In Iron Lab’s Perfectly Unfinished Conversations second episode, hosts Coach Jo and Coach Kim tackle the topic of habits that are no longer working for them. Amidst all the diet dogma floating around the internet, they address commonly-held beliefs and habits that aren’t serving the purposes we want them to. They break down why those habits don’t work and then discuss what does work, and things that we should consider replacing the old habits with.

Coach Kim and Coach Jo list habits we are very fond of because of routine or comfort that nonetheless don’t serve our fitness or health goals. Habits like drive-through food, skipping breakfast and even lunch, not getting enough protein in our diets, inconsistency in our eating, and demonizing food groups instead of understanding the needs of our bodies. They approach these habits from experience, from having done and tried every one of them along their journeys, and having discovered how little the habits contribute to their wellness and goals. In talking about what habits to switch to instead, they focus on what works for the health and strength of our bodies, exploring protein levels, the benefits of sleep, regular eating, and how our bodies function without proper nutrition, debunking common diet myths along the way.

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Coach Jo: [00:00:08] Welcome to Perfectly Unfinished Conversations, the Iron Lab podcast with Coach Jo.

 

Coach Kim: [00:00:13] And Coach Kim.

 

Coach Jo: [00:00:15] Where you ride shotgun with us as we have raw, real, unfiltered and unfinished conversations about trying to eat, sleep, train, and live with some integrity in a messy, imperfect life.

 

Coach Kim: [00:00:27] We're all about creating a strong support system, taking radical personal responsibility, having fun, and being authentic. And one of the most common themes you're going to find in this podcast is the idea that we create positive momentum in our life by doing what we call B minus work.

 

Coach Jo: [00:00:45] We are making gains and getting ahead and loving life without self-sabotaging our goals by striving for perfection. We get it done by moving ahead...

 

Coach Kim: [00:00:55] ... before we're ready...

 

Coach Jo: [00:00:56] ... when we aren't feeling like it...

 

Coach Kim: [00:00:58] ... and without hesitation.

 

Coach Jo: [00:01:00] Be sure to subscribe now on Apple or Spotify so you don't miss a single episode. It's good enough. Let's go.

 

Coach Kim: [00:01:10] Here we are, episode two of the Iron Lab podcast.

 

Coach Jo: [00:01:15] Perfectly Unfinished Conversations. Thank you for joining us again.

 

Coach Kim: [00:01:19] Yeah, today we've got sugar-coated lies. These are the nutrition habits that just aren't working for us.

 

Coach Jo: [00:01:27] So in this podcast today, Kim and I sat down, we were brainstorming, we were thinking like, what are all of the diet dogma lies that are floating around the internet or things that people think are working, but it's literally just not working for us. That was kind of the premise of this podcast.

 

Coach Kim: [00:01:43] I always say, well, I recently I've been saying to my clients, like, we are fighting so hard to keep some of these habits, you know, like we just want to, we just want to fight for what we like. And the simple fact of the matter is, is that you're fighting to keep things that aren't working.

 

Coach Jo: [00:02:01] Exactly. Boom. So a couple of examples that we just decided to, you know, point form right out, one of them being the high carb, high fat, and the perfect example of this is literally anything drive-through.

 

Coach Kim: [00:02:16] Literally, literally.

 

Coach Jo: [00:02:17] Literally anything drive-through.

 

Coach Kim: [00:02:20] Your breakfast wrap, your chicken sandwich. Yeah, all of it.

 

Coach Jo: [00:02:25] And a lot of that is because we want ease and we know the route or we've built the habit. If I leave five minutes early, I have enough time to turn right and get through the drive-through and get back on track, on the road, on time to my destination.

 

Coach Kim: [00:02:38] Well, and it's also a happy place, you know, like our routines, the routines you have are because they feel good to you. And so if your routine includes a double double and a breakfast wrap or two, that's, you like it. And so it's going to be awfully hard to break that habit until you can come up with a new habit to replace it.

 

Coach Jo: [00:03:03] Exactly. And that's just, you know, the law of habits. You know, James Carr with Atomic Habits, he has a--

 

Coach Kim: [00:03:09] -- Clear, Clear.

