Ep 147 – Black & White Thinking Is Killing Your Progress

Dani:

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of vegan proteins. Muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Dani, and I’m Giacomo, and this is episode 147. All right, everybody, thanksgiving. Thanksgiving just happened, apparently.

Giacomo:

Okay, I’m looking at you. You, the listener. I know you have time, and I know you’ve been casing out all those roasts, and I don’t have access to them. It’s your fault. Who took them? Who found all the roasts? What were they? Did you enjoy them? Every year, we go on a wild goose chase, and we cannot find. Find them. If you were lucky enough to score one or many of them, I am wildly jealous.

Dani:

Yes, that is true. Every year. Every year we struggle to find the vegan roasts in the store. It didn’t used to be like that. No, we used to be able to find all of them, and it was awesome. But apparently no more. So let’s see.

Giacomo:

But you got your holiday cookbook, and there’s plenty of good roasts to make in that.

Dani:

Yeah, it’s too late for thanksgiving, but if you guys are looking for a. A bunch of holiday healthy, macro friendly recipes, we do have the vegan proteins holiday cookbook that is still available@veganproteins.com. dot.

Giacomo:

And there’s still time to make a nice roast. The year isn’t over yet.

Dani:

Yeah, maybe I’ll do that this year. Maybe I’ll make that particular roast for us, for it, for thanksgiving. Cause we’re recording this before thanksgiving. So let’s see. So we’re. This is gonna be, I think,

probably a pretty short and sweet episode today, because it’s just. It’s more of a topic that doesn’t require research or anything, but it is something that we are seeing a lot of people having a really hard time with.

And also, we know coming into the new year, we are going to see a lot of this, because we always, always do. And that is the all or nothing mentality, particularly when it comes to fitness, nutrition, your goals, et cetera.

Giacomo:

And the idea right here is that you’re either all in and you’re doing it perfectly, and you’re winning at life and you’re winning every possible way, or if you’re not, you’re failing, and then you just need to try harder and just do the damn thing. And I feel like there’s a lot of merit in pushing for that and that kind of strength inside of you to, like, have a do or die kind of attitude, and you got to get the thing done.

However, what’s going to happen if it ain’t going that way. You’re going to wind up blaming yourself. You’re going to wind up having a harder time getting back to it. And when you do get back to it, you’re going to feel like crap all the way through. So there’s more than one way to get from point a to point b. And this isn’t to shame someone who is an all or nothing kind of person.

It’s to help you consider the fact that there is a means to an end to that kind of approach. And it is also not necessarily the best approach, especially not all the time. Right. You can actually wind up doing more harm than good in terms of your total output and how you feel while you’re kicking butt.

Dani:

Yeah. And I think that you nailed it. This idea that people are either all in or they’re all out, they’re either doing the thing perfectly or they’re not doing it at all is a really detrimental way to think. It’s a detrimental way to act when you actually care about your goals. Because in reality, anybody that’s ever achieved a big goal, and more importantly than that, achieved and, like, maintained that goal, it is not an all or nothing situation.

There are sometimes where we’re doing something a little bit better, there are sometimes where we’re doing something a little bit worse, but it’s never like black or white. It’s never, I’m doing this perfectly, or I have completely fallen off the wagon and I don’t even think about it anymore.

Giacomo:

Well, if you’re an all or none kind of person, how are you going to be able to accept feedback and also give yourself some constructive criticism because you’re thinking, all right, well, I’m doing the whole thing. This is me kind of going a little off the beaten path here, but I feel like there’s some truth to it. If you’re doing the thing and you’re on the all side as opposed to the non side, and you’re doing a really butt kicking job, like checking all the boxes, how are you going to

figure out what you’re doing wrong? How are you going to figure out how to be better? Right. So it can sort of affect your psychology in terms of how you view what you’re doing, too. It’s not necessarily only about the idea of self sabotage and being able to just be more efficient. No matter what life throws at you, it can actually affect your mindset.

Dani:

So you’re saying that it’s actually helpful to have obstacles that kind of hold you back because it gives you an opportunity to grow.

