The Top 3 Fitness Mistakes and How to 20:80 your Health - w/ Coach Jake Parker, Beyond Fitness

What if the biggest barrier to getting fit isn't your body at all, but your mind? After all, we usually know what to do, but we don't do it well, on this episode, I sit down with Jake Parker, a coach who's sin every excuse in the book, bad genetics. I am not a gym person. It's too hard to eat healthy, or I just don't have the time. You of course know the lines, but none of these are as important as we think, and they are just a big distraction from the real work upstairs in your mind.

We talk about why people treat dieting like a temporary job instead of a lifelong lifestyle. The differences between women's and men's approach to fitness, why people think one protein shake will turn them into the hook overnight, and what is really against us in terms of our evolution and society.

So hello and welcome to the Growth Mindset Psychology Podcast with me, Sam Webster Harris, where we peruse the real science behind self-improvement and engage in a healthy debate of what is a life well lived today, I'm inviting you to think more about health and fitness with my own personal fitness coach, Jake Parker, who works for the Online Academy Beyond Fitness and they've been helping me on my recovery and some of my more outrageous goals for world records, and I think you'll like him if you were wondering about fitness coaching yourself ever, they are offering a free one month trial that I will talk about at the end of the show if you think the topics were interesting and relevant to you. In the meantime, we will be exploring how to actually build habits that last, why flexibility beats perfection, and how people go from dragging themselves to the gym to actually looking forward to it.

A bit like the Stockholm Syndrome, but for fitness.

And on that, stay tuned.

Introduction and Growth Mindset

welcome to the show,

I like to start my episodes asking how you think about growth mindset and what it means to you.

Yeah, so what comes to mind for me is. I have this one tattoo and it's a symbol, a Japanese symbol from Zen Buddhism. It means beginner's minds. And that always really spoke to me because that's how I. Try to remember growth mindset. And it's really easy to get away from in just like thinking that you have things understood, thinking you have anything in life figured out.

But I think to me, a growth mindset is just always trying to come at things from first principles.

Fitness and Nutrition Philosophy

It'd be like a good lead in to kind of how I look at fitness and nutrition and kind of like why I started coaching, what my journey has been. But I think trying to figure out, okay, there's. some sort of an equation, right?

For success, you know, X plus Y equals Z. Like that's, I I very much look at the world in that way, but trying to figure out without input from other people, again, like when you're talking about health and fitness, without input of all the fad diets and, and stuff you see online and this, that, and the other thing, I, I think it's always useful to say, okay, what is the goal I want to reach? How do I get there and how do I kind of drown out the noise and really try to delve into. is success? How am I going to get to my end goal? I think that's, that's a growth mindset to me, just starting from a place of, of beginner's minds.

Nice. And also the concept of Not finished.

okay, dieting is like, okay, you reach an endpoint, but actually it's the rest of your life that you need to be healthy. These kind of things. It's always a thing to do more. So, yeah. Nice start. I've never had someone talk about beginner's mind, but it's totally right.

So good one.

Genetics and Fitness Challenges

It could make sense to talk about genetics because on the subject of beginner's mind, some people just think that they can't be fit or like there are things going on in our environment or within us that. Causes more difficulty to get fit, but it's still not really like you can still do something.

Yeah, so I think in terms of one place where people really get caught up and really to me is the wrong place to start, again, because I've been there. I spent a lot of my youth thinking I was doing all the right things. I'd really been into weightlifting and bodybuilding and exercising, since I was like a teenager, 13 or 14, and spent a lot of years just lamenting that I didn't have the right genetics for it. Well essentially not understanding the principles like the 20% that drives the 80% to get you really healthy and fit and get you the kind of physique that you're after. So in terms of genetics, I always kind of acknowledge with clients, yeah, they're gonna have a little bit of an impact on how far you can take things. But that being said, really not something that you have control over. So. Just accepting that and then putting it to the wayside and doing the best you can with what you have. And another, more specific, thing that we had mentioned before is just people's genetic predisposition to be in shape.

Basically. There's kind of two things working against you, which is.

Overcoming Obesogenic Environment

you know, we live in what's called an obesogenic environment, so now more than ever, food is more readily available. We're at home, we're sedentary a lot of the time. We're not moving. So it's easier than ever to put on body fat. The really difficult thing is we have these bodies and these brains that are kind of accustomed to and geared to putting on fat. Like it's a good thing because haven't evolved that much in the last. thousand, 10,000 ish years from where we were hunter gatherers and putting on any extra fat was a good thing because it meant we had more calories and we had more of a chance to survive and live.

Versus now we're in this era of food abundance, but yet we still have these same kind of genetic predispositions to. Put on body fats, you know, all these foods that are highly palatable, very delicious, easy to eat, and we want to conserve energy. We wanna not move. That's another predisposition that we have.

So it's really hard on people. There's a lot working against you. And so unless you're really being very disciplined, and very intentional about moving and exercising and building your metabolism and eating the right foods, you are gonna find it tough to. Stay in shape and to build, a physique that you're proud of and stay away from becoming overweight, becoming obese, things like that.

Yeah, I haven't heard the word obesogenic environment, but that's really funny because I'm researching my new show. It's all about the history of human innovation and like, 290,000 years humans have been around and we just. We're basically just trying to not starve to death. And this is the last 10,000 years where we've like solved that problem and been able to start innovating and doing all these things.

