Ep 152 – Weight Loss Doesn’t Have To Be Your Goal This Year

Giacomo:

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of vegan proteins muscles by Russell’s radio. My name is Giacomo.

Dani:

And I’m Dani.

Giacomo:

And this is episode 152. Welcome back, everyone. Happy New Year. This is our first episode of the new year. I couldn’t be more excited about this I couldn’t be more excited about this time of the year as well. I know it’s cliche to say it’s the new year and get started on something now and start making changes, but I’m one of those people where it’s like, yes, you should be doing things all along and it should make a difference that it’s January 1, but also it’s January 1, and it’s just

kind of a cool way to check out what you haven’t done and figure out what you want to be doing and also reflect on the things that you have been doing. So we’ve been doing a lot of that with our clients, with ourselves, this and that. We’d love to hear what you’ve been up to, what you’re working on this year, what your goals are, et cetera, et cetera. Speaking of which, Dani, I am holding.

Dani:

A live, free goal setting workshop on January 8 at 06:00 p.m. eastern, and we’re going to leave the link to register for that in the show notes today. And, yeah, the spots are limited, but it’s the most popular webinar that we do all year is the goal setting workshop. So we do a public goal setting workshop, and then the following week, we do a private goal setting workshop for our members only.

And that’s also really cool. But you should show up. There’s an awesome workbook. We talk about how to set goals, what areas you should be setting goals in, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, we’re actually truly recording this on New Year’s Day, which is pretty exciting. I. You know, it’s. It’s funny because, like, the anxious part of my brain is really happy when we have stuff recorded months in advance of, but it always feels like a little bit disingenuous to be talking about the

thing we will be doing when this comes out versus, like, what is actually going on in our world at the moment. That feels much better, but it’s like, oh, if you get sick or if something comes up, you’re not going to have an episode. And we knock on wood. We did not miss a single week of publishing the podcast last year.

Giacomo:

And.

Dani:

And after years and years, this podcast has been out since 2014. This is year ten of this podcast? Is that freaking nuts or what?

Giacomo:

I can’t even. It’s incredible how many years worth of creating stuff and doing things. We have compiled, like ten plus. I mean. Cause we’ve been doing stuff since before the podcast. Right.

Dani:

But the podcast itself, this is.

Giacomo:

I don’t.

Dani:

We should look at the first date that we published so we can celebrate.

Giacomo:

Yeah, I remember when we were doing it, there was. There were not too many vegan fitness podcasts out there. Back in the day. When we started doing this, it was like a really. It felt like a really big deal that we got a chance to be this voice in the fitness world, actually. And it’s an honor and a blessing to still be doing this thing.

Dani:

Yeah. But, you know, so many years, we were super inconsistent about posting. We go through these spurts where we’d put out all of these awesome episodes and then just be brain dead for months and ghost you guys. But now, again, knock on wood. And this is huge. In part to our assistant Christina, who edits all of these podcasts. Without her, we would not be able to do this.

So shout out to her. But I don’t wanna get too far off topic before we even start. So today we are going to be talking about goal setting. I know I just said I’m doing a goal setting workshop next week, but I’m gonna talk about it in kind of a different way today. Because the number one goal that people set at the beginning of the year is weight loss.

Giacomo:

Absolutely.

Dani:

Weight loss.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

And people set that goal year after year after year. And maybe they accomplished it or maybe they didn’t, but they said it again. And I think the statistic is at any point in time, 25% of people are trying to diethouse, which is kind of wild to think about, but that seems to be actually, that sounds low compared to the people that I talk to on a daily basis, but my world is a bit biased.

Giacomo:

Oh, yeah. Cause we’re talking Genpop, when you throw out a number like that, I presume.

Dani:

And gen pop stands for general population as opposed to like, an athletic population.