Giacomo:

No, no. I’m not saying it’s helpful to have obstacles. I’m saying it’s helpful to think about the fact that obstacles might be there and you can’t find out what they are unless you wind up actually realizing that there is no way to do it all. You don’t have a way to course correct. You don’t have a way to reverse engineer if you’re constantly just plowing ahead with laser like focus on something.

You got to find a way to be a little more open to the idea that there are, in fact, obstacles and there is no such thing as an all or none kind of approach. If you’re doing it all, then you obviously haven’t figured out what you’re doing wrong.

Dani:

Gotcha.

Giacomo:

Does that make sense?

Dani:

It does. I was actually going in the other direction, saying that I do think the obstacles are helpful. You know, anybody can crush it when nothing is challenging is happening. Anybody can knock it out of the park when it’s smooth sailing. In fact, I do get sometimes when I get a new client, you know, the first several weeks, first month or so, they just nail it.

They are nailing their macros, they’re nailing their workouts, they’re nailing their cardio, they’re nailing their check ins, and then they have a weekend that just kind of throws them off, and they almost come to their check in. Like it’s a confession. Like, they’ve disappointed me. They’ve been so good, and now they’ve. They’ve disappointed me and they’ve fallen off track.

And I actually. How. How can I help this person learn something that they can take with them long

after we part ways, if they’re just perfect when they’re with me? You know, it’s actually those moments where things are off that we have an opportunity to learn something, learn how we can plan for this type of event in the future.

Learn what sort of strategies we can employ when it’s your birthday, for example, or it’s a holiday, like, what can we do? Where do you start to go off the rails so that we can build in some guardrails to that particular process for you? But you can only learn about those things when somebody is not perfect.

Giacomo:

Yeah, I’m listening. It’s making a lot of sense to me. It’s resonating with me. And you can also wind up having a harder time seeking support, seeking help or resuming when things are off. And it’s also indicative of the fact that you were all in or all out in the first place.

Right. I feel like it’s helpful to be able to get started, to create consistency and to develop a routine, but it’s a means to an end if you’re just trying to do it all, all the time, or at least framing, things like that, I should say, right.

Dani:

It’s all about the framing. Because I feel like you can do a really good job with, let’s say, your diethyde. Like you’re hitting your macros, you’re eating in a way that feels good to you, and then one night you, like, have a few cookies, and that puts you over your macros. And so many people just think, oh, I blew it. I completely blew it. And suddenly they think all this work that they just did almost doesn’t count.

Almost like they undid it or negated it, when that’s not true at all. All that happened is you’re a couple hundred calories over for one day. Big whoop. Like, it’s not a big deal. But people can get so in their head about this one little thing that happened that the next day they don’t even try to stay on track because they’ve, like, shamed themselves and beaten themselves up for this little misstep that happened the night before, that now they’ve convinced themselves that they

suck at this. Why are they bothering? They shouldn’t even be doing this. What made them think. Think that they could pull this off? Like, you hear the, like, shame spiral type of language that I’m using right now. I’m using it because I’ve heard it. Like, I’ve heard it out of people’s mouths before. I don’t know why I thought I was going to be able to do this. And it’s like, honey, you’ve been doing this. You’ve been doing this for a while now. This was just a little hiccup. And bet your

bottom dollar. Like, these hiccups, they are going to happen forever, you know, like, nobody is perfect. Absolutely nobody. Name your name. A top level athlete, and they are not perfect. But it’s what you do in those moments where you make a misstep.

And how do you correct that? What lesson can you extrapolate from that situation to use in the future? That is what matters. And you don’t get any of that rich, rich goodness if you just are always thinking of yourself as all in or all out.

Giacomo:

Right? Exactly. So what would be a better approach than an all or nothing mindset?

Dani:

Ooh, man. I really think that, you know, there’s lots of different ways to think about this. Some people talk about the 80 20 rule. You know, where you’re, like, on plan 80% of the time and off plan 20% of the time. I think that’s hard to quantify, honestly. Like, is it 80 20 in terms of hours or minutes? Is it 80 20 in terms of the calories that you intake?