But anyway, the last 200 years where we've suddenly had like the real abundance. So yeah, we're not evolved at all. It's been like two or three generations

Crazy. On that, although we have as much food as we want, we also have as much access to fitness as we want yeah, it might be expensive to go to the gym, but you also have some trainers technically speaking.

So what do you do to help people use the good things that are available to them instead of using just the default easy things that make their health worse.

Building a Sustainable Diet

So I think one thing that that comes to mind first is going back to that. That point I made about, I had for many years ignored the 20% that drives 80% of the results.

So wanted to ask about that.

So, I was into, everything under the sun that, was kind of in the, minutiae of fitness and nutrition making sure I got the right meal timing and I was worried about the GI content of all my foods and I was worried about the, supplements and doing very specific workouts at very specific times all that stuff can be, beneficial, but not unless you are doing a few main things, managing your calorie and protein intake, which doesn't necessarily have to mean you're tracking it.

It just means you have to make sure that you're not vastly under or over consuming calories on a regular basis, you are at least at some point throughout your fitness career, focused on progressive strength training to build up, a higher level of muscle mass, which is important for a handful of reasons.

, Not the least of which one of the most important reasons is going back to that comment about the obesogenic environment that's working against us. There's all these highly palatable, high calorie foods. It's very advantageous to try to build more muscle. That's one of the quickest ways to increase your metabolism. And then instead of being in this constant mentality of trying not to eat food, trying to avoid food and be very strict with your diet, you have kind of more of like, I compare it to a, a budget. It's like when you have more money, you are not worried about pinching every penny you can.

Hmm.

why with our clients it's less so about like, let's go and, and work you to the bone and put you through these, these cardio intensive workouts and stuff like that.

And more so. Let's build some muscle. Let's get your calorie budget up so that you're in more of a state of abundance. And I would say that's where we start with a lot of clients. It's not, a lot of people come in and they say, you know, don't take away my, my cookies or my beer, or whatever sort of ice they have.

And I'm always like, that stuff is fine. We always preach. dieting to clients where we can include some of that stuff as long as it's the minority of what you're consuming. And we start with a whole nutrient-rich diet, I call it, starting from a state of abundance where it's like, let's really fill up on these whole nutrient dense foods, make that the majority of your diet, and then also talk about how we can flexibly fit other things in as well.

But yeah, really starting with work on metabolism is one of the main things that we do because many people, can relate to. Just feeling like any food that they eat out of their normal plan or any food that's quote unquote unhealthy, really sticks to them really easily because they have been doing cardio workouts for many years and restricting calories.

And so what we do is the opposite. Try to build people into more of an abundance state. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Nice. It's a definitely description of a flip from scarcity to abundance, but you can see how that happens. Okay, so when you think about that then, do you think that's also part of like, then just changing people's, like mental barriers towards food then? Like to get 'em to eat different things

do different workouts or like what's,

lot

what's the biggest thing that,

a lot of it is mental in the sense that, people come in and they say, they're like, Jake, I know you're gonna tell me to stop eating bad foods and eat more good foods, it's not an entirely, misguided notion.

Like obviously there is foods that are more healthy for certain reasons, and there are foods that are quote unquote less healthy for different reasons, but we don't typically like to use that terminology, and we try to help clients to look at food on a scale of, can be nutrient dense and or calorie dense. So in the nutrient dense and calorie dense category, we can have things like an avocado is a good example. It's got tons of nutrients. It's what we'd consider a healthy food. But at the same time, it's very calorie dense, like a medium avocado has typically around 200 to 300 calories or so. On the side of the scale where it's very low calorie, high nutrient density, we're talking fruits and vegetables.

And then we also have the high calorie but very low nutrient density. Which would be things like soda, donuts, candy, stuff like that. And again, when you look at your nutrition as more of a and you, you kind of take away that restrictive all or nothing mentality where it's like, we're only eating clean and healthy food. We're avoiding all junk food. It's like, no, you know, if you have a budget, you can kind of splurge on things every once in a while and you have room for that. But making sure that you're making smart choices for the most part, making out of. Whole nutrient dense, unprocessed foods is going to ensure that you are mostly finding that balance with your, your calorie intake.

But it's really important, again, really embrace flexibility because that's what allows people to sustain diet and a healthy body weight and be consistent. Because a lot of times what, and this is another thing I'm sure that people can relate to, everyone's followed a diet for. A week, two weeks, a month, a few months. But inevitably, if you're following a really strict diet, you're gonna have that rebound where you haven't let yourself have a piece of pizza for a month and then you go and eat a whole pizza to yourself. Versus, if every week you're allowed to have a slice of pizza, a piece of cake, the serving size and the moderation is super important. That allows it to be more sustainable and you're staying consistent long term.

Yeah, that's interesting because I found, like I've done lots of random diets just for fun, like just 'cause I wanted to see what it was like to live on them, like keto diet, et cetera. I used to be vegetarian and I found it very easy to maintain when I was strict about it.

I was a vegetarian, but as soon as I was like a little bit flex on it and was like, oh, it's a bit hard to get someone to cook this thing for me. As soon as I started letting a bit of like porous boundary in, I just found it very hard to maintain afterwards 'cause my identity. It shifted from being like I'm a vegetarian, to being like, no, sometimes I don't.

