Ep 183 – Being Flexible Enough To Know When To Pivot

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Vegan Proteins and Muscles by Brussels radio. My name is Alice. I’m Giacomo and this is episode of 180 three,

Giacomo:

right on. So you and I haven’t connected a whole lot like this past month or two just been in the thick of it. I know personally I’ve been trying my best. I’ve been trying really hard to enjoy the summer. Often I find myself dieting down in the summer or just like in the middle of some big work project or whatever or honestly just like so grateful that it’s not the frigid cold winter anymore that I don’t even know what to do with myself.

But this summer I am on it like I am finding a way to, to do fun. But you were mentioning before we even hopped on today to do this thing that it’s not like that for you. What, what is it, what have you been up to?

Alice:

You know, I never typically diet in the summer. and going through this cut right now has been such a struggle. I have been literally waking up every day and just having to have a conversation with myself like we are in a deficit and we are going to comply today. I think it’s just because I’m spending a lot more time outside than I normally do. And why is that happening?

Because I’m actually going outside to get my steps in the evening. And so trying to find a time when it’s bearable outside and then being outside for over an hour getting like super, super drenched in sweat and I don’t know, it’s just, it’s messing with my head. So maybe I need to start walking on the walking path again like I did for during the winter,

Giacomo:

I suppose. I like to, I like to think that because you’re prepping your body does better in the heat and it does, but in another sense, you’re right, like it’s pretty, it can be a little bit fatiguing when you’re just not in the mood to get your steps in. You have to get him in and it’s like super hot outside.

Alice:

And yeah, but it’s affecting me all day. Like I’m so miserable that it’s so hot. I’m also a lot of the foods that were serving me and my last cut are not, it’s not happening the same way this time. For example,

definitely, definitely can’t be doing soups. That’s, that’s probably the biggest thing is I was relying on a lot of soups to keep me full before. And now it’s like, that’s the last thing on the planet that I want.

And so I’ve literally simplified everything down to just ultra, ultra basic to try and make food just be like on the back burner. But even when it’s time to eat, it’s like, I don’t want anything and I’m not, I’m not alone. Like several of my clients are like, nothing. Sounds good to me right now. It all sounds disgusting. And then I, I, I’m hungry and I go to eat and I put food in my mouth and it’s like what that happens.

Giacomo:

Yeah, I feel like you wind up getting to this place where it doesn’t make any sense. There’s no rhyme or no reason. You just have a certain bunch of foods or meals that just work for you until they don’t. And then we, they really don’t and you have to like, find something else. It’s so weird how that works.

Alice:

My A DH D I hyper focus on like these are my nails and then it’s like, no, no, not anymore. You can never eat those foods again. Not really. But it feels like that.

Giacomo:

Yeah. Have you been finding the, a way to enjoy something outside of focusing on competition?

Alice:

Pokemon go and just time with family. The ultimate, the ultimate reason I’m enjoying that so much is because I play with my brother and my sister and my boyfriend and their significant others and my boyfriend’s brother, we all have a little gang that play together and it, it’s, it makes all the difference in the world. So it’s just bonding time with them.

And also the Pokemon go. The reason that I’m walking outdoors because I need to get my steps because you have to walk to play that game. You, you can’t, you can’t move forward at all if you don’t go walking. so it’s, it’s really like the foundation of keeping everything together right now

Giacomo:

trying to think what we have going on other than just waiting it out for our big upcoming events that we’re traveling for. We have the USA Fit Fest in September and then obviously Mr America in October, but August is pretty quiet, honestly. I think it’s just a matter of just coasting. I was, I was supposed to go to Sicily with my family, but I don’t, but I’m 99% sure.