Like, 80% of your calories are coming from healthy whole foods, and the other 20% are coming from maybe less healthy food. You have to define it for you, but be realistic with yourself when you define that for you. The way we do it at vegan proteins is we specifically have, like, a tiered system, good, better, best. The good, better best system, where, you know, I’m not going to go into exactly the nitty gritty of the whole thing, but essentially you just shoot for the best tear that

you can that day. And if you miss it, guess what? That’s okay. We don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water. We have a tier below it that’s still gonna move you forward. And then if you miss that, we still have a tier below that that can still move you forward.

Giacomo:

Right. Because no one’s gonna be the best all the time. You should strive to be the best as often as possible. That would be stupid to not try to do that. However, you can continue to make forward momentum and forward progress, and it’s like depositing coins into a piggy bank. Over time, you’re gonna have a bank, a piggy bank that’s full, for example, as opposed to thinking like, oh, I was the best now, but I’m good now.

And that’s just nothing. I’m being good more often than not. No, sometimes it’s like that. Right. And that’s perfectly acceptable, normal, and honestly, even encouraged, because it’s going to keep you going. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Dani:

Right. And, you know, I also think, yeah. It’s important for you to define what your tiers are. What is your plan for when you go off plan? Like, sit down with a pen and paper and write it out. What is your plan? What is your mindset right now when you do go off plan? Like, what are, what runs through your head? These are important questions to ask yourself and then try to find the holes in that, find the cracks in that and try to rework them.

So many people let you know one day off from the gym, like, one missed workout, turn into a month’s worth of missed workouts because they broke the streak. And I do understand the power of breaking a streak. It doesn’t feel good to break a hot streak, but you can’t think about it as starting back at zero.

You know, if you. Let’s. Let’s put it this way. Let’s say you had a goal to hit your macros every day this month, right? Or for 30 days in a row, let’s say.

And then you get to day 21 and you miss that day. You don’t have to start over at zero. You can keep crossing them off for the rest of that month, and by the end of the month, you may have 29 out of 30 days, which is a great average. But if you just did the, oh, I’m starting over at zero, it would look like you only have, like, nine days, you know? So try to think about it in, in a broader scope than just really, really up close.

Giacomo:

And sometimes when you’re trying to do something and be at your best more often than not, and it isn’t working, rather than thinking about it in terms of you’re not able to be at your best, rethink your process. That’s an important thing to consider as well. We have all kinds of skills that we instill in our clients, and it’s very client dependent, where the tools change over time.

Dani:

The tools are completely different from person to person. I mean, there are some that are, like, pretty broad. They cover a lot of people, but then there are some that I would absolutely recommend to this person and I would never recommend to this other person.

Giacomo:

Correct.

Dani:

Like, it might be harmful to somebody else, you know? Exactly. That is true. So I was just thinking about this again in terms of food, because I feel like that’s where people kind of feel the most. All in or all out. So let’s say somebody eats four meals a day or four times a day. I actually think most of us probably eat more than that. But let’s just say someone eats four times a day. That’s 28 meals over the course of a week. Let’s say you have two meals at a restaurant that week.

So you have two meals that are sort of off plan, but it feels like, oh, my God, I blew it two days in a row. No, no, no. You went off for two meals out of 28 meals. That’s a. That’s a 93% on plan. You know what I mean? But people don’t think about it like that. We, as human beings. I don’t know why. I would be very curious to know the science of why. It’s probably a self preservation thing, but we are, like, hardwired to see the negative.

Giacomo:

Yes.

Dani:

We are hardwired to see the worst parts of ourself as bigger than the good parts of ourself. Like we almost just gloss over the good. Like it didn’t even happen or it just should have happened that way. So who cares? I. But the negative, man, we could focus on those like three oreos we had this week.

Really, really hard. To the point we forget about all of the great things that happened. And it is absolutely detrimental to getting anywhere in the long term. Because that mindset will kick your ass every single time.

Giacomo:

Absolutely. And it’s not a matter of accepting that you’re doing something you want to change per se. It’s a matter of what are you going to do after the fact, because of where your mind that was at, because of this broad brush that you’re using, that perhaps even somewhat out of your control in the moment, where it’s negativity that’s reigning supreme.

