because they've got to pee so they've got to get up and walk and they're eating better because being hydrated tends to help with appetite yeah and a lot of times they're mixing that signal of hunger with you know being thirsty and being deprived of or being dehydrated in their body wanting to seek this out and so to be able to keep you know hydrating and it keeps you somewhat satisfied a bit longer and then also I mean you do run to the bathroom quite a bit more I guess you're getting extra calorie burn I mean your steps go up yeah they absolutely do I mean I don't have much to add to that because you guys hit all the main points on why people have so much success with the only thing that I would add to it is and I actually believe even at the beginning of this podcast meaning that this episode but the beginning of us starting this podcast you guys used to tease me for carrying my gallon around and I'm very pro that the reason why I'm pro that is you know everybody has their little tiny little water bottle and it's like they lose track of did I fill it up already is this the second time I did it the third time I did it and there's something about knowing that I got to get through that whole gallon and seeing it all day long and you know if it's something as simple as a whole gallon and I know that it's two o'clock in the afternoon and I'm not even midway through I'm like oh shit I got some catching up to do so there's something about that visual of seeing where you're at all day long for me that helps that accountability piece to make sure that I hit that otherwise I'd have clients revert back and they or you'd report back to me and they're like oh yeah yeah no I definitely I drink like five or six of these a day like oh you do every day and you track that are you sure about that and when you'd have them track and do that that all of a sudden you'd have them carry the gallon now all of a sudden they're peeing all the time and it drives them crazy and you're like wait a second I gave you the same amount of water I just put it in one jug and now you're peeing all the time like sounds fishy to me yeah so the problem with the big gallon jug is people like to walk around with it so what I did was I got these I got my clients to buy these glass really nice looking like jars or whatever and four of them made up a gallon so I'd have them use a dry race marker and they'd write one and then when they finish it they erase it and write two so they keep track but you're right because when I would tell them how many small bottles of water it was they would lose track nobody would keep track so it makes it really helps that's a great tip it really helps to have a visual of where you're at for the day because what you don't want to do and this doesn't work very well is you know end of the day like oh I got to drink half a gallon of water at 7 p.m. doesn't really work too well the idea is to do this throughout the whole day that's when you get those behavior modifications this next one is really interesting because what I'm about to say it's going to sound silly but studies have shown it contributes consistently to a 10 to 15% less intake or lower the intake of calories in other words if you just do the following you will naturally eat 10 to 15% less and that's to eat without distraction so they take people and they put food in front of them and they have them either watch TV and eat or just eat or be on the phone and eat or just eat and just because they're distracted by their phone or the television or something else number one they eat faster people tend to eat faster when they're distracted and number two they tend to eat longer or more calories because they're not paying attention to their body's signals now I know for a fact I just talked earlier about eating a bag of potato chips which I could totally do I when I do if I could do that though it would be in front of the television if I sat with nothing around me no you totally would in silence just eat a whole bag you would never do that you have to be distracted yes I have to be watching a movie or something that's what's wild about that most people if they're being completely honest with themselves I mean you have a whole different if you sit in your room and you eat a whole bag of chips by yourself with no distractions and you have a whole different that's another level we have another thing we got to work on besides just that relationship with food period most people are distracted when they eat you know it's funny when you bring up to 10% I can't help but think that paired with just avoiding ultra processed foods is enough to get probably 60% of the country in shape oh like just saying okay this is too complicated for me there's too many hacks here there's too many things to figure out okay just eat whole foods just don't eat in front of a television or your phone or computer and then that in itself would solve damn near Adam I would get people lose 20 pounds doing this 20 pounds doing this and the and the whole and the processed food that's it and most people want to lose about 20 pounds people would trip out so it's literally you just got to sit down and eat without distractions it makes that big of a difference I mean also to your point of like eating fast this was one that I noticed quite a bit you know with clients and myself even personally just in terms of like if I was in a rush or I was just trying to cram in food or if I'm just not paying attention to like the amount of bite sizes that I'm eating and then