Ep 158 – Ask Us Anything! Swolemates Edition

Dani:

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

Giacomo:

And I’m Giacomo.

Dani:

This is episode 158.

Giacomo:

We just got back from a powerlifting meet. I was handling my client, Alex Shopov. His goal yesterday was to lift 1000 pounds, and he did. So excited for him. He did take some cowboy moves on two of his attempts, but he still put 1000 up on the board, and he had meat prs across the board, which was pretty damn cool.

Dani:

Yeah, it was really cool. He got seven out of nine. Seven out of nine attempts were good. And he broke 1000 pounds on his squat bench and deadlift total, which I thought was super cool. And he was the oldest guy in the competition, which I know you said he had some mixed feelings about, but I actually think it was really, really cool.

I mean, it was in Boston, it was in, like, the area with all the universities. It was like all college students and Alex. So I think that’s pretty ballsy that he went out there and did it anyway and, like, lifted with gusto, and.

Giacomo:

He was looking at ways that he could break state records and thinking about how he could continue to do this. He’s got his next meet planned in June. In some ways, the sport of powerlifting is accessible to everyone. In other ways, there could be a little bit of fear involved because 80% of powerlifters get injured. And as you age, you’re working with a body that’s perhaps been injured in all kinds of ways or has been strained in all kinds of ways. And here he is.

Dani:

First of all, he’s not like a thousand. He’s 46.

Giacomo:

Yeah, we’re similar in age. When I get up on stage, sometimes I have reservations like that myself. But then I immediately talk some sense into myself and I’m like, yeah, look at you. You’re out there kicking butt. How many 40 something year olds can say that? They’re out there continuing to put on muscle, continuing to get stronger, and showing up in sports that are. Some people feel that they’re meant for younger athletes. Not true.

Dani:

Yeah, I mean, powerlifting is accessible to everybody. In the fact that anybody can sign up, that doesn’t mean anybody should sign up, because it is a really, really taxing sport. On the body, on your joints, you.

Giacomo:

Have some lifters that are out there. Prime time is what they call the creme de la creme, the top level competitors that are out there lifting as much weight as possible. And there are some powerlifters that are in, like, their sixties and seventies who will lift more weight every year than you ever will for your entire life. There are some seriously strong athletes out there. Just goes to show what the human body is capable of when you take care of yourself.

Dani:

Yeah. But powerlifting is a super fun sport to watch. If you ever get a chance to go to a meet, I think it’s really, really cool. We did miss the lady lifters in the morning because we got there just as they were getting their awards. I wish I had seen that, but it was already a very long day, so I think it was fine.

Giacomo:

And other than that, we got your birthday coming up on Friday. We got plans to go to an escape room. We’re gonna lay low a little bit, have a little couples massage in the morning. Her request, y’all. What do you think it was?

Dani:

You already told them it’s already in another episode that we had a tea party.

Giacomo:

Who requests a tea party on their birthday? This gal does. So we’re gonna wake up, have a tea party, and then we’ll go have fun.

Dani:

Have you ever been to tea in England? Like, the real one? I was actually telling the kids about that this weekend because I woke up, I have tea every morning, and the kids were like, can I have tea? And I was like, sure. And they have fancy little teacups, and they had, like, some fruit, fruity, no caffeine type of tea. And then I made them a sarnie.

It was really just peanut butter and jelly, but, like, rolled up into these little strips. And I told them what tea is. Like. You get all these little sandwiches, and then you get scones, and then you get a tray of desserts. Like that is. That sounds like my happy place to me, so that’s what I’m hoping for.

Giacomo:

I don’t know. It kind of seems like a perfect segue to go right into this episode is as far as, like, what I think my happy place is, which is getting drilled from the public with a bunch of questions on our personal relationship. I’m kidding. No, this is actually going to be a really good episode. We’ve done this one before, and we decided to do it again at the request of somebody who was like, hey, y’all have a pretty unique relationship.

No, I don’t think that we’re. Our relationship is any sort of a unicorn. There are others that have relationships like ours where you work together, you live together, you eat, breathe, and sleep together. You’re always together, and you work in some sort of, like, a niche industry. Hours, obviously, is pretty niche, but it is something worth talking about, and I.

Dani:

Think it’s pretty unique. I’m trying to rack my brain right now to think of other folks that I know off the top of my head in a similar situation. I’m sure they exist.

Giacomo:

Well, we have clients that have major overlap between their work life and personal life. Doing both of them together, running their own businesses.

Dani:

Yeah, certainly couples run their own businesses. I’m just not in vegan bodybuilding.

Giacomo:

Perhaps not.

Dani:

So I don’t know, I think it’s really interesting, an interesting thing to talk about. I mean, clearly you guys sent us in a lot of questions, so we will get to those. But just a little bit about Giacomo myself. I mean, one of the questions was, where did you meet?

Giacomo:

We met on veganbodybuilding.com in 2008, 2007. Not when we start dating. Yeah, we were on the forum for like two years straight, and we were both posting our training journals and just chatting away with each other about whatever. And then there was a meetup in person and the both of us decided we would go to said meetup.

Dani:

So wait a minute, they don’t even know what vegan bodybuilding is.

Giacomo:

Let’s tell them.

Dani:

So it was a forum, so Facebook existed, but only college kids were on it. MySpace existed, but you couldn’t really like, talk to each other a lot on MySpace. And Robert Cheek had a company called veganbodybuilding.com dot. I mean, he still does, but back then it was a forum, like a web board, I guess, a message board that you could.

It was all about vegan fitness and vegan bodybuilding and how to build muscle and how to lose fat. And it had like 1500 active members, which, you know, seems like not a lot now with reddits that have millions of people in them. But back then, it was awesome. Yeah, it was so cool.

Giacomo:

It was a lot of fun.

Dani:

And yeah, we talked on there. He had a training journal, I had a training journal, and we would just, you know, you could comment on other people’s training journals, like, hey, great job, keep it up, or ask them a question about this, that or the other. And yeah, we were just friendly on there. We weren’t like flirting with each other on the forum. Nobody, maybe somebody was, but I certainly wasn’t.

Giacomo:

I wasn’t either, actually, at all. I just thought that you were really cool and you were very into bodybuilding, which I admired a lot.

Dani:

I didn’t look like I was very into bodybuilding, but so I got into it because I had been vegan at that point for I guess like five years. I had lost 90 pounds and I had kept it off, but I wanted to build muscle, so I learned how to lift weights. But the trainer at the gym said if I didn’t eat animal products, I could not progress any further

than I had. So I was, like, determined to figure out a way to do it. And when I found this forum, I was really excited. I was, like, obsessed with the forum. I think you were, too.

Giacomo:

I did not have the community that I was looking for in person, which.

Dani:

Is crazy because you lived in New York City.

Giacomo:

Well, also, I came from a very hands on family where what I did was very baked into, like, my social life was very baked into my family life, large extended family. And I was very much so. We used to call me the black sheep, right? Because I was just so different from everyone else in my family.

But in reality, I just did not have the social support that I needed for the lifestyle change that I was

making. And I sought that out in person. But nobody was into fitness. They were just into, like, dieting and eating healthy and spiritualism and all that stuff. We won’t go there.

Dani:

It’s a whole, oh, we are going there. It’s one of the questions, actually.

