Ep 155 – How To Overcome Self-Doubt

Giacomo:

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of vegan proteins muscles by Brussels Radio. My name is Giacomo.

Dani:

And I’m Dani.

Giacomo:

And this is episode 155. Welcome back to another episode. We are well into 2024. It is no longer the new year. We are no longer goal setting. We are now in it, working toward it. Dane I are, in fact, working together. Yes, we have different goals, but we are sharing our goals with one another, and we’re doing certain things, like training together. Even though we may train a little differently, we’re training together, which is the way we used to do it back in the day. You remember?

Dani:

I do, yeah. I used to love it. I loved training together. You’re the one who fell out of love with training together, not me.

Giacomo:

Well, it wasn’t a matter of falling out of love. I didn’t think that I could accomplish my goals because of how crazy, busy and unpredictable our life got. And I said to myself, this is not possible. Which, yes, that was completely on me. And then toward the end of this year, I really. Well, I feel like I pushed for it for quite some time.

To the end of this year, though. I don’t want. That’s the wrong way to put it. It’s not like I want to put my foot down. It was like, I was like, danny, we could do this. This could be our thing right now. Let’s do it. And so far, so good. How do you feel about the process so far?

Dani:

I think it’s been good. I think the reason that I was hesitant to do it is because I didn’t know how to intermingle the two kinds of training together, like the more traditional bodybuilding style training, which is what I’ve done my whole life, basically my whole adult life. And then this different style of these particular classes I’ve been doing, mainly in search of community, but they’re very, very different.

And sometimes you don’t know what you’re going to be doing when you show up. It’s kind of like Crossfit in that regard. Different. We don’t do Olympic lifting, but it’s, you know, similar in the fact that you show up and then you find out what you’re doing. So it’s kind of hard to make sure that on the whole, you’re doing the right volume of particular body parts, right sets and reps, making sure you have

enough recovery time in between. I mean, it’s hard enough to do that as one person, let alone to try to do it with somebody else without throwing them off, you know what I mean?

Giacomo:

And you can figure all that out. The elephant in the room for me is what it’s like when our eating habits are wildly different. When we eat what we eat, what we like to snack on, when we indulge, et cetera, et cetera. How does that become more communal? Or how does that become a process where you’re more than just talking about it? Have we even gotten there? I feel like we’re doing the nightcap thing together kind of. Right. We’re enjoying the same treats. The end of the night to start.

Dani:

Yeah. We both have that, like, built into our DNA. I think a lot of people do that. We like to have a little sweet thing right at the end of the night, but it is. We haven’t been on a cut at the same time in many years.

Giacomo:

We haven’t shared the same meals like we used to that we’re not doing right now, but we’re sharing the same batch. Like, we’re batch cooking vegetables and sharing them. We’re going grocery shopping together. What else?

Dani:

Yeah. Well, a lot of people are gonna hear this and think this is super, super bizarre, the fact that we don’t just already do that, because most couples I talk to do do that. They already eat all their meals together and basically eat the same things and go shopping together. So a lot of people, I remember when my mom, like, when we bought this house together and my mom moved in, which she’s not living here anymore, that’s a whole other story.

But when she moved in, she was like, WTF is wrong with you guys? Like, what do you mean? You don’t eat dinner together or eat together? Well, there’s a lot of reasons for that. We have different sleep and wake cycles, where you often have different goals that require different things. We just like different things.

Giacomo:

Also, you have different moods depending on what we’re doing, whether we’re cutting, bulking, maintaining, whether we’re stressed about something, whether we’re just in the mood to eat a little differently. As nice as it is to do everything the same when you’re a couple, like, I don’t know, wear the same shirts, wear the same hats, do the same things.

Dani:

I hate that stuff.

Giacomo:

Exactly. So is it not unreasonable to be like, well, your eating habits and your eating preferences are gonna be a little different, so why force it?

Dani:

Well, the other thing that I think we have that is not in common with other couples is we are together almost 24/7 like, we are always together. We work together, and that’s a tremendous amount of time right there. Now we’re training together again, when we travel, it’s always together.

It’s great. And I feel super blessed to have this much of my partner in my life. But that said, we don’t need to be joined at the hip. It just so happens that our life is kind of set up that way. But, like, I don’t need to have dinner with you to, like, feel connected to you.

