2827: The 90-Day Nutrition Strategy That Actually Works

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This is Mind Pump.

Alright, today's episode we talk about working on nutrition with the 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 Mind Pump Nutrition.com, use the code April 50,

that makes it 50% off, regularly priced at $99, but you get it for half off if you use that code.

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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 Mind Pump Nutrition.com, use the code April 50 to make it 50% off.

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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.

Let's go.

I would argue even more than just that, it's the behavioral psychology that comes along

with the nutrition.

That's what's the way.

Right?

I mean, it's like there's layers.

There's layers to it.

There's layers to this.

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.

We don't have enough.

Yeah.

I would test 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.

And it's just like, okay.

And then 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 just spit out?

I do.

I do remember the regular.

I mean, diets really hard.

One and a half salt team crackers.

Half an orange.

Two almonds.

You can't have a full thing.

Yeah.

Half a table spoon of peanut butter.

You know, here's the thing.

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, you know, eating this much protein?

Is it animal?

Is it vegan?

Is it, you know, keto?

Is it paleo?

It's so much nuance to all this.

Like, what are the goods?

What are the good?

What's bad?

Is gluten bad?

Like, what's the deal?

Like, there's so much confusion.

And so, guidance around nutrition is so important.

And, you know, historically, we've never really offered, you know, coaching or guidance

on nutrition.

We just did it.

And recently, over the last year and a half, we've moved into this direction.

And we now have, I don't know how many coaches do we have?

22.

We have 22 coaches that work for MindPup now.

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, like, some introductory.

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,

you know, three months or 12 weeks?

Yeah, I mean, it 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,

because it just requires a conversation.

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 is 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 the week, same goals,

and their diets are completely different.

And the strategy at which you approach their diet 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, all this stuff plays...

Even just the food you like.

Yeah, it's so different.

Oh, that matters, yeah.

Of course it matters.

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.

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 so, you had someone ridiculous enough to follow the half orange

and two almond type of funny macro split things that would spit out from the computer.

And they were crazy disciplined enough to actually do that stuff.

They could get to maybe their results, but then inevitably always,

because who's going to live that way forever?

Like nobody's going to do that forever.

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 for all this thing.

It's like, here's the one thing we're going to do than this thing, then that thing.

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.

And now we have coaching where, you know,

a lot of our coaches to train is worked 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 and scaffold.

A nice kind of plan for you 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, this is really important for any goal,

but like reverse dieting is where things get, people get really confused.

Yeah.

We talk about reverse diet in 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,

recognized that they are overtrained, 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 for uncertain.

Yeah, because the strategy with the first dieting

is to build some muscle and boost from metabolism,

set you up for some fat loss later on in an effective way.

And the question's always like, well, how, okay,

find, 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.

How do I do this?

Yeah.

That's right.

So I'm going to have 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,

we're looking at metabolism boost,

athletic performance.

Is this your longevity?

Yeah, like what's the main goal

and that's kind of the starting point?

Yeah.

And then you want to start to individualize

based off of like biggest obstacles,

which is different from person to person.

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 and 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.

Well, this is I think the part that I,

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 an heavily 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.

And that's 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 to

and it doesn't mean you have to completely fall off the wagon

or you fail.

There's ways to work around that.

And so adjusting that,

that would be an obstacle example.

That's right.

There's also, let's look and see what's already working

with your diet.

You know, maybe you do start out 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 this,

to make you leave with the plan that's going to work for you.

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.

It's 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...

That's the one meal, people.

Yeah.

If I could say there's some 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,

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, you've already trained...

This is already a behavior you're doing well.

You love meat, you enjoy making a dinner,

like you like the rice, sweet 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 consistently.

Yeah, instead of being just one pound of ground beef,

make two or three pounds of ground beef.

And instead of one, two cups of rice,

now you're making six cups of rice.

And then now you've got this meal

that can be ready for you in the morning time for you to eat.

And you can crack two eggs over, 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

is something that seems to be working for a lot of people.

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.

That's a great point.

That's actually how I meal prep.

A lot of my meal prepping looks like a big dinner.

Yep.

And then the leftovers become two or three meals

that I have the next day.

And it's typically how?

That's what our...

So this is what our people have asked us before.

You know, I hear you talk about how you meal prep on Sundays.

So Sundays are my grill days.

And I grill a lot of meat.

That typically only lasts us though until about Wednesday.

Then Wednesday night, Katrina and I,

or Katrina, tends to make a huge meal.

That takes us for the next three to four days.

They 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.

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 really easy.

That tends to be kind of a ground beef meal.

