Ep 136 – Is Disordered Eating An Injury?

TRANSCRIPT:

Dani

Hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Dani. And I’m Giacomo and This is episode 136. Well, hello everybody. Welcome back. I’m super excited as we record this. Even though it won’t go live for another six weeks, it goes live the day before we leave for London, which I am like giddy about and counting down the days.

Giacomo

Well, we’re going to Dublin too.

Dani

Yep.

Giacomo

And the book that I’m reading right now takes place in Ireland and talks about Dublin. So that’s kind of exciting for me because I feel a little bit of fomo because you know so much about UK and London culture and all that. I don’t know a damn thing.

Dani

I don’t actually think I know that much. But I was really looking forward to this more than anything because I had two things on my sort of like bucket list for this year. One was to travel somewhere outside the country because I don’t know if any of the listeners know this. I’ve never been like east of here at all. So we travel to some other countries because of the cruise, but it’s always sort of in the Caribbean.

It’s like the islands area. And I’ve been to Mexico because of that and I’ve been to Canada once, but that’s it. I feel like we travel all the time, but I’ve never traveled really outside of the country very much at all. So that was on the bucket list. And then also taking a vacation, like an actual non working vacation was also on the bucket list because we haven’t had one since 2015.

Giacomo

I was kind of ready for us to go out there and do something work related. I was thinking about it, but this is going to be fun. I’m looking forward to it. I have no idea what to expect. I’ve been to Italy before, but I’ve never been anywhere else in Europe.

Dani

I would say, oh, if you guys have any suggestions of stuff we have to do, let me know. But like literally this is going to come out the day before we leave and I’m booking stuff like pretty much every day right now. I’m just so excited. I know one thing we’re doing, we’re going to this place in London called I think Charlie and the

Chocolate Factory and they were having a vegan high tea there. And I’m like probably more excited about that than anything else we have booked so far. I’m very, very excited.

Giacomo

It’s kind of funny because I feel like over here in the United States we have most luxuries that other countries just do not have access to, with the exception of vegan stuff. I feel like the UK is just flooded, flooded with just all kinds of options and support for vegans. And you see something maybe similar to that in Portland and Oregon, but outside.

Dani

Of that, not anymore. I don’t even think that’s true anymore.

Giacomo

And can Portland even compete with London?

Dani

I don’t think so. Not at all.

Giacomo

Me neither.

Dani

That’s a strange comparison to even make. I can’t think of two cities that I would assume are more opposite, honestly. I mean, I guess they’re rainy. They’re both rainy. Anyway. All right, so I want to start this episode off with, I guess, kind of like a trigger warning that we’re going to be talking about disordered eating and eating disorders and things like that in this episode.

And if that is something that is like, stressful for you to hear about, please just click off of this episode. You’re not going to hurt our feelings. You got to always look out for yourself. Okay, so just wanted to put that out there before we even get started.

Giacomo

Speaking of which, we’re going to start this conversation off talking about disordered eating and how that is something that you could classify as an injury. Really. Disordered eating is not like an eating disorder, as in it’s not something that’s clinically diagnosable. But just because you haven’t been clinically diagnosed, for one, doesn’t mean that you don’t have a full blown eating disorder or the possibility of it.

But two, there’s a lot of in betweens. And this is a conversation we’ve had in the past where. And disagree with me, please, Danny, call me out if I’m just BSing, but I feel like we’ve talked about the fact that most people have some sort of disordered eating pattern habit like that they’ve had ingrained in them from society, from their family, from the things that they’ve tried to do to change their body.

Dani

I don’t think it’s most people. I don’t think it’s most people. I think it’s most people in the fitness industry, like most people that are very into fitness and training and wanting to look a certain way, I think in that sphere of people, more people have some kind of disordered eating than don’t. But in the general population, I don’t think so.

I think most people could probably stand to improve their relationship with food a little bit, but I wouldn’t go so far as to call it like, oh, you have disordered eating. So let’s back up and talk about, like, what. What the difference is, basically. So in order to be diagnosed with an eating disorder, whether that’s anorexia, bulimia, there’s also egnos, which is eating disorder, not otherwise specified, binge eating disorder, et cetera.