Giacomo:

Well, we can go there then for the purpose of what we’re talking about right now, though. Nobody was into fitness, so I was without. And that forum filled that void for me big time.

Dani:

I knew lots of people who were into fitness. I didn’t know a single, solitary other vegan. Like, I literally did not know one other vegan. I had been vegan for years and I still didn’t know one vegan. So I was just so excited. And then Robert Cheek was hosting this thing called vegan vacation in 2008 in Portland, Oregon. I decided I wanted to go. Giacomo, I think, was already going.

Giacomo:

Yep.

Dani:

But the thought of flying across the country by myself to meet a bunch of strangers was pretty terrifying at the time. Now, it’s kind of funny that it was so scary to me then, but I remember messaging Giacomo and being like, hey, looks like you’re going to this thing. You don’t live that far away from me. Which, yes, you did, but at the time, that seemed very close. I don’t know why I was like, let me drive to you in Brooklyn from Massachusetts and we can fly out there together.

Giacomo:

I wanted to know what your motive was. I was wondering where you were coming from. Why was a young woman from a bodybuilding forum wanting to come visit me? What were you thinking? Because we were just friendly on the forum.

Dani:

I just told you what I was thinking. I just didn’t want to you were going. I was going. I thought, hey, let’s

fly over together. It’ll be less uncomfortable.

Giacomo:

I wasn’t worried. I was, like, that old. I’m a very extroverted person in a lot of ways, and so I didn’t mind it at all. I didn’t think anything of it, per se. I’ve done stuff like that many times over in my life. Just met up people randomly and hung out. Didn’t have to be, you know, just my bros, for example. But I still do like to. I don’t want to. Yeah. I still, like, raise an eyebrow, like, wondering if what someone’s motive is when they’re the one that initiates. So I was just curious.

Dani:

But in hindsight, it’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever done. Cause if anybody knows me now, like, I would never. I would never be like, hey, stranger, let’s fly across the country together. I could think I would rather get my teeth drilled than do something like that.

Giacomo:

And I’ve asked that question a lot of times since that day. Cause it’s so uncharacteristic of the you that I now know.

Dani:

I think I was just so excited at the prospect of meeting other people like me that I was willing to do something that was really scary. And I was in a relationship, actually, I was in a couple relationships at that point, so I was absolutely not looking for another relationship at that point.

Giacomo:

Right. And I sort of became a piece in the middle of all that. Because you were in relationships before we met, and. Oh, gosh, I laughed it off. But that was a little awkward and uncomfortable for me. I’m not gonna lie.

Dani:

It was pretty uncomfortable for me, too.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

I ended up in, like, a weird. If I say it that way, it’s gonna come out wrong. I was dating a person, and then I was dating another person, but we all worked at the same place, and it was just this weird, uncomfortable, like, kind of fight, I guess, over me. So the two people didn’t like each other at all, and then all of a sudden, there was Giacomo. So then they didn’t like him. They liked each other all of a sudden, but didn’t like him.

Giacomo:

They judged the hell out of me, which wasn’t fair, because that is not something I typically do. I did not know that you were in relationships, and then at that point, you and I had love for each other. Typically, though, my previous relationship.

Dani:

You did know. You did know. That’s not like it was a secret. I just. Many times, this is a theme in our relationship. I tell Giacomo something. And he does not believe me until he experiences it for himself. And then he’s like, I didn’t know. And I’m like, I told you I.

Giacomo:

Was going from my own perception, I suppose, because to me, it felt safe. Because it was safe. It felt safe to you, put it that way, because something like that is just not a line that I would typically cross personally and not something I had to be engaged in the past. So it felt a little weird to me. But you felt safe about it, so we kept going.

Dani:

I mean, safe is a weird word to use.

Giacomo:

What word would you use?

Dani:

It’s like, I’m done. I’m done with this.

Giacomo:

Yeah, you were breaking it off. Exactly. And that was fine for me.

Dani:

It’s not like, I mean, just based on what I just said, I think anybody could say, like, that probably wasn’t a great situation in the first place.

Giacomo:

Exactly. Exactly.

Dani:

There’s no. I was gonna say no love lost, but that’s literally kind of what happened, so whatever. And some people said, like, kind of who made the first move? Who? What was me? It was you.

Giacomo:

It was me. It was definitely me. I liked you.

Dani:

Cause I told you I was not there to look for a relationship at all.

Giacomo:

So I liked the idea that you were playful with me. I liked the idea that we tease each other about our choices in music or about, like, not knowing how to move through conversations or airplane, airports and stuff like that. Like, I moved forward. I had traveled before, and she hadn’t traveled, and I told her, I was like, listen, you cannot put anything in bottles that are 3oz larger.

Dani:

That’s not what you said.

Giacomo:

What did I say?

Dani:

No liquids over 3oz.

Giacomo:

So you brought lotions, which is not a liquid.

Dani:

It’s a lotion. I brought shampoo because it’s a gel. I brought full size bottles, shampoo and conditioner. I just didn’t know. Sure you didn’t be more specific with lotions? I mean, with liquids.

Giacomo:

Keep that in mind.

Dani:

Whatever. But, yeah, he definitely. He definitely started hitting on me first, and I actually. I really thought it was a joke, and I thought it was kind of a mean joke, too, so I was not thrilled with this.

Giacomo:

I didn’t know that at all. Yeah, actually, I didn’t realize that’s the way you were looking at it. I just thought that you were disinterested in me, and you felt weird about the fact that I liked you.

Dani:

No.

Giacomo:

So I persisted.

Dani:

So this is gonna sound like such a cop out and such a weird thing to say. Of course you said that, but this is really true. Giacomo was, like, the best looking dude that I had ever seen with my eyes in front of me in my whole life. And he was vegan. Andy liked to lift. He had long hair. True story. Oh, my goodness. So then when he started hitting, and in my mind, yes, I’ve lost 90 pounds.

In my mind, I’m still always that, like, overweight kid in high school. Braces and glasses and the broken out face. Like, I’m old to this day, it’s still, like, something that I kind of go back and forth on, but at the time, like, I very much was that person. So I thought, like, I thought you were playing a mean prank on me.

Giacomo:

But we had that in common, too. I was that person for quite some time as a kid. You’re giving me the look. You don’t think so?

Dani:

No. No. You were, like, a geeky little, like, elementary school, and then you hit a certain age, and you just, like, shot up and.

Giacomo:

Yeah, but you don’t lose that person. That person’s inside of you.

Dani:

I agree, but I didn’t know anything like that. Everybody on the forum knew that I had lost almost 100 pounds, so I don’t know. I just. I thought it was a mean joke, and obviously, now I know that it wasn’t. But at the time, I was literally, like, waiting for ashton Kutcher to jump out and be like, you got punked. So I was not buying what he was selling at all, but he was persistent. Very persistent. So, yeah, yeah. And then eventually, I believed him.

And, yeah, we started dating very quickly. Like, within a couple weeks. Remember, we got back from the trip. I didn’t go home. I stayed in New York for, like, a week while he showed me around New york. And then when I finally did go home, you, like, hopped on a bus a day later and followed me to Massachusetts. It was very, very, very fast. And then within two months, we moved to Portland, oregon. Together.

Giacomo:

Yeah. Left everything, every single thing, literally.