 

Coach Jo: [00:03:10] Sorry, James Clear. My fault. He's got a brilliant book. And if you have not read it, I guarantee you will just leave that so mind blown because it's our situations, it's our environments, it's, you know, the cue, the reward. And like Kim said, the reward is you just want to feel good and you have to learn to short-circuit that thought in order to choose a new habit to become a new version of yourself. Yeah, and high carb, high fat is, it's just empty crap calories that's not going to serve you.

 

Coach Kim: [00:03:40] It's double the fuel. So high carb, high fat. When you look at the fact that carbs are a fuel and fat is a fuel, now you got high carbs, high fat, which are double the fuel, which is high energy density. And I don't mean energy like physical energy density. I'm talking like--

 

Coach Jo: [00:03:57] -- too much gas in the tank.

 

Coach Kim: [00:03:58] Too, yeah. And so remember that, you know, high carb, high fat are all the things we love. Pizza, ice cream, chips and dip, guac and tortilla chips.

 

Coach Jo: [00:04:09] Like fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.

 

Coach Kim: [00:04:12] Yeah. That's Jo's favorite.

 

Coach Jo: [00:04:14] It is. I love 'em.

 

Coach Kim: [00:04:16] I like tortilla chips and guacamole. Well, pretty much anything like straight-up habits that don't work for me. Like if I am ravenous and haven't planned well, I'm in danger of scraping a tortilla chip in the butter tray like high fat, high carb. I'm not lying. So okay, so what else is a habit that's not working for us is skipping breakfast and/or lunch and then eating myself out of house and home between 4 p.m. and bedtime.

 

Coach Jo: [00:04:45] That skipping the breakfast is a huge thing, you guys, because not only does it kickstart our metabolism, but your blood sugar will go on a roller coaster ride the rest of the day and probably the next few days, because you can't balance out your glucose levels, like, that's the science version of it. But basically, if you skip breakfast and your blood sugar's crashed, not only are you going to feel like dreary and tired all afternoon and foggy, but you will have zero fucking patience in the pantry when you go in there, you're like, I'm not making anything, what can I grab, what can I grab, what can I grab? And you're like, oh, there's the marshmallows. Oh, there's the chocolate chips for baking. Oh, oh, there's this kid snack that I bought and oh whatever, I'm gonna eat. I'm gonna eat the whole thing of that. Like it just goes into I want it and I want it now.

 

Coach Kim: [00:05:27] Yeah. It's urgent. That's, you know what, we're going to have to make a mental note to talk about blood sugar balance in a future podcast, because that alone, understanding how that happens and kind of the brain and body chemistry in that is, there's so much to be learned about that. Back to what Jo was saying, you know, it is blood sugar imbalance skipping breakfast. But if you are the type of person that is like, oh, I feel so nauseous in the morning, or I just have no appetite now there's some signs around the hormone leptin, which is produced by your body fat, and leptin is regulated in part, you know, it's secreted from body fat or brain and body fat communication, it is supposed to tell your body how much fat is in storage. And it's got an influencer with circadian rhythm. So if you're leptin resistant, which also comes before insulin resistance, which makes you doubly susceptible to sticky weight gain and having hard-to-lose body fat, you would benefit from regulating not only your light cycle in the morning, but breakfast with your light cycle in order to re kind of calibrate that hormone. And lots of people are like, oh, that just doesn't sound good. But sister, especially, sister, perimenopause, high stress, that is for sure one habit skipping breakfast and drinking coffee, empty stomach that is not working.

 

Coach Jo: [00:06:54] It is not working. Another habit that is not working for you or for us or for anybody else, is that you're not planning and you're not prepping. If you do not prep in advance, then you're leaving everything to chance. And when everything is left to chance, you will almost always go the easiest route possible.

 

Coach Kim: [00:07:15] And leave it to the last minute and then do what you were just talking about, which is dive into the pantry and basically you might be making a fairly healthy dinner, but you're still like, I'll have a handful of goldfish crackers and I'll have, oh, it's only a couple pepperoni, and I'll cut off a chunk of cheese. And you know what I mean, like, pretty soon you've eaten a thousand calories and you haven't even gotten to supper yet.