Giacomo:

Right. And we’re dealing specifically with not only the fitness industry, we’re dealing with people who are into the way that they look, they’re into doing that in competitive way. Not just strength based athletes, but even strength based athletes tend to get a little hung up on their body weight and their body composition. So, yes, it’s a much higher percentage than that, for sure. With the people we speak to, I would say. I would even say 50% is conservative.

Dani:

But I think that a lot of people who set out to lose weight, like, set that as their goal, kind of have no business setting that as their goal. And I don’t, I don’t mean that in a condescending way. I mean, they would be better served with a different goal. So I thought maybe we could talk about whether weight loss should even be somebody’s goal. Maybe it should be something else. So let’s talk about who an actual weight loss goal is appropriate for.

Giacomo:

Well, the easiest ones to look at. As far as example, we’ll say, clients, that weight loss should be their goal is when someone has a lot of weight to lose.

Dani:

Define a lot of weight to lose.

Giacomo:

If someone is, say, morbidly obese, to obese, for example, if someone has, say, well, more than 20 pounds to lose, I think 20 pounds is a good cutoff. Less than 20?

Dani:

I would say higher than that?

Giacomo:

Even higher. Yeah, yeah.

Dani:

I’d say, you know, if you have 50 pounds to lose, to get into the sort of normal weight range, even the upper end of the normal weight range.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

I think weight loss is probably an appropriate goal.

Giacomo:

Unequivocally speaking, yes. And then, no. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, like, yeah, 50 pounds. Yeah, no brainer between the 20 to 50. I think it’s a little bit open to interpretation and where that person’s head’s at with their body.

Dani:

We’ll get there. We will get there. There’s a lot of people that maybe could stand to lose 20 pounds that, again, I think, have no business having weight loss be their goal.

Giacomo:

Exactly.

Dani:

So we will. Well, I think we will get to that point. Who else would setting weight loss as a goal be appropriate for someone who.

Giacomo:

Wants to be an athletic body fat composition for their sport or for a specific sport like bodybuilding, where it directly matters what your weight is because it’s going to affect your physique, for example.

Dani:

Maybe I’m not even sold on that, honestly. I think there’s a lot of people who want to be leaner for their sport that still shouldn’t be pursuing that.

Giacomo:

Right now in the short term. Correct. I agree with you there.

Dani:

Yeah.

Giacomo:

Yes.

Dani:

I think it would probably be appropriate for somebody who has deliberately spent the last bare minimum, bare minimum of six months deliberately in a caloric surplus.

Giacomo:

Okay, so we’re doing the whole, like, every three weeks worth of caloric surplus, you earn yourself a week of cutting coffee.

Dani:

I never like to say it like that, because people always twist that into something it should not be.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

So, I mean, ideally, I like to see somebody in a caloric surplus for more like twelve to 18 months before we can say, okay, let’s deliberately switch gears back into weight loss or fat loss mode because that middle ground, that middle ground is probably the most dangerous area. So we’ll do that. That spot last.

Giacomo:

Well, I like the way that you’re approaching. I like the way you’re framing things, Dani, because when people get hung up on calculations and formulas and stuff like that, you wind up trying to do things in a way that doesn’t make sense for your lifestyle. It doesn’t make sense for how you have stuck to your program or have not stuck to your programming, how you feel, how your body’s responding.

So all kinds of parameters that make this more of an art as far as what you should do with yourself versus, well, I’ve been bulking for twelve weeks so I can cut for four, for example. I mean, I’m not even doing the math, but you get my point.

Dani:

You’re a funny guy. Yes. So to clarify, because I feel like we didn’t just explain that very well, the general guideline is for every four weeks of bulking or caloric surplus that you do, you’ve basically earned yourself a week of cutting. Now that does not mean you bulk for four weeks and cut for a week.

