155: Setting Up Your Diet for Health, Performance, and Body Composition Results

30:05And I share this and say that because I used to do this too. I would know when we were going out to eat next

30:15Nick Bare:and I would fast and I would strict, restrict in preparation for that meal so I could binge and go all out. I would do the same thing for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I would fast the day before. I would fast all day leading up to. And by the time I was ready to eat and food was served, I was so hungry. All I could think about was food. I'd have one plate and then two plates and I was full. But I'd go back for a third plate and then I'd go back for dessert and maybe a second dessert until I was laying on the couch afterwards feeling so sick and disgusted with myself, thinking, why'd you do this?

30:56Why? What was the intent? What was the purpose? This is an unhealthy relationship with food. The fasting, restricting, and then feasting and binging. I would encourage people to try to eliminate this approach to nutrition in their life. This is why I don't like cheat meals. It's why I don't necessarily like free meals

31:23Nick Bare:because people reserve and restrict in preparation for the cheap meal or the free meal for the days leading up to that creates this unhealthy, unbalanced mindset around food, fueling, and nutrition. So the way that I now approach going to dinner on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday night or Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner is that I wake up and I have my same breakfast as normal. And then it's lunchtime. I have my same lunch as normal. And I'll probably work out. And after I work out, I have my same post-workout shake or overnight oats or meal as normal. And then when it's time to go to dinner with friends or family or Thanksgiving meal is served or the Christmas meal is served, I make a plate.

32:17Nick Bare:I get everything that I want on that plate, maybe a little extra. I eat till I'm full and then I'm done. And you might be thinking to yourself, Nick, that's so much easier said than done. But remember, I'm someone who used to struggle with these same things. And now I have implemented healthier practices. And a lot of it is a proactive mindset. Mentally preparing yourself, proactively mentally preparing yourself to have healthy relationships with food. If you know you always restrict and fast in preparation for a binge, don't allow yourself to restrict and fast. So by the time the dinner is served or the food is dropped off at your table, you're not starving.

33:19Nick Bare:Your body is sending you the right signals. Your mind is sending you the right signals to eat as normal until you're full and then be done. Put the appropriate amount of food on your plate. Order the appropriate amount of food at the dinner table. But you have to set yourself up for success. And it's showing up physically ready, but also mentally ready. It's having the proactive approach as opposed to the reactive binging approach. There's a problem with binging, fasting, and feasting. And if you don't personally have these struggles or you personally haven't experienced this, one, I'm happy for you.

34:12But two, you might not recognize or realize how common it is. for someone who has struggled with an eating disorder in the past and unhealthy relationships with food, I can see when it's happening right in front of me. And it happens a lot with a lot of people. I heard this saying years ago that I love, but I also hate. It's eat to live, don't live to eat. Now, if you read this at face value, eat to live, don't live to eat. It probably sounds like I'm saying you shouldn't enjoy your food. And that food isn't meant to be celebrated and enjoyed. But I'm not saying that at all. Food should be celebrated.

35:10It is a feast. and a feast is very enjoyably done with other people. But for a lot of people, they allow food to become an idol. Food is worshiped and food over consumes them mentally and physically. What I mean when I say eat to live, don't live to eat is that you should choose foods that still tastes good, that you can enjoy, but they're going to fuel your mind and body for health, for performance, and for the body composition results that you want. Eat to live. What does your body need? Not necessarily live to eat. What does your body want? Or more so, what does your mind want? So we can't talk about nutrition

36:10Nick Bare:without talking about macronutrients. Macronutrient 101, what are macronutrients and why do they matter? Macronutrients are the large components of food that the body needs for energy and to maintain and or support basic bodily functions. So you have three primary macronutrients. You have proteins, fats, and carbohydrates. There is a fourth technically macronutrient which is alcohol. So I'm about to share a little bit about protein, fats, and carbohydrates, but alcohol also carries energy, calories. There are seven calories per gram of alcohol. Now, hopefully alcohol is not a meaningful macronutrient in your daily diet, but it's something to be mindful of, that there is energy that comes with alcohol.

37:11Nick Bare:So starting off protein, protein is made up of amino acids and protein's primary role is to rebuild and repair tissues, muscle growth, enzymes, and hormones. Now each gram of protein is made up of or consists of four calories, four calories per gram. Fat, dietary fat. These types include saturated and unsaturated fats, the unsaturated fats being monounsaturated and polyunsaturated. These are your omega-3, omega-6 fatty acids. Primary role in fat is hormone production. cell membranes, nutrient absorption, and long-term energy. Fat has nine calories per gram. So fat is the most calorically dense based off weight of all of the macronutrients, nine calories per gram.