For somebody to sit you down and actually diagnose you with one of those things, you have to meet certain criteria. When they’re talking to you and assessing you, you have to tick, like, a certain number of boxes, and they’re very specific, like, surprisingly specific boxes in order to be diagnosed with something. And in fact, the addition of Ednos eating disorder, not otherwise specified, is relatively recent because I think of how many people were coming in that didn’t

quite tick all the boxes in these neat little categories of anorexia or bulimia or binge eating disorder, but they had enough random boxes checked off that they kind of had to find a place for them. So that is what we would consider to be an eating disorder. However, there are a lot of people, like you mentioned, that are not diagnosed with an eating disorder that I think certainly check enough boxes that we could say, like, they have disordered eating.

And I know that that sounds like semantics, and it may very well be semantics, may very well be somebody with an eating disorder that just hasn’t been diagnosed. But for the purposes of this particular podcast, I think we should just talk about all of it, like, under an umbrella of disordered eating, you know?

Giacomo

Sure.

Dani

So it’s kind of like all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. It’s kind of like that. Like, if you have an eating disorder, you definitely have disordered eating, but if you have disordered eating, you may not have an actual eating disorder. Does that make sense?

Giacomo

Yeah.

Dani

Okay, cool. So, yeah, in the fitness world, I think. Let me explain how I even started to think about this. So recently, a friend of mine, twice in one week, was like, oh, man, I have a friend that OD’d. And then a few days later, like, I have another friend that OD’d. And I was like, man, like, what kind of people are you hanging out with that you have two friends that odds in a week?

And then it occurred to me that she’s very active in, like, the Narcotics Anonymous community. Like, she is very, you know, supportive of people in those groups. So it makes sense that she would have more exposure to people who are likely to OD versus somebody who doesn’t have anything to do with that particular community. And she Said something along the lines of, well, you know, it’s kind of like how you have more exposure to people with eating disorders than anybody I’ve ever

seen because of the community that you are a part of. And I was like, oh snap, she’s totally right. Like, we do have a really high exposure to folks battling various levels of disordered eating because of the communities that we’re in. It is way more prevalent than most people think.

Giacomo

And it’s almost sometimes like a chicken and egg syndrome. Because did the athletic goal caused the disordered eating? Or were you the type of person that was prone to having an outburst of having disordered eating issues? Or like whether it was your personality or whether it was like whatever, whoever you were before you were chasing a specific goal, sometimes those lines are pretty blurry.

Dani

I think it can be both. I think it really can be both. Cause I’ve seen some people come into fitness and I

think. And it could be other goals too. But obviously we operate in a bodybuilding heavy world here, like Giacomo and I, but I’ve heard similar stories about dancers or gymnasts. So I’m sure this happens in other sports as well. But in the bodybuilding world, I’ve seen people come in that seemingly had a perfectly healthy relationship with food and their bodies and then a couple

years later, absolutely do not anymore. And then I’ve also seen people who already had really like not awesome relationships with food and their bodies and got into bodybuilding to solve that problem. And it sometimes only made it worse, sometimes it makes it better. But that’s like a very small percentage. And talk about that maybe later opposite.

Giacomo

Where someone is perfectly fine and they don’t have the right kind of guidance or they take a wrong turn, they’re trying to achieve something and now they have an issue.

Dani

Right. So yeah, I don’t think it’s just like, oh, if you just start lifting weights and caring about what you eat, you’re going to develop some sort of disordered eating. But I certainly think that there’s a lot of guidance out there that absolutely will steer you down that path and you might not even realize it until it’s too late.

Giacomo

Why don’t we start to pick apart some of the things that might cause this that are a little more clear. I think the most low hanging fruit here would be tracking what you eat.

Dani

I think maybe, maybe. I actually don’t think that’s. I think the number one thing is black and white thinking. Black and white thinking of these foods are good, these foods are bad. And if you Eat this food, then you are bad and you are not reaching your goal.

Giacomo

Okay, so you’re saying having some sort of a need to eat certain foods to achieve your goal and those foods only we’re not talking about protein per se. We’re talking about, like, typical. Yeah, I’m talking about, like, bro meals, for example.

Dani

You know, you can eat. And let’s use vegan versions here. But obviously, most of the coaches that do this are not vegan. But, like, you could eat tofu, tempeh, seitan, sweet potato, oatmeal, broccoli, almonds. That’s your list done. You eat those foods and nothing else. And if you eat anything that isn’t those foods, like, oh, you ate white.

Giacomo

Rice bad, and you don’t even necessarily feel that way. You just don’t know any different because you’re so deep in eating those same foods and thinking that’s the way you need to achieve. Or worse, you actually feel wrong about other foods. Like, if you eat other kinds of foods.