Giacomo:

Well, now I feel slighted. Now I want to have dinner with you tonight.

Dani:

See you at eight. So. But no, this has been really cool to be, like, on the same kind of goal. Like, they’re different. Obviously, my goal, my end goal is slightly different than your goal, but they both require us to be in a caloric deficit for the time being. And that’s been kind of fun because I think when one half of a couple is cutting and one half of a couple is bulking, it’s really easy for that cutting person to get a wee bit resentful of the other person who gets to kind of, oh, my God,

I’m so sick of food. I just. I don’t even want to eat all this food. And the cutting person is like, can you just shut your flippin mouth, please? Because I’m hungry and I don’t want to hear about how hard it is for you to eat that vegan Mac and cheese, please. Thank you. Okay, so, yeah, that’s what we’re up to. We’re also still gearing up for the fat loss challenge. If you have not yet signed up for the fat loss

challenge, we are very, very close to nearing the deadline to do so, and we would

love to have you. One of the things I don’t think we mentioned on the last podcast is there’s a winner of the Fat loss challenge, and it’s not a cash prize winner. We don’t do that because we think that is tremendously screwed up. And I could get into all the reasons why I think that’s a terrible idea. But the winner does win three months of one on one coaching, which can be absolutely life changing depending on how you utilize it, how you choose to.

Giacomo:

Utilize it, especially if you know us. Because for us, when someone is that involved in our community and they’re showing up for themselves and making things happen for themselves, we wind up getting real close, they wind up volunteering with us, working with us at different events, all kinds of stuff, it becomes personal. It can be life changing.

Dani:

Yeah. And the winner is not necessarily the person who lost the most body fat, although it could be we don’t like to do it that way again, cause I think people just go to really drastic, bad measures to achieve that. So we do it more on a vote. Of all of the coaches on the person that we think adhered the most, showed up the

most, and ultimately changed their life the most. So, if you want in on that, please just shoot us an email so we can get you set up immediately. Coacheganeganproteins.com.

Giacomo:

When’S the next time we’re even running a challenge?

Dani:

I don’t think we’re gonna run it again until the end of summer or the beginning of fall. I forget the exact date.

Giacomo:

Don’t hesitate. Sign up.

Dani:

All right, so, what are we talking about today, Giacomo?

Giacomo:

Self doubt. How to overcome it, what it’s all about, and all of that, really.

Dani:

I like how you said that so casually, like, oh, just. Just this. Just this old chestnut. Just this little thing called self doubt. Self doubt is massive. It is pervasive. It is scary and upsetting when it is happening, and it’s also, I think, entirely necessary and natural to a degree. And I think that might surprise some people.

Giacomo:

hmm. Absolutely. And I think it’s really easy when you have a strong belief in yourself that you deserve to do whatever you’re doing and you block out and ignore the self doubt, which means you’re not aware of it, you don’t acknowledge it, you don’t work on it, and then you blame yourself, as opposed to blaming something that you could have affected and you could have changed, like, the fact that you’re unknowingly doubting yourself for whatever reason.

Dani:

Yeah. I think that when it comes to self doubt, a lot of the popular advice is that we just need more of the opposite. We need more confidence. We need more assurance. We need more chutzpah. But the issue with confidence is how we usually try to achieve it. Like, usually the way we’re chasing self confidence is, like, to win these little cheap highs, you know, like, external validation from this person or that person.

And in doing that, like, a lot of times, we undermine other people. We compare ourselves to, like, the weakest of the pack so that we can feel better about ourselves. And that’s not a really great way to try and build self confidence. It’s like fake self confidence. You know, we see this in a lot of people that have, you know, narcissists, like people with narcissism, or, you know, we all have some narcissistic traits.

So I hesitate to use that term, but we think a narcissist is someone who’s super, super full of themselves. When in actuality, all of that stems from the fact that they, like, are wildly lacking in self confidence, so they’re finding all these cheap, shitty ways to feel better about themselves in the moment. And all of this stems from self doubt.