And which point? It was just like always, I don't eat vegetarian kind of thing. I just wonder if that's got any similarities to how people think about dieting or just how you are a healthy person or like if that's the opposite

Approaching diet flexibly and pragmatically

definitely. And I think that's of the way that we coach clients and part of the way we talk about nutrition and living healthy lifestyle is so new to people. Because another characteristic about the world we live in today is it's very unbalanced for the most part.

Yeah.

true balance where you don't always have to, not every meal has to look super healthy and be full of, fruits and vegetables and lean proteins and complex carbs, and many of them should.

But we have the flexibility to know that you're a human, right? You're gonna have meals where you're connecting over food with friends, or you're just gonna have. Your favorite ice cream in the summer or whatever sort of traditions people have around food, to be balanced and to not just fall into one camp of, you know, I'm vegetarian, or I'm keto, or I'm low fats, or I'm carnivore, or whatever it is.

That's a lot easier for people. And part of the challenge is just helping people to embrace the fact that. You're not gonna have a diet. You're not gonna start with beyond fitness and be put on X, Y, or Z diet. We're just gonna teach you how to eat healthier within what you enjoy, what you know how to do.

And back to one of the previous questions you asked was how do we start with people? How do we kind of uncover change essentially and another really important thing to me is starting with what people. Can do and are currently doing, and kind of building from there.

So if someone hates chicken breasts, they can live a perfectly healthy life without ever eating chicken breasts. We can talk about, other forms of protein that they can eat on a regular basis to hit their protein goals. So, just as one example, we're never going to, try to squeeze someone into a round peg, into a square hole, so to speak, and

Hmm.

know how to do. And have the ability to do, is really important too for sustainability and consistency. Those are the two words I'm probably thinking about the most as a coach and when I'm thinking about building a healthy lifestyle for someone.

One thing I found for myself also is just. Realizing like the other benefits outside of just like physical health or just like mental ability to concentrate and things in the afternoon. Like if I eat sugar or crap, it's bad, but then you can, it's, besides avoiding it, you can still have chicken and chips if you eat like the chicken and salad first before you eat the chips.

I find like it's just 10 times better for concentration and you still don't wanna have chicken and chips every lunch, but like it does actually really help.

Okay, we will be back after a short break to go into identity, common mistakes and the curious case of motivation or, of course, lack of it.

Shifting Identity and Embracing Fitness

On this topic of we, okay, we talk about kind of the binary of diets and things, but then the other one is people who think they're not a gym person versus the people who like have always felt athletic.

Like what do you think is psychologically happening when someone ties their identity to just being unfit?

Yeah, I think that's another one of those things where so many of the paradigms we have are just paradigms, of the world at large. And again, we've built this association. Most people with the gym is hard. The gym sucks. You know, the gym, I'm, I'm, you know, a personal trainer, like a personal trainer.

People come to me all the time and they think, oh, my personal trainer's gonna get on me if I eat anything bad and they're gonna kick my butt with these workouts. And that's not what I like to, to do with people. I want to make them feel like they're doing something kind for themselves. By eating better and by moving their body, by exercising, building muscle. So it's really just kind of untangling why do you feel that way? And the workaround oftentimes is just saying, okay, I might not necessarily intrinsically love going to the gym and exercising. I understand how huge the benefits are, to look in the way I wanna look, to having health, to be able to, you know, thinking about people's whys is super important.

So people wanna be healthy to date or people want to be healthy to. with their kids, long into their, elder years or play with their grandkids or things like that. And also just kind of like you noted, those associations with food can be really helpful if you know what makes you feel kind of foggy or what makes you feel really clear and, like you're really able to at a efficient pace in the same way you can build a positive association with both like your mental. Clarity and emotional wellbeing with working out. Like that's one of the things that I think keeps people coming back is even

Hmm.

feel good and are in shape and aren't necessarily trying to change their physique, really having fitness as a bedrock to say, this is what helps me to feel emotionally level.

This is what helps me to feel mentally sharp. Are other ancillary benefits that become important as you build those associations.

Yeah. Nice. I would like to use a few more specific examples. I feel we're missing some stories. Could you possibly share a moment when you saw someone, like a client shift their identity from being like, I'm not a gym person, to being like, actually, yeah, I can do this.

So that's a good question. What comes to mind for me is I've had a couple different clients. In the same kind of situation where they start out and they're kind of like the person you're describing, or that we've kind of talked about where they know they wanted to get to the gym to improve their health for whatever reason. Probably a mix of like aesthetically and just to, for longevity, to feel healthier and to be healthier, look better. And they start out. AndI'm never pushy with it. I never, because nobody wants to be told like, Hey, there's all these positive things about going to the gym. You're gonna start to feel better mentally and emotionally.

You're gonna start to enjoy it, et cetera. People learn best through experience as I know that, that, you know, so what I love to do is just take people, do their workouts, it was probably. Seven or eight months into coaching, give or take. And they both something similar to me, which was, I'll, I'll have people report every week in their check-in, Hey, what was something positive that happened last week? They can say something random about their week. Oftentimes it's related to fitness and nutrition, as is obvious, but these clients share. They're like, Hey, it was weird last week. I. one case, I didn't go to the gym and I really missed it. And in another case, they were like, I was really looking forward to every workout that I had this week, every time I went to the gym. So again, like you don't force those associations, but over time feel better.