38:22Nick Bare:Carbohydrates, there are simple and complex carbohydrates, simple being sugars, complex being starches and fibers. primary role of carbohydrates is energy production, primarily short-term energy production, four calories per gram of carbohydrates. So proteins and carbs, four calories per gram, alcohol, seven calories per gram, fats, nine calories per gram, the most calorically dense. And those three, proteins, fats, and carbs, each play a specific role in the body. And that's why as we're putting our nutrition protocol together, we need to put emphasis and prioritize protein sources, dietary fat sources, and carbohydrate sources because they play unique roles, each one of them in the body.

39:21Nick Bare:Now we'll talk about how to set up your macros. Before we do, I want to share what my current diet looks like. This will kind of set the stage for some of the other things that we're going to be talking about throughout this episode. So as I was mentioning, over the years, my diet has changed a lot. If you go back through all my old YouTube videos, you can watch, I have dozens, if not hundreds, of full day of eating videos. And people love watching these. And to be honest, I enjoy filming these too. So I look into what and how I eat on a regular basis, especially around training and work and what I prepare because the way that I approach my diet, one, I choose food sources that are going to fuel my body, that are convenient, not spending a lot of time preparing, that It fits my schedule and my routine.

40:21And then they are not just tasty.

40:25Nick Bare:I mean, they taste delicious. But as I said, they're nutritious. They fuel my body. It's what I need to perform mentally and physically. And it all tastes really, really good. So right now, as of Q4, coming off of Ironman prep 2025, I eat five meals a day. meal number one, I eat chicken and duck eggs. So every morning I do two chicken eggs and do two duck eggs. And I cook them in either ghee, which is clarified butter, olive oil, or coconut oil in a skillet. Now eggs are loaded with vitamins, minerals, good source of fat as well as protein. And the reason I started adding duck eggs into what was always just chicken eggs is I discovered duck eggs at the farmer's market.

41:27Nick Bare:And the duck eggs that I get are big. They're like twice as size as the chicken eggs. And duck eggs have significantly more vitamins and minerals compared to chicken eggs. They are very dense. and vitamins and minerals, nutrients. And they also taste different. I've shared this with people recently, how duck eggs taste different. And they ask, well, how? And it's really hard to describe. I can't describe what makes them taste different. They just taste different. And I actually now prefer duck eggs over chicken eggs. So every morning I do two chicken eggs, two duck eggs. I do some sourdough bread.

42:10Nick Bare:that I either get at a farmer's market or we make it home. I put some grass-fed butter on that bread and I'll have berries, dried figs. So really like the order of operations. When I finish my workout up in the morning, I get back from a run. I come in, I eat some dried figs and some blueberries or raspberries or blackberries. And I kind of snack on this as I'm prepping the rest of the food. and then I'll cut off a slice of sourdough bread. I'll put it in the toaster, go back over to the stove, cook my eggs, my chicken eggs, my duck eggs in either the ghee, olive oil or coconut oil and then when the bread is done and the eggs are done, I put the bread on a plate, sourdough bread on a plate.

43:03Nick Bare:I spread some of that. We use Kerrygold butter, grass-fed butter on the toast. I put the eggs on top. I usually do like over medium eggs. And I'll sprinkle some flaky sea salt and a little bit of freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top of the eggs. Delicious. Absolutely delicious. And then the supplements I have with meal one. I have electrolytes. I have strong omega, which is our fish oil supplement. Great sources of essential fatty acids, omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA. It's really important that you get some really solid sources of omega-3 fatty acids, especially, specifically EPA and DHA in your diet daily, which you can get from either a fish oil supplement or just consuming some wild caught fish in your diet.

44:08Nick Bare:Salmon is a great option. So I have electrolytes, strong omega, strong multivitamin, strong joints, strong greens, which is our green superfood supplement, strong reds, which is our reds superfood supplement, and then creatine, five to 10 grams of creatine monohydrate. That's meal one right now. Meal number two, I'll have, and I typically consume this around 10 to 10.30 a.m. I do eight ounces of grass-fed beef. Sometimes it's bison, sometimes it's venison, sometimes it's elk, some sort of red meat, eight ounces of red meat. I'll do 300 grams of rice, typically a white jasmine rice. I'll do some Primal Kitchen's buffalo sauce.