Giacomo:

One way or another, your egos are gonna get in the way of you fully admitting the fact that you are doubting. No matter how much you try to peel the onion, it’s going to be hard for you to recognize the

fact that you have self doubt.

Dani:

Seriously, it’s hard to admit to yourself, I think, especially when you consider yourself kind of like a go getter, you know? But we all have it.

Giacomo:

Oh, yeah.

Dani:

And it’s normal. One of the things that I’m going to butcher this quote, but Maya Angelou, the late, great writer Maya Angelou, there’s a quote of her somewhere saying something like, I’ve written eleven books, and every time I write a new book, I think, this is it. This is where they’re gonna find out the jig is up. They’re gonna find out I’m a phony. And it was Maya Angelou. So, like, if people like her and, you know, world renowned musicians and scientists, and they all face this.

So this is why I say, like, it’s not necessarily a bad thing and it is normal. Like, self doubt is usually rooted in fear. Fear in certain situations keeps us alive. You know, it keeps us from thinking, we can jump off a building and be okay. We doubt that we can jump off a building and be okay, and that helps keep us alive. So, like, from an evolution standpoint, there’s a purpose for it.

Giacomo:

Okay, so outside of the evolutionary standpoint, what is the purpose for self doubt that is going to get you to your goal? Well, think about it. If you’re doubting yourself, you’re going to wind up paying attention all of the negative thoughts and the negative feelings that are holding you back because that’s how your brain’s filtering things.

So you start to focus on that stuff that’s painful, that’s hurtful, that doesn’t feel like a rewarding process. However, it is a very necessary process to go through. Yeah, absolutely.

Dani:

So why are we even. Why are, like, vegan fitness coaches even talking about this stuff? I think it’s because so many people are letting their own self doubt hold them back from even trying to pursue better fitness or trying to pursue better health, because they doubt that they even can. So they don’t even take that first step. But in my opinion, self doubt is sort of a litmus test in a lot of ways.

If you’re feeling doubt about something, you can actually utilize that self doubt as a tool to propel you

forward. And I’m not talking about being delusional, like jumping off a building, for example. Probably a good thing to doubt that you can do. But if you’re feeling that, just like niggling in the back of your brain, like, I don’t know if I can do this, oftentimes, that’s a pretty good sign that you probably should try to pursue it. That’s kind of like how I tell people the

exercise that you hate the most in the gym is probably the one that you should be doing more often, right, exactly. But it’s a tool. It allows us to know when we’re in a position. We should probably ask for help or guidance. If we’re not sure that we have the capability to do something, then asking for help allows us to course correct, know when we’re in over our head, know when we need to grow our knowledge base and help us do our best work.

Giacomo:

Yeah, exactly. And we’ll get into all of our ideas on that, and we’ll get into the mindset around someone who is overcoming self doubt. But I think the first thing is to take a look at the types of things that you’re doubting. Make a list. What do you admit to yourself? What you feel like you’re gonna screw up on or what you’re not gonna be able to do or what you don’t know?

Cause if you don’t write a list out like that and you just focus on, I can do, I’m gonna do. This is my goal. I’m starting it. You’re going to wind up not being able to see the pitfalls along the way. And you may not get to where you want to be, or if you do, it’ll be in spite of yourself.

Dani:

Yeah. The way I like to think about it is that if self doubt is not accurate. Let me back up for a second. The problem is not when people are doubting themselves for a good reason, you know, because there are situations where we should doubt ourselves for a good reason. If I were to go to Italy tomorrow, I have some self doubt that I would be able to communicate with people there.

Why? Because I don’t speak Italian at all. You know, I have some pretty healthy sense making self doubt there. But if I’m thinking about how I want to eat healthier meals, and I’m doubting that I have the capability to do that, why is that even real? You know, why should I doubt that that’s something that for all rights and purposes, you shouldn’t necessarily have.

Doubt that you’re going to be able to achieve something like that. So when self doubt isn’t accurate, that’s not a good thing. But sometimes the lack of self doubt cannot be accurate. You know, we all know these people. We all know these people that walk into situations they got no business being in with all the confidence in the world, and you’re like, God, give me, like, a sliver of that kind of delusion, please, because that would probably change my life.