But you can take control of that. You can change your behavior by changing your mindset regardless of where it came from, even if it’s just an inherent trait to think negatively and feel negative stuff like you. You can. You can change that.

Dani:

Yeah. So I would say, you know, try to define your own baselines. Try to define what is and isn’t on plan for yourself and ask yourself if is what you’re considering to be on plan. Like, is that goal post just too freaking high? Most of the time when I talk to people, it is, they’ve set their parameters for themselves too high to the point that most of us would probably fail pretty quickly. But if you set the parameters at the right level of challenging for yourself, then you are setting

yourself up to experience much more success. That success helps build more confidence in you. And then maybe you can move the goalpost forward a little bit and have a better success rate that way, versus just trying to set it up perfectly from the get go and just being overwhelmed and failing quickly.

Giacomo:

Totally true there. I can’t think of a single giant goal that any of my clients, or anyone for that matter, has ever had, where that person has gotten there effortlessly and in a linear fashion. If it’s a ginormous goal, there is no possible way to be 100% task oriented, 100% perfect, and for it to feel 100% effortless, meaning that there’s no pushback. As a matter of fact, the larger the goal, the more realistic and reasonable you have to be with yourself, right?

Dani:

Yeah, totally. And I would also suggest that people put up baseline goals, like goals for your worst days, you know, if you have your nutrition plan, your training plan, your whatever plan, what can you do on your worst day that is still a step forward?

Giacomo:

Can you eat a piece of fruit? Can you have vegetables two times a day? Can you have something with protein in it once a day?

Dani:

Can you go for a walk for 15 minutes?

Giacomo:

Whatever it is, can you stretch anything? That doesn’t mean that that’s all you’re capable of on your worst day. It just gives you a baseline where you can cheer yourself on and applaud yourself for having still had a solid foundation. And maybe a day isn’t like that.

But then you could be like, well, I could get to a day like that tomorrow. You know, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do it all a week from now or three days from now or two months from now. It just means you still remind yourself that you still can do the thing.

Dani:

We always create our plans for ourselves as our best selves, right? We’re always writing these plans for us on our best days. We’re never thinking about the fact that, like, life ain’t like that. Like, there are days where you’re maybe a little bit under the weather, or you just got some really bad news, or maybe you’re just, like, having a kind of depressed day for no reason. You can put your finger on, what can you still do that is still a step forward?

Maybe a baby step forward, but a step forward and certainly not a step backwards. That’s enough. That can be enough for that day. And hopefully in a few days, you’re gonna feel like a million bucks again and you’ll be able to knock your plan out of the park again. You can’t think of that day as being off.

Giacomo:

Exactly.

Dani:

That’s the point, is that when you have these baseline, lower, you know, your worst you kind of days and you still do the thing that you previously agreed with yourself you would do. Guess what? You’re not off. You’re still on.

Giacomo:

And when you think about what you’ve done over the course of five years or six months, or for however long you’ve been pursuing whatever it is that you’re pursuing, to be a healthier and fitter person while you’re continuing to be more competitive with yourself, you can think about the fact that you’ve done a lot, right?

As opposed to thinking about what you weren’t doing today or what you haven’t done in a little while. These things compound over time. And sometimes it’s easy to forget that, you know, remind yourself of just how far you’ve come.

Speaker 3

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Dani:

All right, moving on to our question and answer segment, this one’s for you. Giacomo struggling

vegan here are most vegans who track and things like that really able to be 100% healthy and meeting all their nutritional needs. I especially worry about my young children.

They don’t always like to eat the best. With our food being so depleted and corrupt, a plant based diet filled with supplements and processed soy products could not be as healthy as one thinks. Question mark hmm. There’s a lot there.

Giacomo:

There is a lot there. I don’t know how to sum up and give you a simple answer, but I will root for plants every single time. Because when I think about the process that consumes agriculture to produce meat and dairy, there is no food that’s nutritious and not dangerous to eat in my opinion. And yes, you are correct, a lot of plant based stuff can.