45:02Nick Bare:So all of the Primal Kitchen's sauces don't use industrial seed oils. They are avocado oil based. And I'll add some pickled veg in there because pickled vegetables are great sources of prebiotic fibers. so that'll either be pickled onions, sauerkraut, or sometimes kimchi. Meal three, this is typically post-workout meal or pre-workout meal. I have old-fashioned oats. I make a overnight oats the night before and in that I put old-fashioned oats, protein powder, honey, pumpkin seeds, walnuts, and then I'll top it with some fruit, either being a banana or some berries. Meal number four for me has the most variation in the day.

45:59Nick Bare:Typically, like right now, meal one, meal two, meal three, even meal five is pretty much the same day to day. But meal four is our dinner that we'll eat between five and 6 p.m. We do like to eat an earlier dinner. And this is just depending on what we have at the house, what we got at the farmer's market, what we got at the grocery store, what we're hungry for, what recipe we gathered for that week. but it's always some source of protein, whether that's meat, chicken, fish, a carbohydrate source, whether it's potatoes or rice or pasta, some sort of vegetable, whether it's broccolini or carrots or mushrooms or a combination of a bunch of different vegetables.

46:51Nick Bare:And then I always make sure there's a fat source in there. So if the meat was pretty fatty, if we had red meat, steak, ribeye, for example, I already know that's pretty fatty. I don't have to add a fat on top. But if the meat source is a white fish or chicken breast, I know because that source of meat is leaner in fat, I'm going to want to add in some sort of fat to that meal, whether that's olive oil, grass-fed butter, beef tallow, some nuts and seeds, avocado, something like that to get more fat into that meal. And then about an hour before going to bed, I will have my last meal of the night, which is Greek yogurt and cottage cheese.

47:41Nick Bare:So I'll do one serving of Greek yogurt, just plain Greek yogurt, one serving of cottage cheese, which provides me about 30 grams of protein. And I'll top that with honey, cacao nibs, sometimes peanut butter, unsweetened coconut flakes. And then I'll typically have a whole avocado on the side. So what I've been doing is I wait till the avocado is absolutely perfect, cut it in half, take out the seed. and then I put Trader Joe's everything but the bagel seasoning on both sides of the avocado, eat it out with a spoon. It is absolutely delicious. So that's like a rough outline of what my typical diet looks like right now.

48:29Nick Bare:As I've mentioned, I'm choosing foods that taste really good. I'm getting enough protein, enough carbs, enough dietary fat. It's fueling my body. It's filling my mind for my training, for my workouts, for my recovery, for just the day-to-day. And I really do focus on quality of food, sourcing, ingredients, and nutrition. Now, how to set up your macros. The question is, to track or not to track? Should you track your nutrition? Should you not track your nutrition? There's pros and cons to each. And here's my take. So I think if you don't have a strong awareness of what to eat and how much of that food to eat, you should try tracking nutrition.

49:24Nick Bare:There's a bunch of free applications you can download. I've used MyFitnessPal in the past. And you just plug in everything you've consumed and the amounts. and then at the end of the day, you can see how many calories you consumed, how much protein, how much carbohydrates, how much fat. I think it is a great tool and resource to use for a small period of time, not forever, just to gain a level of awareness in terms of how much you're consuming. but I don't think that you should use these apps or track your nutrition forever because it does become all consuming. I rarely track my nutrition now.

50:19I mean, rarely, maybe every once in a while

50:21Nick Bare:when I make big changes to my diet, I will track my nutrition for a day just so I know roughly what I'm consuming. how many calories, how much protein, carbohydrates, and fat. But I can consume foods pretty intuitively now and know a ballpark of what and how much I've consumed. But if you don't know or you're unaware, this is a great practice to implement. Like I said, even for a short period of time. When I was in college studying nutrition at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. I had a few different courses that I had to take because when you go to school for nutrition, there's a typical route where you go to school for nutrition or dietetics.

51:21Nick Bare:Then upon graduating, you do an internship and then you can earn your accreditation to be a registered dietitian. I didn't take that route. I just got a degree in nutrition because I went right into the army. But if you end up going the registered dietitian route, which comes with an internship after graduating from college, you are preparing to work with individuals typically in a hospital environment, normally for disease intervention and building out nutrition protocols and plans based off of what disease they are trying to prevent or fight. So I had some courses in college where we were working with other students to build out nutrition protocols to help them reach their goals.