Of course, these people often end up making fools out of themselves and look stupid. So, like, that’s not good either. So we need an appropriate level of self doubt, and then we need to use that to point us in the right direction.

Giacomo:

Right.

Dani:

Right. Does that make sense? Sorry, that was kind of confusing.

Giacomo:

No, I’m following.

Dani:

Okay. All right, good. So analyze your self doubt.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

When you’re finding yourself wanting to do something and something in your brain is holding you back or creating some resistance, write down. Like, I actually think writing down just a list of. Of what evidence do I have to support this? And what evidence do I have that contradicts this self doubt? You know, if you’re afraid that you’re not going to be able to eat healthy, like, can you look back at various points in your life and find times where you were doing that when you were

eating healthy, you have evidence to support the fact that, yes, in fact, you are capable of this, or other times you were afraid you weren’t going to be able to do something, and then you did it. That is evidence that you are able to overcome these things. You know, there may also be many times that you’ve tried and failed, and that would lend itself to that self doubt.

But I think when you actually write it out, because our brains are so programmed to focus on the negative, a lot of times we forget all of the positive examples of times we’ve succeeded.

Giacomo:

Yeah. So you got this list. You got. And honestly, I think it takes time. I think it takes time. First thing is admitting, and then you have to find a way to somehow get between you and your ego because it is not easy to. It can almost feel like admitting defeat when you’re starting to look at all the things that

you can’t do. Right? So I think you give yourself, like, a week or so to start to brainstorm and really dig deep.

And also, there’s no harm in framing this negative stuff as a positive being. Like, I’m doing this because I deserve to get to my goal because I’m going to find out what’s going to stand in the way between me and my goal because I am going to work on my goal because I’m going to get, because it is that important to me. I’m going to do this stuff first. I think if you can frame it like that, you can go through all that negative stuff without it feeling like you’re beating yourself up or that

you’re not capable, for example. I think it’s really important to grasp that concept and then start to go through your list. Think of all the things that have gotten in your way or that you think will get in the way of whatever it is that you are trying to achieve.

Dani:

Yeah, this isn’t about like, oh, just stuff yourself down and pretend you can do anything because that’s gonna get you into trouble, too. So it’s about being very realistic, which is a very hard thing to do. I think when our brains are skewed towards the negative, we have to ask ourselves, where does this come from? Why is my automatic knee jerk reaction to be that I can’t do something and some people are not like this?

I actually think Giacomo is really great at not being like this. He sees something he wants to do or he sees something he wants us to do, and his knee jerk reaction is, oh, yeah, we totally got this. And my knee jerk reaction is, here’s all the reasons why I think we’re gonna fail at this thing, which is probably why we work well together. But your way seems much more fun to me personally.

Giacomo:

Yes, but the pitfalls that can stand in the way of you and your goal can also exist if you’re not making that part of the process and you’re having too much fun as well. So we take our earlier thought in this conversation when we, before we got into the whole nooks and crannies of this episode, where it was like, okay, I had a, I wanted to train with you again, but I had doubts.

Dani:

You had doubt that I was going to do it?

Giacomo:

I think, well, no, because I can’t control you. And I, and those are your feelings in your process. What about me? I think to myself, she’s too deeply invested in the way that she’s training now and too used to it. That was, that was something I was, I took a mental log of that and many other things. Okay. So I said to myself, Dani is not gonna be able to get, she’s too comfortable where she’s at. It feels like her

routine. I am too comfortable with my routine, I need to get uncomfortable

with the fact that I am very comfortable emerging. I can’t train intensely or focused if I’m not in my own bubble reading a book or listening to some music. This is ridiculous. I’ve trained before, chatting it up with everybody. I’ve. You and I have been on the same schedule, but these were my doubts. I had to go through them one by one. And then there’s more than that, right?

Dani:

Of course, I.

Giacomo:

Here’s another one. This is a little personal, but I’ll put it out there. I struggle working with others when I. When I feel like I. In order for me to be motivated, everyone needs to be highly successful in the room. So, like, if you and I are going after our goals and you’re not achieving your goals, I attach my ability to succeed and how I feel based on you not achieving your goals.

Dani:

No pressure or anything.