And bulk for four weeks and cut for a week. That is a disaster. Please don’t do that. What it means is if you have, say, bulked for 16 months, then you could probably safely diet for four months.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

Okay. So that’s just an example. And the longer you’ve been bulking or building or in a caloric surplus, the longer your diet can sort of safely be, if that makes sense. But again, like Giacomo just said, when you have these formulas, people don’t. They stop viewing them as guidelines and they start viewing them as hard rules that they have to follow, even if that doesn’t actually make sense for them and is not the best move to get them to where they ultimately want to go.

Giacomo:

Yeah, it reminds me of someone like trying to plug something into a macro calculator and being like, well, those are my macros, for example. Or trying to be like, yeah, just stuff like that. It just doesn’t work.

Dani:

Well, it can work. Again, there’s a certain demographic that kind of starting at these guidelines and just starting there will work for people who have a significant amount of weight to lose. And I’m talking over 50 pounds. When I initially started losing weight, when I was 210 pounds, I did exactly that. I like googled how many calories should I be eating and just did that and then just went to the gym and got on the elliptical?

That’s literally all that I did for months, and weight just, like, fell off of me. I would do it differently if I could go back and do it again. There’s a lot of things I would do differently about that. I lost weight. I

definitely think some of what I lost was muscle, and I didn’t have much to begin with, so that wasn’t great, but, I mean, worked.

If someone’s in a place where they’re. They’re carrying so much excess adipose tissue that it’s affecting their health and they’re in danger. I don’t, frankly, care if they lose some muscle on the way down because the benefit outweighs the cost in that case. So. But for a huge amount of people that are under that 50 pounds of weight loss or closer to that 20 pounds, they’d like to be ten pounds lighter.

They’d like to be 20 pounds lighter. They might not be. They could be in a place where they could set weight loss as a goal, and it would make sense, but they might not be. I want to talk about some of the nuances of that. So first, let’s talk about who should be setting a building goal, like deliberately building muscle going into a caloric surpluse goal.

Giacomo:

Oh, gosh. If you’ve been training for less than three years consistently and your goal isn’t muscle building for more than half of that time, your first three years training, you’re doing something wrong.

Dani:

I did something wrong. But. But, yeah, if you’re. If you’re still new to lifting, like, oh, my God, get all of that. Get as much out of that as you possibly can by being in a caloric surpluse. If you are underweight, if your BMI has you in the underweight area or even the bottom end of normal, I would say you can focus on

just muscle building and being in a caloric surplus because you got a lot of wiggle room in there to keep growing before you find yourself in some sort of riskier situation.

Giacomo:

If you’ve been dieting for a while, and I mean, like, for more than a month, for example, more than two months, more than three months, then you should probably focus on muscle building.

Dani:

If you’ve been dieting for a month, you should be focusing on muscle building.

Giacomo:

No, I probably said that wrong.

Dani:

He always kills me on these podcasts with the timelines he throws out, because they are always very confusing to me. And if you could see my face again, why aren’t we a video podcast? Because my eyebrow is up in the sky when he says, I’m watching for.

Giacomo:

A long time, like a month, your face changes. I’m saying it and I’m like, I’m be eat my words. I just come in my mouth. I’m going to say them anyway. And we’re not going to cut it out because this is entertainment. But no, we have to make sure to have the important stuff said, too. You have to, like, know what? We’re actually trying to communicate here. So anyways, yeah, like if you’ve been spending more than half of your dieting, for example, if you’ve been in and out of dieting phases

for, for several months at a time, and you’ve been doing it for like half a year or a year, no doubt you should be focusing on muscle gain even if your dieting phases haven’t been successful. I guess that’s what I wanted to say.

Dani:

Yes. Even if your dieting phases have not been successful, which I think is the case for a lot of people at the new year, they set the same goal. Last year, they were unsuccessful at reaching their goal, so they just decided to set it again and again and again. And if you’re in a place where, yeah, you’ve been trying to diet for a long time and it’s not working, there is either something physically going on that’s preventing you from making progress or psychologically

going on that is preventing you from making progress. And it doesn’t really matter which one of those it is. It needs to be addressed before you’re going to be successful.