 

Coach Jo: [00:07:35] Yeah, exactly. So I, you know, there's different ways where you can, like, plan and prep, and we're going to go over some of those, you know, habits that are working for us later on. But when you don't prep any of your food, you have zero control over your protein intake, your carbohydrate intake, your fat intake, how many calories you are consuming. And if you have no idea what the food is as information to your body, like as it's going in what it's sending as information to your body, then you have no control over the health of your body.

 

Coach Kim: [00:08:08] Well, and that is really a good way for me and you to understand it because we're there. The other way to understand it is if you're not planning and prepping, you are then really at a disadvantage because I promise you that everywhere you go, healthy options won't be there. You know, totally, you're like, where do you go? Even we hear it all the time from our clients. Like, I'm going on a holiday, I'm going on a vacation, I'm going to a conference, I'm going to work meetings, you know, what am I going to eat? Well, of course, the things that they bring in are buffets and subway and pizza cooked in oils. Yeah. And, you know, and then when you're not planning and you're not prepping, you're setting yourself up to fail.

 

Coach Jo: [00:08:53] Another habit that we were talking about is under-eating protein. If you know Kim and I, or if you have been around us for a minimum of 38 minutes, you will understand how important protein is to us and why we preach from the rooftops of Wolf Creek Drive like, please eat your protein.

 

Coach Kim: [00:09:12] I am such a meat eater and I'm not talking protein powder. I can't actually remember the last time I had a protein powder. It's just where I'm at in my life right now. But I'm at this point where, like, if somebody tried to take away animal meat from me, I would, I would have a breakdown. I would cry because it's such a staple in my diet. It's literally like, I've had two fillets of steelhead trout today and last night, you know, like I have significant portions of meat at every meal.

 

Coach Jo: [00:09:44] Yeah, I just downed a whole cup and a half of ground beef before we did this podcast.

 

Coach Kim: [00:09:47] So the whole idea of having to go to like a plant-based to get my protein or something like cottage cheese, I'd be like, oh my God, what's, I'm gonna I'm, it's the end of me.

 

Coach Jo: [00:09:57] So under-eating protein, the reason why we preach it so much, there's so, I mean we could go on and on and on, but probably through this discussion here, it would, we're talking nutrition habits, we're talking about satiety. We're talking about feeling fuller for longer because protein takes longer to digest in your body. And specifically animal protein has that thermogenesis response, which means that it, you know, has to work hard. Your metabolism has to work hard, breaking it all apart so you just burn more calories while you're consuming it. It's also just going to take longer to digest, which makes you feel fuller for longer. So if we talk about it in just that sense, I mean, the other senses of recovery in your training, we're even talking about what did I just--

 

Coach Kim: [00:10:40] -- building muscles.

 

Coach Jo: [00:10:41] Building muscles so you actually can grow a stronger body.

 

Coach Kim: [00:10:44] Healthy muscles, you know, like there's a difference between marbled muscle, fatty muscle, and healthy strong muscle. You know, like, and you can see it in people. You can see when they have got really tight, lean muscles and you can see when they've got muscle, but it's buried under under layers. And you know, that's, I mean, body types aside, what we're aiming for with protein is ultimately, long and short, at the end of the day, protein builds the body you want.

 

Coach Jo: [00:11:15] Yeah, it's the protein is the building block, the foundation for every cellular process. When we go into science of it, eyelashes, cells, all the cells.

 

Coach Kim: [00:11:25] Teeth, bones, tendons, muscles, hair, all of it.

 

Coach Jo: [00:11:28] Brain, your brain as you age. And when we go back to that high carb, high fat, that's one of the quickest ways to get into dementia and Alzheimer's. You know what I mean? It just doesn't serve your brain. So protein, it's just an incredible, incredible macronutrient.

 

Coach Kim: [00:11:41] And we are very animal pro-protein, animal-source protein, like yes we would, which brings us to the next thing, which is it's not working for us to have vegetarian diets, most of us, okay, so here's, I'm going to bring up Emil because God bless him, he is a stud. Emil worked for us. He is a plant-based athlete and his body type thrives on that. He has a significant amount of muscle. He is planning his food to hit protein target using plant-based protein every day. He's doing a stellar job, but he's an anomaly like he's, the average person isn't, with a vegetarian diet, actually getting their protein needs met through vegetable fiber, plant fiber. They're doing it through fast, processed, cheap, factory-made items that say animal-friendly, vegetarian and then eating processed food.