Giacomo:

That’s bullshit. I have to come to terms with all of my personal feelings that are going to cause me to self sabotage the idea of working towards goals with you and achieving them. The things that I can control, how I feel, and the things that can hold me back mentally. And this is. These are literally things that I went through before we did this. And this is how I worked at overcoming myself as opposed to just being like, yes, she’s into it.

We’re gonna do this. I believe we can do this. We’ve done this before. And there are lots of other reasons. The specifics don’t matter. It’s the idea that, yes, we both believed it was possible. Yes, there was self doubt there that needed to be tackled.

Dani:

Right? So, a lot of times, and I think I’ve even said this before, but I did a little research for this podcast, as I often do, and I’ve often said, like, the. The anecdote to self doubt is self confidence, but I was mistaken. It’s not. What it actually is, is self efficacy. And to me, those words have always been interchangeable, but they’re actually not.

So I want to talk about the difference between those two things. They’re similar. Like, they’re definitely

in the same ballpark, but they mean slightly different things. Your self confidence is like a general way that you feel about yourself. It’s like, you know, I feel confident that I’m a good person, that I’m a kind friend, that, you know, I think I look okay.

It’s just a general feeling that you have about yourself when you walk into a room. Like, I mostly feel confident. Self efficacy is very situation dependent. Self efficacy is your belief that you have the ability to do a specific thing. So, for example, my self efficacy in the gym is very high. My self efficacy scuba diving is nothing because I’ve never done it before.

So I don’t have any self efficacy in scuba diving. So this is why I think it’s tough for some people, especially people who are, like, really successful in one area, to realize that they feel like they have no self efficacy in another area. Somebody can be rocking it at their career. We know people like this who are just crushing it in their career, but they just feel no self efficacy when it comes to eating well or treating their body right, or some people are great at that, but they

feel no self efficacy in their relationships. And I. That is something that we can change. We can change our level of self efficacy in certain situations. And I believe that overall, the more we feel that self efficacy in different relevant areas of our life, of course, our overall confidence is also going to increase.

Giacomo:

Yeah, absolutely.

Dani:

So that was a little something that I learned this week. The very specific difference between those two.

Giacomo:

Words and attaching efficacy to belief as opposed to confidence to belief. I think a little bit of confidence goes a long way, but the belief internally, deeply within it, needs to be there.

Dani:

Yeah. And so having self efficacy can influence your motivation, your effort and your persistence. For example, if you have high efficacy in public speaking, you’re more likely to prepare well, deliver your speech confidently, and cope with the feedback of that speech as well. But if you have low self efficacy in public speaking, you’re probably going to avoid it or feel really anxious when that opportunity brings itself to your door.

And you’re probably going to quit very easily. So you can actually take a test to see what your general

self efficacy scale is. It’s called the gses test and it’s a ten item test that you can, you can find it online and get an idea that way. And it’s just to give you a rough idea of where you stand with your ability to cope in certain situations.

Giacomo:

Can we put this test in the show notes?

Dani:

Yeah, we can link it.

Giacomo:

Let’s do it.

Dani:

Yeah.

Giacomo:

Is it free test?

Dani:

I believe so. It might, like, ask for your email to send you the results, which is super annoying.

Giacomo:

Actionable steps. And give them, give our audience, give our listeners some real, real meat and potatoes here. Stuff they could do on their own, more so than just listening.

Dani:

So what are some ways you think that you can increase your self efficacy, your confidence and your ability to do a specific thing?

Giacomo:

That is a very good question. I do feel like it has to come from within that.

Dani:

You got it.

Giacomo:

I’m trying. I’m struggling to think about how to. How to train yourself to do that.

Dani:

I have the answer. Do you want it?

Giacomo:

Oh, you have the answer.

Dani:

The answer. Everybody, I have solved your confidence issues with one fell swoop. I’m just kidding. But I have the. I have what the research points to as one of the best ways that you can do this, and it is to talk to ourselves, our self talk. And changing the way we talk to ourself is key. It’s our inner critic. You know, that chatter that you just have in your head all the time?

I mean, think about how that thing talks to you. Like, is it nice, is it kind to you, or is it constantly criticizing you? Because I know when I sort of kind of started on this journey of trying to, like, be a better person, coach, partner, athlete, whatever, man, that thing in my head was miserable, and it still creeps in from time to time, and I have to, like, catch it.