52:16Nick Bare:Not necessarily in a hospital setting, but really just to get some experience working with people, building out nutrition plans and protocols. So one of the things that we would do was a seven-day food diary with these people, or I guess you can consider them clients. So you would have people for seven days, eat like they normally do, and document in a journal what they consumed, at what time, what the food was, and a rough estimation of the amount. And if they didn't know this was a cup of berries or 150 grams of berries, they could say it was a palm size of berries. It was a fist size of chicken breast, for example.

53:11Nick Bare:So we would have them do these seven-day food journals, writing everything down. and then we get them back and we would take those food journals and input the food and the rough estimates of the portion sizes into a program that would then calculate the calories, the proteins, the fats, the carbohydrates. And if their weight stayed pretty consistent throughout that week and they ate as they normally would, we could, with rough estimates, generally assume what their daily maintenance calories are and how much protein, how much carbohydrates, and how much fat they are typically consuming based off their normal diet.

54:02Nick Bare:And then we can go in and manipulate and change change what they're consuming or how much they are consuming, subtract certain foods, add certain foods to optimize their diet. Well, you can do the same thing. If you've never tracked your food before, you don't know how much you're consuming of what, download one of these free apps. MyFitnessPal, I'm not sure if it's free anymore, but there's some some apps out there where you can download the software and you can input the food you consume and download one of these apps. And for a week, just input what you consumed at each meal and try to estimate as closely as possible how much.

54:53At the end of the day, I would even recommend don't go back and look at how many calories you

54:58Nick Bare:consumed, how many macronutrients you consumed. Just input, move on to the next day. Do this for seven days. And then after those seven days, go back and look. Day one, how many calories, how much protein, how much carbohydrate, how much fat. Day two, same. Day three, four, five, six, seven, same. And find an average of those seven days, how many calories you're consuming, how much protein, how much carbohydrate, how much fat. And if your weight stayed roughly the same and that's what you consume normally, we can make the assumption those are close to your maintenance calories. Then we can go in and make some changes to specific macronutrient goals.

55:52now here's where I would start to set up your macros

55:58protein I like the general rule of thumb one gram per pound of body weight that might be a little bit of overkill you might be able to get away with a little bit less than

56:11Nick Bare:to like 0.6 or 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight. But I personally enjoy a higher protein diet. One, just because I love eggs and I love steak and chicken and fish and just like protein sources. I could easily consume 300 to 400 grams of protein a day and love it, love it. but I don't. One gram of protein per pound of body weight. Fats, I like a slightly higher fat intake just because of the role that fat plays in the body in terms of hormone production, long-term energy stores, just the importance of bodily functions. It's recommended that Dietary fat makes up about 20 to 35 % of your calories.

57:10Nick Bare:I would try to set fats at around 30 % of your daily caloric intake. And this is the way you would do this. Say you discover through this seven-day food journal, or you just know you want to consume 3 ,000 calories a day. And that's your maintenance calories. Maintenance calories are what you consume every day to maintain your current weight. So 3 ,000 calories, multiply that by 0.30, 30%. You're gonna find 30 % of that 3 ,000. Then from there, divide that number by nine because there's nine calories per gram of fat. And that will give you the amount of grams of fat you should consume daily so that you are consuming 30 % of your calories from dietary fat.

58:13Nick Bare:So I like to set my protein targets first, one gram per pound of body weight. Fat, I like to, just for a starter number, 30 % of daily calories, and then fill in the rest of your calories with carbohydrates. rates. That's my preferred approach. Now there's going to be questions. What's better? Is it better to have a high carb diet and a lower fat or a higher fat, lower carb? I think determines or depends on your season of life, what you enjoy more, what makes you feel better, and the performance goals that you're aiming towards. Now, carbohydrates are a fast-acting energy source. They fuel high-intensity performance.

59:10Nick Bare:Fats, however, fuel low-intensity performance. When I was in my Ironman prep, for example, I was consuming a lot of carbohydrates because I had to fuel high intensity performance for multiple hours a day. I was consuming about 800 grams of carbs on average a day during my Ironman prep. Now that I'm not in Ironman prep anymore, and I don't require that much high intensity fuel being carbohydrates on a daily basis, my carbs are probably around 350 grams a day right now, but my dietary fat is higher. And I have personally found, again, this goes back to the beginning of the conversation, what makes you personally feel best?