you know you can bypass that signal of being satisfied pretty easily by just cramming in a bit too fast that's why I love the next one this one's a big one because I think it pairs perfectly with that habit is if you're somebody who does that try doing that without water because half of what makes you get away with that is you're chewing it you're swinging the water down I mean I caught myself doing this last night last night I was talking to Katrina and Max we're all sitting in the counter and we're eating and stuff like that and I was drinking Sevilla and I'm eating my steak and stuff like that and I caught myself before the bite was even finished grabbing my sodas sipping it down and made me burp and I'm like oh my god like I'm not even on TV am I doing the dab but the fact that I was having conversation not really kind of pay attention it's just like it's a habit that I have for sure and a good way to become aware of that habit or to try and break that habit is to not drink any fluids while you have your meal and every time I've taught somebody this it always trips them out the thing like is that not to chew the hell out of my food is that unhealthy I think it's unhealthy you guys gave me five minutes to eat today I had to use this you know what's funny all of us I guarantee did this all time because we train a lot of clients and what you do when you train clients is you have like five minute break between five in between yeah so I'd be like and I would use the like I'm taking supplements almost I'd bite chew chew chew wash it down chew chew chew wash it down I started doing this because I was recommended to stop drinking fluids with my food because it was affecting my digestion so when you chew food that's the first part of the digestive process not only that but chewing activates digestive enzymes and tells your brain foods about to come through so if you shorten the time you chew you're going to end up eating more food also breaking the food down into smaller smaller pieces increases its surface area to volume making it easier to break down by the gut and when you flush a lot of fluid in your gut especially water or other or juices you actually dilute a lot of the acids in your stomach and that can also affect digestion but I know that sounds cool in science but the truth is that does play a role but the biggest role here is it just it slows you down don't drink any fluids while you eat you will eat slower and you will get full faster as a result all right this next one this one is a big one also and this was my my number one tool for trigger foods or problem foods we all kind of have them like think right now if you're listening to this of a particular food that is almost impossible for you to say no to or almost impossible to not overeat okay I talked about potato chips earlier that one's mine for my wife it's chocolate that's her big one I've had clients where it was other things and so what I came up with and made a big difference is I'd say well let's create a barrier between you and that food because it's impulsive it's an impulsive reaction so all we have to do is create space between you between you and the impulse and all you do is you're allowing for that for consciousness to come in awareness to come in not that it's going to happen every time but if you have a barrier it opens up the space and so my favorite barrier is I don't say I can't have potato chips I just if don't have them in the house and if I want them I'll drive a mile down the to the store and buy some and that's totally fine and what ends up happening is 95% of the time I don't 5% of the time I do but 95% of the time I don't because I get the craving I get up and I'm like oh I would really love some potato chips and I'm like okay I gotta drive the store and then you know by the time I think about it awareness comes in like do I really want them it's nine o'clock at night I'm gonna feel not that good tomorrow nah forget about it there's a lot of different ways to actually do this you heard me mention one already like when it comes to the eating the snacks or like the grapes right I won't say no I can't have grapes I just said I need to have a protein with it it's really just keep it's creating a barrier it means that I have to go prepare the meat or go find some sort of a protein to go with that if I really want that and I'm not telling myself I can't have the grapes just as hey my goal is to make sure I get this protein in so I'm creating a barrier with that I've done this before too with like if I really want something I go okay well I first need to hit my protein intake for the day if I hit my protein intake and I still want that thing I'll allow myself to have it or I haven't worked out today like I need to get my work out in first and then if I still want that thing I'll have that it's a barrier so those and a lot of times what ends up happening is I end up finishing the perfect day of eating hitting my protein tank and now I'm satisfied now I don't have that craving for that thing anymore I don't even want it it's not hard for me to not have it now or I get that great workout in and I've my body now wants to be fueled with something healthy and good for me I'm not craving that thing so it's a those are all ways of creating barriers other than not technically yet because I like not having it in my house because that's what I do also but it doesn't mean you have to do it that way there's other ways to create barriers I used to have a client that we had this conversation