But that self talk really shapes our relationships with ourselves. And if we can change it, then it can be very, very beneficial for people’s sense of self confidence and self efficacy, particularly in people who are older. So I asked before, like, where does this come from? I mean, honestly, a lot of it stems from, like, our childhood and the way we were talked to and the way that we were rewarded or ignored.

I’m not going to get into all of that, because what is done is done. Right. But here we are today, and what can we do about it today? One of the things is we can deliberately start to work on our self talk. And one of the directors of self control at the University of Michigan found that people who speak to themselves as another person, using the pronoun you or even using their own name, they perform much better in stressful situations than people who use the first person.

I. So what this means is, when you’re talking to yourself, like, in your head, are you saying, like, I can do this, I can do this? Or are you saying, Dani, you’ve got this. You have totally got this? I mean, Giacomo has seen me backstage at certain events, literally saying those things out loud to myself like a lunatic before I even knew this. Actually, before I even knew the science behind it.

I always talk to myself like another person because it feels like the way I would talk to a friend. Right. Or you or somebody that I care about and I want to see perform. Well, that’s what I would say. You know, you’ve got this. You’re so strong and smart and resilient, and you’ve accomplished so much more than this in the past. This is going to be small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.

Giacomo:

Well, think about it. Also, you’re talking in the third person, so you’re almost asking and inviting in support from others as opposed to internalizing, which is scary because you’re very open and raw. But also, you know what you’re asking for. So even if you don’t get the right kind of feedback, you can seek out the right kind of feedback.

And even if you don’t get the right kind of feedback, you can put out there the message that you want to put out there. So if nothing else, there’s no complete loss here. Talking to third person is incredibly helpful. Here’s three.

Dani:

Not out loud, though. Not to other people, because that just.

Giacomo:

No, no, that’s not what I meant. Three other three ways that I think of to improve the inner chatter. You can focus on meditation, where you actually become aware of your inner chatter more so than when it’s really loud. Both how you feel and how you think you can catch yourself in the act. Like what? More of along the lines of what Dani’s talking about, where you start to pay attention to your thoughts and you just catch yourself and you change the tune or change the wordings.

Or you could straight up journal, and now you have a chance to actually think through and get it out there as opposed to, like said, not necessarily having to talk to others or whatever. And this becomes your own process that you can control at all times.

Dani:

Yeah. All of these things that you just mentioned, self talk in the third person, meditation and journaling, they all give you some distance between, you know, you and yourself. Basically, it gives you a second to step back and look at yourself objectively. And one of the things that I think about is how many people are really great advice givers, but they very much struggle to take their own advice, right?

How many times can you look at somebody maybe in the exact same situation as you, right? They’re having the same struggle as you, and you’re like, well, how about if you did this and this and this, and then that situation would improve, and voila, they do it, their situation improves, and it’s like, God damn it, why didn’t I do that? Like I could have done that. Because we’re not great at taking our own advice. So when you step back a little bit and talk to yourself as another person, I

think there’s something there. There’s some connection between those two things. Totally another way that you can improve your self efficacy is to learn. A lot of times we feel incompetent going into a particular situation because we are incompetent going into a particular situation. We just don’t know. So taking some time to learn, like, deliberately increase your knowledge base on these things, of course that’s going to make you feel more confident, right?

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

You know, you don’t. I mean, most people don’t just walk into the gym on day one having never, like, looked up anything about a gym before. Most people have, like, kind of googled around for some training programs and, like, what to expect when I go to the gym. Like, this is our process. When we think about the stages of change, there’s pre contemplation, contemplation, action, and then maintenance. I believe those are the four stages of change. Contemplation is that phase where

we are kind of doing stuff without actually starting yet necessarily, it’s the learning, it’s the thinking, it’s the mentally preparing. Now, we can get stuck in this phase for way too long. We’ve talked about this analysis paralysis, where sometimes you got to just pull the trigger and take the first imperfect step in order to make any forward movement. But I do think that that stage of learning something before you start is key to feeling a little bit more confident on day one.

Giacomo:

Well, it also opens the door for you to be able to really, really learn, because now you’re immersing yourself in what you want to get better at.