 

Coach Jo: [00:12:44] Yeah, that's got tons of stuff that's been put in there, like preservatives. And if you look at the ingredients of even something that's plant-based, that's in the guise of a burger, you know, you can see the ingredient list like this long. And then you look at just a burger from a cow. It's just one ingredient, cow. And so, and like when we talk about plant-based diets, you know, another term that should really be talked about is bioavailability. So if you're going to consume protein, how is it going to become available? How is it going to quickly get, you know, synthesized into muscle? Like how can we get it there the quickest from consuming to growing. And they say that the number one bioavailable product, quote/unquote, is cows. Like if you're going to have a steak, it's going to go quickest into your muscles and recovery. If you're going to have something that's got 30 ingredients that's plant-based and it's a plant-based burger or whatever it's going to be, I mean, you're not going to get a great bioavailability out of that. And plus you're probably gonna have tons of inflammation because what the heck are half those other ingredients?

 

Coach Kim: [00:13:45] True. And the way I look at it is something like a vegan protein powder or a vegetarian protein powder, you know, like so it is 20g of protein, which is less than eating a chicken breast. It requires so much in the way of resources and soil depletion and water to grow all that stuff. It's not necessarily environmentally, more environmentally friendly, and, you know, when you look at it from a real primal health perspective, which is what I love, and I'm passionate about, this is, you know, at what point would you ever sit down and eat enough pea, rice, brown rice, or cranberries to get 20g of protein? You just physically would not be able to eat that much plant matter to do that in that format, right? Peas, cranberries, brown rice, which tends to be typically kind of what that protein powder is made out of. And then, you know, you're looking at, it's still a carbohydrate-based plant that is then being trying to have the protein content drawn out of it, which means you're like super consuming all of the other, like it's just, it doesn't make sense to me.

 

Coach Jo: [00:15:07] Like chickpeas, for example, I when we read literature or web pages or here's my top ten, you know, proteins that are not from meat or whatever, and chickpeas is always on there, and I'm just like, my goodness, like a whole cup of chickpeas, we're like at 56 or more grams of carbohydrates. It's not a protein, it's a carbohydrate and a very dense one at that.

 

Coach Kim: [00:15:28] And here's, that's where it's so important to know, to understand what food is telling your body to do. Because yes, chickpeas are perfectly fine. You can eat chickpeas till the cows come home. But the message for chickpeas in your body is they are converted to sugar in the blood. Yes, there's fiber, yes, there's some protein, but your body has an insuli-genic, insulingenic - how do you say it - insulin response to eating a cup full of chickpeas that then puts you in a fat storing mode. Your body has to manage those carbohydrates before it even really gets to the good of the protein. And back to, now I just feel like we're bashing vegetarianism, I love plants, I love fruit, but in hitting your goals, you're asking for a hard go.

 

Coach Jo: [00:16:21] Yeah, it's kind of an uphill climb, and it'll always remain that I think the rest of your life when you're trying to get it from plant-based. I think that's just with the science, right? It's just what we have learned over our years. It's just what we see and we see with clients and we've seen with them over the last decade. Okay.

 

Coach Kim: [00:16:37] Vegetarian friends don't hate us.

 

Coach Jo: [00:16:39] Don't hate us. We love you. We're just--

 

Coach Kim: [00:16:40] We love you. We just think, yeah, we just think there's some better options.