You see those results. You build this cycle, this positive cycle of I go to the gym, I feel better mentally and emotionally over the long term. I see my health markers change. I see my body start to change, and I'm more confident in how I feel. And it's just like this really positive snowball effect to where people are eventually, people that would've never thought this.

Both of these people are like, I would've never pictured myself being the person that would say this, but I either missed or loved going to the gym every session this week, and I just, I craved it and I look

Nice.

always a really exciting and gratifying thing to hear.

Yeah. I do feel like whenever someone says like, I'm just not a gym person, like, okay, yeah, sure. Maybe some people just don't like it, but I feel like it's often like a form of self-protection. I. In some way that actually I'm pretty sure you would enjoy it if you just found the right way of doing it, if you tried the right difference sort of things.

Like, it's just, it's so rewarding biologically speaking, hormone wise and just feeling like you'd be able to like, take a break for your mind and do something else. That once you get into it, it becomes like, I dunno how I could live without fitness now. Like, it's just so, so enjoyable inherently, which, you know, it wasn't always, but yeah.

Yeah, and I think that just giving it time again, like people don't build that association right away.

Hmm.

really leaning into, especially when it comes to like, obviously a lot of my job is just helping people to, to bridge that gap and understanding from your, from my own perspective, how good it can make you feel.

Just knowing like if people give it enough of a chance. They're, they're probably gonna build that positive association, and part of my job as a coach too, is to kind of figure out what motivates people. So

Mm.

I really don't like going to the gym.

It's not something I enjoy. But most anyone, most people have at least some part of them where they love going after goals and they love feeling accomplished.

Yeah.

That's kind of like a shortcut, like a hack. I'll be like, okay, can you put on 30 pounds to your squat before October? Or like things of that nature where you take the focus away from, you're gonna go to the gym, it's gonna be monotonous and boring and like, let's see how much progress you can make in the next couple months.

Yeah, definitely. If you can have some time-based goals and things just. It's really good. I mean, the ultimate one is like the marathon project where it's something that you're really aiming for this big, always worthwhile for people.

Yeah.

Common Fitness Mistakes

what are like, would you say the most common mistakes that people then make when they're first trying to get fit?

The most common mistake that I've already kind of alluded to a little bit is just have this tendency to think. Working out equals cardio, going out and going for a run or hitting the bike and sweating at the gym or like doing some kind of like cardio intensive group class. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Cardio is definitely a useful and healthy components of just a healthy lifestyle, but when it comes to what most people wanna do, change their physique is look a certain way.Strength training is the biggest shortcut to that because again, like I mentioned in the beginning, there's these these metabolic benefits and it kind of is like on one hand with cardio, you're playing this game of diminishing returns where you're burning calories, and you have to be mindful of. The calories you're eating back versus strength training. You're building compound interest. When you're building muscle, you're not only burning calories in those strength training workouts, but you're also allowing your body to build muscle, which is going to boost your metabolism and you're going to build, you're gonna burn more calories day to day as a result of that. In addition, when people wanna look a certain way, often people think there's a million words that people use, lean, toned, et cetera, which tend to think is just a result of how much body fat you have. And it is to an extent, but a lot of it is you have to have a certain amount of muscle mass. Combined with that low body fat percentage to be, to have that lean, toned, looked that people are after, man or woman. I think another misunderstanding that people have is, I'm gonna go to the gym, start lifting weights and I'm gonna look like a bodybuilder. And, you know, as someone who's spent a lot of years trying to look like a bodybuilder, I can

Yeah, that's not easy.

Yeah, definitely. That's funny. no, I definitely see a lot of people making both of those mistakes. I hadn't really thought about it quite so, correctly, so that was nice. Cool.

Forming Healthy Habits

Then what about, just like habit formation, because it's hard. We spoke a bit about gamification, but do you have any useful insights in what you can actually do to get people.

Moving more and just generally having a healthier lifestyle

that reminds me of another point I was thinking of earlier, which is that I coach people in the beginning and I'm not gonna force any realizations onto them. We talked a little bit about motivation. And I think going back to the motivation point, it can be something that's really useful, especially in the beginning and especially when you have a coach.

Like that's the way to have motivation. I've had plenty of clients who skip workouts even with a coach, which can be frustrating, but definitely happens. But obviously you're gonna have an increased level of motivation if you have a coach or even a buddy, or you're an online community or anything like that.

So habit formation, a lot of it is just getting the ball rolling. So. Coach buddy online community, whatever it is, having someone you're kind of accountable to can be a really good, motivator in the beginning. But I think to maintain your exercise habit long term, a lot of it just comes down to. Doing it.

I call it doing it anyway, which is to say, a lot of times you're not gonna feel like working out. Even you, Sam, I'm sure you have those days where you're like, I really don't feel like working out today. But you go and do it and you try to remember before the workout how much better you're gonna feel afterwards, because I've had many times when I wanted a workout or rather when I didn't wanna workout, didn't do it, felt worse afterwards. But I've never had a time when I didn't wanna workout, went and did it. And then felt even worse afterwards. You kind of get those endorphins going and you're glad you went. You have that feeling of accomplishment. There's a big benefit to being able to listen to your thoughts and listen to yourself saying, man, I really don't want to do this.