Dani:

Yep. It was wild. Everybody thought we were crazy.

Giacomo:

We were.

Dani:

We were. In hindsight, it worked out for the best. In hindsight, there were definitely better ways to move a relationship forward than that. We are very lucky that it worked out, because there were a lot of bumps in that road.

Giacomo:

We had a lot of people rooting for us while also poking fun in our relationship, saying it made for the perfect sitcom at the time.

Dani:

I mean, people still say that to this day, but, yeah, I remember being halfway. We drove across the country. I remember being halfway across the country and realizing, like, I don’t know this guy. Like, I don’t know this guy at all. What have I done? I left my job, I left my friends, I left my family. Like, oh, we have no jobs lined up. It was crazy. It was crazy.

Giacomo:

I don’t know. I had full faith and confidence in our relationship that we were gonna make it the entire time. I did not for a second lose any sort of hope or trust in that. For some reason. I just don’t know. It felt right.

Dani:

We call it toxic positivity where I come from, but.

Giacomo:

I am committed. If I commit to someone, I commit.

Dani:

To someone, I commit naivety, oblivion. I mean, I could just keep going, but, yeah, it was rough. It was really rough for a while. We had no money. We struggled to find jobs. I ended up getting a job, like, working my ass off, like 80 hours a week. Giacomo stayed home and filmed his bodybuilding journey.

Giacomo:

It was important he had a documentary to create. It was a thing.

Dani:

So I was not thrilled with that setup.

Giacomo:

I made up for it, though. I was working overtime, nonstop for a bank after the fact, when I was done with the documentary.

Dani:

But we did start vegan proteins in that time. But it was not a business. No, it was a fundraiser.

Giacomo:

First online vegan supplement shop. That’s what the fundraiser became, which was something to be really proud of. Nothing of its kind existed. It was next year impossible to find vegan protein powder. They had Vega, which we sold, but that wasn’t a protein powder.

Dani:

It was a meal replacement powder at the time.

Giacomo:

Yeah. And then we just collected them all one at a time as they came out, connected with these companies, as they made their first calls and first opened up the doors, and we just started making an entire assortment of vegan protein bars and proteins and everything. And we were it.

Dani:

Yeah, that was, we were it. But it, you know, you can’t really, I don’t think unless you’re Amazon, you can’t make money in retail of supplement shops. And then, of course, as Amazon grew, because this was 2008, I think Amazon was still just books at that time. As it grew and grew, you know, we didn’t need to have that supplement shop anymore because people could finally walk into a store and just find these things.

So it was a good thing for veganism, but it was kind of a sad thing for us. But at this point, I had already been coaching for a couple of years before we realized, like, the store was just holding us back.

Giacomo:

Cause that idea, the documentary, wound up becoming a thing it evolved for and has been for the last ten years. Still evolving to this day. Having the largest team of vegan strength and physique athletes in the world, and them getting more and more competitive over time. Felt like 150 athletes compete at this point. That silly documentary, that silly, dumb idea.

Dani:

That never even came out.

Giacomo:

Yeah, it’s crazy how that works.

Dani:

Yeah, it is pretty crazy.

Giacomo:

It’s been a while, ride, and it.

Dani:

Was because of that stupid documentary that never came out that I watched you and Robert and Jimmy Sitko at the time and was like, hey, you guys are. I don’t know how to do this bodybuilding thing correctly, but whatever you guys are doing is dumb, right? Doesn’t make any sense. Like, scientifically,

what you’re doing seems wrong to me, and I don’t know why exactly, but I’m gonna learn.

Giacomo:

Yeah. And that’s how we started latching on to the evidence based community when it came to training principles and programming principles for nutrition and everything.

Dani:

Yeah. So that’s how I learned initially. I actually learned how to coach bodybuilders, competitive bodybuilders, before I learned how to coach, like, you know, regular people who wanted to lose 20 pounds.

Giacomo:

Yeah, exactly.

Dani:

But now it’s just. It’s really wild how the business evolved. And now we have four coaches we’re talking about. We might need another one really soon. It’s crazy. But our relationship throughout all of that has. It’s been hard.

Giacomo:

Well, let’s dig into that. Cause I feel like at this point, we’ve caught everyone up to speed with the entire story arc of how everything that we did came to be. And we got a bunch of questions from what I know I have several. I know you have several, too, and I actually, honestly haven’t looked at them yet.

But you have the ones from my account, on the same phone over there that you have the questions from. From your account. So let’s just go through them one at a time and see. I think she’s looked at them already.

Dani:

I sure did.

Giacomo:

I have not. I like to go into a lot of things blind, in case you can’t tell.

Dani:

I told him that I should. You should know what these are before we get there.

Giacomo:

Here you go. This is what we get.

Dani:

Oh, boy. Okay. Some of these are, like, kind of tough questions, actually. Okay, we’ll start with an easy one. Do you sleep in the same bed? I often have to move to the spare room or couch to sleep.

Giacomo:

We try to sleep well. Yes, we sleep in the same bed all the time. And depending on what’s going on or how lazy or whatever, we’re being. Sometimes we don’t.

Dani:

And by we, he means him. Cause he will sleep on the couch and not drag himself to bed eventually. It never goes the other way.

Giacomo:

No, it doesn’t.

Dani:

No, it doesn’t.

Giacomo:

No. It’s weird because in the middle of the night, if I’m hurting, I don’t want to disturb her sleep, so I’ll just leave the room as a kindness to her. Also, I get anxiety in the middle of the night if I can’t sleep and I don’t want to be around someone else and take out my anxiety on them, meaning my partner. So that’s my other reason for wanting to leave the room. So if I’m like coughing my brains out, I’ll leave the room. If I’m upset with myself because I can’t sleep, I don’t want to take

that out on her. Or if I’m feeling anxious for whatever reason, I just have a fear of sleep next door and I just leave. Also, I am the one who tends to fall asleep on the couch. That’s just my thing. So for all those reasons, I do not sleep in the bedroom as often as you do. But we both always try to sleep together as often as we possibly can. It just feels better that way.

Dani:

But, you know, this reminds me of something a lot of people think I shouldn’t say. A lot of people, enough people that have mentioned it to me think it’s really weird that giacomo and I are not like super clingy all the time. Like, we don’t call each other every 20 minutes when the other one is out.

Giacomo:

We’re never apart from each other.

Dani:

Maybe this is just like weird relationship dynamics that exist in my family, specifically that they seem to think that’s normal and I don’t think that’s normal. Like, we’re totally fine to take trips alone away from the other one. Like, he visits his family more frequently than I can go, and that’s fine. We’re okay to not be together all the time, but I think it’s because we’re together all the time.

Giacomo:

Correct? If we didn’t, we’d probably have a lot more back and forth like that. I think it would just be natural. And right now it’s probably natural to do the opposite.

Dani:

In all honesty, I guess.

Giacomo:

I suppose I don’t know.

Dani:

What is your favorite way to spend time with one another?

Giacomo:

Our favorite way? This is a question we both answer, I assume. Lifting.

Dani:

Interesting.

Giacomo:

Lifting. Going out to eat, going to movies because you love it. Listening to music because you love it playing board games because I love playing board games and video games because I like playing video games. Just like spending time together, just hang out, talking and doing at the same time.