 

Coach Jo: [00:16:45] So the next one is inconsistency in eating habits. And really this whole thing is you hear it to the, you say hear it till the cows come home, now I'm saying it. You do hear it till the cows come home when we're talking about if consistency compounds, if you can just do something for a long period of time, you will get reward X, you know what I mean? So when we talk about eating habits, we have, not we have, but there are people in the world who will be like, well, I ate one salad, how come nothing's changing? Well, we need to do that over a period of time. Well, I did one push-up, how come I can't do, you know what I mean? So it just, we have to learn to be patient with the process because what we're trying to establish is lifelong habits, folks. We're not trying to do something in a time frame. If you put anything within a time frame that you expect something by that time, you're probably going to be disappointed because those habits were not sustainable in the first place. And you just--

 

Coach Kim: [00:17:43] And this is the power of diet culture. We have been marketed to, you know, like there is no six weeks to six pack abs. Somebody is trying to sell you something. Same, you know, like pretty much any product, program, supplement that you can buy is putting money in someone else's pocket. And there are no quick fixes. None. Like if everything you have ever done has brought you to this moment, to who you are physically right now in front of me, you're going to have to change a few things over the long haul for the next however long, in order to become the next version of yourself. It just, that's just the way it is and that only comes through consistency. You are setting yourself up for failure. And we see this a lot, where people are like, I can white knuckle it, just tell me what to eat for the next six weeks. I'll do whatever you tell me. And they basically just dig in and grit and do it and then at the end of six weeks, they're like, oh fuck, glad that's over. Now I can go back to the habits I really like.

 

Coach Jo: [00:18:47] And those habits did not serve you.

 

Coach Kim: [00:18:48] That's how you got there. Like, it's just, that's just the way it is.

 

Coach Jo: [00:18:52] So the next habit that are not working for us, and this is kind of satirical in the fact that it says demonizing food groups or foods. And I think where our heart was going was, you know--

 

Coach Kim: [00:19:04] -- with the vegetarianism, is that what you're laughing at?

 

Coach Jo: [00:19:07] Yeah, I'm laughing because it's-- 

 

Coach Kim: [00:19:08] Okay we're not demonizing vegetarian. I said, Emil has a rockin body and he is a power athlete and that works for him. Most people it does not. That's all I said.

 

Coach Jo: [00:19:19] So I believe when we go into this topic, where our brains are going is like, fruit. If someone wants to eat an apple, like, why can they not eat an apple? I think I'm tired of hearing, you know, well, I'm only supposed to have one fruit before here. And if I do a 45-minute workout, you know, well, then I can eat another fruit, I can earn another this. And I'm like, holy shit. Like, this is some crazy talk. That's, if you if you step outside the box are you, are we hear what we're saying, right? And there is everything, everything, and I know you've heard this, is fine in moderation, but we're not talking like one day, one time a day, I'm able to have a treat.

 

Coach Kim: [00:19:59] Yeah, well we were talking about demonizing food groups and how, you know, example, that fruit is what's making you fat. Now, there's no good that can come for you, it just creates kind of more food-disordered thinking around food, disordered eating. However, you know, I think a lot of people also say, well, like everything in moderation. And, this for me always comes back to the truth of food, like, yes, everything in moderation until what you're eating is disagreeing with your body, upsetting your bowels, preventing you from getting the results that you want. Like there also has to be like this, yeah, nothing's bad until it doesn't agree or work for you. And then that's where, you know, sometimes a little bit of a deep dive with a coach helps you to kind of sort that out, because we've got so much diet bullshit in our head. Fats are bad. Don't eat meat. It should be plant-based. Don't eat fruit. Fruit's making you fat. It's all high processed. Don't drink diet pop. Like all this stuff is swirling around in our brain. It's not helpful. However, what is helpful, I personally think, is working with somebody who can help you get super clear on what does work for you. What does make you feel your best? Maybe you don't feel good eating beef and you're going to need to eat fish or, you know, shrimp and turkey and tuna and, you know, like there are so many examples of this and I think that we do ourselves a disservice by saying, just making it black and white, in our brain it feels easier to just say, oh, cut it. I'll just cut out this one thing and my life will be easier. But it makes it really hard to sustain and it ignores your unique situation, your you.

 

Coach Jo: [00:21:56] You just have to be more self-aware. And I think when you work with a coach, they help bring that awareness to you, but they teach you how to be more self-aware with what you are actually eating and how it makes you feel. For instance, eggs. Does eggs make you feel good? If it doesn't, then maybe you limit on the eggs, but does it mean you ever stop having them? Well, it's up to you. Maybe you're camping for the weekend and it's been four months since you've had eggs and you're going to have eggs that morning. Well, you know, you know what's going to happen when you consume those eggs, you might have an upset tummy, but if you're willing to step into that arena, then I guess it's the consequence of the moderation aspect of it all.