This is gonna suck.

Overcoming Lack of Motivation

This sounds like the worst thing in the world. Gonna get my workout in. But then acting. Anyway, going in and doing the workout and getting through it, because you don't always have to give into those thoughts and you're not always gonna feel motivated. So I more so look at motivation as a bonus, like, Hey, I'm motivated today.

That's great. But not looking at it as a requirement to go and put in the work, which is certainly a muscle in and of itself that you have to kind of practice over time.

Yeah, big time.

Reward and Punishment Systems in Fitness

Do you believe in any kind of reward or punishment system for yourself? Or do you think that's a bad thing to slip into?

I think it can be beneficial. Again, like it kind of depends. I think a lot of times those sort of things are great in the beginning and. Using something like if you're someone who likes to shop or if you like to, you know, buy like cool, exercise outfits, workout outfits, maybe you go and you, you know, you have a goal of losing 20, 30 pounds, something like that.

You buy some really cool clothes in a size smaller than you need, and that's kind of like a motivator. It's tough with fitness and nutrition to, you know, a lot of rewards that come to mind are like. Some sort of a dessert or treat. And

Hmm.

I wouldn't

Yeah.

a bad thing per se, but it does kind of go against the mindset that we're trying to So definitely like thinking maybe, maybe like an association that is, I'm, I'm thinking of, I read a book recently where I think they called it. Habits. It was some form of habit stacking where, you know, you only go and listen to an audio book or a podcast that you find really interesting when you're at the gym lifting weights or, or something like that.

I like that sort of, an association or reward a lot

Yeah. Yeah.

There's a podcast called, full of civilizations that I only listen to when I'm cleaning, which wasn't deliberate, I dunno why I just put it on one day when I was cleaning. And it just hits in the right spot

Mm-hmm.

and I love it and does make me clean more.

And yeah, I found not, I haven't needed so much motivation for working out, I guess. Like I have a, I'm only motivation to stop me from working out, but I have used things like my favorite books, that I just won't let myself read the next one in a series until I've, like, hit a goal on my podcast or something.

Just 'cause I'll just waste my life reading a book and not doing anything. But yeah, that's me. Anyway. What about. Just discipline. Discipline, fatigue and, and willpower.

Designing Your Environment for Success

Like are there other things you can do for just building your environment or do you think we've kind of covered everything?

Yeah,

feel like environment design is super important.

I think you have to.

I.

I agree. I think you have to know yourself and especially kind of know where you are likely to fall off. So I'll often give the example of, you know, like if you know you're likely to get home from work and maybe plan on changing for the gym, but the second you get home, the second you sit on your couch, you kind of lose that motivation.

Mm.

Okay. Well go ahead and make sure that you have your exercise clothes with you at work and you change before you leave the office and go to the gym on the way home from work. So for me, like an environmental optimization has a lot to do with where are the, kind of like leaks, so to speak.

What are the tough areas and planning around that? You know, I have a lot of clients where, and I'm honestly the same way. Like if they have. Some ice cream or chips or whatever at home, they're just going to eat 'em if they're there. So, you know, again, without, with the, with, we don't like to preach restrictions, so it's not, you can't ever have ice cream.

You can't ever have chips, but if you want them, you have to leave your house to go get them. 'cause then that puts a kind of extra barrier in between, okay, do I really want to do this? Or is it just kind of like a mindless snacking sort of thing? So a lot of where my mindset goes there is just where are you likely to fall off and how can you. Guard against that.

Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's interesting. Definitely goes into like the habit stacking and just like what are the different triggers?

Long-Term Health and Fitness Goals

And then when you kind of make the go more long term then as in what helps someone go from like just the short term weight loss thinking to like long term health identity besides just enjoying it?

Is that like the ultimate goal of everything you do is just to help people enjoy it, so you just keep on doing it.

Yeah, I think you're a really good example, Sam, where you've made it a non-negotiable for yourself because. You see the value of health, I'm sure you, part of you at least enjoys looking a certain way, have a healthy looking physique,

Hmm.

to your mental and emotional health. And again, like my job as a coach is, I don't necessarily feel like I'm gonna stick with any of my clients for their entire lifetime. I guess I'd be certainly happy to. Some people just enjoy their kind of having to plan. and nutrition off onto a coach, but with most people, like a year or so, is a really good client lifecycle.

And during that year, I really wanna help them make those associations really cemented where they know that this has helped them look healthier, feel healthier mentally and emotionally become healthier. And at a point it just wouldn't make any sense to stop because you have built all these positive associations and you know all the good that a healthy lifestyle does for you. And it would just be nonsensical to divert away from that, you know?

Hmm, interesting.

Personalized Fitness Approaches

Do you get to know people much in like the different personality spectrum? 'cause I would say I'm more of an introvert. I'm still pretty social. I like hanging out with people, but I need that time alone. So part of why I love exercise is the fact that I just get to go spend an hour by myself.

If for someone else, they might want to join a football club and they'd actually love that because they're really social person or something like, do you work with that element of people or do you just kind of get them to kind of work out what's right for them?

Yeah, that's a good question. That's one of the things I appreciate most about exercise. But in general, like, you don't have to do.