Dani:

Yeah. My favorite thing, I guess my favorite way to spend time with you is just to hang out where we’re not working.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

Because I would say my least favorite way to spend time with you is working.

Giacomo:

We like being adventurous and active together. We don’t always get a chance to because sometimes we’re just so exhausted from our life that we literally just do lounge out and be lazy and talk or just stay next to each other and cuddle or whatever. But ideally, if we weren’t exhausted from lifting like crazy and just living fast, high life with all the stuff that we do, I think we’d be a little more active and

adventurous with each other doing stuff like that. I feel like we both. I don’t know. You tell me. I mean, I know when we go on vacation and stuff, we’re like, never not moving.

Dani:

I can’t. I mean, I can’t even imagine. I can’t imagine our life being different than it is. So it’s hard for me

to imagine what we would be doing if it was different. I guess I’m gonna bop back and forth here. Were you vegan when you met?

Giacomo:

I’ll take this one.

Dani:

Yeah, duh. We met on veganbodybuilding.com dot. Yes, we were both vegan, but along these lines. Where is it? It was such a great question. Somebody said, how did you get through his raw vegan phase?

Giacomo:

How did I get through my raw vegan phase is what it is. I was so bought into that because it was really.

Dani:

He was raw vegan when we met. I was just vegan. He was a raw food vegan, 100%.

Giacomo:

And there’s a lot of embarrassment and shame for me there because there’s a lot of things that I followed and a lot of regrets that I have for the things that I followed that were part of the raw food community, that were just accepted as things that you did to live longer and to be healthier. And in hindsight, that wasn’t even remotely true. It was just a lot of quackery and all that.

So it’s hard to talk about that. But I’m definitely past it, I think, at some point. Yep. But I also had a buy in to that community because it was very popular, because it gave me conviction to go vegan, eat a plant based diet, because it connected me to everything I knew and loved. And it was popular, too, which made me feel like I had social support and something to grow with.

Dani:

It was a lot more popular then than it is now. It sounds kind of crazy to say it now, but at the time, it was much more popular. And I’m very glad that died out. But I’ll be honest, it was really hard for me because, again, I still had this vision of my mind, of myself as different than I was, and I was trying to learn about how to be the best fitness person that I could be at the time.

And Giacomo was older than me. He had more muscle than me, he was way more athletic than me. So I, like, looked up to him in a lot of ways like that, which, in hindsight, I shouldn’t have. You really shouldn’t look up to anybody like that, but I did. So a lot of the stuff that he would say would really influence me and really get in my head and confuse me, even though, like, in my gut, I knew it wasn’t right, I knew it didn’t make sense.

Like, I remember having a conversation with you about, he was trying to convince me that cooked broccoli was toxic. And I was like, that is. That cannot be true. Like, how can somebody be telling me broccoli is bad for me because I cooked it? But I was just so, like, young and naive and new to this world that, I don’t know, it just constantly made me feel bad about anything that I ate that wasn’t raw.

And while I do not blame you for any of this, I definitely, like, spiraled into eating disorder world pretty quickly thereafter. So when he finally stopped being a raw food vegan, I was very happy about it. I was so happy that was done with. And literally years later, it took me years to, like, reconcile with all of this good food, bad food bullshit that had ingrained itself into my brain and which I had seen ingrained itself into so many other people’s brains that was holding them

back and keeping them really eating disordered. But it was really rough triggering, I guess, if you want to use that word, because, I mean, technically, it did, like, trigger eating disordered behavior in myself. So, like, it was really hard. So hard.

Giacomo:

I had a lot of pressure to continue, and I also had a lot of motivation to continue on a raw food diet, even when I had enough evidence pointing to the fact that I should reconsider what I was thinking, because I was the raw food vegan bodybuilder. And back then, that was actually a big deal. If you were to say that right now, it’d be like, well, that’s cool.

Are you healthy and are you strong and muscular because you still have to follow the principles of bodybuilding? Back then, it was a thing. And so I had to uphold myself a certain way for this Persona that I created. And I felt like it was part of my identity, so much so that I could not detach from it. Even when I had a feeling and sneaking suspicion, I started thinking through things a little more.

I think somewhere inside of me, I knew it, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself in hindsight. And it lasted for far longer than it should have, honestly. And then there were many years after that where that, like, shame, regret cycled. I couldn’t even face that myself. I couldn’t even, like, whatever. If someone were to ask me about it, I just couldn’t even respond truthfully and honestly.

Dani:

Oh, yeah, because you had to, like, break it to people over and over again. Like, yeah, I’m not raw anymore. I remember that. Yeah, I remember. I forgot about that. But, yeah, that had to be tough.

Giacomo:

Plus, you don’t want to start to attack a whole group of people that, especially a whole group of people that supported you. And there are still plenty of more people these days that are going raw or are raw foodists, but they’re doing in a much more practical way. There is, there is that fringe area.

Dani:

That fringe area is making a comeback right now.

Giacomo:

Is it?

Dani:

Yeah.

Giacomo:

But there is also, there are also people who are a lot more practical that sort of blur the lines between a whole food plant based diet and a raw food diet where if you look at them, they’re perfectly healthy, more or less. It’s just their personal preference. Yeah, yeah.

Dani:

But I mean, yeah, everything about it was weird. The dogma around the raw food community, intense. Was, like, really messed up. Like, super messed up.

Giacomo:

Well, the spiritual component made things very hard to be rooted in reality and be grounded. As far as the reasoning behind eating the way that you ate and stuff like that, people got a little too wishy washy with it.

Dani:

Yeah. And I actually think that when I met you, I was much more, like, open to these other ideas.

Giacomo:

Well, you were crunchy, too. You were very crunchy.

Dani:

We were very crunchy.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

But I was open to, like, these ideas of things like energy, which, I mean, energy exists.

Giacomo:

It does, right.

Dani:

But I mean, you know what I’m talking about. Like, I would have things like crystals mostly because I thought they were pretty, but I would be like, well, this one represents this and this one represents that. And I actually think a lot of that raw food bullshit and being able to, like, see so clearly through it, like David Wolf telling people to take their most expensive supplements during the waxing moon and just

looking at a room full of people slack jawed, nodding, and being like, this is insane. I actually think seeing that so close was one of the reasons I am, like, so pragmatic now.

Giacomo:

Yeah, it’s kind of unfortunate because there are a lot of things you can’t explain, and there are a lot of reasons to be a little more connected to your soul, we’ll say, for lack of a better word or lack of a better way of saying it.

Dani:

Yeah, but some people just ruin it for everybody.

Giacomo:

Exactly. And I guess we were part of that, unfortunately. Well, in some ways, I was.

Dani:

You were?

Giacomo:

I’ll take the blame. Sure.

Dani:

So there’s a lot of questions in here that are kind of tough questions about, like, basically, what is something that drives you nuts about the other person? What is your biggest pet peeve? What is your biggest disappointment? Like? Those are pretty big questions, I think. And there’s several of them, so I feel like I can lump them together. Go ahead.

Giacomo:

Oh, geez. Well, the first day that I met you. That’s not true. Let me backpedal here. The first couple weeks that we started living together, there were, like eight coffee cups in the living room next to each other. And sometimes there is a tendency to have multiple things out in some sort of, like a chaotic, weird, doesn’t make sense kind of way.