Or we, a lot of times, we'll do tacos.

And I'll do taco salad.

And then I'll have that taco meat as well.

That taco meat is what I had this morning.

I don't know if you saw...

Rice or something like that.

If you saw what...

So what I did today, literally, was last night,

Katrina and Max and I had...

They had tacos.

I had a big, old taco salad.

And then we made bulk of ground turkey.

And then what I did was through beans

that are already cooked in from a can.

I 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 cracked two eggs over it.

It's like a breakfast.

It's like a breakfast.

And so these are examples, just some examples,

not only how I've applied it to myself,

but how a trainer, when you get on calls and you learn

from the client, what are the things that they're doing really well?

I'm working.

It's like, okay.

I can work with this.

Totally.

So how you're doing this?

And it 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 with that.

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.

Yes.

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.

That doesn't work.

But the value with meal plans oftentimes for people was,

oh, this is what?

45 grams of protein, 30 grams of protein, 50 grams of carbs,

and 20 grams of fat looks like.

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 in this call is they'll put together five or six anchor meals.

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.

Especially for people like me, they're 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,

that works best for you to start off is great.

I don't know who coined anchor meals first, but I love that term.

Yeah.

Because this is what it looks like in my house.

Every month we have our big Costco grocery shopping list.

And then we have our like kind of weekly where we get like vegetables and fruit.

Small, small orbs.

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 main rotations.

Doesn't mean we don't have things outside of that.

It's like, I have a good solid four to five go to meals this month.

And we like to rotate that.

That's what I say.

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 off.

And then everything is kind of built around that.

Boy, does it just makes it easy.

Simplify.

And these are meals that you'll eat that you like.

Yes.

Fit within what your fitness goals are.

Like, here's just some options, like some ideas.

Like, these are my, I have my anchor meals.

And they typically look like this.

There's ground beef and rice or ground beef and baked potato or tri-tip and rice

or tri-tip and sweet potato.

I always have frozen broccoli.

So we'll make a big batch of frozen broccoli that I can mix in with all of that.

Or it's also land shops and gluten free pasta with pesto.

There's like, that's like four options that every month.

I'm going to have a decent amount of times.

They're delicious.

I know what the macros and calories generally look like.

They work for what my goals are.

They're healthy.

The rest of my family eats them.

Yeah.

And so what you're going to leave with.

This could be this is very individualized you guys.

So it's not going to be what I said because that's mine.

Right.

But what your coach is going to help you do in this call is put together these anchor meals

so that you have a plan.

Not having a plan with nutrition is very difficult.

It's very difficult to navigate without a plan.

Otherwise, in that case, you're left to your own devices.

You're left to eating out.

That's when things go, hey, why are you?

But when you have these kind of anchor setups, these meals that are your go-to,

makes a big difference with you being consistent.

Yeah.

With good eating.

No, agree.

And now there are four, this is what we've identified ourselves as trainers

and that our coaches have identified as the four kind of areas of stress

or areas of challenge when it comes to nutrition.

The first one is travel.

Yeah, of course.

Travel makes things very difficult.

So, okay, what do I do when I travel?

Well, let's come up with some strategies and options for you when you travel.

For example, you could double the size of protein, cut the source of carbohydrates down in half

or only choose one source of carbohydrates.

In other words, I might order a meal that is chicken, rice, and it comes with bread.

Well, I'm going to only have the rice.

I'm going to cut out one of the carbohydrates and I'll double the chicken type of deal.

Other strategies are, all right, well, let's look at the areas you travel to.

Yeah.

And let's find research ahead of time.

Research and comp is good options for you.

That is going to fit within what your fitness goals are.

Let's set you up for breakfast.

This is a tough one.

Sometimes travel, for me at least, when I travel, the most difficult meal tends to be breakfast.

So, are there shake options I can take with me in the morning?

Or are there options at hotel that I can set myself up with?

It makes a big difference.

Well, I think this was the motivation behind the DoorDash guide that we created not that long ago was

so many of our coaches and trainers found that this was one of the challenges that clients are following,

traveling.

We have a lot of clients that do business and have to fly a lot.

And so, how do we help them with a tool like DoorDash to give them good options?

And so, that was the real motivation originally was to serve our clients.

And then we figured, oh, we may as well give it away as a free guide to our audience.

And so, that's how that happened.

That happened because so many of our coaches, this is one of the number of challenges.

Very calm.

And so, and that's an easy way.

And they just needed something that they can lean on to.

It's like, okay, I'm in this city now.

Pull up DoorDash.

What's around me?

Okay, look at the guide.

Okay, here's some pictures like that.