Strength Training and Muscle Maintenance

Focused specific strength training for your whole life. good on the low end, three to six months to maybe a year or two can really build up enough compound interest. Again, to use that example the average person, depending on size and gender, like 10 to 20 to 30 pounds of muscle. Once you've built muscle mass, according to studies, it takes, one fifth to one ninth of the volume it takes to build muscle to maintain it. I think for just about anybody, again, on the lower end, like three to six months of progression based, disciplines specific strength training. Being on a plan to put on that 10, 20 ish pounds of muscle, is really gonna be healthy, is gonna give you that compound interest in terms of muscle mass that not only is gonna be healthy for your metabolism, but is also gonna be good for your bone and joint health. Healthy to live a longer, more independent, healthy life. But from there, if you're talking. It takes one of the volume. Like that doesn't necessarily have to mean that you're still in the gym lifting weights at all. If you're being active, if you're requires at. Resistance training. Like right now, most of what I do for exercise is running and golfing, and that's physically intensive enough that I feel I maintain most of the muscle mass that I've built over the last 10 years or so.

Within the context of a high protein diet as well is super important, but it has an end goal. It's not like if you go and you build a good amount of muscle lifting four days a week, that's something that you have to continue for the rest of your life. So I definitely feel that overall it's important to find what you like because that's what you're gonna do more consistently and capitalize on that. But there are really unique and specific benefits you get from strength training that's, I think, are necessary, and useful for, for just about everyone in the world.

Yeah. Nice. I think I've, yeah, I've definitely noticed that as well for myself. Like, just recently when I started working with you, I hadn't been to a gym in like two years, but I still, relatively speaking, had more muscle mass than the average person.

Were just bedridden,

yeah. Yeah. So yeah, my right leg has, has definitely lost a lot of his muscle.

'cause of I couldn't walk for a while. Just used my left leg for everything, but otherwise, yeah, it was crazy just from doing like other exercise and generally being a fit person,

Alright. We will be back after a short break to discuss the main differences in approach and mistakes between women and men when they approach fitness.

other fun questions that I had, and how to get a month of free coaching if you want it after the break.

Womens vs Mens approach to fitness

i've got a few other kind of wild card questions. Do you see any differences in how men and women approach fitness psychologically

or just in general?

Yeah, no, that's another good question. I would say the biggest difference is, especially when it comes to, having muscle mass and increasing your metabolism. It's become a lot more mainstream in the last like five to 10 years or so. People are starting to understand. How to do that and why to focus on that. But I think the biggest thing that unfortunately women do fight more against is like the natural inclination to focus on eating less, focus on really being skinny. Whereas guys, you know, if you're talking in very, very generally, like myself growing up, I never had a big problem with like not eating enough or like not going to the gym and focusing on gaining muscle.

It's kind of almost the opposite where, you know, if, you know, sometimes guys will go on too much of a bulk, right? And they put on extra body fat. that I would say is the biggest difference. And sometimes it can be difficult with female clients and there's plenty of males too. But again, just generally it's more so female clients where they are afraid to eat more, because they have spent their whole life kind of in that very, mentality of like, I'm afraid of eating too many calories. I'm afraid of putting on weights. They're, they have a, sometimes a more troubled relationship with the scale too, because like I talked about, been talking a lot about building muscle that can definitely, in many cases, unless you're overweight or obese, cause the scale to go up. But we take a lot of body measurements, progress pictures, things of that nature to help try to show people like, Hey, you might have put on five pounds in the last two months, but you look leaner. You look like you have, well, you do have less body fat percentage and you're healthier now than you were before.

But if you spent your whole life being afraid of the scale and seeing that number go up, it can definitely be really hard mentally.

Yeah, so it has been nice to see like more women go into that CrossFit and actually

working on muscle stuff.

for the

Cool.

every day.

Yeah.

Handling Injuries and Setbacks

Yeah, what about in terms of, People that do have like an injury or just some other setback, how does that affect them and do people approach it differently and how do you help them with those kind of things?

Yeah, that's one of the hardest things, especially if someone is to make good progress and then they have some sort of an injury, in your case specifically, we can kind

I.

point to where you have had the issue with your foot and you wanted to at one point set, it was the record for like squats in a minute.

Yeah.

we talked about, okay, well let's look at like pushups and training and strength in your upper body. And you love to do cardio, you know, he put you on the rowing machine. So that's how I kind of get past some of those things where it's like, let's keep really working hard and intensely as long as it's safe and comfortable for the client. But we might have to kind of switch what that looks like if you, don't have of your leg or your arm or whatever it is that's, that's bothering you at the time.

Yeah, I can say the squad thing is definitely like a, maybe next year at this point. It's having a total fail.

Like do you have many people that turn up and they're just like, oh man, I just don't feel like dealing with this anymore and wanting to quit.

Definitely, uh, that happens. I think, I mean, I won't say that we're for every single person. Because the hardest client for us to work with is someone who is brand, brand new to working out. Because a lot of that's, know, just like building up that ability to. properly and getting in touch with your body.

Like that's something that transparently is usually better with someone in person. And we do work with those people successfully a lot of the time, but that definitely makes it more difficult and that's I think, a lot of times people's frustration when it comes to online coaching. But the benefit is a personal trainer.

An in-person personal trainer is never gonna have, unless they have, you know, specific access. They have an app and, and stuff like that. Like we do, you're never gonna have that same level of accountability to someone where they're kind of keeping track of your workouts and nutrition at all times. That's really, I think, what sets us apart in getting better results for the most part than an in-person trainer.