Dani

I mean, I’ve seen coaches straight up tell people they’re wrong if they eat other foods, like, for years. But I don’t want this to turn into, like, a coach bashing, bashing situation at all. I just, you know, meal plans. I think, like, very rigid meal plans, even if the plans have different foods than I just mentioned still thinking, oh, I can only eat what’s on this paper, and anything outside of this paper is bad.

You mentioned tracking. I think tracking. I think all of these things can have benefits, but I think tracking absolutely has its benefits. But I think obsessive tracking and anybody that encourages that, like, I don’t think that’s helpful at all. And I think that some people just. Their brains get hooked on numbers, period.

Giacomo

Well, it’s tough because you have to understand how to have access to a tool and develop it skillfully in the right kind of way because there’s no end in sight. You could track every micronutrient, every macronutrient, and every gram of every piece of food. And if you’re not careful about it, there’s no one left to blame. You got caught up in a system that you did not know how to manage properly. And that’s kind of scary that you could go into it with the best of intentions.

Dani

I think a lot of people do go into it with the best of.

Giacomo

Intentions, and sometimes there isn’t even someone else feeding you in your ear saying, do it this way, and you just wind up getting hooked on the system in the wrong way. You actually in my opinion, you need to have someone in your ear showing you how to track and to do it in a way where you can be calculated but also not obsessive. Does that make sense?

Dani

Well, yeah, I think you need. I mean, first of all, I don’t think you need a coach telling you this, that or the other in order to fall down this pattern. You said you don’t need anybody telling you. No, there’s always somebody telling you. There’s always somebody on Instagram telling you. There’s always somebody on TikTok telling you. There’s always some magazine at the checkout telling you that if you eat this food that you’re going to gain all this weight.

And then you’re like, okay, now carrots are bad. Like, can’t have carrots. And you move on and like, best of intentions, just trying to be a healthier, fitter person. And then one day you realize, like, food has taken over, like 60% of your brain all the time. And even if all you’re eating is quote, unquote healthy foods, like, that mindset is not healthy.

Giacomo

No, not at all. I like the idea of having the option to have foods that are not like, super nutrient dense and not necessarily choosing that option all the time or super often. Does that make sense? Like, okay, I have. If I wanted to eat pretzels today or if I wanted to eat a candy bar, I could. That doesn’t mean I’m gonna eat a candy bar and pretzels every day.

Dani

Well, yeah, I mean, I think that’s a really important principle to teach all the time. I mean, that’s what flexible dieting is, in my opinion. Not that flexible dieting is a cure all to avoid some sort of disordered eating. It’s not. You can still develop disordered eating that way. I think it’s harder than the other ways. But again, if your brain just latches onto numbers really hard, then, you know, it could be possible.

But all of this to say that I think that when we start training, when we start lifting weights and getting into fitness, we all know there’s certain things we need to watch out for in the gym, right? Like, oh, if I’m doing deadlifts and I get a tweak in my back, like, oh, I better back off deadlifts. Or if you’re benching and your shoulder hurts, like, okay, gonna cool off, like the bench press for a while until that feels better.

Like, we are very aware of potential injuries and we all know, like, okay, I need to do this with good form. So I don’t get hurt. But those are just physical injuries. And I don’t want to downplay physical injuries, but I think that physical injuries are actually a lot easier to heal than mental injuries.

Giacomo

Well, half the time you don’t even realize it. That’s the scary part. What are you going to do? Have an X ray of your brain and be like, this wire is crossed? No, your brain just not focused on living in a way where you’re actually having normal food behaviors and a normal healthy lifestyle where you’re still getting aggressive results and you’re still being fit and healthy.

Whereas if you’re like Danny is mentioning, it’s obvious when you have an injury where your back hurts or your shoulder’s feeling tweaky, mental stuff is far more complex. Plus you don’t even necessarily know what it is that’s happening.

Dani

Maybe that’s a full blown podcast that we could do is talking about like, hey, here, here are some signs that like maybe aren’t great that you might not even recognize or happen. And I know we talk about these things sometimes on the podcast. Maybe a full blown episode of like what kind of disordered thought patterns might look like. But even that is tricky because you might have one or two of these, but food doesn’t dominate your life. I think that’s the key element here, is that

food and food thoughts, planning for food, getting really excited about food. Really, really spending a lot of time thinking about food, what you’re going to get at the grocery store, you’re excited to like organize it. You want to watch the Food Network. Like when food is just taking over your brain. That is, to me, that’s the number one biggest red flag that your relationship with food is going poorly.