1:00:03Nick Bare:Some people feel really good, high carb, lower fat. Some people feel really good on higher fat, lower carb. And then some people feel really good with a moderate approach in the middle. A good amount of carbs, good amount of fat. I have found for me, I feel really good right in the middle. A moderate amount of carbs and a moderate amount of fat. I probably consume 350 grams of carbohydrates a day right now and maybe 120 grams of fat a day right now. I feel really good. I don't feel really good when I have high carb, lower fat. A lot of people don't feel really good when your fats are too low. And for many, when your dietary fat is too low for too long, you'll start feeling the effects of low energy, possibly compromised immune function, your hormones become disrupted, you can't recover well from performance and training, your training is gonna suffer.

1:01:07Nick Bare:So you have to be really careful that protein gets a lot of love, carbs get a lot of love, but dietary fat only gets a lot of love when we're talking about it in terms of a ketogenic diet or carnivore. But dietary fat is really important for everyone to maintain these systems within the body and just normally functioning bodily processes. Now, like we talked about in the beginning, planning and preparation is absolutely critical for success when it comes to nutrition, food, and diet. I've talked about this concept in my book and I've used it for everything. In the book, it was mainly around building a business and setting up your training for specific goals.

1:02:04But we can apply it to nutrition as well. It's forward thinking, backwards planning. I believe that this is one of my strengths that I have really refined over the years.

1:02:19Nick Bare:Is I'm constantly looking into the future. I'm forward thinking. What am I gonna need later today? What am I gonna need tomorrow? What am I gonna need next week? What am I gonna need next month? And as I identify those things that I need in the future, forward thinking, I then backwards plan and make sure I have those things prepared and ready so that I can execute when the time comes. When it comes to forward thinking and backwards planning with nutrition, grocery shopping. Making sure you have healthy, fuel source, easily accessible foods and snack options at your house, in your car, in your vehicle, in your bag, at your office.

1:03:12What am I going to need to go buy at the grocery store to have readily accessible so I don't have to go make a convenient, unhealthy option?

1:03:22Nick Bare:Food and meal prep. I prep carbohydrates in bulk. I prep meats in bulk every week so that whenever I'm in a pinch, I can go into my fridge, I can grab prepped potatoes or prepped rice or prepped ground beef or prepped chicken. And I make my meals the night before always for the next day. So I know that as soon as I wake up, no matter what happens, day gets crazy, I have my meals prepped, I throw them at my lunchbox, my cooler, I take them anywhere I go, so I have meals prepared. Grocery shopping, forward thinking, backwards planning, and food and meal prep are essential for success. And to be honest, I spend a lot of time doing those things.

1:04:15Nick Bare:I spend a lot of time going through our pantry, going through our fridge, taking stock of what we have, what we don't have, making a grocery list, going and getting those groceries, and then making sure I have those meals prepped at all times so I have accessibility to those foods. I mean, there are many times where I have prepped ground beef at 5 a.m. and midnight. There are many times that I've been making a pot of rice in the rice cooker shortly after waking up and then right before going to bed. If you don't have a rice cooker, you gotta get a rice cooker. A rice cooker is absolutely game-changing.

1:05:02Nick Bare:It cooks the rice perfectly in like 30 minutes. You put the rice in, you add the water, you press cook, you walk away, and it does its magic. And then I just take that pot out of the rice cooker and I throw it right in the fridge. and that'll last me a few days. And then as soon as it's out, I wash it out and I make more rice. But having a plan and being prepared, it's going to be overwhelming in the beginning. If you've never done it, it will, but it becomes habitual. It becomes part of your routine. That's something that you have to be aware of and prepared for going into making changes to your nutrition and your diet or undergoing a new overhaul of just the foods you consume, there is an acclimation period to all things.

1:05:58Nick Bare:It's going to feel like a lot in the beginning. I'm tracking my calories in this app. I'm writing down all the foods I consume in the seven-day food journal. I'm making a grocery list. I'm prepping meats, I'm prepping rice. Yeah, I get it. It's overwhelming. It's a lot in the beginning. But before you know it, I promise you, it becomes habitual. I don't even remember when I prep meats or rice or my meals anymore because it is so habitual. It is so much a part of my routine. It is a habit that I've just baked in over the years. But you have to be ready to go through an acclimation period where it's going to feel somewhat overwhelming potentially and like a nuisance and complicated.

