2827: The 90-Day Nutrition Strategy That Actually Works

0:00Justin Andrews:If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind Pump. Mind Pump. With your hosts, Sal Di Stefano, Adam Schafer, and Justin Andrews.

0:13Adam Schafer:You just found the most listened to podcast in the history of the world when it comes to fitness and entertainment and lifestyle. That's right. This is Mind Pump. All right, today's episode, we talk about working on nutrition with a coach. Here at Mind Pump, we have coaches that help people, and they coach them with nutrition and personal training. And what we're offering right now is a call, a 45-minute call with a real Mind Pump coach. And what you leave with is 90 days planned out, 90 days of macros, of calories, and strategies for you, individualized for you. Go to mindpumpnutrition.com. Use the code APRIL50.

0:51Adam Schafer:that makes it 50 % off, regularly priced at$99, but you get it for half off if you use that code. Now, this episode is brought to you by Legion. Legion is a supplement company that has expertise in fat loss and muscle gain, athletic performance. All products are third-party tested. Everything that the bottle says is in the bottle is in the bottle. It's great. It's the highest quality supplements you can get. That way, you're not wasting your money. Anyway, go check them out. Get a discount. Go to buylegion.com forward slash mind pump. Use the code mind pump. You can buy one, get one 50 % off. And again, one more time, if you want to work with one of our coaches, if you want to do that call with the coach to get the next 90 days planned out for you, go to mindpumpnutrition.com.

1:35Adam Schafer:Use the code April 50 to make it 50 % off.

1:39Justin Andrews:All right, real quick. If you love us like we love you, why not show up by rocking one of our shirts, hats, mugs, or training gear over at mindpumpstore.com. I'm talking right now. Hit pause. Head on over to mindpumpstore.com. That's it. Enjoy the rest of the show.

1:54Adam Schafer:When it comes to fitness, the exercise part is actually the easy part. It's the diet. That's the hardest part, which is why Mind Pump is now offering coaching, nutrition calls with a Mind Pump coach. We're going to start doing that now. We're going to talk all about it.

2:07Sal Di Stefano:Let's go. I would argue even more than just that. It's the behavioral psychology that comes along with the nutrition. That's why it's so hard. Right? I mean, it's like there's layers. The most important piece to it. There's layers to this. Totally. Which is it's not as simple as like, hey, here's the math equation or here, go follow this thing. Which is, I mean, admittedly, when I was a young trainer and we first started, that's what we did. Like you get a client. You lead on that. Yeah. I would assess them. I would go to my book and I would break down their weight and then estimate their activity level and then, you know, their height, all those things.

2:42Sal Di Stefano:And it's just like, okay, and how many times we're working out and their goal. and it's like, okay, here's your macro breakdown. And then go from there and go like, what foods do you like? You know, like, okay, then here's your meals and this is what they look like, you know. Remember the meal plans that we used to spit out? I do, I do remember those. How ridiculous they were? Generic. They were ridiculous too.

2:57Adam Schafer:I mean, diet's really hard. One and a half saltine crackers. Two, uh, half an orange. Two almonds. Yeah. To make it work. You can't have a full thing of almonds. Yeah, two. Half a tablespoon of peanut butter. Yeah. You know, here's the thing. Like, uh, there's a lot of confusion around exercise and fitness. there's more confusion around diet. There's so much confusion around what works, what doesn't work. Is it eating this much protein? Is it animal? Is it vegan? Is it keto? Is it paleo? Is it carnivore?

3:27Justin Andrews:There's so much nuance to all this.

3:27Adam Schafer:What are the good? What's bad? Is gluten bad? What's the deal? There's so much confusion. And so guidance around nutrition is so important. And historically, we've never really offered coaching or guidance on nutrition. We just didn't. And recently, over the last year and a half, we've moved in this direction. And we now have, I don't know, how many coaches do we have? 22. We have 22 coaches that work for Mind Pump now. And they're handpicked, and they're really good, and they follow our philosophy and understanding. And a lot of what they do is they help people with nutrition. And what we wanted to do is have kind of some introductory.