I’m not gonna go, just got caught up with too much other stuff over here. So, yeah, it’s ok. But no, but, but honestly, it’s, it’s been a really good summer. I cannot complain. But everything you’re talking about in terms of things being different, but you still have the same goal in mind. I think that’s kind of like the perfect way to just get into what we’re talking about today, which is being flexible. But also thinking about when you have to consider whether or not you should

pivot, like knowing when to pivot and when not to pivot when you know, it’s like we often talk about keeping the goal, the goal, right. But sometimes you have to really look at your goal and wonder, like, should you be pivoting right now? And if you should be, how do you be flexible? How are you flexible with that? And if not, like, how are you flexible enough to continue to work towards your goal when things change or you feel different or whatnot?

Alice:

For sure. And I have this conversation, I think a lot of people, it’s happening just because it’s summer. I think a lot of people are wanting to give up just because it’s summer. Do you experience that with your clients right now?

Giacomo:

I’m, I’ve have had this repeating thought and for some reason to me, it’s just reminiscent of when people came out of COVID and everyone had to do everything. I don’t know if anyone else is, is sharing that same thought right now. But to me that’s what it feels like. It’s like the idea that you have to have a good time. You have to do all the things. That’s just the general sense that I, that’s the impression that I get with the people with the circles that I run in and the people that I’m

talking to and clients and this and that, like everyone’s just like almost feeling obligated to have a good time or just like trying to squeeze every last drop of good out of their day that they can right now.

Alice:

Yeah. You’ve gotta go to parties or just, you know, there’s more stuff I think even going on at people’s work as far as, like happy hours and social things. you can’t just stay in the house all the time. There’s this sense of, like FOMO, even if you’re not actually, like, going to the beach or going on a hike, the whole mindset has changed to where people, it’s really, really hard to nail anything down as far as like, yes, I will commit to going to the gym and getting sweaty even though

it’s so hot outside, you know, and I will commit to making these really tough nutrition changes. Really? I think nutrition is the hardest thing for a lot of people because I know I’m not alone when I say, like, taste buds change in the summer. You crave like the worst foods even though you’re not really a person who eats those worst foods. Like, even if that’s the case, I don’t know, like summer foods, like, you know, your burgers and your coleslaw and your wings and things like that.

All your vegan, you know, I’m getting where we went to the grocery store and there was this big sale on, on Impossible burgers and we got several bags of those and it’s just been so hard to not have like, partake in all that. Like, no, I’ll have my boca burger if I’m going to go have burgers with my family and my family is not vegan by the way.

Giacomo:

But so what I’m thinking about with all these different examples that you’re talking about in terms of you, has you having a goal, your clients having a goal and these things coming up are they’re all external stuff, not stuff that’s happening to the client, not stuff that you’re experiencing. For example, it’s stuff that it, it’s not necessarily that their obligations are just pressures, social pressures, maybe the expectation to do things a certain

way or to have fun or this or that. And, to the point where, like you have to start to second guess whether or not you should continue to pursue a goal the way you’re pursuing it.

Alice:

And, you know, for some people in the summer it’s not worth it. You know, I don’t have, I don’t have the luxury of pivoting at the moment. You know, I made this big commitment and I’m sticking to it. But for some people, if you don’t have the motivation and, or if you don’t have the willingness to make the trades to meet your goals right now, you know, I’ve talked to a lot of people about having a maintenance phase.

It’s like, all right, we are more than halfway towards your goal. You have crushed it. It’s struggle bus right now. How about instead it’s like switch to maintenance. Enjoy the summer a little bit more. Let’s maintain and when that motivation comes back, you know, along with the cooler weather, along with school, starting all those things, we can pick up where we left off.

And I think, I think that’s not an option on a lot of people’s brains. They think it’s all or nothing and they think they have to completely give up, but that’s not life. Right. You have to, you know, even after we, and it’s usually weight loss, right? That we’re talking about what, even after you’ve hit your weight loss goals. Like, all right, now we have to figure out how to maintain.

Now, we have to figure out how to make this work. And this is really just like, practice for that. I think so. I’ve been really pushing and encouraging people to just if the struggle is that real, let’s let’s go maintenance for a little while. Same thing as a diet break. Sometimes you need a diet break.