1:06:49But before you know it, you're just doing it without even thinking about it.

1:06:54Nick Bare:Ordering groceries, prepping meals, filling your lunchbox every morning before going to the office. Would it be easier to just order Chick-fil-A from your phone and have DoorDash drop it off at your desk every day at 11 a.m.? Absolutely. Would it be easier to stop through the drive-thru on the way home from work every day and grab a happy meal before going home to sit on the couch and watch Netflix after a long day of meetings and calls and work? Yeah, absolutely. But what results do you want? Do you want to feel better? Do you want to look better? Do you want to optimize your health and your performance simultaneously?

1:07:48Nick Bare:Well, then it's an easy answer. You're going to have to do the thing that takes a little bit more work to experience the success and the results that you're hoping for on the other side. They don't come without work. It requires the work. and for me what has really been helpful over the years is having my go-to foods so i know every week i'm prepping a combination of ground beef elk bison venison as i mentioned i'm always cooking my my prepared rice those are always in my fridge i never have to worry about it So when I go to prepare my lunch for the next day, take out the food scale, take out my glass Tupperware, get out my meat mixture, my rice.

1:08:40Nick Bare:I do 300 grams of rice in the bowl, eight ounces of meat in the bowl, a little bit of the Primal Kitchen's buffalo sauce in the bowl, put the top on, put it in the fridge. and then I get another piece of glass Tupperware out. I make my overnight oats, my oats, my honey, my peanut butter, PB2, almond milk, mix it up, add in the pumpkin seeds, the walnuts, throw that in the fridge overnight. Boom, done. My meal prep for the next day, every night takes me about 10 minutes outside of preparing the bulk meals. but 10 minutes max to prepare my meals for the next day. Those are some of my go-to foods.

1:09:27Nick Bare:But there's also power in bowls. If you're struggling to figure out what to eat, when to eat, how to eat, make it a bowl. Me and my family, me and Steph, we eat these things called power bowls multiple times a week for dinner. Especially with two young kids, Before we had kids, we would spend one to two hours making dinner at night. We would find a recipe that we liked online. We'd go buy all the ingredients. We'd come home, we'd make it. We'd take our time. It was super enjoyable. But with a three-year-old and a one and a half year old at home, that's not really happening as much anymore. So dinners have to be healthy.

1:10:14Nick Bare:They have to be nutritious. They have to be fast and convenient. So we just get bowls and we throw everything we want into a bowl. Last night, for example, we threw some chicken on the grill and then we threw some sweet potatoes and some butternut squash in the oven really quick. And we let those things cook on their own for about, I don't know, 30 to 45 minutes. And then we each just made a bowl. So in my bowl, I put spring mix, a lettuce spring mix. I did eight ounces of the chicken breast that we cooked on the Traeger. I threw in the sweet potato and butternut squash, which was cooked. And on top of that, I added pumpkin seeds, pickled onions, black olives, some freshly grated Parmesan cheese, and a dressing that we made homemade with olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and Dijon mustard.

1:11:13Nick Bare:I call it a Power Bowl because that's loaded. I have some great sources of protein, carbohydrates, fiber, dietary fat, and a ton of micronutrients, prebiotic fibers. This is going to fuel my recovery, my performance, my gut. I'm going to sleep good. I'm going to be full. I call them power bowls. So you take all these nutrient dense ingredients and food items. You just throw it into a bowl, mix it up, and it tastes delicious. Oh, also last night I added pickled beets to this mixture as well. It's one thing I left out. Pickled beets, so good. I could do a Power Bowl, not just every night for dinner, but for like every single meal.

1:12:03Nick Bare:Power Bowls are game changers. They're quick, they're convenient, they're nutritious, and you can just throw all the good stuff in there. Good protein, good carbs, good fats. Now, not all foods are created equal. And I think food sourcing is extremely important. We try to buy as much food that's in season, in season. We try to source our eggs, our meats from local ranchers, farmers, or high-quality grocery stores. But I put a lot of emphasis on food sourcing, the quality of the food, and really prioritizing single-ingredient foods as much as possible. I hate to be that person but when I'm at a grocery store sometimes and I'm checking out I'm looking at what people in front of me are putting on the belt and then what people behind me having their shopping cart and it's disturbing in some situations I'd like to assume that they are purchasing food for some sort of party or event but in some cases I believe it's just what they're consuming on a regular basis.