And I’m kind of like, no. Yeah, no, please don’t. That’s a little. That can. That it can be a little bit you can look at in a sweet way and be like, oh, this is just something that is one of her many idiosyncrasies, and she’s adorable. And then in another way, it’s like, this is my environment, and it’s kind of unhealthy.

Dani:

It’s okay.

Giacomo:

Sorry. I don’t mean to be such a flip.

Dani:

That. The other direction.

Giacomo:

Let’s hear it.

Dani:

Well, first of all, it’s kind of true. It’s mostly true, but the way Giacomo paints it makes it sound like we live like slobs, which is probably the thing that upsets me about this thing the most. It’s kind of unsafe. Is that what you just said? Kind of unhealthy?

Giacomo:

Well, when I say unhealthy, I mean it’s just not an environment that feels comfortable to live in. But we’re not. We don’t, neither of us.

Dani:

It sounds like we’re living in a place with a mRSA.

Giacomo:

Like, not like that, Dani. Both of us keep a pretty clean environment. Exactly as far as hygienically so clean. But I think sometimes the environment’s just a little too chaotic for me. I can put it that way.

Dani:

I am pretty. I’m a scatterbrained person. I’m absolutely a scatterbrained person, which most people don’t think or wouldn’t expect that from me, but I am, like, little things, little things. I lose my glasses probably ten times a week. Note, I’m not wearing them right now. I have to have chapstick in every room of every house, in every pocket of every coat. Like, I have to have these things. I have multiple of the same things in different rooms so that I don’t lose them. I forget

little things constantly. Sometimes I walk into the kitchen and every cabinet door is open, and I realize I left the room with every cabinet door open. So, like, stuff like that. But, yeah, neither one of us is, like, dirty. But I can absolutely be forgetful in, like, really benign ways. But I could see how they would be annoying. On the flip side, I feel like Giacomo has some, like, obsessive tendencies towards certain things, but only if they’re things that he didn’t do.

Giacomo:

Such as?

Dani:

Such as coffee cups on the counter. But protein powder spilled everywhere on the counter can stay for, like, a week if you did it.

Giacomo:

It’s an interesting perspective, but rather than going back and forth over here, I want to know something that irks you that’s not, like, a direct opposite of something that irks me about you. I’m curious.

Dani:

Oh, okay. So here’s, like, kind of a big one.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

I made a joke about it earlier, but I think it is kind of true. Giacomo definitely leans into that toxic positivity stuff. She’s right that I. As soon as I start to hear it, like, my brain just shuts down because it is so unrealistic to me. Like, I think I’m a pretty optimistic person. I might not seem like it at first, but the more you talk to me, the more you realize I actually do think a lot of things are possible.

Success as possible, but I’m also very realistic. But Giacomo will just be like, anybody can do anything, no matter what, if they just try hard enough. And I’m just like, ugh. My brain just leaves the conversation because I don’t. I don’t think stuff like that is true. I think it overlooks a lot of nuance, and I. That’s. That’s always tough for me.

Giacomo:

Yeah, I don’t have any rebuttal for that.

Dani:

Honestly, I don’t need a rebuttal. It’s fine.

Giacomo:

I understand where you’re coming from for sure, and I totally get it in a lot of ways. The things that we’re talking about while we’re being critical of one another, we’ve managed to balance each other out on, and now we both have the best of each other, which is the beauty of being in a relationship, committed for this long.

However, these are definitely, like, some of our starting points and some of our blind spots and some of our weaknesses as we’ve grown with each other and grown independently of each other because of being with each other.

Dani:

There were so many issues for so long that were very big. Like, some of these I can’t even answer. Someone says, what about your partner disappoints you and how do you cope? And I actually, I think disappoint is such a strong word. Such a strong word that I don’t think.

Giacomo:

Where can we go with that question, Danielle?

Dani:

I don’t think that I’ve. You disappoint me.

Giacomo:

At the very core of who Dani is in this relationship is the part of me that I sometimes lose in this relationship where I feel like there’s always a reason to be together and to work on it and to grow together and to be with each other and committed. And I fundamentally believe that. And at times when I lose that feeling, she brings me back. And I think if you have that as your foundation in your relationship, then you can work through it.

There’s nothing that could truly disappoint you. Like you have each other. What more if everything else is without you have each other. There’s always a starting point. So that’s why I feel like the word disappointing is kind of hard to go on.

Dani:

Yeah. I just, I’m trying really hard to think about a time where I felt disappointed. Disappointed. And I’m not. I mean, maybe like little disappointments, like, oh, you said we would go do this thing and now you’re too busy to do the thing, but, like, big picture disappointed? I don’t think so.

Giacomo:

No.

Dani:

So. But kind of along the same lines. Do you, how do you deal with anger or resentment towards your partner? Do you have an argument style?

Giacomo:

That is a loaded question, because I feel like sometimes we do this really well and other times we do this really poorly. We both have the capability of needing to have the last word and needing to be right. I’m going to refrain from responding on that one. I think we also have the ability to be a little loud and explosive with one another and to not back down.

I think we both have the ability to carry on, and even when there’s not a conversation, it’s completely devolved. I think we both do stuff like that that is unhealthy, but I think that happens less often as we continue to work on our style of. What was the question again, in arguments? Arguing. Our style of arguing.

Dani:

Yeah, I feel like we just catch it much earlier now. Like, when you recognize, oh, this conversation is not gonna go anywhere good right now. Like, let’s just call it and walk away and come back to it at a different point, and hopefully we’ll be, like, better people at that time.

Giacomo:

Or maybe have, like, little bits and pieces during an argument to focus on where we both know the parts of an argument that happen, where it devolves and we sort of, like, know each other’s, I’m about to do this, or she’s about to do that. Let’s go ahead and go there before this argument continues. Like, what.

What are our patterns? What do we typically do in an argument where this thing goes south rather than the thing that we’re actually arguing about? Put it that way, because if you start to argue with the thing you’re actually arguing about, you’re gonna lose most of the time, I think. Yeah.

Dani:

So. Oh, my gosh, I have so, so many things to say about this. So, one, I think the biggest thing that we’ve done to help, like, improve this over 15 years, 16 years, is to always try to approach any disagreement under the assumption that the other person is not trying to hurt you, that the. That you guys ultimately want the same thing, even if you’re not doing it very well.

Like, if you go in with that assumption, not like, Giacomo’s trying to fight me right now, it’s like, ugh, I know Giacomo, like, has good intentions here, and if you can keep that in mind, I think that helps so, so much. The other thing is to recognize that a lot of times, the thing that you’re fighting about is not the thing that you’re fighting about.

Giacomo:

Exactly.

Dani:

The. The dishes in the sink or, like, not getting put in the dishwasher. That’s not what you’re fighting about. You might be fighting about, like, not feeling like your feelings are valued or.

Giacomo:

But here’s where it gets tricky. Right? If you stay there all the time in the safe zone, you still don’t get to tackle the thing that actually triggered the argument, which is technically what you want to have a conversation about. So if you go there and you realize this thing devolved from a conversation to an argument, let’s go ahead and, like, cut out the things that are causing us to argue about each other.

Once you do that, you can get back to the conversation, the thing you actually talk about. And after a certain period of time, like said, if it’s not going there, you call it. You call it because it ain’t worth it. And then eventually you get back to the conversation about the thing that you want to actually talk about.