Giacomo

The easy solution would be to take a look at what you’re doing and find a way to plan things in a more simple fashion. Because a lot of the things you mentioned you do have to do in some way, shape or form. I don’t necessarily mean like having your whole world revolve around food. However, you gotta be aware of what kind of groceries you need. You gotta be eating a certain kind of way to get in a certain amount of protein.

You should want to enjoy food and going out. However, when it becomes an obsession, when neuroticism meets obsessive thoughts and behaviors, and then your time is being spent that way and your mental, your wheels are constantly spinning consciously and in the back of your mind it’s like, where’s your quality of life at? What are you doing right?

And then you look around and you’re like, well, I don’t need to do it this way, but I’m not doing this way, but how do I stop doing it this way? And that’s, that’s where it’s easy to, like, settle into negative emotions and feel powerless. Because it’s like, well, I have to do this or I need to do this. And I kind of blame myself.

There’s really nothing I could do and I have to. No, there’s more than one way to get from point A to point B. And you can absolutely find a way to reprioritize how you take care of yourself and nourish yourself while still going to extremes when it comes to whatever your goals are. There is a way. It’s just challenging.

Dani

Well, I actually, I mostly agree with what you just said, but there are, there’s a certain group of people that I actually disagree and that. I do want to talk about that. But I’m going to back up and say

something I forgot to say a second ago. When I said, like, thinking about food all the time, I made it sound like it was all good. Oh, I’m so excited to go grocery shopping and buy this or that.

But it can also be negative thoughts about food too. Like, no, you can’t eat that. You absolutely cannot eat that thing. Or, oh, I can’t believe you ate that thing. Like, how did you do that? Now you’re going to have to do XYZ to deal with it. Like, that’s still food occupying your brain. Also not good. But I absolutely think there’s a way to achieve really, really, really good results without all of that stuff.

That said, there is a group of people that have to go there to achieve what they’re trying to achieve, and it is competitive bodybuilders and anybody who wants to look like a competitive bodybuilder standing on stage. I firmly believe at this point in my life that there is no way to do that without flirting with disordered eating behavior.

Giacomo

Well, of course. How can you possibly have the ability to function when you don’t have enough glucose being funneled to your brain to be able to think properly? Because you’re so lean and you are so lean that you have low energy. So, like, the idea of food is there haunting you because you need to eat in order to have energy, but you shouldn’t be eating because you have to get even leaner. And all the while you have to be completely aware of. To the gram, honestly, of the foods.

Dani

That you’re eating to the gram, to the gram to the minute.

Giacomo

And you have to be careful of the kind of foods that you eat because if you go the wrong way and your palate starts to become fixated on stuff that’s like exciting, super sweet, super whatever, rich, then now you risk eating in a way that is going to throw off your game competitively. So it’s, it’s. Yeah, I mean, but, but the thing is, right, you can do that for a period of time. You can hold off that stuff for as long as possible and you can get out of it safely. It’s just very risky.

Dani

I mean, you can.

Giacomo

I don’t, I mean, you as an. Well, it’s a learned skill and unfortunately it has to get. I don’t wanna say it has to get worse. You have to go down a path where you’re probably gonna get banged up a little bit before you can find a way to actually do it.

Dani

Well, well, that’s the. I don’t think you need to be a competitive bodybuilder to suffer any of the stuff that we’re talking about. But I think if you’re going to be a competitive bodybuilder, you are going to deal with the stuff that we’re talking about right now. You are going to. By nature of what you are trying to accomplish, you absolutely 100% are going to have to with fire with a lot of these behaviors that if you did it in front of a clinical psychologist, they would say you, you

sir or ma’am have an eating disorder like any psychologist that watched a bodybuilder and how they ate in the final weeks leading up to a show in the final like six to eight weeks. They would absolutely diagnose that as an eating disorder.

Giacomo

Think about it. Starvation isn’t an eating disorder. Starvation just means you’re starving and you have no access to food for whatever the reason. Or you’re just. Suppose you could intentionally. But what I’m getting at here is you take starvation, right? Or you’re eating, basically you’re eating like that, but now you have to keep your muscle. That’s crazy. That is a very hard thing to do. You can’t just do that naturally. You got to go through some crazy lengths.