 

Coach Kim: [00:22:30] Yeah, I think that that's kind of where we're going with it. It just makes it so messy and convoluted to really get like, super like, and I've been there, I want to say, I have done this, I've done all of this, I've done everything we're going to talk about is all--

 

Coach Jo: [00:22:45] -- what we've tried--

 

Coach Kim: [00:22:47] -- 100%. So never, ever take our conversation personally. It's experience. It is. It is years of like every day working at it, leaning into it, playing around with it, trying it, failing at it, sorting it out, reading the research, reading the books, listening to the podcasts. You know, it's like, yeah, like we're just in it. So we're you. That's all I'll say about that. Here's another thing that's not working for you is eating less than 1200 calories or cookie-cutter meal plans, which I'm going to tell you, like...

 

Coach Jo: [00:23:25] Yeah. We're not all the same, you guys. We have different lives. Life has been different to us all. We are all different ages. Hormonal, hormonal stages. 1200 calories a day is, you know, scientifically the equivalent of what a toddler should be consuming in a day. So if you are under-eating your basal metabolic rate, which is what your body requires and needs to just live on a couch sideways and breathing air and not moving, like for most of us, that's around the 15 to 1700 mark.

 

Coach Kim: [00:23:58] I just figured mine out today based on because I was doing some other work for a client and so I was playing around with numbers, with formulas and equations, to figure out basal metabolic rate, which is the amount of energy your body needs to survive if just your heart beats and you breathe, and before you do anything else, and keep in mind that your brain actually and your liver, both of those use up the majority of your basal metabolic rate calories daily. And so I think mine I calculated at 54 years old, my height, my current weight, to be 700, 1750 calories, my basal metabolic rate. That's before I choose to do an exercise class, walk my dogs, do the laundry, cook a meal, come to work, use my head to meet, greet clients, coach on the floor, like 1200 calories is starvation. 100%.

 

Coach Jo: [00:24:52] And the reason why 1200 calories works is because people will feel that they get results. Because it will be a quick loss. But at the same time, you're not just losing body fat, you're losing muscle mass. You're losing, I mean, there's a lot of health markers that are inside that you're losing as well. But it's just, and it's not sustainable, guys. Like it is completely restrictive. There is no way to sustain that when you're done a program, you just go crazy and those old habits will creep in and next thing you know you will gain weight. If not, you will gain even more weight than when you started a program like that. And all of us are different in the sense of if I have a 250-pound client versus if I had a 150-pound client, both of those clients are not going on 1200 calories at all. They have to be completely different sets of everything, macronutrient breakdown, depending on their life, their goals and what they want. Cookie-cutter programs are quick sells. They're easy for the person who's selling them because then they can, you know, just cash in. It's easy because it's just one thing that I have to create as opposed to do it. That's right. And everybody's got to do it.

 

Coach Kim: [00:25:59] And here's the other thing is that when you look at it from, you know, at some point when you continually give your body less, less, less calories, there's less energy, less nutrients, less coming in, at some point, your body is going to downregulate its metabolic processes to meet the fact that there is less energy coming in. So you can do less and less and less and less and less until your body goes, whoa, bitch, there's no less to give, and I'm not giving up another square inch. And then, of course, you know, you think you've stalled or nothing's giving, nothing's changing, nothing's working, and so you're going to go back to eating the way you ate before and then, and that's what Jo is talking about. Then that weight all comes back on, sometimes a little bit more, and then you're back to square one. And this is how we end up seeing clients on yo-yo style diets. And again, this 8 to 10 years ago was conventional gym programming. Everybody got it. Everybody got the same meal plan because that's what we knew. We know way better now. Like there's just so much more. You, clients, know way more now. There's, information is literally available at the touch of your finger. And you can go seek out any of this and get all the information probably better said than I say it. But, you know, like it's totally accessible. Go do your own research and see exactly what we're talking about.