The crops can be tainted in all kinds of ways and we don’t exactly have the cleanest agricultural system over here. I could sit here and point a finger and blame the some of these crops that have been tainted to feed livestock and produce food for them, but that’s not going to get us anywhere. But what I will say is that if you are paying attention and you are tracking, you can in fact realize where a diet may be lacking and you can make better choices and you can be more aware of how to make

those nutrient dense choices and to eat well, to make sure that you’re getting in more than a negligible amount of protein, to make sure that you’re eating nutritious whole foods, and to just make better choices, to have a more balanced plate in general throughout the day. If anything, it is a good thing that you can point out where things are lacking on your plate because you are in fact tracking and you’re understanding as

opposed to just throwing caution to the wind and saying, don’t you see plants? You’re just going to get all the nutrients you need. Tracking is actually incredibly helpful.

Dani:

There’s a couple things that I just want to add in. Just based on the verbiage of the question itself. A plant based diet filled with supplements and processed soy products couldn’t be as healthy as one thinks. As opposed to what I guess is my question. The most processed soy in the country is fed to livestock, who are also fed vitamins and injected with vitamins.

So the meat, the eggs, the milk, all of these things are also fortified with supplements and vitamins. Just because you’re not taking a pill doesn’t mean that it’s not added to the food. So that aside, I don’t think that just because you could look at a steak and be like, ooh, one ingredient, beef, like, no, not true. There’s so much that went into that that most people are not even thinking of.

But the other thing is, he mentioned his young children and being worried about them because they don’t like to eat the best. One thing that I would like to point out is that kids are picky eaters, whether they’re vegan or not. Like, most of the people listening to this podcast probably didn’t grow up vegan. And I remember when I was a young kid and a teenager, I ate like crap and so did all my friends. Like,

we just didn’t eat well.

And I don’t, I don’t know, we’re all, you know, for the most part, we’re all fine. You know, I think that you just do the best you can, feeding kids the best you can, and eventually, you know, they will grow out of that really picky eating phase, most likely, and eat a more well rounded diet. But I would say that that is a problem that a lot of parents face, and I don’t think it’s specific to being vegan.

Giacomo:

Dani, I’ve had cellulite for two years, and I’m obsessed with it. Never had this before. Changed things in my diet last year, and it made a big difference, but this is still too obvious. Your advice, please. Also, do you eat olive oil in your dishes, or have you completely cut this off of your diet? Thank you for helping me. I’m pretty discouraged.

Dani:

So, I mean, I eat olive oil. I don’t use a lot of oil in my cooking, but that has nothing to do with cellulite or my skin or anything like that. I just don’t use a lot of oil in my cooking in general. But let’s talk about the cellulite. This is really, it is discouraging and it is disheartening, but there is nothing that we can do specifically to target cellulite.

I mean, stuff is changing all the time, and there may eventually be some, like, surgeries that exist that can help with it. But cellulite is almost entirely genetic. 80% of women have cellulite. I have cellulite. When we get older, it becomes more prominent. As our body fat increases, it becomes more prominent. So the only thing that we can really do to help reduce the appearance of cellulite, because it’s still there, no matter what, is to get leaner.

And there are some people out there that will get very lean, and you’ll still be able to see the cellulite. But the only thing that we can do to reduce the appearance of it is to get leaner. When I am very lean, you can’t see cellulite on any part of my body. When I’m like, the weight that I am now, if I’m standing or sitting a certain way, you can see some. A little bit here and there. But I assume that as I get older, it will become more visibly prominent. And if ever there comes, like, a

procedure or something that can actually be done for cellulite, I will absolutely let you guys know. But as of right now, there isn’t all the creams and potions and, and rolling pins and all this weird stuff that you can use. I mean, anything where you’re rolling something across your body, it’s probably good for you.

It’s going to move lymphatic fluid and be good for your muscles. But is it going to help your cellulite? No, I think that’s going to come down largely to just getting leaner.

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 on the socials. Eganproteins and muscles by Brussels. Hit the contact button on veganproteins.com and shoot us a message.

I promise you, you will not only reach a human, you’ll get a response from one of us every single time. So send your coaching inquiries and whatever questions you have our way and we’ll get back to you right away. Once again, my name is Giacomo and.

Dani:

I’m Dani, and we’ll talk to you soon.