Giacomo:

Right. And also being stuck in that, that mindset and that way of thinking about things is going to cause you to make the wrong decisions. And you’re just going to be caught in this perpetual, never ending cycle of being unable to actually change your body for the better, which is what you really want anyways.

Dani:

Right. And you just feel like you’re failing constantly.

Giacomo:

Right.

Dani:

Even though you’re probably, you’re just pursuing the wrong goal for the moment and in a different time, you might be very successful at what you’re trying to do right now.

Giacomo:

Exactly.

Dani:

So, okay, let’s talk about those people. What should they do? Somebody who just like, oh, man, I just want to be like 20 pounds lighter. I have to lose 30 pounds and then I’ll feel great about myself. Somebody who is within the normal weight range, maybe near the top, within a normal body fat percentage, maybe near the top, or maybe even a little bit above those. What should they do? What should they focus on?

Giacomo:

Well, one, I think it’s important to not let go of your overall goal. Otherwise, you may be unmotivated or unwilling to do the work. So move your goalpost. Step one. Instead of thinking, I need to do this now, and I need to do this period, already embraced the fact that this is something you need to do, but think about doing this a year from now, but then forget about it.

Just forget about it. Take your mind off of it. Don’t think about next year, and focus on what you need to do right now, which is not weight loss. After you’ve moved away from the goal of weight loss, you put a date out there, maybe on paper, maybe in the back, maybe thought about it, said it, but then forgetting about it completely a year from now, two years from now, whatever it is, but then forgetting about it, you’re where you’re at. You focus on your goal right now, which is muscle

gain. It doesn’t have to be weight gain. It could be muscle gain, though. And the things that it takes in order to re regulate the way that you live your life and the way that you think about things so that you are forgetting about all the habits that you are unable to do, for whatever reason, for dieting down. And then you start changing the way that you do things, and you just wind up feeling better. You just wind up not becoming frustrated anymore with the process.

Dani:

Well, I agree with everything you just said, but I feel like people who feel like they’ve been constantly failing at weight loss, I actually feel like setting a goal that has nothing to do with what you look like is

a game changer. And ironically, sometimes those goals result in weight loss. You know what I mean? Some of those goals result in you looking better at the end of it.

But when we spend so much of our time fixated on what we look like and dieting makes us focus on what we look like way, way, way more. Oh, my gosh. I have seen so many clients and friends and myself most of the year, I, like, I am not the. I am not the one in the bathroom checking out my abs in the mirror. I’m not the one measuring myself constantly. Like, I kind of don’t care, honestly, right until I start cutting.

And then all of the sudden, I’m paying much closer attention to what my body. What is my body doing? Is it. Is it changing the way that I want it to be changing? Does it look different than it looked yesterday? Oh, I think I’m bloated today. That must be why the scale is the same as yesterday. Oh, look at this lighting at the gym. It kind of looks pretty cool when I stand, just so, like, those thoughts, they’re not all necessarily bad, but when you’re thinking about what you look like all

the time, that is never good. It’s never good. So I think to find a goal that isn’t, I want a 26 inch waist, or I want 18% body fat, or I want to weigh 120 pounds. Taking those kinds of goals and turning them into, I want to be able to do a pull up, or I want to be able to squat my body weight, or I want to be able to run five k without stopping. You know, whatever it is, it is such an awesome feeling.

Giacomo:

I want to be able to get my resting heart rate down. I want to be able to have more energy to play with my children. I want to be able to sleep better at night because I feel like I am well trained but not overtrained, for example, any number of things. It doesn’t even necessarily have to be goals that are fitness related, like what you can do in the gym and how you can perform. Could be. They could be lifestyle goals, too.

Dani:

Yeah.