I feel like that’s a pretty sound strategy for us. That’s worked for the most part. It could be frustrating because a lot of times you don’t actually get the conversation you needed, but that’s your fault at both of you. Like, you got to figure it out, right?

Dani:

I wonder if these lights are dying right now.

Giacomo:

Dani’s giving us a little bit of a light show right now.

Dani:

I think they’re dying. That’s all right. I’ll fix them later.

Giacomo:

That’s okay.

Dani:

But if we had to say, like, what is our shitty argument style? The other one, mine is sarcastic as hell, and Giacomo’s is defensive as hell. And that is not a great combination together when we are not our best selves.

Giacomo:

I don’t think you’re right.

Dani:

Would you like to defend yourself? Just checking.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

Okay, let’s move on to something a little bit happier. This one’s kind of fun. If you could assign. If you could assign each other a superpower, what would it be?

Giacomo:

If you could assign each other. So I’m assigning you a superpower?

Dani:

hmm.

Giacomo:

I’m really bad with this question.

Dani:

Yeah, see, I told you you wanted to hear these questions beforehand so you would think about them.

Giacomo:

Okay, you go first.

Dani:

I would assign you that you did not need to sleep anymore. I feel like you would love that. As it is, he wishes he didn’t need to sleep, so I guess you’re right about that.

Giacomo:

If I were to sign you a superpower. Jeez. What are superpowers? Give me some help here.

Dani:

Things that people cannot actually. What do you mean? What is a superpower? What?

Giacomo:

I.

Dani:

We’ll come back to this.

Giacomo:

Yeah, I’m gonna. Sorry.

Dani:

Favorite meal that the other person makes.

Giacomo:

Favorite meal that the other person makes. Oh, gosh. Geez. It’s tough. Cause, I mean, I’m not saying this to stroke your ego over here. Everything you make is pretty damn good. I don’t. Wouldn’t say. There’s one thing that is a favorite of mine that you make although. Okay. Birthday cake. You can literally tell her anything you want when it comes to making cake, and she will make it for you.

Dani:

I do love making cakes.

Giacomo:

You could try just about anything. And she will make that cake for you.

Dani:

hmm.

Giacomo:

That’s my favorite thing. You make birthday cake, and she’ll insist upon it too. She’ll be like, I’m telling you, I’m gonna make you the cake you want for your birthday, whatever it is. And she’ll make it.

Dani:

Yep.

Giacomo:

How about me?

Dani:

Stuffed artichokes. No question. He makes these stuffed artichokes. They’re stuffed with, like, a weird combination of, like, breadcrumbs and spices and rice raisins and pine nuts and vegan cheese and so much tomato sauce.

Giacomo:

Ugh.

Dani:

It is so crazy good. And it happens, like, maybe once a year, maybe, actually, you haven’t made it in a long time.

Giacomo:

It was time.

Dani:

I think it’s time.

Giacomo:

We’re a little overdue.

Dani:

I’m hungry right now. Currently. If your relationship had a theme song, what would it be? He’s never gonna be able to answer this question.

Giacomo:

Oh, gosh. Sorry to do this to you, Whitney and Steve, we just had a conversation a week ago, but I’m gonna steal your theme song. How about Pinky and the brain?

Dani:

Oh, sweet Jesus.

Giacomo:

You don’t like that one?

Dani:

I mean, I. It’s a funny song.

Giacomo:

I think it’s kind of cool.

Dani:

Are you. I assume you’re pinky.

Giacomo:

Sure, I’ll be Pinky. Do you have a theme song for us?

Dani:

Yeah, I do. It is by the goo goo Dolls.

Giacomo:

Okay.

Dani:

Which is my favorite band of all time, ever. And it’s actually a song that probably. It’s never been on the radio or anything, but it’s called keep the car running. And I think that it is probably my favorite song that reminds me of you.

Giacomo:

Okay.

Dani:

But, you know, I have, like, a million songs that remind me of you, but I think that’s the one. And it reminds me. Reminds me of us, like, our relationship. Let’s see, what else do we have here? Have you ever gotten upset with one another while training together?

Giacomo:

We went through a two year phase just recently where we basically stopped training with each other altogether because we were.

Dani:

So in the why, though.

Giacomo:

No, no, I’m just teasing. I’m just being dramatic to be whatever. But I will say that we were getting pretty easily irritated with each other on the gym floor for a couple of reasons. I think. One was we were both listening to whatever in our headsets, and then it was a matter of, like, taking our headsets off and on, like, stupid things that just shouldn’t be. Or, like, lifting styles were different and we wanted to lift with each other, but we also didn’t.

Or wherever we first methadore we first met, I didn’t like her critiquing me at all. At all. I was like, listen, I’ve been lifting since I was 14. I don’t care that I’m half repping out there. I don’t care that you’re lifting on a forum for the past two or three years with me. It wasn’t her, per se. It wasn’t the fact that I was lifting longer than her. I’m just poking and I just.

Dani:

That is what he was saying at the time, though.

Giacomo:

I was not open to feedback on the training floor from pretty much anyone, honestly. I wasn’t really open to training feedback much and that. And obviously I took that out on you and I was a little prideful about that. But we definitely had our arguments on the gym floor.

Dani:

But actually, I don’t think any of them had to do with, like, most of them didn’t have anything to do with training. I think they had to do with the fact that we are never apart and, like, people are not meant to be together that much, so.

Giacomo:

Well, look at us right now. I mean, we’re having the time of our lives out there training together. It’s.

Dani:

Yeah.

Giacomo:

To me, you and I lifting together right now is better than it ever has been. Things come around.

Dani:

Yeah, I know. But also our work, I think, actually a lot of it has to do with the fact that our work together is much smoother than it used to be, which is, I’m certain, one of these questions, but I’ll get to it. But to answer the question, yes, we have. Absolutely. And I know this person followed up and was like me and my husband, sometimes we get, like, angry at each other on the floor, the gym floor, and I just don’t know if that happens to other people. And yes, the answer is yes.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

I mean, angry might be too strong of a word. Irritated, I think is probably a better word.

Giacomo:

Sure. The way that I like to frame it these days is like, you’re going to lift. You’re probably going to be angry and, like, super physically aggressive because you’re lifting weights. So if you come in it from that place, it really doesn’t matter what’s coming out of your mouth, within reason, because you’re both physically aggressive and you’re going in there to be angry and lift hard and heavy.

So it’s only natural that that’s going to come out with whatever you say and how you say it to your

partner. So as long as you don’t take it out of context and it’s kind of an outlet. It’s kind of a nice outlet, actually.

Dani:

Yeah. But I think if we didn’t like live together and work together, it probably just would have been, it just would have been more fun for longer, I think. But it’s been, it’s fun right now. I don’t know where the question went. I definitely know that it’s here, but basically. Oh, here we go. How do you separate work from your relationship? This is from somebody who also owns a business with their partner.

Giacomo:

We tried saying that this was husband or wife and this was business partner thing. We stopped saying that, but we tried that for a little while as a strategy.

Dani:

I say it, still say it. I do. I say like, your wife needs to talk to you or your business partner needs to talk to you because I think it’s important to try. To try. I mean, it’s, it’s like an exercise in futility.