4:05Adam Schafer:Like, okay, you can buy a workout program from us, and they're great, but can we offer something to where you get on a call with a real coach and you spend some time with them and you leave with a good starting point like a good starting point understanding and strategy that could take you for the next uh you know three months or 12 weeks yeah i mean it

4:28Justin Andrews:requires a pretty long conversation to get all those details out and be able to actually construct a legit focused plan for somebody. And I think that's why we haven't really just slapped on some generic advice on a lot of our maps programs. It's individualized. It requires a conversation.

4:44Sal Di Stefano:Well, that's, I mean, the workout program can be very direct and straightforward for most people. I mean, even that has some modifications, but to individualize it a little bit. But diet's always individualized. But diet is very new. In fact, diet, you can have two people, same weight, same body fat percentage same amount of movement throughout throughout the week same goals and their diets look completely different and the strategy at which you approach their diet that's right could look very different and a lot of that has to do with the behavioral psychology where they're currently starting from history yeah but body dysmorphia relationship with food um all this stuff plays even just the food you like yeah it's so different well that matters yeah of course it Well, even that, like that was, man, I remember when I completely shifted from that, from the trainer who would write meal plans to completely switching over to, no, I want you just to tell me what you eat first.

5:43Sal Di Stefano:And then I'll make modifications to that versus me saying like, this is what's ideal. Because I realized how unsuccessful writing a meal plan was. maybe it was i thought it was successful at first because if you had somebody who had adhered to it they could see results if you had someone ridiculous enough to follow the half of orange and two almond type of funny macro split things that would spit out from the computer uh you know and they were they were crazy disciplined enough to actually do that stuff uh they could get to maybe their results but then they inevitably always because who's going to live that way forever Like nobody's going to do that forever.

6:21Sal Di Stefano:And who wants to live that way forever? And so quickly realized that I had to learn to build nutrition plans around somebody's current lifestyle and how they ate already and give them tools and layer those on, not just like, hey, go follow this thing. It's like, here's the one thing we're going to do, then this thing, then that thing.

6:41Adam Schafer:Totally. And when you start to figure out the nutrition part, everything really does fall into place because it plays such a big role. in energy, strength, fat loss, of course, how you feel, digestion, all those different things. And so it just makes a huge impact, but it's also very difficult. You know, we have coaching where, you know, a lot of our coaches and trainers work with people regularly. Like somebody will work with them for a year or two years or six months or nine months. But what we wanted to do is have something kind of introductory, like, okay, fine. Maybe you're not going to work with someone for a while, but can you meet with someone once get on the phone and they can construct a good starting point, a point and scaffold, a nice kind of plan for you.

7:26Adam Schafer:That's individualized based off some of the stuff that we talked about that you can follow for the next 12 weeks and have an idea of where to go. And I mean, this is, uh, this is really important for any goal, but like reverse dieting is where things get, people get really confused.

7:40Sal Di Stefano:Yeah.

7:40Adam Schafer:We talk about reverse

7:41Sal Di Stefano:starting the podcast oh i would say that's i know i would say if i had to put a number on it that's 80 of our clientele yeah i'd say 80 of our clientele have listened to the podcast long enough recognize that they are over trained underfed they've been in they're in a plateau for a really long time how do we construct this yes so they know that they need to move that direction but how do they specifically do it from where they're currently where they're currently at is where they tend to get lost or uncertain.

8:08Adam Schafer:Yeah, because the strategy with reverse dieting is let's build some muscle and boost your metabolism, set you up for some fat loss later on in an effective way. And the question's always like, well, how? Okay, fine. Eat more. How much more? When do I continue to change that? What should I expect? I don't want to gain a bunch of body fat.

8:25Justin Andrews:How long do I do this? Yeah. That's right.