Giacomo:

I don’t want. I don’t want to feel like my food focus is governing my life and my relationships. And you can get more detailed with that. Sky’s the limit when it comes, whether it’s tracking, whether it’s being like, I can comfortably eat out four times a month without even batting an eye or even thinking about it, as opposed to, like, having to calculate, I must eat out four times a month

because I can prove to myself that I’m not fruit focused. You know, it’s like, that’s just what your life looks like now because you’re not even thinking about it anymore.

Dani:

Yeah. Yeah. I have a client that might actually be a goal for this year, that it is to be able to go out to eat and not feel tremendously anxious about it, you know, and have that eventually just become part of their life. And does this person want to improve the way that they look? Yes, but we can focus on other things as well, or instead of focusing on getting all of the workouts in or, you know, just overall becoming healthier.

I think that when we think health, we immediately think of a certain body, of a certain body type of constantly being thinking about your weight. And I have found in my own life and in many of my clients, the more you think about your weight, sometimes the more the weight becomes a problem, versus if you just focused on what you were actually doing day after day to get yourself healthier and, like, really

healthier. Like, not just with low body fat and big muscles, which, don’t get me wrong, we love low body fat and big muscles, but we also love people who are fit, like, all over.

Giacomo:

Just because those are not on the forefront of, like, what you’re focusing on and what you’re putting down or what you’re thinking about. Like, just because those are not top of mind, meaning what you can look like or how strong you could be doesn’t mean that what you look like and how strong you get going to be any different. You don’t have to super focus on these things year round in order for them to happen.

And quite frankly, when you take the focus off these things for a little bit, you just wind up pushing harder and enjoying yourself more in the process. Not to say I completely forget like, you do. Got to get back to really thinking about how to. How to dial in your fitness goals and what you need to do. But you don’t need to be thinking about this stuff all year long.

Same thing with your eating habits. You don’t. You shouldn’t have to be thinking about how much protein you get in every single day to be able to get in protein. Right. That’s a low hanging piece of food. That’s an easy one to think about. Well, spread that out and think about all of your eating habits and all of your nutrition habits in general. Right.

Dani:

Yeah. See, I feel like there’s a time and a place for all of these things. I do. I mean, we talk a lot about trying to help people become less neurotic about these things, but this could be a whole topic unto itself. Listen, there’s a time and a place to be neurotic about these things. There’s a phase in the journey where being neurotic about these things can actually be helpful in a learning phase, et cetera, et cetera.

But eventually, part of the process is to learn how to start to let go of some of these things because by the time you’re in that place, hopefully most of the things that you’re doing have just become a part of your life so you don’t have to think about it so hard anymore. That’s the long term goal. But most people that. So I back to what I was saying, like, what should those people do? It’s going to be different for everybody, right?

It’s going to be very different for everybody. There are some people who psychologically, no matter what, they just need to focus on weight loss right now. Like, after conversations with them I’m like, okay, this is all this person is going to want to accomplish, and they’re not going to try to accomplish anything else until they do this.

Giacomo:

Right?

Dani:

Is it great? No, that’s not great. But, you know, you got to meet people where they’re at. But I think that most people should, rather than just focusing on weight loss year after year, they should be focused on getting stronger and getting fitter and building better, healthy habits at home, outside of the gym. And if they can focus on those things next year when it rolls around, should they choose to focus on weight loss at that point, it should be so much easier for one, and it’s

going to yield a much better result that they’re probably going to be way happier with. So if you’re, like, exhausted as hell from trying to lose weight year after year after year, consider taking this year to just try to get stronger and try to feel fitter and try to have better habits at home and then revisit it next year. Twelve months will go by in a blink, so consider giving that a shot.

Giacomo:

You’re on the spot. What are your goals right now? What would your goals be outside of weight loss, as far as lifestyle, as far as in the gym goals, what are your focuses for 2024 or for right now?

Dani:

Well, right now my focus is to how do I weave together the workouts that I’ve been doing at the women’s gym that I go to? It’s called Dawn’s here fitness in Haverhill, Massachusetts. It’s fantastic. How do I weave together the three or so times I go to that gym with my three or so times that I go to the regular gym, like to lift weights, the way we talk about on this particular podcast, how can I weave those together when sometimes I don’t know what I’m going to be doing in Dawn’s gym?