Giacomo:

Yeah, it is. Exactly.

Dani:

Because no matter what, it’s going to come back to business partner is always going to be my husband. So if he says something to me that, like, if he’s, if somebody in an office said it to me, I wouldn’t think twice about it. But as a husband saying it to me, I’m like, who do you think you are? Like, you can’t talk to me like that, really? Or vice versa, I guess is what I’m saying.

Giacomo:

Yeah, it’s true. That is true.

Dani:

It’s no matter what your business partner is your husband or your business partner is your wife. But I do think that it is very helpful to try and separate those things if you can, as best you can. So that’s one way we do it, is the, like I say it, your wife needs to talk to you. I need husband Giacomo right now.

Giacomo:

I think you just get a little better at it the more you go at it.

Dani:

But I also think practice, practice of like trying really hard to not talk about work stuff when you’re not working, which is super hard, not even necessarily.

Giacomo:

Practical because work these days follows you everywhere on your screensh or in like whatever you’re doing, when you just find ways to do stuff while you’re moving out and about, even when you’re off from work, especially when you’re running a business. So I don’t know that I agree with that statement anymore in all honesty, but.

Dani:

Well, you may not. You may think you don’t agree with it because I’ve gotten so much better at it, but if I started doing it again and Giacomo was actually the reason that I worked really hard to do it way, way back.

Giacomo:

I don’t want to take that back, though. I don’t know if it was the smartest move. Honestly. Funny that I’m coming around now. I know, I know.

Dani:

You just are the most oppositional person on earth.

Giacomo:

I change my mind like anyone else, but I think it’s one of those things where you have to use your better judgment. It’s one thing to meant to have a one off about something or to say a couple of things, but when it just becomes constant chatter while you’re hanging out to the point where you’re not actually hanging out, that’s when it’s

problematic. If you can’t have 15 minutes hanging out with your partner without chatting about something and your intention is to actually hang out, that’s a problem, I guess.

Dani:

No, it becomes a major problem.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

And I know for a fact that if it went the other way and I was constantly talking to you about personal stuff while we were working, that would drive you up a wall.

Giacomo:

Not really. Believe it or nothing.

Dani:

Yes, it would. Okay, you guys are now part of the experiment because I’m gonna try to start doing it and I will let you know what happens, but I suspect it will not go well. Giacomo does not like to be interrupted with things that were not part of what he was already doing at all. So if I busted in while he was in the middle of doing something really important, like, hey, I was gonna.

I can’t even think of something that doesn’t have to do with work right now. That’s how lame our personal life is. Hey, I was thinking that we could do blah, blah, blah with the kids this weekend while he’s trying to work on something else that would end badly. That would end with that. I’m not talking about this right now. Please leave. I’m in the middle of something.

Giacomo:

hmm.

Dani:

For sure. So, you know, Giacomo is the one who pointed out to me that I did this constantly. Talked about personal stuff at work, talked about work stuff when we were trying to not work. And I think that all goes back to how scatterbrained I am. Just as soon as something pops into my head, I feel like I have to say it or else I’m going to forget it forever.

Which is true, which is why I have to make systems for myself to remember things, which is why I have so many sticky notes and folders and planners and digital planners and calendars, etcetera. So I think that that has improved that. No, it hasn’t improved that.

Giacomo:

I have all kinds of thoughts to share, but I was curious to see where you were going with it. No, I think I could have been a little more committed outside of my nine to five with conversations about work. I just think there’s a limit at some point, right? And again, if it’s hard to focus and you don’t make an intention to be present with whatever you’re doing when you’re hanging out and all you can talk about is the work task, where you’re actually working on the work task, then you got to

find a way. You got to find a way. I don’t think a little bit of chatter here and there or a little bit of talking about work outside of work is I don’t think you could really have a successful business without that, in all honesty, as you continue to grow your business. But if it becomes the only thing, especially when the object is to hang.

Dani:

Out, then which it has been like, we’ve gone through phases where that’s all there is. All there is is work talk constantly, and that’s not healthy either. So that had to be walked back, and I think it’s been for the better. So who wears the pants? This is kind of a joke because Giacomo’s the one who asked that question.

Giacomo:

Well, I am literally wearing the pants right now, so I. I’m also wearing pants. Those are not pants. Those are leggings. Sorry.

Dani:

I don’t know. I think that we take.

Giacomo:

We wear the pants in different ways.

Dani:

Yeah. And at different times.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

And we just, like, take the wheel at different times.

Giacomo:

Yep. I think so.

Dani:

Yeah. I think we do a good job keeping most things pretty even. Like, there are some things Giacomo always does more of and some things I always do more of, but it’s not like, you know, I hear a lot of stories about women, especially, who work full time, take care of their kids, and then do, like, 80% of the domestic labor.

And it’s. I always feel, like, angry when I hear that, but also kind of sad, but also really lucky, because I don’t feel like that at all. I don’t feel like that even a little bit.

Giacomo:

We wind up becoming invested in certain things that one takes the wheel on more than the other, whether they’re better at it or whether they just got involved and invested in it. And there are some things that, like Dani said, that either she’s better at or I’m better at. And the other one of us, rather than feeling like that person is taking the pants, wearing the pants. Excuse me. Sorry. We just wind up following the other person’s lead?

Dani:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think so. So that has been. I mean, there have been moments where that’s a bit of a struggle in business, though.

Giacomo:

It could be.

Dani:

It could be where it’s like, okay, who has the final say on this decision? Because if we don’t reach, like, a unanimous decision, someone’s got to make a decision. Like, that’s. That has its tricky moments, for sure. So we’ve kind of, like, tacitly been like, this is kind of your wheelhouse in the business, and this is kind of my wheelhouse in the business.

Giacomo:

I think we just take turns with it.

Dani:

No, like, there’s some stuff that you just handle and there’s some stuff that I just handle. I handle most of the creative stuff. You handle most of the, like, finance, bookkeeping stuff. It works okay. Lots of questions about intimacy and how it has changed over the years. I mean, that’s. I guess that’s pretty much it. How is it? And how has it changed over the years? Don’t be too graphic.

Giacomo:

Oh.

Dani:

Oh. Have you ever dealt with dry spells? Yeah. Contest prep.

Giacomo:

Hello, contest prep. Or if we’re working around the clock and we literally are both too tired.

Dani:

Or when we had the kids for, like, a long time, like, and that.

Giacomo:

Was a little, that was complex as far as how we felt in general about our home environment. It was a little challenging.

Dani:

And just as a side note, we do have questions about that as well, like the periods of time that the kids have been here. And we deliberately, that’s the only thing that we chose to, like, not talk.

Giacomo:

About in the spirit of not putting.

Dani:

Their business out on the edge and.

Giacomo:

Also having a personal life. Right. You don’t have to share everything, even though you can.

Dani:

But suffice it to say, that was very complicated. It was probably the hardest thing that’s ever happened in our relationship, but we are on the other side of it, so.

Giacomo:

Yes, exactly.

Dani:

So I would say that it’s good. It’s overall good, but it has certainly evolved in 16 years. There have been ups, there have been downs, there’s been breaks. I guess for a lot of different reasons. Contest prep is not a very sexy time. You would think it would be right.