Dani:

Yeah. And the last tip that I have for helping increase your self efficacy is to find somebody else to talk to. And obviously this is called self efficacy. So you have to do this work with yourself. There’s nothing somebody else is gonna be able to say that’s gonna change the way you feel about yourself, necessarily. That does have to come from you.

But sometimes somebody else might be able to sort of ask the right questions to nudge you around

in your brain to find out, like, why you’re thinking these things. Or you might say something, you know, really shitty about yourself, like, well, I don’t even know why I’m going to try this if I’m just going to fail. And they might be like, well, why do you think you’re going to fail?

What evidence do you have that supports that you’re going to fail? And that’s not telling you anything. That’s just asking you questions that can really help propel you forward. And this person could be a lot of different people. It could be a family member.

Giacomo:

Exactly.

Dani:

It could be a friend. It could be a community member in the same sort of vein of the thing you’re trying to get better at.

Giacomo:

Could be a professional consultant of some kind, from a therapist to a coach to a buddy, anything.

Dani:

Yeah, it could be so many different things. But it is good sometimes to just have somebody that you can like word vomit all of your crappy thoughts to so that they can help you reframe it. Now, the key is, unless this is a professional relationship, like a coach or a therapist or something, that’s what they’re there for.

So it’s totally okay to dump all of your stuff onto them. But if it’s a friend or family member or accountability buddy or community member, like, it should be reciprocal. You don’t want to just dump all of your stuff onto somebody else and never give them a chance to do the same thing because that’s just kind of crummy.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

So, you know, if self doubt is something that you’re struggling with, remember that it is not inherently bad. There’s nothing wrong with you for feeling self doubt, especially when it’s appropriate. The

problem is when the self doubt extends into the realm of it’s wrong, it’s inaccurate. You do actually have the capabilities to do these things if you make the right changes.

Giacomo:

Well, wait, on the flip side, if you’re not experiencing self doubt, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with you either. However, try to pick on that a little bit. Chew on that thought, and be like, okay, well, start to think about why you should be doubting some things without trying to, how do I say, discourage yourself from going after the thing that you feel you can do.

Dani:

Yeah, yeah. Maybe take yourself down a peg or two.

Giacomo:

Well, I don’t want to say it like that.

Dani:

I don’t say it like that.

Giacomo:

No, no, no. I mean, make sure that your process is going to be a successful one. That’s all. Simple as that. We’re not here to shame or make people feel bad for their can do attitudes. It’s just a matter of making sure, like, whatever you try to do, like, you’re going to get there.

Dani:

Yes. I will say this. If I could err on the side of too much confidence or not enough confidence. I wish I could err on the side of too much.

Giacomo:

As long as you’re responsible with it.

Dani:

So you get to your goal, but, you know, self doubt is normal, and it’s like a weather vein kind of telling you which direction to go. Okay, we are going to move on to our question and answer segment, which really funny story about these questions. So, normally, I text the questions that we have for the podcast to myself so that I have them on my phone.

I can quickly read them while we’re recording the podcast. But yesterday, when I text these questions to myself, I didn’t text them to myself. I text them to Corinne Sutton by accident.

Giacomo:

Are we gonna play the audio from Corinne answering on the podcast?

Dani:

No, I’m not gonna do that to him. Cause, I don’t know. There could be, like, lots of swears and stuff in it. I don’t know.

Giacomo:

Maybe bad.

Dani:

But I accidentally sent it to him, and he must have looked at his phone and just been like, what the hell? But God bless him, he answered both of them in, like, three minute audios. So shout out to Corrine. He’s a real one. I was like, oh, my God. I’m so sorry. He was like, oh, I thought I was like, what is this? Maybe she just wants my opinion on these things.

But I thought it was really, really funny, so. Okay, here we go. Question for you, Giacomo. If you’re caught up and can’t get to the gym all day, is it better to do a late night session that will result in less sleep or skip the session, try and get the sleep and come back the next day?

Giacomo:

Skip, get to sleep, come back the next day. Your sleep is more important. You’ll wind up being under recovered. You’ll have a crappy workout. You might hurt yourself. You’ll potentially throw off your sleep cycle for days or weeks on end. There’s all kinds of reasons why that’s a big no no. The other thing is, it doesn’t matter that you train on set days of the week.