Dani

You’re not. I mean, you’re starving, but it’s completely. I mean, I don’t want to compare bodybuilding to like actual starvation because you’re surrounded by food. Like you’re choosing to do this. Somebody who’s actually starving is not choosing right to do this again. That’s part of what makes it an Eating disorder is the choice, or at least appearance of choice to do it.

And because of all of that, the same way we have to watch out for creaky knees and bad backs and shoulder tears and all of that stuff. We also have to be warning our clients that decide that they want to achieve this particular goal because they’re going to do it. People are going to. For as long as time exists, people will try to get in bodybuilder shape. And if people come to us and they want to get in bodybuilder shape, we’ll say, hey, yeah, we can totally do that.

Here are the risks that we need to be aware of on day one. I need you to keep your eyes open for these things. And if they start to happen, we need to talk. Like, we have to talk about these things almost before they happen so that we can try to prevent them as much as possible.

Giacomo

Because even when it is your choice, it doesn’t mean that you’re immune to things happening that are outside of your control. And you could turn around one day and be like, crap, I’m right in the middle. I’m in the throes of some serious disordered eating crap. How did I get here? This was my choice. I didn’t have an eating disorder.

And you might necessarily have a clinically diagnosable eating disorder, but you were in a place where you may need someone else to hand you a shovel and help you dig yourself out of whatever you got yourself into. Or it may be time for you to also assess and be like, okay, I’m in a hole. How do I get out of this hole right now?

Dani

Right? Yeah, totally. Because I think most people when I’m saying this are like, yeah, yeah, I guess you would have to be absolutely obsessed in order to achieve this stage type of a look. What about when that is over, learning how to dial those sorts of things back to something that looks like normal again without going too far in the other direction, that then we’re not.

Then we’re looking at something closer to, like, a binge eating disorder when the pendulum swings too far back in the other direction, which is also super common. Like, just learning how to become a normal person again after getting in that kind of shape is, in my opinion, 10 times harder than getting into that shape in the first place.

Giacomo

Oh, yeah, totally. Because there’s no reward. The reward is to, like, not be sucking, to not be in a crappy position where you’re like, I’m so ashamed of myself. Like, I can’t figure it out. I’m eating like a butthole. I feel like crap about things. I don’t have the confidence, like, train anymore. And I did this thing, and now I almost, like, borderline regret it. It’s a pretty crappy place to be in.

And, you know, like, all right, whatever. My body’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be fine. It’s all fine. I know how to do this. And then you, like, wind up grasping at straws and getting back to the things, you know, that work when you were competing. And talk about a recipe not for disaster, but, like, a. Just not a fun place to be in. It’s tricky.

Dani

It’s super tricky. Oh, and all of that. And by the way, you now know what you are capable of looking like, and that will be the new bar that you will always hold yourself up to in your mind, right? So you perpetually feel like you look crummy all the time.

Giacomo

The amount of times you go back to a formula that works on purpose because it works. It’s the easy way to do it, right? But just because you got a certain way to be able to get stage lean doesn’t mean you should repeat that process. You should be able to grow and get better at it and not be quite as much at risk of being messed up after the fact. That is a skill that has to be developed, and you can only learn it through experience.

Dani

But I think there’s so much shame around this particular thing that we’re talking about where it’s like, I don’t understand. I just had all the discipline in the world for months on end. Why can’t I pull it together for one decent day? Like, I can’t seem to pull it together to have one decent exercise and food day. And the shame around that of, like, having.

First of all, it’s visible. People can see it, so it’s not like you can hide it. And then having to, like, even think about talking about that to somebody feels very, very shameful. And I wanted to make this podcast to say it’s not shameful. It’s way more common than you think. And it only seems shameful because so many people that are dealing with it don’t talk about it.

So it feels like this big secret. Like, I have to keep this big secret. Even though I can promise you that pretty much anybody who’s ever stepped on stage and, like, looked like they belonged on stage has dealt with this to some degree. And, you know, how well they dealt with it, how quickly they were able to, like, normalize again, I think really, really depends on the guidance they had going into it in the first place and sometimes the guidance coming out of it as well.

There’s a reason we don’t just stop working with people right after they compete. Like it’s in our contract. Like we have to work with people for at least a month after they finish competing to make sure they’re okay, you know. But it’s an injury and I think that’s those sorts of disordered eating behaviors are an injury, just like tennis elbow and it has to be viewed as that. We always say when you’re in fitness for long enough, you’re going to get injured.

You’re absolutely going to get injured somewhere. It’s just part of the process. I will also argue that if you don’t get into fitness for long enough, you’re also going to get injured, but that’s a separate story. But those mental injuries can be just as awful as the physical one, sometimes worse and harder to heal.