Because it’s different every day. I’m mostly going for the fitness and the environment. I’m not going there to build muscle necessarily, although I might. But. So that’s, that’s something. It’s actually kind of challenging. Even as somebody who writes programs every single day, this is different than what I’ve normally done, trying to weave that together. So that’s part of it.

Giacomo:

Training with you, changing my training environment like that is a major goal of mine. Fixing my general lifestyle habits that have been healthy for a while. That kind of went to crap because I had a really bad last couple of months for personal reasons, which I’m sure I’ll get into and probably a future episode or two, because it’s not something that’s going away, but, like, my sleep has been

off. Like, I’ve been sleeping on the couch for more than half of the days of the week. And at this point, I no longer feel like I want or need sleep in the couch. But I can’t stop.

Dani:

For example, just so everybody knows, it’s not because Giacomo and I are having problems. It’s not like, oh, you are banished to the couch. No, it’s just a. Yeah. You know, sometimes I remember one of the first times I ever sort of like, felt depressed. Like, actually was like, oh, my gosh, is this. Is this depression?

I vividly remember it was the first time in my life that I was falling asleep on the couch with the tv on every night for like a month. And I was like, huh, that was weird. That was not normal. So I just, I think it’s kind of when people are down, their sleep gets weird or they do weird things.

Giacomo:

I’m trying to increase how frequently I train. I’ve focused more on stretching instead of just thinking that I’m old and my body’s in pain, which is. And I work at the desk too much and my body’s in pain. Those things are only partially true. I’m only 43 and I don’t feel 43. I feel like, like a late 20, early 30 kind of dude in the gym. In all honesty. No, seriously. But training more frequently. Instead of getting to the.

Instead of training like three to four days a week on average, I’m trying to train like four to five and a half days a week on average. That doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. So these are like things that I could focus on, not just intraday or weekly, like in the next couple of months. Those are my. I mean, there are more, but those are my, I think my biggest goals outside of, I want to get back.

Dani:

To my 10,000 steps a day. For years, I hit ten k a day every day. And then in the last, like five months or so, it just dropped off and I couldn’t tell you why. I’m also, like, always outside walking and that kind of dropped off, too. So, uh, I mean, it was probably just stress and work and stuff like that, but it’s not acceptable to me. My bodies are made to move.

They’re made to move. They’re not made to sit in front of a computer for 12 hours a day. So I need to practice what I preach. I tell everybody else, get up and move your ass throughout the day. Set alarms if you have to, to move your ass throughout the day. And that’s something that I’m going to be bringing back this year.

Giacomo:

And you and I, this is a goal that we both have right now, that what we do is more, we’re more in unison with what we do. Because usually you and I tackle our fitness separately. It makes sense. We’ve been doing this for, together for like ten years publicly and 15 years together, give or take, something like that. And I think eventually when you do something long enough, it kind of gets a little boring or gets tiring and you kind of just do it on your own.

Dani:

But, like, I never got bored.

Giacomo:

huh.

Dani:

I didn’t.

Giacomo:

Okay, all right, all right, fine, fine. But you and I going goal chasing together, meal prepping together, eating together, training together, just like all, like basic, discussing our goals together and how we’re doing over the weekend, stuff like that. Just kind of like our paths aligning instead of just doing the same thing alongside each other, sharing what we do with each other.

Dani:

Yeah, that’s so. Giacomo and I used to train together for years. I mean, not just like, go to the gym together, but for the most part, we did the same workouts for a while and historically, and I will die on this hill. Giacomo disagrees with me, but I will die on this hill. They were our most successful ever muscle building years. Now, could that have just been because we were earlier in our training careers?