Giacomo:

Being busy with work, for example, and both being too tired despite us both having the need, we both making time for each other at the same time became challenging for a while also, I think, learning what intimacy, what part of it, how it was enjoyable. And I don’t just mean, like, emotionally or, like, forming a connection. I mean, like, just literally, like, how do you. How do you all both enjoy intimacy with one another?

Like, we have different kinds of styles. Like, we. What each other physically enjoy, and I think now we both wind up enjoying each other’s style. But in the beginning, I think it’s a little. It was a little

challenging, and it was a little easy to get hurt with that or just feel awkward and uncomfortable being like, oh, you’re into this. Well, I don’t know if I am. And then the other person gets hurt, and then vice versa.

Dani:

Well, I think in the beginning, it was just really. It was okay. So when. Especially when you’re young, some people believe this their whole lives, but especially when you’re very young, you think that, like, oh, if I like this person and this person likes me, as soon as we hook up, it’s gonna be magic and fireworks, and everything’s gonna be awesome.

And if it’s not, this is a bad match, so I’ll just give up on it. And that is so not true. I used to think that, too, actually. And I don’t know, maybe you did, too. Like, it’s like that. It absolutely should be easy.

Giacomo:

Yes.

Dani:

And, I mean, sometimes it’s easy, but sometimes it’s not. And especially, like I said, we moved across the country. We didn’t know each other that well. It was not always easy, but it was really easy to get your feelings hurt.

Giacomo:

Oh, yeah.

Dani:

And I think if you. Someone gets their feelings hurt enough, they just stop trying. And I think that’s. I mean, I understand it, but I think it’s a mistake, because I do think that these are all things that can be learned if somebody is willing to take an interest to learn them. That’s what’s happened over the past 1516 years. But, yeah, things are good. Things are still good. Things might be better than they’ve ever.

Giacomo:

Been, actually in that department. Yeah. Yeah.

Dani:

So I can’t complain. Same one other question that we got that I deliberately chose to not answer, which reminds me of this, because when we had the kids here, that was probably the hardest time for everything. Everything. But we got a lot of questions about the kids and how we, like, handled that, and we deliberately decided not to answer that

on this podcast, largely for the sake of their privacy, because, you know, I feel fine talking about it, but it’s not just my story to tell. It’s not just your story to tell.

Giacomo:

And also in the spirit of having some sort of a personal life outside of this, which is important, and we’ve kind of talked about that a fair amount on this episode. We could honor that. I mean, we should honor that. We’re gonna. Yeah.

Dani:

And the last question was, like, what does joint meal prep look like for you guys?

Giacomo:

Okay. Unfortunately for you and I, our meal prep is largely unrelatable to the average person and even to many people because our lives are so incredibly busy that we rely on convenience foods.

Dani:

Well, elaborate on that, because that could easily be construed as, like, junk food.

Giacomo:

Stuff that can be prepped fast. We don’t batch cook much foods ahead of time. We both.

Dani:

We cook a few things ahead of time.

Giacomo:

Well, some stuff like vegetables, sometimes grains, for example. We stock similar foods. We both sort of agree, like, yeah, we’re going to lean into potatoes and berries and apples this week, for example. So we’ll both pull from the same kinds of foods, and we share a grocery list and we collaborate in

that.

Dani:

Way, but we eat at different times.

Giacomo:

And we prepare our food differently.

Dani:

Yeah, it’s just. I know what this question is asking. They’re thinking that we, like, decide what we’re going to eat for the week, and then we make it all on a Sunday, and we down to have dinners together every night, and, like, we don’t. That’s another thing that our family thinks is super weird. Like, anytime we do get to have dinner together, like, that’s awesome. Love it. But it doesn’t happen very often.

Giacomo:

And what percentage of your meals do you eat at your desk?

Dani:

I try. Very.

Giacomo:

I mean, really?

Dani:

Yeah. No, I don’t do that.

Giacomo:

I ate my desk like, 70% of the time. No, as an example.

Dani:

I mean, it happens sometimes. Snacks. I’ll eat at my desk.

Giacomo:

I eat in my car often. I’ll literally take my pre workout, like, I’ve made myself proach, and I’m eating in the car somewhere, like, on the way from the post office to the gym. Like, how are you gonna meal prep for that with somebody, for example?

Dani:

Yeah, we’re just. We’re kind of utilitarian about the way that we eat, and that’s not because we don’t like food. We love food, and we love good food, too.

Giacomo:

We have different schedules. I’ll go to bed 2 hours, two to 3 hours earlier than her. And if I want to eat something at a certain point for dinner time, my dinner times be different than hers. Like, again, convenience. And just the way that we do things, it makes it very hard to have this. But we are trying to work towards having more stuff that we eat and share together.

Well, at least I am. That’s my intention to share. I know we spoke about a couple weeks ago. Like I asked, I was like, hey, what kind of. You like soup? You like sandwiches? So who knows? Stay tuned. We may. We may get there.

Dani:

Yeah. But, I mean, I’m thinking of, like, natalie, for example.

Giacomo:

Natalie, right.

Dani:

Preps all of her food and then preps all of George’s food.

Giacomo:

George is out of the house most of the time.

Dani:

Right.

Giacomo:

It makes sense.

Dani:

Or I’m thinking of other couples that do exactly what I said. They decide what they’re gonna eat for themselves and their kids, and they have family for the whole thing. But, yeah, our lifestyle is just very different. And I’ll tell you, when the kids were here, I think I can talk about this. My schedule was very different. Normally, I eat dinner at, like, eight at night. When the kids were here, I ate dinner at five.

Giacomo:

I was in the middle of a prep that didn’t work, when I wasn’t prepping, when I stepped out of my first prep and we had them, it was just you, me, and them. I think we were eating a lot of meals together at that point. It made sense.

Dani:

Well, you would sit down and eat with us sometimes in days.

Giacomo:

No, when we were back renting, not here.

Dani:

Oh, oh, oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we were.

Giacomo:

So for. Unfortunately, it’s hard for us because our times in with family setting, you know, children, they were. They weren’t something we grew into. It was very acute, and it wasn’t planned. So, like, if I was in the middle of a prep, for example, or. Or we were living together with your mom for the first time, and then, for example, like, it was very situational.

Yeah, it’s hard to. Exactly. So it’s not. You know, I don’t know how to say it, but, like, it’s not something we could be, like, hypothetically would have did this way if this was our family life with children.

Dani:

The only thing that I could say is, hypothetically, if I had more time, I’d probably make us both meals. Yeah, but I don’t have more time.

Giacomo:

Yeah.

Dani:

I worked full time plus whatever that. I don’t have no idea how many hours it is, so.

Giacomo:

But you don’t know. We don’t know what 2024 has in store for us. And we got some high hopes and not expectations. High hopes for this year. We’re lifting together. We are doing our cut together. So we may very well, you may very well be surprised what we come out with this year. We may have some stuff in store for you with our eating habits and prep and all that.

Dani:

Yeah, I mean, we’ll still do videos like, I’ve done videos for our clients. That’s like, hey, here’s my meal prep for an entire week. I’m going to do it in under 45 minutes.

Giacomo:

There’s some possibilities here. What will play out? We can’t tell you, but stay tuned. 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. you will get a response from one of us right away. Again, my name is Jacamo.

Dani:

And I’m Dani.

Giacomo:

Talk to you soon.