Giacomo:

Yeah. And in one sense I understand where people are coming from because you can easily take a look at what you haven’t been able to do and just be like, well, yeah, Alice, except the fact that my life has been a series of never ending diet breaks and I haven’t gotten to where I want so stop making excuses for me and why don’t you want me to achieve my goal?

Like I understand that. Right. And, and I also understand the idea of like, well, I’ve gotten so far, why would you ask me to stop doing what I’m doing right now, how will I get started? And after the fact, I also get the idea of someone who is very much so driven to achieve and they’re gonna beat themselves up or get hard on themselves or get down on themselves if you’re legit, asking them to stop, like, like they’re gonna take it as, as you thinking that they can’t do it.

Right. For example, and that, that’s not good either. Like, so having those difficult conversations to help someone have wrap their head around things properly and have the right kind of mindset can be very tricky. It’s not as easy, it’s not as cut and dry as being like, all right.

Well, hey, you have a 40 pound weight loss goal. You lost the 1st 20 stop right now, start in two months and your reasons have nothing to do with how your body is responding. Your reasons have everything to do with your lifestyle and they’re like, yeah, but I could, I could do this.

Giacomo:, Alice:

I’m like, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do something, but it’s, it’s hard, you know, people, people think of their goals, like you said, black and white thinking of course everyone’s gonna be hard on themselves.

Alice:

It also makes me think of like another time to be willing to pivot is just when a major life change happens, right? Something that you know, maybe a habit change or some kind of service can’t necessarily fix as far as, like, taking the time off of your plate. Right. Like, maybe getting a new job or going through a move or, of course, things like a new relationship or having a baby or having a puppy or any of those things.

Right. Going back to school. I have a client going back to school right now. I’m so excited for her, but it’s definitely like, all right, we’ve got, we’ve, we got one more big ball to juggle, figure out how to make the schedule work. Right. Have you ever had anything like that happen in the middle of your, one of your goals? Like something that’s completely through a wrench in the middle.

Giacomo:

I can’t think of a time where I haven’t had something like that happen.

Giacomo:, Alice:

Every time it happens, every single time life does not wait.

Giacomo:

Life is going to happen. Whether you make plans or not, it doesn’t care about what you want. So you have to make a conscious choice to keep going or to decide to pivot or to be flexible while you’re, while you’re continuing. And, you know, again, it doesn’t mean that you’re giving up on your goal or, or failing. doesn’t even certainly mean you have to stop. It’s just start to, like, consider instead of just keeping the goal, the goal with the blinders on because that can come with a set

of consequences and you might not like what those consequences are. Plus it might actually get in the way of you accomplishing your goal if you’re just like a die hard and you just like, I’m gonna keep going no matter what. and how, you know, and how important is your goal too and how important are your priorities or whatever else you have going on and how is it going to impact your ability to get there?

Alice:

I think some, you know, you also have to figure out like, what can, what can you change that might free up some bandwidth. I mean, with things like nutrition, like what I’m doing as far as just putting meals on like easy button, there’s a little bit of meal prep involved, but not much relying on a lot more like tofu and fava bean, tofu and microwave in my vegetables and everything in the kitchen is like, I’m in and I’m in and out of the kitchen in like five minutes and food is not the center

of my life right now. And for, I think for a lot of people, that’s a hard concept. It’s a hard thing to do when we live in this very like, food society, food oriented society, eating out hyper pat foods, alcohol, all the things, I mean, I think that’s one thing. I don’t know, you have anything to add on to that.

Giacomo:

No, I have so many thoughts about all of it. Honestly, when you’re trying to make a giant lifestyle change, the universe doesn’t exactly talk back to you the way that you want it to right away, it’s gonna take a long time, the people in your world that in the way that you like to do things, all of it, like it, it doesn’t change overnight. So you can be met with a lot of resistance when you’re trying to make big changes.