Yeah, it could have been, but I actually think there was a lot to doing the same things and pushing one another while we were doing the same things. And then eventually he started doing his thing, focusing on his body parts. I started doing my things, focusing on my body parts, and it’s just not the same to me.

Giacomo:

Yeah. And I feel like you and I over the past three or four years have managed to persevere in many ways, regardless of life’s challenges. And I think it’s time to come full circle and you and I can continue to do what we love together, not only side by side, but together.

Dani:

How did we get on this topic?

Giacomo:

Well, it’s New Year’s and goals and this and that, and I, you know.

Dani:

But we have lots of goals outside of the gym and fitness and health, too. And I would, you know, that’s one of the things I’m going to be talking about in the workshop is other areas of your life and how you should set goals in other areas of your life, because a lot of the people that we talk to and we work with and probably people that listen to this podcast too, can really, really put a lot of weight into their health and fitness, more so than maybe they should compared to the rest of their

life. You know, we’re all always talking about balance, balance, balance, which is super hard, if not like, impossible, to actually achieve at any given point. But, you know, we spend a lot of time and also have been at certain times, very unbalanced people because of how much time and energy and effort and money we were giving to being the healthiest, fittest people that we could be.

Because unfortunately, when you are giving everything to one area of your life, another area will suffer. And it has taken me my whole life to really wrap my head around that. Like, if something was like, no, no, I can just do it all, no matter what. Put more on my plate. I can do anything, just give me more, I’ll tackle it all. And, like, I’m pretty good at tackling a lot, but, like, eventually when you have all those balls in the air, you are going to drop one. And I now I can actually see

much more clearly, okay, if I’m doing too much of this, let’s say if I’m working too much, my marriage will suffer, or if I’m spending too much time hanging out with friends and family, then my business will suffer. If I’m spending too much time focused on just being at the gym for exorbitant amount of times, other things like, like personal growth or social life stuff that will suffer. So taking a look at it, like, all those areas, pretty frequently, I find.

Giacomo:

To be very helpful doing, checking. Like, I remember all the things you just said because I was mostly just listening but thinking about. Give me one. Give me one of them again. Just give me one example. Social, social life that your business will suffer.

Dani:

Yeah, if I’m doing too much socializing.

Giacomo:

Okay, so, still feeling good about and socializing and making sure that you make a concerted effort to be, to plan, you know, feel rewarded for that. But also be careful that your business doesn’t suffer too much.

Dani:

Yeah. Or, you know, I’ve also, there are times where you just have to give more to one particular area and, yes, accepting it, letting people know that you’re doing this because you, you know, if, let’s say this is your year, right? This is your year. You are gonna lose 100 pounds or you are gonna compete on a bodybuilding stage.

This is your year. Like, let the people around, you know, because I am here to tell you, you cannot do it all. You are going to have to let people know, hey, I’m gonna be like, less present for a while.

Giacomo:

And rather than getting into a place where there’s no coming back from that, you’ve planted the right kinds of seeds in the beginning so that when things inevitably go sideways, which they will, when you do something big and other areas suffer, you still can circle back to that conversation or those things that you said, both for yourself to take responsibility and also with others and be like, hey, this is something that I was very upfront about and I know that I need to make up for

it. And you’re at a vantage point. You’re in a much better position to put the work in and still be able to get back to whatever it is that you lost when you had to do something really big. Because in the short term, you can get hurt and you can hurt others. In the long term, though, it’s actually going to be for the better. Right? Because that same person or that same thing that you were taking away from, you can always give back to it.

But that one thing, if you didn’t do it long term, you would suffer, happiness wise, success wise, experience wise. So, yeah, just making sure that you are a responsible person when you choose to do things where you’re taking away from other areas of your life.