1:13:27Nick Bare:It is processed foods. It is packaged foods. It is foods with a million ingredients, rarely shopping the perimeter of the grocery store, high quality meats and fruits and vegetables and starches, fibers. So I try to prioritize single ingredient foods as much as possible. Like that Powerball I was just talking about, there was nothing in there that I added that wasn't a single sourced ingredient. Nothing. I mean, even like the salad dressing, we made homemade mixture of the olive oil, apple cider vinegar, and Dijon mustard. So I highly prioritize quality of single ingredients that we add to our diets or add to my diet and what we're consuming and making at home.

1:14:20Nick Bare:I want them to be dense in micronutrients which is why I prioritize fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds. And I like to get a diverse range of foods in my diet. There's this company here in Austin and you might have one of these based off where you live. Ours is called Farmhouse Delivery. It's a super cool service. So I go on their website every week and I put my order in. And Farmhouse Delivery curates a selection of foods on their website that they pull from local farmers and ranchers. So I can get my eggs and my sourdough and my meat and vegetables and fruits, even pickled veg from Farmhouse Delivery who purchases what's in season from the local farmers and ranchers.

1:15:24Nick Bare:Sometimes I'll go to the farmer's market and buy stuff as well, but it's just a really good service that is convenient. So every week, once a week, we get these plastic totes that are dropped off at our house from farmhouse delivery. And within those totes are everything that I ordered. It's my eggs, my duck eggs, my sourdough, some meats, vegetables, fruits, all organic, great service. Now I'll just load up this order every week. And then Steph and I will make it a mission to consume all of that throughout the week, which adds diversity into our meals, in our diets, because farmhouse delivery sources what is local based off what is in season.

1:16:10Nick Bare:And that's been a great way to add micronutrient diversity into our diet. And if you don't have an option like that where you live, every week you go grocery shopping, just try to buy different fruits and vegetables and meats or micros and force yourself to find ways to get creative to consume these. And a great way is within these power bowls that I was talking about. So I'm always looking for high quality sources of protein and what we're consuming on a daily basis, weekly basis. Good sourced eggs. so I get our eggs from this farm here in Central Texas area called Shirttail Creek, the best chicken eggs I've ever had.

1:17:02Nick Bare:We had our duck eggs from this farm called Belle V Farms. So eggs, chicken, we eat a lot of chicken, chicken breast, chicken thighs, red meat, whether that's ground beef, venison, bison, elk, do a lot of steaks, a chuck roast. We're big crock pot roast people in the bear household. Fish, we do salmon, some white fish here and there, but mainly if we're going to consume fish, it's from salmon. I try to get some sardines in every once in a while because they are very high in omega-3 fatty acids, EPA, DHA. Protein powder is another daily staple of mine to get more protein powder in or more protein into my diet.

1:17:53Nick Bare:I consume at least one to two scoops of protein powder daily. Carbohydrate options for me typically come from sourdough bread, fruit, fresh or dried, vegetables, rice, starches, like potatoes, sweet potatoes, purple potatoes, yellow potatoes, oats, honey, occasionally pasta, but not too much pasta. It's pretty rare that we consume pasta, but most of my carbohydrate sources are coming from rice, starches, vegetables, fruits, and fat options, the options are endless. And for me, this is like the best tasting macronutrient. Avocados, nuts, seeds, egg yolks, fat that's naturally in like fattier meat, you know, good ribeye, for example, beef tallow, ghee, butter, coconut oil.

1:19:01Nick Bare:Just finding ways to get creative with how we're incorporating these different fats into our diet for all the health benefits. And it's important for me to mention fiber. One of the best reasons to be consuming more carbohydrates, especially starchy carbohydrates, is because of the fiber content. I mean, fiber has been shown time and time again to be so beneficial for our bodies, our performance, our guts. It improves digestion and gut health. By preventing constipation, it feeds the beneficial gut bacteria. Fiber produces short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, which strengthen gut lining and reduce inflammation.