And sometimes you do need to take a breather and take some time to do some housekeeping essentially. And see the way that your goal is affecting your life essentially and the way your life is affecting your goal, like no, take some, take some inventory, take some like look, look at what’s happening, look at what’s going on and then see if you can do things a little differently or if you should consider adjusting like what you’re like, like you said, like a diet break would be a

perfect example of something you could do where you’re still working towards your goal, just you’re giving, you’re giving yourself a little bit of a little bit of time to breathe essentially.

Alice:

And there’s also things like services, right? Like there’s always meal delivery services that would free

up a lot of bandwidth. you know, childcare services. If you, if you had someone to continue watching the your child for like an hour after work, so that you had a little bit more time to go to the gym. what else?

Other services, you know? Oh, hiring a cleaner, maybe. Hiring a maid. Certain things you can do to like. All right. What, where can I free up my time here? So that I would have more time for me, my stress management getting to bed on time, making sure I’m eating up and staying on plan and getting to the gym. Right.

Giacomo:

Yeah. Or even getting out of your head. So, because a lot of times you’re getting in your own way, you just, like, dump your thoughts out into a piece of paper. Do like a brain dump or journal a little bit or call someone you trust and, like, talk about whatever it is. Like your path, your plan, your, like how you’re doing things because often that can help you take a second look at

what you’re doing and being like, all right. Well, should I change up my routine a little bit? Should I consider not, not this, not be my routine, you know, stuff like that.

Alice:

Yeah. I think routines are really, really important in this case. And I think, especially, like, I think of the evening, if I don’t have an evening routine, then that’s when the cravings and stuff are really going to throw me off. And sometimes it’s like you come home from work, you come home from the gym and there’s just like all this chaos and maybe there’s people in your house who aren’t eating the same plan as you.

Maybe there’s people in your house who want to order food or go out to eat and it’s like having a plan and having a routine that you follow and having, say if they do order food, having something like a diet pizza that you can, that you can make and whip up really quick and feeling like you’re still eating with the family But staying on plan.

Giacomo:

Yeah, exactly. And then the other thing to think about is, well, I guess there’s two, there’s two scenarios I’m thinking about. One is the plans that you know of. Right. I have a graduation on this day. I have travel in on this, in this month. I have someone to care for, for the next six months, et cetera, et cetera. Should I keep going with my goal?

Should, is it now the right time to be more aggressive then? I think of the other stuff, the stuff that hits you that is unexpected. Right. Like, oh, my gosh. Like I have to take, an emergency day off for something or I have an unexpected trip where I have to be bedside for somebody at a hospital or I have a vacation that was planned for me, that I was unaware of that and, and I was, it was just sprung on me that, like, in a month from now we’re, we’re going somewhere, someone made plans for me

and I want to honor that, like things like that, that, that are unexpected and, and what you do when you start to, think about again, your, your needs or so the fir like you, I’m solution oriented in the first place I go to as well. This is, these are, are what I like. Fitness and health are a part of my identity that this is something that I want. So while they’re not like basic needs are the closest thing to basic needs for me. It’s not sleep, it’s not water, but how I eat and how and how I,

you know, and how active I am. These are things that, that are pretty much, these are essentials for me. So that’s what I, that’s where I usually start when it comes to stuff. But you have some flexibility there like you don’t, you know, as long as you’re moving, right? Maybe you can’t train six days a week or five days a week or whatever, maybe for a week or two, five days a week.

Alice:

It’s a lot.

Giacomo:

Well, meaning you can up, you can increase your training frequency, you can decrease your training frequency. You can change your training to meet the needs of equipment. You do or do not have access to. Whether it’s remote, whether you need to be at home or whether you need to be at a gym, you can focus on shifting where you’re really not training you’re not lifting much at all. Maybe you’re doing lifting once or twice a week, for example. And now because there are hikes that you’re

going on for, with, with others because there are plans and there, there, it’s an active vacation, for example, all kinds of stuff like that where instead of being like, well, I have my program, I need to follow it this way. Or else that would be what I would think of as far as nutrition goes. What are some of your thoughts when it comes to food and doing things a little bit differently, depending on different kinds of environments that you’re.