we're trying to figure it out for them because they had other people in the house who would buy other snacks and stuff and so she came up with a great one and she said okay I have to walk all the way down the street and back so it means yes get her shoes on go outside walk in the street I mean how far is that it was like not even a quarter it's like not that far right it's going to take you a grand total of four minutes but the fact that she had put her shoes on walk outside walk all the way down the street and back she's like it's so weird Sal she goes most of the time I say it's not worth it why is it not worth it because you're it's not impulsive the awareness came in you just slow it down that's it it's it's all speed you know speed that to to get it in as quick as possible and if you if you're put something in front of that so if it's like a practice like that you know it's going to really help deter it a lot of times this is the the electronic thing helps this way too that that's another way creating a barrier right if I say I really want this bowl of popcorn but nine times out of ten when I want that bowl of popcorn it's sitting down watching a movie so I just say oh I can have the bowl of popcorn I'm just I just can't have it sitting down in front of the television so finish watching my show if I still want the bowl of popcorn I'll sit at the counter and I'll eat it nine times out of ten I don't eat it because I didn't want it that bad I wanted it because I have this association with movie night you know the I'm watching a movie and now I want to snack mindlessly on something and so there is this this psychological thing that you can play with yourself by saying that you know I can I can have if I want but I need to do x y or z did you just remind me a funny story I had a client who's trigger food of all things was popcorn so you know what the barrier was they couldn't have microwave popcorn they had to make it the old fashioned way and and it worked because it took like 15 minutes it's not gonna work yeah so they're like eh I'm not gonna have it anymore it's not worth it so funny all right this next one is to think self-care instead of self-hate okay so what do I mean by this most people initially get motivated to lose weight or improve their appearance or their fitness because there's something about themselves they don't like they don't like that they have their bellies too big or they don't like the way that they look and so they go into exercise or they especially go into nutrition with this self-hate model no I'm fat I can't eat that no I'm fat I have to eat this no I'm fat I have to eat this much less the problem with that is self-hate although a very it's a very powerful short-term motivator nobody wants to hate themselves forever you just don't doesn't feel good and what ends up happening is a diet ends up feeling like a punishment and eventually you rebel and this is why when people go off a diet they don't just reach for one piece of food that they weren't eating before they eat the whole box it's because you're rebelling from this self-hate model so instead think I'm gonna take care of myself I deserve to be taken care of I deserve to be healthy and when everybody likes to take care of themselves everybody likes to feel like they're cared for I should say so when you approach your diet from that step point by the way this works perfectly with adding healthy food versus taking foods away right you're thinking pro health rather than anti fat anti obese anti whatever it's pro health pro care and it just feels better and you end up with more balance because you may have the cookie but it's not a whole box of cookies I know we listed this as as a hack for you but I actually think that this is a necessary thing that you you will have to arrive at this at one point in your life eventually right or you'll or this will never be a long term thing that you do at one point you'll have to get off the hamster will of I'm on my diet I'm off my diet I'm on my training I'm off my training and part of that process requires that you reframe why you exercise if because most people exercise because they are trying to lose the fact because they don't like the way they look or someone made a comment all because of our insecurities when you finally get to a place in your journey where you reframe it as I train because it does all these things for me it makes me a better father it makes me a better husband I'm a better business partner I'm my sex drive is better my skin is better my energy level is better I sleep when you start connecting it and I deserve those things that's right all those things and you want to do it because you love yourself and that is the reason why you get up extra early or the reason why you choose to do it even when you don't feel it that is what will keep you doing this for the rest of your life so I know we have this listed as like a hack of helping you get there I think it is necessary if you're going to stay here for the rest of your life I couldn't agree anymore all right this last one is very specific and I'm saying that because it's going to sound a lot like something else so this last one is to not eat past 6 p.m okay someone may be like oh I do you know intermittent fasting or I eat within a time window in the 8 window yeah not the same thing in the 8 window here's why it's not the same thing this is why this hat this particular tip works so well if you look at the foods that you eat that tend to be the worst offenders in your diet