8:26Adam Schafer:And so some structure, man. It makes a big, big difference. And so these are some of the things that the coach will go over with you when you meet with them. Obviously, they're going to go over your goal. And this is very important. Obviously, for me to have a good idea of what direction we're going to go, I need to know what your fitness goal is. Are we looking at fat loss? Are we looking at strength gain? Are we looking at metabolism boost, athletic performance? Is this just for longevity? Yeah, like what's the main goal? And that's kind of the starting point. And then you want to start to individualize based off of biggest obstacles, which is different from person to person.

9:03Adam Schafer:Right. You know, you'll hear somebody say something like, oh, biggest obstacle for me is time. I don't have a lot of time. I'm very rushed. Or an obstacle might be, boy, when I get home from work, this is when things go kind of crazy. Or I travel all the time. Or, you know, these are, they're all quite individual. And so what our coaches are trained to do is look at your goal and your biggest obstacles and then kind of start to figure out how to work around those things for you.

9:32Sal Di Stefano:Well, this is, I think, the part that I'm, what I meant by, I think that you start to realize like, okay, this is someone's behaviors and patterns and the things that they're most challenged with. If I just lay them out some plan that they have to completely reconstruct their lifestyle around that, it's almost inevitably going to fail. And so a good coach has the ability to go like, okay, what I'm hearing from this client is I'm never going to get them to not go out to eat at lunchtime. Or rarely ever are they ever going to prep their meal ready for that. So I need to know what are some options in our area and figure out like, okay, let's figure out what fits into that.

10:09Sal Di Stefano:And helping them solve that so they have a go-to option. Now, of course, ideally, we're always going to recommend Whole Foods and that you make your meals. But as a good coach, you have to recognize or be prepared for that client that that is going to be really difficult too. And it doesn't mean you have to completely fall off the wagon or you failed. There's ways to work around that. And so adjusting that, that would be an obstacle example too.

10:30Adam Schafer:That's right. There's also, let's look and see what's already working with your diet. Maybe you do start off the day great with a good high-protein breakfast. Later on is when things fall apart. Well, let's focus on why that's working and let's work around that. or maybe you do a good job with avoiding certain foods. You just have challenges in other directions. So we're going to look at what's already working because that's also an important piece of information that we need to make you leave with a plan that's going to work for you.

11:00Sal Di Stefano:I'll give you an example of something you've probably heard me communicate on the podcast many times. This is why this is a tip that I communicate so often is in my experience, one of the things I've found is working for a lot of people or that people are pretty good at is preparing their dinner. Yeah, great point. People tend to, like if - That's the one meal people - Yeah, if I could say there's a consistent positive theme in all challenged clients, right? Getting to the results, most of them would be like, well, I do, I make dinner. So we come home and we do that. And so a lot of, one of the tips that you hear me communicate a lot is, hey, teaching that client to make two dinners or double the size or four times the size.

11:42Sal Di Stefano:And then that now becomes the breakfast with a couple eggs cracked over. It's like this huge unlock for people that have never thought of it like that. And it's like, this is already a behavior. You're doing well. You love meat. You enjoy making a dinner. You like the rice, sweet potatoes, white potatoes. Those are all choices you love and you don't mind. We're already cooking and prepping. Adding on to what they're already consistent with. Yeah. Instead of it being just one pound of ground beef, make two or three pounds of ground beef. And instead of it one, two cups of rice, now you're making six cups of rice.

12:11Sal Di Stefano:And then now you've got this meal that could be ready for you in the morning time for you to eat. And you can crack two eggs over it and be ready to go in three minutes. Or that becomes lunch for the next day. And so that's an example of what I have commonly seen as something that seems to be working for a lot of people is they tend to have an easier time making a good choice for dinner. And so I've found ways to build that to help them be successful for breakfast.