Alice:

Yeah. I mean, I always, I’ll not everyone can do this. I live out of my iso bag a lot of times, you know, packing a lot of food and I think I really, I like to, I like where you’re going with, like you saying, you have decisions for how you want to approach a goal and how you wanna go for it. You can, there, there’s more than one way to increase the calorie deficit, right?

You can increase your activity. You can really like dial in on the nutrition and maybe start weighing your food instead of just using measuring cups. Right? You can, change your workout times. Yeah. And your workout frequencies and different modalities too. I mean, of course, we’re always gonna push weightlifting, but there’s so many different ways that you can move your body cardio wise that, you know, choose something that you love.

And I mean, there’s always gonna be some choices that are in inevitable, like we’re almost always gonna have to choose to go out to eat less, right? We’re almost always gonna have to choose to eat

more vegetables. There are times when we may have to pack food with us and say no to some social events that are say very, very food oriented saying no to happy hours.

and, and you know, there’s different, we don’t have to choose all of these things. A lot of us can choose a couple of these things or giving just a little bit and still see results, right? They say that in order to be the like the most successful on the diet on, on a, on a diet, on a weight loss journey and to have your results stick you, the sweet spot is like 80 to 90% adherence. Right.

Right. You know, not having hyper palatable foods in the house. That’s another choice limiting desserts to you know, maybe once a week to every other week. unless you’re willing to make a little bit of Franken foods and make some diet foods, diet desserts and flexible dieting that we’re always promoting, of course, accepting the things that you can’t control.

Giacomo:

You may not be the one that brings food in the house. There are other people who enjoy other things and finding ways to be comfortable around foods that are not yours. For example, when you’re in a different say, like you’re not home, for example, finding out ahead of time where you can shop for food and what kind of food you gonna shop for packing stuff that works for wherever you’re going, stuff like that without necessarily having your meals laid out from breakfast to dessert,

for example. So saying I’m gonna eat the same breakfast and lunch every day, but I’m going to leave room for dinner and dessert when I go out. Right. So that’s there’s compromise there depending on your goal and who you’re with. For example, it makes things a little more doable. or you know, alternatively it’s like, ok, well, this, this particular trip, I’m just, I’m just good or not.

Giacomo:, Alice:

For example, this is not part to take, I’m gonna skip, I’m gonna miss out.

Alice:

Yeah. And then of course, there are other choices to make, you know, other tradeoffs that are not nutrition wise that are going to have a huge impact on your results like dedicating time for stress relief every day, making sure you’re going to bed relatively early. So you get at least eight hours of sleep, right? What else other than like prioritizing sleep?

Giacomo:

Will you have me thinking right now about how when you’re super focused on a particular goal that sometimes you’re not dedicating enough time and energy to filling up other cups essentially so, rather than thinking of it as you’re pivoting and you’re being flexible and you’re not gonna get down yourself for, for not working toward a goal, think of it as sort of making

sure that you’re not taking away too much from other areas of your life. Right. I feel like that could be a nice way to, to, to, like, focus on what you’re doing in a positive way.

Alice:

Hm. Still making time for the important things like your relationships.

Giacomo:

Exactly. Yeah. And that stuff, you know, ideally it should come back to your tenfold because when you support, when you have a healthy support system because you’re concerned about all kinds of things, not just your one particular goal, it, your support system tends to support you back or understand when, when there’s periods of time where you’re doing something that’s a little more selfish, for example, and

you’re less likely to catch, push back for it or to, you know, when you can get back to being less selfish and give back to other areas of your life, but it’ll still be there for you.

Alice:

Yeah. Yeah. What about as far as knowing when to pivot when you either sort of started for the wrong reasons, like, based on what other people think of you, like external goals or getting started with unrealistic expectations? Any thoughts on that?