But in terms of people. Getting like sick of it, tired of it. A a lot of times that's, I, I put that on myself to make sure we don't get to that point. So you kind of mentioned earlier, looking at people's personality and trying to get a good sense of, you know, just what motivates them, how they think, how they interpret things.

And again, like forecasting out what could make them feel frustrated or feel like they wanna. Give up or quit or slow down. So whether it comes to switching up workouts, putting people in different points of emphasis nutritionally, maybe even challenging them outside of the nutrition and fitness realm.

Like I talked to a lot of clients 'cause it's a huge interest to me about mindfulness, meditation, things of that nature. Focusing on like stress managements. So there's, there's a lot of things that can go into making someone feel burnt out, but I think forecasting into the future and making sure that the plan is staying novel enough for them and making sure that we're addressing any barriers that might be in your way, definitely help guard against that. But again, like I said earlier once most clients have been through a year or so of coaching, more often than not gonna be in a place where they're ready to be on their own. So sometimes that's just the natural progression of things. They, they just realize, Hey, I think I can do this on my own, and. That's a point of, it's definitely bittersweet. 'cause I get to know a lot of my clients, especially after working with 'em for that long. But definitely very inspiring and gratifying to know that, okay, I'm gonna send them off and I've given them all the tools to be able to maintain this progress on their own.

And maybe they're just kind of, leading the nest, so to speak.

That's nice. Cool.

Online Coaching vs. In-Person Training

Have you, I should have asked earlier this, and when it comes to, online coaching versus in person, what are the other differences you've noticed and like, how come you made the switch to going online?

So I actually, I only ever did a really limited, like internship, in personal training in in person. I love people. I love talking with people. I am an introvert at heart. I need the majority of my time alone. A lot of personal training in person, it just occurred to me was just a lot of chatting with people, because that's the nature of it.

You're with someone. Especially if you're doing strength training, like we focus on, it's a decent amount of rest time and switching around the weights, et cetera, throughout the workout. So it becomes a lot of socializing and talking to people, and that was pretty draining for me.

Yeah, I.

realize I would be better off being a, an online coach, because it's more down to just the bras. the plan look like? You know, how are we going to adjust the plan? How are you staying on plan, et cetera, et cetera. And I would say that's big difference, in terms of why someone maybe would choose one or the other I mentioned a beginner. A lot of times it's helpful, even if they just have one or two sessions with someone in person, it can be really helpful. But there are those people too. We've coached thousands, I believe of clients at this point, and there are those people that just find. Yeah, the accountability is somewhat there with an online coach, but we can't say, Hey, meet us at the gym at seven o'clock on Monday. Like, that's a really strong form of accountability. Hey, you know, Sam, I'm gonna leave my house. I'm gonna be at the gym at seven o'clock. I'll see you there. Like, that's a very strong form of accountability that we really can't exactly match.

And some people just need that strong of a. A buy-in in order to feel like they're gonna be consistent. Again, like obviously I'm biased towards online coaching, but I love how holistic it is. You know, we get a focus on not only people's training and nutrition, but I constantly am talking about people's stress, their schedules, their sleep, all these other things that go into. Promoting a healthy lifestyle apart from just the workout. 'cause when you have one hour with a, a trainer per week or something like that, it's, it's gonna be basically just taking you through the workout. And that's sort of all, there's, there's time and room for

I have one last question, but if there's anything you haven't mentioned, let me know first, but if not, then we can do the last question.

Avoiding the All-or-Nothing Mentality

Yeah, I think, we kind of touched on it a little bit, but like the whole all or nothing mentality. If you had to encapsulate just one thing that pretty well sums up a lot of the things we've been talking about, it's how detrimental that mentality can be.

That all or nothing. Whether it's with training, I'm going five days a week or I'm not going at all, or nutrition, I'm eating this perfectly clean. rice and broccoli diet, or I'm completely off the wagon, I'm having for breakfast and pizza for dinner. The balance is such a relatively difficult thing to find for yourself.

But at the same time, you know, another common thread is just how much momentum is impactful when it comes to fitness and nutrition. And once you find that for yourself. You kind of set those ruts that you're in, in a good way, like it seems like ruts, I guess that has like a negative association when you create those ruts that you're in, that are you, you just do these, these positive, healthy things for yourself day after day. It really does become, I always say that it's not easy, but it is pretty simple. A lot of this stuff.

Practical Tips for Getting Unstuck

If someone is listening right now and just generally feels stuck, what would you say is like one small powerful thing that they could do for themselves today?

Well this is gonna be very direct specific advice, track your protein. Try to make sure the gram per protein gets a little bit, I would say over overdone overemphasized because if you're getting like 0.6 to 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight, day in, day out, give or take, that's gonna be really beneficial.

So track your protein and track your workouts and try to make sure that granted that you are lifting. control through a four range of motion. You're trying to progress over time because those are two of the biggest reasons I think people find themselves stuck. Like if they are people who go to the gym and want to build their physique, is not being mindful enough of, and doing some tracking of their protein. The good thing about that is protein is very satiating, meaning it's filling. So oftentimes that's kind of killing two birds with one stone. If you're getting enough protein, it's less likely that you're gonna overeat other calories. Another mistake that people make is you go to the gym day in and day out, but people become guilty of, okay, I know that I do 80 pounds on the row and I do that every single workout for eight reps.