12:35Adam Schafer:That's a great point. That's actually often how I meal prep. A lot of my meal prepping looks like a big dinner. Yep. and the leftovers become two or three meals that I have the next day. And it's typically how - That's what our -

12:47Sal Di Stefano:So this is what our - People have asked this before. I hear you talk about how you meal prep on Sundays, right? So Sundays are my grill days. And I grill a lot of meat. That typically only lasts us though till about Wednesday. Then Wednesday night, Katrina and I, or Katrina, tends to make a huge meal again. And that takes you for the - That takes us for the next three to four days to get us there. And so that's a strategy that has worked really well for us to be successful, prepared. Because obviously if I prepare on Sunday, by Friday, that food's not very good. I'm not a big fan of eating something that's five days old or whatever like that.

13:23Sal Di Stefano:But it'll get me at least till Wednesday. And then Wednesday, if we cook again a meal and then we just – and that's why I love ground beef because you can make it in bulk and it's real easy. That tends to be kind of a ground beef meal. Or a lot of times we'll do tacos and I'll do taco salad and then I'll have that taco meat is what I had. this morning i don't know if you saw rice or something yeah if you saw what uh so what i did this today literally was last night uh katrina and max and i had had they had tacos i had a taco big old taco salad uh and then we had we made bulk of ground turkey and then then the when then what i did was through uh beans that are already cooked and from a can added it to that with some rice sprinkle some cheese over it and then this morning so that was my lunch and then this morning i crack two eggs over it it becomes your breakfast it's like a breakfast and so these are examples just some examples of not only how i've applied it to myself but how a trainer when you when you get on calls and you and you and you learn from the client like what are the things that they're doing really well and working it's like okay work i can i can work with this i can totally so how you're doing this and it's like becomes huge unlocks for people and it's not asking them to do something so out of the ordinary for them and then why that's so important is the success rate of them being consistent.

14:38Adam Schafer:Yeah, which actually leads to this other part that our coaches do a really good job of doing is they help in this call, they help people put together what are called anchor meals. So these are like five or six kind of go-to meals.

14:53Justin Andrews:Yes.

14:54Adam Schafer:And why is this important? Because here's the thing, meal plans, there is a positive to meal plans. I don't like meal plans where I'm like, this is what you're eating for the next 12 weeks every single day. Like that doesn't work. But the value with meal plans oftentimes for people was, oh, this is what 45 grams of protein or 30 grams of protein, 50 grams of carbs and 20 grams of fat looks like. Like, you know, if I'm working within these parameters, what does a meal look like for these parameters for me? Right. And so what they'll do on this call is they'll put together five or six anchor meals.

15:27Adam Schafer:And these are meals. These are your go-to meals. These are meals that you can go to and know that it's balanced. It's going to fit within what my goals are. and I'm going to be able to work with these meals through the next 12 weeks.

15:38Justin Andrews:Especially for people like me that aren't so creative with eating food. I'm like, I just want a few staple meals that'll carry me. But I mean, then too, that gives you like a good consistent framework. So then you can kind of vary off of that down the road. But to have those and know exactly like portioning wise and what works best for you to start off is great.

15:59Sal Di Stefano:I don't know who coined anchor meals first, but I love that term. Yeah. because this is this is what it looks like in my house is every month we have our big uh costco uh grocery shopping list and then we have our like kind of weekly where we get like vegetables and fruit small small orders and in the big costco run is when katrina and i normally talk to each other and go like hey what do you want and we don't use the term anchor meals but i love anchor meals you know what are the four or five major meals that we're going to make because she's going to go buy that in bulk because she goes to costco exactly and so that sets us up for the entire month of like okay these are all the the main rotation it doesn't mean we don't have things outside of that it's like if i have a good solid four to five go-to meals this month and we like to rotate that so it's like this all this month we're eating these and then the next month it might be a different four or five anchor meals but that's the big costco run that we do when we first start the month start the month off and then everything is kind of built around that boy does it just it makes it easy simplifies and these are meals that you'll eat that you like yes