Giacomo:

Yeah, I got all kinds of thoughts. Do you have any specific examples?

Alice:

well, you know, people thinking they have to look a certain way for summer. I guess there’s a lot of things that we get maybe early and early on in the year as we ramp up for summertime and then people realize, hm, I don’t have anything, any goal that’s meaningful to me as far as, like, I can’t find a way to enjoy myself in the gym.

I can’t find a way to have joy in this process. maybe trying to find some kind of health motivating goal or say if you have kids in your life wanting to be able to keep up with your kids as they play outside, things like that.

Giacomo:

Yeah, I like that a lot. Actually, I feel like the kinds of pressures that you get from it being a certain time of the year or look a certain way for a certain thing. Those you wind up finding stuff like that year round and then before you know it, you’re in a never ending perpetual. I need to die it down or look a certain way phase or else. Yes. What I think about when you say that.

Alice:

Yeah, thinking, oh, we’re gonna take these family pictures at this wedding in Cancun Mexico or so I don’t know if I don’t look this certain way and you know, I’m gonna have to look back on those pictures forever. Like that’s not, that’s something that, that’s not something that’s meaningful to you taking back control of your health. you, you need to want to some degree to make the behavior changes. Right. Yeah. And make them permanent. If you don’t, then it’s not gonna be lasting.

Giacomo:

Yeah. I like that a lot actually.

Speaker 3

Hello, listeners and watchers. We are so grateful that you tune in as you give us a reason to keep this conversation about living, eating and training as a vegan in a non vegan world. Going just a heads up to let you know that we are taking a scheduled content creation break from Sunday, August 18th through Sunday, August 31st. This is something we plan on doing twice a year to give us a chance to recharge our batteries and keep the creative juices flowing so that you can continue to

get the highest quality and most interesting content possible from us. Please hit the contact button on our site or email us at vegan proteins at gmail.com during this time with any feedback or ideas you have. We love hearing from you and we’ll be back with a special interview on Muscles by Brussels Radio on Tuesday, September 3rd and our next exciting recipe on our vegan proteins, youtube channel on Wednesday, September 4th. Stay tuned.

Giacomo:

What else you thinking? Anything else you want to talk about as far as pivoting goes and being flexible?

Alice:

And I don’t know, I, I think, I think that’s very much it.

Giacomo:

I think so too. I feel like we covered a lot of grounds and, yeah, I guess like if there’s anything in specific that anyone, has questions about, just message us about this stuff because this, we think about it all the time and, you know, often you can get, you can reach the same goal in more than one way and more than two ways and more than five ways. So you might as well go after your goal in a way that is the most practical, most sensible, most achievable and most sustainable way.

it is 110% possible. as opposed to just being like, well, I could do it. I’m gonna do it the first way that, that I feel like I could do it because, because damn it, I’m gonna get to my goal. Well, yeah, that’s all well and good. But, I mean, you could have done it in a much healthier way.

Alice:

Yeah. If you, if you aren’t necessarily willing to give what it takes to be in a calorie deficit and go at it the more traditional way. There’s always just approaching your fitness goals from like, let me go at this building, muscle and eating at maintenance and changing my lifestyle piece by piece, the results are slower but in a lot of ways they’re better. Yeah, because now we’re, we’re talking about all right, I’m changing, like, fundamentally who I am as far as like, I’m going

to make sure walking is part of my like day in and day out. I’m going to make sure that the gym is something that’s normal. Right. There was this video of Arnold Schwarzenegger recently and someone was interviewing him. They’re like Arnold, why are you still going to the gym? And he’s like, that’s like asking why do I brush my teeth and why do I eat my vegetables? You just do it.

Giacomo:

Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of vegan proteins. Muscles by Brussels radio. Stay in touch with us on all the socials at vegan proteins at muscles by Brussels. Shoot us a message by going to vegan proteins.com and hitting the contact button. You will get a response from one of us. A personal response right away. Once again, my name is Giacomo. I’m Alice. I’ll talk to you soon.