Speaker 3

Hey listeners, we hope you’ve been enjoying this episode and we appreciate your love of all things vegan fitness. For those of you who want even more support on your vegan fitness journey, check out our Muscles by Brussels community and become a member by joining the team. You are one of our exclusive VIPs. As a member, you’ll find over 200 macro friendly high protein recipes that can meet any of your meal planning needs.

You’ll also receive training programs that update monthly. This training has progressive overload built into it so you can be sure if you’re following the program you are making progress. All of this and more is located inside our Vegan Proteins Members Only app. As a Muscles by Brussels member, you’ll unlock bonus courses, challenges and more every month.

You’ll also be invited to our live Zoom video calls which happen two times a month and are absolute gold to those who show up. And if you can’t make the calls, don’t worry. You have the opportunity to email us whenever you want. You’ll receive a video response to all of your questions from one of the coaches here at Vegan Proteins every time you message us. Members also receive 40% off many of our other services and of course our private community of like minded individuals is like no

other. Best of all, you can try this membership out for a full month at no cost to you with this special offer for our listeners only because we appreciate and want to fully support you. Use the link in our show notes to sign up for your free trial today. We hope to see you on our next live coaching call.

Giacomo

So how do you take an extreme version of yourself and all the success that you’ve achieved to be able to get there and do it in a way where you can still continue to focus on being fit and healthy?

Dani

Well, I think. I don’t. I don’t want to in this episode. I don’t want to get into, like, oh, well, here’s how you fix disordered eating. Because that would be, like, bullshit. Right? It’s not something you can cover in a podcast. But I do think there are things you can do that would depend very much on the person. I think it depends very, very much on the person and what they’re going through.

So I don’t want to dive into specifics here, but I would say if you. If you really are struggling, like, reach out for help, get help, because you’re injured. And, you know, this could be talking to your doctor, your primary care. This could be talking to a therapist that specializes in disordered eating. It could be talking to a qualified coach who could help you sort of back out of these things.

It could be all three. I’ve worked with clients where I am just part of their team to help them get back to normal. I do want to add in those instances, I didn’t put them through prep. They came to me after their prep way, way down the rabbit hole, and I became part of their team.

Giacomo

And even still, you could have the best support system and have the best of intentions and even apply yourself as best as you possibly can. You could turn around and still have an issue. That’s tough.

Dani

Yeah.

Giacomo

And I absolutely love the way it’s being framed here as an injury instead of, like, throwing some sort of stigma about it or this or that. Because when you think of yourself as an athlete and you think of yourself as getting injured, it’s pretty easy to logically be like, okay, well, yeah, it makes sense. I train really hard, I train my mentor really hard to be able to do what I’m going to do as well.

And now I just have this, like, little mental injury, and that’s actually part of the process of being a

better athlete. And now I got work on my injury and get better, as opposed to, like, having any sort of stigma around it or judgment, because that’s when the negative emotions actually get the better of you and they’re no longer helpful for you processing what the hell is going on.

Dani

Yeah. And I mean, I think anybody who wants to get in that kind of shape, like, super, super lean, the reason they want to do it is because it tests all their limits. Right. And that’s part of the appeal is like, can I achieve this borderline unachievable thing? Let’s see. And in order to achieve that, you’re gonna have to, like, work these mental parts of your brain around food, particularly harder than you’ve ever had to before.

Like, yeah, that discipline button has to be turned up to 11. And you know, just like if you over train any muscle, you train it, train it, train until it breaks. Like you can train and train and train this button, this knob, until it breaks. And then you gotta take care of it.

Giacomo

Right. The easy out. What I see people doing in the beginning where they wanna feel capable when they’re first trying to do something like this, it’s like, just give me the answer, just tell me what to eat, just put it on paper and I will do it. Because I’m the type of person that if you stick a gun to my head and say, if you do this, I won’t shoot you, I will be that kind of person that does it.

Dani

What a strange analogy you made there.

Giacomo

It’s a metaph, it’s not an actual. Because there ain’t no gun to your head. But you’re going to do it anyway because you are that kind of person.

Dani

Right?