they tend to happen late at night they tend if you were to analyze the average person's diet and you looked at what they ate in the morning in the afternoon in the dinner and then what they ate after 6 p.m especially close to 9 p.m I bet you would see a larger percentage of heavily processed foods garbage overeating in the evening that's when we tend to watch TV with our food that's when we tend to reach for the snacks we've already had our dinner now let's go eat that dessert or the snack or the chips or whatever so when I have clients hey you know what let's set a time limit and it's just an easy parameter I'd say for some people it was 7 p.m some people 6 p.m depending on when they got up let's just not eat past 6 p.m and see what happens it would result in like a 300 calorie reduction in calories what's funny is I even had some clients and we had to apply this because it was a problem in terms of cravings in terms of after dinner they would always want to then you know eat just a little bit of something and once they really started to get like serious about this actually even noticed too they went to bed earlier on top of that just almost like it's it was just like kind of a natural rhythm thing of like okay now it's time for bed we had our last sort of big meal of the day and then a couple hours later they'd go to bed like 8 or like 9 o'clock and normally they go to bed like 12 and they're just up snacky watching TV all late so it just had this kind of spillover effect of like better habits even you know from there not to mention all the digestive benefits from that on top of that I actually have recognized that Justin in my own habits if I do a good job of shutting down my last meal by like 6 o'clock I get to bed early always almost always if I allow myself to eat at any time late at night or let's say I'm catching up calories I'm behind on what my macros are oh man I definitely I find myself extending bedtime much much later you know this is another example too of where the the fitness space has done a lot of people disservice but like my earlier point of the small meals like right the science came out to disprove that there's no technical you know mechanistic benefits of you actually if all the calories are the same doesn't matter that's right so what that ended up doing was it ended up deterring a lot of people that would have used that strategy give them a shape that probably would have helped them out because they now hear like oh it doesn't matter and there's a bunch of fitness people that have made videos off of doing that that I think have done more harm than good I think it's a good tip this is another one that's been debunked also if calories are all quite the same you eating your meal at 9 or 10 11 o'clock at night all the same thing doesn't make a difference but what we have learned or let from training so many people is the point that Sal made is that if you looked at 90% of people's diets and you assessed where they made the worst choices I would make the argument that a bulk of those a good more than majority of those came after 6 p.m. and so simply just putting that one another barrier right here's another barrier not saying you can't have those things I'm just gonna say I'm gonna shut it down by 6 p.m. you tend to make better food choices before that and so I think this is a great tip and hack that has been debunked in the past yeah this is one of the ones I'm still most consistent on aside from vacations stuff like that I pretty much always shut it down around 6 p.m. almost never after 7 p.m. like I look at the clock even and I'll be like oh I want to eat some I'll look at the clock now the reasons for this aren't because it keeps me lean or anything like that for me it has more to do with sleep and digestion so there is some science to support that this is beneficial in other ways too because not eating within 2 or 3 hours of sleep has been shown to dramatically improve sleep and can that affect your behaviors? absolutely people who lose sleep tend to snack more and search for more hyper palatable foods also people have bad sleep also tend to have hormonal disturbances can that affect how much body fat you store muscle you gain or you don't gain? absolutely so there's a lot of benefits to this but I don't want to sell the science behind it because it's easy to discredit that it's easy to read articles that say that will convince you maybe it's not that big of a deal behaviorally if you just don't eat past 6 p.m you're more likely to make better choices with your food intake look if you like Mind Pump head over to mindpumpfree.com and check out some of our guides these guides can help you with almost any health or fitness school and they cost nothing they're all absolutely free you can also find all of us on social media Justin is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump at him and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump South this one's really important and that is to phase your training if somebody trains for a full year doing a bench press and they're always aiming for five reps if you compared that person to a person who did a bench press where they did three or four weeks of five reps but then they did three or four weeks of 12 reps and then three or four weeks of let's say 15 to 20 reps and then they'll throw on some supersets at the end of that year you're gonna see more consistent progress from the person who's moving in and out and less injury that's another thing you'll see less injury as well