It just matters that you get as much, not all of your training, as much of your training in as possible. And if you start to see, on average, that you’re not getting in as much of your training that you expect to on a weekly basis. Meaning, like, this week, I trained Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but I should have

trained on Sunday. That this week, I trained Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, but I should have trained Friday.

Like, you’re getting in three days out of four now you have to maybe adjust. So, getting in as much of your training as possible, getting in as much of your training possible over the course of a week, and then figuring that out over time and definitely prioritizing your sleep over, just making sure you’re getting in your training because it’s written down and you have to get it in.

Dani:

Yeah, I would completely agree.

Giacomo:

All right. And for you, Dani? All right. What about macros? Isn’t it basically just calculating two numbers, your daily protein and your per meal protein requirements? Or is there something more to it? I hear people talk about calculating custom macros all the time, but never exactly what it is, really.

Dani:

Okay, so I would love the inflection you put on the questions every time you read them. Juggle. So this is a question about what are custom calculated macros? And this was actually a question based on us talking about our fat loss challenge and how we do custom calculated macros. And I thought this was a great question because he’s like, isn’t, aren’t, isn’t calculating macros just like your protein?

Basically? And it’s not. It’s more than that. So macros in general are going to be your calculating your carbohydrates, your fats and your protein, and in that you also have your caloric level that you need to take in. So why do custom. I mean, if there’s calculators online that do this, which there are, you can find calculators that do this, I will tell you, they are all a little bit different, but they exist.

And if these exist and they’re free, why would anybody want to get custom calculated macros? It’s a really great question. And I was super psyched when he sent it in because I was like, oh, why have I never like, explained this very clearly and concisely before? I’ll give you the example of us, because this is the way we do it. So when we have somebody sign up for a fat loss challenge or one on one coaching, they have to fill out this big long questionnaire about all these sorts of things.

And part of that is their age, their height, their weight, their activity level. And these are the things that you would normally plug into a calculator to spit out carbs, fats, proteins. And this might be a good place to start, but there’s a lot of other stuff to take into consideration. First and foremost, being a rough body fat percentage, I think is really important.

But there’s also all of the other factors of your life. And this is where only a human being, as of right now, who knows what AI is going to do in the future? Only a human being with experience is going to know how to move these numbers up and down, right? What are you already doing? If you have been

dramatically under eating for years, and then you go to a macro calculator and say, I want to lose body fat, and you plug in your stats, it’s going to spit out a number that’s going to be.

It’s going to make you gain body fat, right? And just the opposite. What if you have been like an eating machine for a long time and you plug something in and say, I want to lose weight? The deficit it gives you might be so huge that you are now set up to fail. So what you’ve already been doing, how is your sleep? What kind of medications are you on?

How is your stress level? When and how have you been successful or unsuccessful dieting or building muscle in the past? What is your schedule like? Do you have kids? Do you have a full time job? All of these answers tell me a little bit more about you. And that is kind of the art that we apply to this otherwise basic calculation, and it might not always be perfect on day one.

We’re not wizards or anything, but 15 years and 2500 plus clients that we’ve had over those 15 years have made us very, very good at knowing how and where to tweak someone’s macros to, to put them in a better starting position than just a plain old calculator on the Internet is going to do. And also, of course, what a coach does in both our fat loss challenge and our one on one coaching is we then tweak those numbers as we go.

Those numbers are not meant to be the numbers you eat for the rest of your life, necessarily, like they need to be tweaked depending on the progress you’re making or not making if life circumstances change, etcetera. So that is why custom calculated nutrition and other nutrition tips as well that have nothing to do with numbers, but a lot to do with, like, food quality, choice, et cetera, is so important. All right, everybody, thank you so much for tuning into another episode of

vegan proteins muscles by Brussels Radio. Again, if you want in on that fat loss challenge, the days are wearing thin. Sign up now. We would love to have you, and if you have any questions, shoot us an email coacheganproteins.com dot. In the meantime, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. And we really look forward to hearing from you. My name is Dani and I’m Giacomo and we will talk to you soon.