Giacomo

Right. So here’s the deal. Let’s say you’re that kind of person who’s going to do something no matter what. You don’t necessarily want to think about it because maybe you feel like you’re going to think yourself out of it. You don’t want to complicate things. You want the easy solution. Let me eat meals

A, B, C and D and that’s it. And I feel like that works. You get what you’re looking for on paper, but after the fact, do you really know how to navigate what’s going to happen to you when

you got to get back to a more stable place mentally and physically? The answer is obviously no. Is it a lot harder to be able to need to think your way through this stuff and like set up your mindset and your mental just as much as your physical? Yeah, it is, but it’s worth it because you’re going to protect yourself against getting messed up after the fact?

Dani

Yeah. So I want to talk. I know we just talked quite a bit about people who are trying to get shredded, but there’s a. I would say more people than not are just trying to get in really good shape. Like, and I think that’s a separate category. Like, really good. You got some muscle definition, maybe you can start to See, like the hint of some abs coming along.

Like, I think that you can get there without having to do all the stuff that we just talked about. However, I think most people in the general population trying to get fitter keep copying bodybuilders and getting themselves in hot water.

Giacomo

You really think that, huh?

Dani

Oh, I know it, I know it. Cause I did it. Like I did it when I was 18 years old. I vividly remember copying Nicole Wilkins diet, you know, vegan version of it, of course, which was super hard at the time. And it was literally like my breakfast would be like plain tofu scrambled, you know, to replicate her egg whites and like 10 almonds and whatever. And it sucked. And also just feeling like I needed to measure everything to the gram for so long when like there were so many things that I

could have focused on earlier on that would have, rather than teach me to be neurotic from day one, could have just taught me like healthier habits from day one that would have taken me pretty far along this path without becoming super neurotic. Because you don’t have to be shredded.

Like I said, you don’t have to be shredded to be measuring your food to a T and driving yourself insane. You don’t have to be absolutely ripped in order to be dealing with a lot of the stuff we’re talking about.

Giacomo

You can take these kinds of little dribs and drabs of information that are out and that’s the way information is pushed out into the world these days.

Dani

Little tiny little 30 second clips with no nuance.

Giacomo

Oh, here’s a 30 second clip on this. Here’s a 15 second clip on that. I’m gonna do these things and then you turn around. Yeah, I don’t want to. Well, yes, it is. It’s dangerous. It’s dangerous to be that empowered and with that kind of information without having no access or context as far as what it can do to you or what it’s actually used for.

Dani

But I get it. Everybody’s trying to figure stuff out for themselves. I understand that. And people get excited. They want to go all in. This is it. I’m going to give it 100%. And they may very well, but they might be giving 100% to practices that could potentially cause more harm than good in the long run versus other things. It’s very hard to explain in a podcast without like, I’m picturing specific videos of people doing stuff and like, you know, dipping their lettuce in mustard

because it’s basically zero calories and it’s like, okay, do we need to share this with the entire world that you’re doing it? I mean, there’s certain points when I’m getting ready for a show that I will not do a what I eat in a day Video because I’m like, I don’t want to put this out there. Like, this is. I don’t want. Not even if one person tries to copy this, it’s on me.

So I don’t want to do that. You know, I wish more people were more responsible with the sort of stuff that they shared, but I understand that the world just doesn’t work like that, and it certainly does not reward businesses for being ethical, unfortunately. Side topic, we could really go down.

Giacomo

A rabbit hole with this stuff, can’t we?

Dani

Oh, yeah.

Giacomo

Like, really, really far down.

Dani

Oh, yeah. But, you know, if you are starting to feel like you are developing some of these disordered eating tendencies, this neuroses, this obsession around food, do not get mad at yourself for it. Do not shame yourself for it. Absolutely. Don’t hide it from everybody, because eating disorders thrive in secret. That’s where they live.

So share it with somebody that’s close to you, whether it’s a professional or like a trusted friend or a relative, and think about it as an injury that you acquired in your fitness journey and treat it as such. And of course, you know, we are not doctors, we are not eating disorder specialists or anything, but by nature of what we do, you know, we have.

We have some experience in this department. Obviously, if you are struggling with this, you know, you can always shoot us an email. Coacheganproteins.com I’m not necessarily saying that we could help you, but maybe we can at least point you in a positive direction. And maybe. Maybe it is something that we could help. Can’t say for certain, but of course, you can always reach out to us.

All right, moving on to our question and answer segment. I want to exercise, but my body is telling me to rest. But I want to feel the muscles pumping. Should I stay or should I go? Maybe I can do some lightweight exercises, but I slept really bad. I should rest. What should I do?