And again, this is individualized because this is a call you're going to make with your coach.

So, they're going to work with you specifically.

Another one.

This is probably the most common one.

This is short on time.

What are some quick meals that I can put together and eat

when I'm in a rush?

Breakfast is a big one.

What's a fast, quick, high protein or breakfast that works with my goals?

What about lunchtime?

Oftentimes, I'm in meetings.

Or, oftentimes, I'm, you know, I got 10 minutes to eat.

What does that look like?

What are good short on time options for me?

So, I don't go off the rails when I'm trying to eat in a way that, you know, accomplishes my goals.

This is helpful.

Yeah, because, I mean, that's usually where most people slip.

Totally.

Like, reaching.

There's nothing there.

You know, immediately, all that's around you are like snack options and you're trying to process food.

This is where it goes back to kind of what I was sharing with Woodhouse.

Katrina and I do it.

I mean, she works a lot.

I work a lot.

We're busy.

We have a kid.

Right.

So, we're on the, we are on the go and we move a lot.

And so, what has worked really well is that dedicating that Sunday afternoon or evening towards, you know,

prepping for the first three days and then Wednesday.

That way, it's like, I'm only really carving off two days where I have to focus on that.

And then the rest of the time I can fill in the gaps and cooking.

Well, so this, I'll just, again, this is a personal one.

So, this is all individualized.

Again, you're on a call with a coach for yourself.

But just from, in my example, so I have like a, I have a 16 year old daughter.

She plays sports.

The morning trying to get her to spend extra time to make breakfast is like, good luck.

And if you have teenagers, you know what that's like.

But she's also really, she's pretty focused on her fitness.

She's pretty focused on being good or being able to perform at her sport.

And so, we've come up with a great option for her in the morning.

What it looks like is those high protein yogurts.

And social have a couple of those, throw some berries in there.

And she's like, this is could be a breakfast.

I'm like, yeah, you got 35 grams of protein with some berries.

You've just started your day off with a good breakfast rather than skipping breakfast

or getting a pastry or something like that.

So, another one is stress eating.

This is a big one.

Like, what about strategies around stress eating?

How do I identify when I'm in that place?

What are the types of foods I want to reach for?

Can I avoid eating with stress when I'm stressed or what are better options?

You know, when I'm stressed out, I tend to like to eat sweets.

Are there good options that I can put together that fit within my fitness goals?

That'll kind of satisfy what I'm looking for?

And again, the coach is going to individualize this around the things that you're challenged with.

Some of that, too, is just a good coaching on the call, too, that you'll get from them.

If a client expresses that, they get poor sleep and know that sometimes

just communicating them the awareness around that.

And we've talked about this on the podcast before.

It's like, hey, be prepared for the day that you know you get poor sleep.

The cravings are going to be harder than before.

And a lot of times, me just communicating to my client and letting them know that

that is something to be aware of helps them with that.

It's like, when you know it's coming, like, oh, man, I got poor sleep today.

Today is going to be that day or that thing that I have a hard time saying to you.

It kicks in and so having stuff prepared or even, again, just being aware of it.

And no, it's like, okay, I'm not going to do it today because I know I want it so bad.

And tomorrow, that'll pass and it won't be that awareness and that coaching

from somebody who hears that from a client who expresses that is huge.

That's right.

And then the last one, one of the more common ones again is what if I miss a meal?

Okay, I'm supposed to be reverse dieting.

I'm supposed to eat 2200 calories.

I just miss lunch.

What do I do now?

Do I just go with a huge meal?

Do I plan it out later?

Do I make up for it tomorrow?

Do I just chalk it up?

Like, what does it look like for me?

And so again, strategies around these challenges which are individualized,

which again, the coach will be helping you with on this call.

And here's what you're going to leave with this call.

So it's a 45 minute call.

It's with a real coach.

It's not AI.

It's a real mind pump coach that we, again, we handpicked.

And after you leave that call, here's what you're left with.

You have a calorie and macro structure with individualized advice for the next 90 days.

That's what you're going to leave with.

You're going to leave with a 90 day plan of how can I do this reverse diet,

cut, bulk, athletic performance, lunch, whatever your goal is,

you're going to leave with a 90 day plan on how you can eat to help you accomplish your goals.

Now here's what we did for this is we made these calls 50% off.

So the normal price, if you want to meet with a coach for 45 minutes to get all this,

it's $99.

But if you go to mindpumpnutrition.com, use the code April 50.

It's 50% off.

So it thinks like $48.50, but it'll cost you for this call with a mind pump coach.

And again, you'll leave with the next 90 days planned out for you.

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