And so they don't challenge their body to grow and therefore see those changes. I've discussed a lot in like increasing your amount of muscle bass and being able to see all the positive changes that come from that. So that's a very specific, thing that people could do to change.

Okay, cool.

More, I guess if I was to give like a more general answer, is just try to make sure that you move every day and try to make sure 80 to 90% of the food that you eat is what the, the kind of like heuristic I'll sometimes used is like food that could be. Found on the ground sort of thing, like whole natural food, fruits, vegetables, obviously, lean proteins, complex carbs, and again, leave yourself room for those other treats and stuff, but make that what comes on top.

Don't ever let that substitutes helpful meals and just make sure that when you are having those other foods, you're doing so with. Some moderation and, acknowledgement of serving sizes. But yeah, we live in a far too sedentary environment. So even if you're not ready to go and pick up weights at the gym today, if that feels intimidating for you, if you've never done that, just trying to move every day is every single person in the world should try to emphasize.

Yeah, definitely. I've been urging my, girlfriend to go for walks for like the past year. 'cause sometimes she'll be working it all day.

Yeah.

done it, and she got the Google Fit app and started tracking her steps, and so she started going for walks and she's coming back and be like, wow, I love going for walks.

I'm like, yeah, I know. I was telling you

It's just,

It's funny.

remember

yeah. When you're busy.

I go for a walk or should I get an Instagram? It's like another thread you could tie through. This is like. try to emphasize that long term over that short term gratification. Looking at some

Yeah.

short term, going on a walk, more of that long term, more sustainable, release that you're looking for.

Big time. Yeah. If I was to go for like one, just take home tip, but like, just delete Instagram from your phone and only check it

once a week on your browser.

that would solve a lot of problems.

Yeah. Anyway, it's been fun chatting to you

and uh, thanks for sharing.

Really fun.

Claim a free trial

Okay, wicked. Thanks for Jake coming on the show. And if you have listened the whole way through and right now feel like you care about improving your health journey with the right mindset, and you've been wondering about getting into fitness coaching. Well, as I said, Jake and Beyond Fitness are offering a free month trial of their coaching program to any of my listeners, which is a really good offer.

So I'm very happy to be recommending it. Like we said in the episode, I have been working with them for six months now and it has been, yeah, really, really cool. And it has been really, really handy. Like they specialize in body recomposition, helping you lose fat, and. Build muscle and fitness in a sustainable, efficient way.

I've got a fully customized workout plan with flexible nutrition strategy, real accountability to stay consistent. And they even include blood work and weekly coaching calls. Uh, like he did say, of course it is online, which means that you can join it from anywhere in the world.

But if you are just beginning and your biggest issue for you is accountability, and you need someone physically there to meet you in person, then a physical in person coach might be better. But otherwise, I found online better for me because I don't have to talk to someone the entire time.

And instead get to have time to myself whenever I work out and can think about things or listen to books and podcasts. For my research, I have flexibility to travel and not worry about it. And flexibility On timing of when I hit the gym, whilst still having the accountability of check-ins and the workout plan that's tracked and personally tailored to you.

So yes, like I said, you can test it out completely free for your first month by hitting the link in the show notes to grab a spot to work with Jake and Beyond Fitness from anywhere in the world.

Wrap Up

Right then onto my take homes.

So lots of things that we spoke about, but I'll keep it simple, like you said, with the 2080 rule.

Beginner's mind matters. And then reallyit's mostly a simple 20% that drives the 80%, as we've said, move daily. Strength train is really important over just doing cardio and of course having rest, get enough protein and then base 80 to 90% of your diet On whole real foods and not garbage, and the rest of the specifics of weighing every single thing you eat or the exact timing is mostly noise and probably only relevant if you're Olympian, and you don't need to think about it.

Okay. Wicked. Awesome. Fantastic. If you got value from the show and this episode and you think a friend might learn something from this episode or be interested in some free fitness coaching, then do share this episode with them because it's how we grow and it's how you help your friends grow.

Also, if you've been wondering my love language is, of course, positive reviews and comments in the app of choice that you listen with. So if you do want to tickle my fancy, then hit that rating button wherever you can find it. And if you want to talk to me about life, the universe, and what it all means, you can grab a call with me for free on a Wednesday afternoon. Because I just hold that for my listeners 'cause I get bored and more widely, I am running a competition until the end of the month to give away two, three months of life or business coaching to anyone who subscribes to my new show.

How to Change the World if you shoot me an email to enter into that competition. All the details for everything are in the description. And with that, I hope you learn something useful. And remember that happiness does not live behind a goal such as a career step or money target, or having the right house or even the right weight.

Happiness is a thing that lives inside you if you can embrace it. So don't take things too seriously if those things keep you from delaying or experiencing happiness today, your life is lived one day at a time, and happiness is not a tomorrow thing.

Thank you so much for listening. Go you. Your consistency to reach the end of an episode is legendary, my hero. If you have any ideas or feedback for the show, I'm always interested to hear from you. You're the best studies show. We need time for information to sink in, so I'm going to give you a five second pause, silence to reflect on one idea from the show before you jump back into your busy life.

Ready and go.