1:19:48Nick Bare:Fiber consumption regulates blood sugar and improves insulin sensitivity. It supports heart health by lowering LDL cholesterol and improving vascular function. It promotes satiety and weight control. Protein is the same thing. Protein and fiber are both very satiating foods, make you feel fuller for longer. Some great fiber sources, vegetables, berries, beans, lentils, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. I try to get about 30 to 40 grams of fiber in my diet daily. And if you have a diet that is low in fiber, You don't want to go from like five grams of fiber a day to 40 grams of fiber a day. That will wreck you.

1:20:39Nick Bare:That'll back you up. So what you want to do is slowly titrate the amount of fiber you're consuming daily up slowly over weeks or months to allow your body to naturally become accustomed to consuming, digesting, assimilating, utilizing fiber. I've made this mistake in the past from going from five grams of fiber consumed a day to 40 grams of fiber consumed a day. And it puts you in a bad, dark place. I can promise you that. So slowly titrate up your fiber consumption so your gut can become accustomed and regulated to that uptake or increased amount of fiber consumption. And the last thing I want to talk about is pre and post-workout nutrition.

1:21:39Now, what matters more? Should you train fasted? Is there such thing as the post-workout anabolic window?

1:21:50Nick Bare:Now, again, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but this comes down to what you prefer and what works best for you. I have found over time that once you train fueled, you will never train fasted again. I've trained fasted before in my life and I never felt great. And once I started fueling my workouts, I felt so much better, so much stronger, so much more stable. I found that I performed and recovered better. now fueling a training session or a workout doesn't mean that you have to consume a full meal that's one of the reasons we created g1m sport it is liquid carbohydrates and electrolytes to fuel your performance do you have to consume food a full meal or anything before a workout Not necessarily.

1:22:52Nick Bare:It depends on what works best for you. How do you feel the best? Some people enjoy training fasted in the morning. But for me personally, I just haven't ever enjoyed that. I feel better, like I said, training fueled. But for a lot of people, myself included, growing up in the old school, traditional bro science bodybuilding space, 2009, 2015, 16 maybe, there was a lot of misinformation out there that has since then become debunked and real data, real science has been published, debunking some of this stuff. But there used to be this vastly promoted post-workout anabolic window that you couldn't miss.

1:23:59And people used to say,

1:24:01Nick Bare:immediately after your workout, if you didn't consume a full meal or at least a shake with carbohydrates, and sufficient protein, 30 to 60 minutes after a workout, you're missing this post-workout anabolic window. This window in which your body is just searching for nutrients, searching for carbohydrate and protein replenishment. And this does exist. This can be a thing, but it's all based off of your pre-workout nutrition. Now, if you had a big pre-workout nutrition meal or bolus, say two hours before a training session, sufficient amount of carbohydrates, protein, maybe even dietary fat, that fuel, depending on the type of training session, if we're talking about strength training, for example, that fuel before your workout is going to still be within your body.

1:25:07Nick Bare:body being utilized come post-workout. So while post-workout nutrition is important, it is vastly dependent on your pre-workout nutrition. Now, if you didn't have anything pre-workout, you trained fasted, your post-workout nutrition is very much important. Your body is searching for nutrients, carbohydrates for replenishment, protein and amino acids for rebuilding. So do you need a post-workout meal? Is the post-workout anabolic window a real thing? Yes and no. What did you consume the hours leading up to that workout? If nothing, then yes, a post-workout meal or shake or nutrition is very important.

1:25:55Nick Bare:But if you had multiple meals or a meal a few hours before that training session, post-workout nutrition is important, but it might not be absolutely necessary or essential because you consumed enough leading up to. So post-workout nutrition can be important, but it's based off of pre-workout nutrition. And at the end of the day, what matters is what you consumed within that day. not necessarily timing. Timing can make a difference, but to see long-term changes in health, performance, body composition, we're going to look at trends. And those trends can be monitored or managed by what we're consuming from day to day, week to week, month to month.

1:26:53Nick Bare:And the goal was that we hit our protein, our fat, carbohydrate, ultimately caloric goals daily from day to day consistently to see results, to see changes. That's why going back to what we discussed in the beginning of this episode, if you want to see change, if you want to feel better, if you want to experience results, you need discipline, you need commitment, and you need consistency. those three things. The concepts are few, but the methods are many. And at the end of the day, it's going to be finding what works for you, what you enjoy, and what is sustainable for long-term results and success.

1:27:43Nick Bare:So hope you guys enjoyed this episode, a little insight into the way that I approach nutrition. Hope you enjoyed it, and we'll see you in the next one. Thank you.