Giacomo

Well, you answer your own question. You should rest. What is it about training that you need to do? This is kind of one of those things where I, on personal level, I feel your pain. Because for me, I’ll go to the gym just because I need to be at the gym. It’s not because I want to necessarily train. It’s not because I feel like I need to be there to achieve my goal.

As a matter of fact, intuitively I know that if I lift those weights I’m probably working against my goal because I’m going to wind up being more under recovered, risk getting hurt and it’s not serving any purpose other than making me feel good because I’m lifting. That’s not reason enough to lift. And it’s kind of hard to say like I’m going to rest because you go to the gym and you enjoy it.

So I just did this today actually went to the gym and used the. And I don’t know if your gym has access or not, but hopefully you get my drift here. I used the sauna, I used the steam room and I used the jacuzzi. And here’s the thing, I filled a need. My need was to get out of the house. My need was to do something that felt good. And although it honestly didn’t feel as good as lifting, it still felt pretty nice to take care of my body, nourish myself in a way where I’d be working towards my goals

and get out of the house. Because if I didn’t get out of the house, you can bet what I would have, guess what I would have done. I probably would like pissed off and annoyed and all like melancholy about the fact that I wanted to be at the gym and I didn’t. And if I did go to the gym and I did lift, I probably really enjoyed the fact that I lifted and I got that endorphin rush.

But what would be the consequence of that? Would not be working towards my goals would be getting risk of getting hurt, possibly setting myself back and being more under recovered than I

should be. So hopefully that helps you think about what to do when like you’re at the gym or wanting to be at the gym and feeling like you want to work out but you know deep down inside that you shouldn’t be training.

Find something else to do. This question is for you Danny. Is this the fate of a vegan to be bloated and flatulent all the time? Let me explain. Five year vegan. For protein I eat legumes like sprouted beans and lentils. Lately the gas has been excessive so I started with some Benzyme like Beano, a gas preventing commercial enzyme, added bay leaf, added sauerkraut.

These things can help prevent post meal gas sometimes or so it seems. But the gas preventing effect of those things is unreliable at best. When I mean public, this is a problem. By the way, what gives me zero gastric issues is tofu. I eat tofu a Few days a week. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to eat tofu as my sole source of protein. What should I do?

Dani

So I don’t think it’s the fate of the vegan to be bloated and flatulent all the time. I think for, I mean I’ve been vegan for 20 years, but I think that probably everybody, whether vegan or not, occasionally gets exploded and flatulent. Like everybody gets gassy sometimes. Right? I think I only have the experience of living in my body, but it happens occasionally, but not, not regular enough that I would need to like take anything for it ever really.

But I think there’s probably a couple of issues going on here. I’m getting the gist from this question that this is a vegan that leans heavily into the whole food plant based side of things given their kind of fear of tofu and eating it too frequently. So my guess is that their fiber intake is probably very high, very high. And we all know that beans are harder to break down and harder for some people than others.

My experience is that the more I eat beans, the more used to them I am. And they don’t make me gassy at all anymore. If I don’t eat something for a really long time and then have something new, it might make me gassy if I haven’t had it in a long time. So I would say using beans as your primary protein source is just not a good, it’s not a good move. Especially if you’re getting adequate protein.

This is going to be a crazy high amount of beans. And that is probably the problem is it’s just too much beans altogether. And I assume it’s paired with things like whole grains and vegetables, which is great. But it could be too much fiber for your body to just break it all down in time for it to not sit and ferment in your gut. So I actually, if tofu doesn’t bother you, I think having tofu every day is totally fine thing to do.

Should it be your only source of protein? No, of course not. I don’t think any one food should be anybody’s sole source of protein. You should have a variety of proteins. If tofu doesn’t bother you, maybe try tempeh, maybe try seitan, maybe try textured vegetable protein. Some of these might work for you, some of them might not. But having beans, you know, beans are primarily a carbohydrate source, not a protein source.

They’re like depending on the bean, they’re like 60 to 70% carbs and, like, 20% protein. So I don’t. I mean, have beans. Have them every day. They’re very good for you. But if you’re eating, like, buckets

of them, that’s probably your problem right there.

Giacomo

All right, everybody, thanks so much for tuning in to another episode of Vegan Proteins Muscles by Brussels Radio. Stay in touch with us at Vegan Proteins and at Muscles by Brussels. On socials, shoot us an email by hitting the contact button on Vegan Proteins once again. My name is Giacomo.

Dani

And I’m Dani.

Giacomo

And we’ll talk to you soon. Me for granted again.