Dani:

And if everything that we have just said and talked about is making your head spin and you’re like, I have no idea what to do or where to go. This is what we do. This is what we do all day, every day. We work with clients one on one to help them determine the best goals for them, the best paths for them,

the most efficient ways to get there while keeping their, like, sanity in check, weekly accountability, and absolutely 100% custom nutrition plans, training plans, mindset plans,

weekend planning, etcetera, etcetera. So if that’s something that you are looking to pursue, I guess in 2024, we do currently have some spots for year long clients. So people who want to commit to their fitness, their health, their physique, whatever it is they’re trying to achieve for a year. Because we have found that the people who get those mind blowing, head turning transformations, all of the ones that we’ve had, almost all of them have committed for a year.

There’s something about that headspace, right? Yeah, there’s something about that headspace. Like, I’m not dipping my toe in the water of doing this for a month and seeing how it goes. Like, I’m in, I’m in for a year. Like in for a penny, in for a pound, for real. And, uh, yeah, so we have some spots for that. So if you’re interested, shoot us an email coacheganproteins.com.

we can hop on a call like a live Zoom call to see what your goals are, see if we’re a good fit. Probably be talking to Giacomo and you can ask all the questions that you have. So we’ll leave that. Actually, should we just leave the link to book a call in the show notes? Yeah, okay. For sure, we’ll leave a link for you to book a call in the show notes.

But if you want to email first, you can also do that too. Okay, moving on to our question and answer segment. This is for you, Giacomo. What changes do you make when you go from bulking to cutting? I know the theory. I’m just interested in hearing what you have to say about it.

Giacomo:

Moving from bulking to cutting for me personally requires me making a much more concerted effort with whomever I’m working with or with myself to start focusing more on what kinds of foods you’re going to be choosing to eat, how you’re going, your readiness. Meaning like have your grocery list prepared, have your food ready to be prepped and stuff like that.

I think that makes a big difference, being much more than intentional, making sure that you are not just being portion minded, but being portion controlled. Right. You have to actually track what you’re eating. For example, when you move from a bulk to a cut, you can when you bulk and it’s helpful, but it’s not necessary. Right. Stuff like that. Training wise, I think you’re making sure that your body still, when you start to lose body fat, your leverage has changed, your

biomechanics change. So you have to make sure to, like, start to not freak out about not lifting as much weight or not lifting with as much intensity. But you also still have to push hard and you have to also be like, okay, well, you know, my body might feel a little cranky today or I might not be able to move the same way. Stuff like that.

Dani:

All right, I’m going to read this one so we don’t have to move the microphone here, but I’ll answer it. What do you think about the new study stating that 30 grams of protein may not be the upper limit per

meal? So this is really interesting, that study. A lot of people have asked me about it, so I never thought 30 grams of protein was the upper limit per meal.

I’ve heard people say it, oh, you can only digest 30 grams of protein per meal. And that’s not true. You can digest any amount of protein that you have per meal. But what the study shows was that higher protein showed higher spike in muscle protein synthesis, like for that one time. So I think that’s cool, right? However, I don’t think, I guess I don’t understand why what people want to change based on this information, because yes, you’ll spike higher once, but if you’re eating

like a certain amount of protein per day, you still would have to eat that amount per day. So then let’s say you had 80 grams for breakfast and then only 20 grams of protein for the rest of the day. Means you only spiked muscle protein synthesis once. Might have been very high, but you had like three or four opportunities to do it again in the day and you didn’t.

So you still left a lot of opportunity for muscle protein synthesis on the table. So I still recommend taking your daily protein goal that you’re trying to reach and dividing it up between anywhere from like three to five meals per day so that you hit muscle protein synthesis as many times as you can per day. All right, everybody, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of vegan proteins muscles by Brussels Radio. Please be sure to register for the live goal setting

workshop with link in the show notes. And if you’re interested in having a free 30 minutes call with Giacomo to talk about your goals, talk about one on one coaching. See if we’d be a good fit for you. I’ll also leave that link in the show notes below. If you have any questions, just shoot us an email coacheganproteins.com once again, my name is Dani and I’m Jack Molt and we will talk to you soon. It again.

Giacomo:

Close.