 

Coach Jo: [00:27:33] There's one more thing I wanted to talk about with 1200 calories. And, you know, when Kim's talking about less and less and less, not only does it impact everything as such, as she said, but let's talk about your nervous system and the fight flight freeze response that happens in there. Your body will have a sympathetic nervous system like tightening up. It doesn't know when it's going to be fed next, so everything will go to storage, storage, hence the term a lot of skinny fat, you hear that term. So storage storage storage storage, and then when we have clients and we start finally feeding them food, the proper amount of food that they need to survive and more, they see weight gain go up and the pounds will increase a week and the pounds will increase the week after. But that's because your body has been in fight flight mode for so long that it doesn't know when it's going to be fed next. It's still like, hey, I'm used to this shit, I'm just going to store this bitch because I don't want--

 

Coach Kim: [00:28:25] -- we finally got food--.

 

Coach Jo: [00:28:26] -- yeah, like, I don't know. I'm used to her dropping shit off again. I'm just going to hang on to it. So then your body starts just holding, holding, holding because you were in this whole pattern of up and down and up and down. And for some women, I'm talking, like four fucking decades of that. Imagine what that does to your body, your nervous system, your metabolism, your leptin resistance, your insulin, your mindset. Like, it's just crazy.

 

Coach Kim: [00:28:53] Yeah. Okay last one that we want to talk about for sugar-coated lies, nutrition habits that aren't serving us, is you are perfect. Monday to Thursday you plan your meals, you pack them out, you drink your water, and then Friday hits and it's a fucking free for all. We think we're so funny.

 

Coach Jo: [00:29:15] So when you think about that, right? Calories are all perfect. But really, truly what we would want to manage someone's calories or macronutrient breakdown if we're going really into the science of it all, is that we go over an average of your week. It's not I was perfect this day, why doesn't it work? We got to go over okay this week, this is what the average was, then we go to the next week, what was the average of that following week? And if you're a person who on the weekend says fuck it, I'm going to go have so much fun and I'm gonna drink my calories and I'm going to slay like a whole six pack. And then the next day, coffee and Baileys. And I'm not going to eat until 3 p.m., and then I'm just going to go crazy at this charcuterie board night with my girlfriends, like all this stuff. If you think about those calories, you could have like 1800 calories all week, and then you're at like 3500 calories on the weekend for each of those days. I mean--

 

Coach Kim: [00:30:08] And here's the thing, that doesn't even necessarily lead to weight gain. That just becomes maintenance. You are just maintaining. You cannot possibly ever lose because the deficit Monday to Thursday becomes maintenance through the weekend.

 

Coach Jo: [00:30:26] And it's not fun because then you feel like you're punishing yourself for the stuff you did in the weekend.

 

Coach Kim: [00:30:29] And you usually feel like shit on Monday. We see it all the time on the gym floor where, you know, especially after a long weekend, people come in and they're just hauling, dragging ass, dragging ass. And it's, you know, like as a coach, I'm always like, what did you eat in the last 24 hours? Because if I want to know what your performance is out on the mat, I'm going to ask you to relive the last 24 hours. That's going to tell me a lot about why you're performing this way, right? Soreness, lethargy, no energy, no gas in the tank, sweating like a beast. You know, like all those things are as a direct result of what you've been doing in the last 24 hours. So, you know, that's pretty much all the things that aren't working for us. And there's probably more, that was just the quick list.

 

Coach Jo: [00:31:12] Like quick list, top of our head so, we can move forward and we're going to give you guys some approaches, nutritional approaches and the five nutritional habits that have worked for us. And underneath each of these habits I'm sure there's a little bit we'll kind of, you know, stray off the path on a little bit. But basically it came down to these five, oh, Kim, we have six.

 

Coach Kim: [00:31:35] Oh do we? I added one, sorry.

 

Coach Jo: [00:31:37] You added one. We got six. So the first one would be consuming animal protein and having protein at every meal. And starting your morning with 30 to 50g high protein breakfast, I'm talking minimum.

 

Coach Kim: [00:31:50] Yeah yeah yeah. Let's talk about what 30 to 50g. Give me an example. Three examples of 30 to 50g of protein.

 

Coach Jo: [00:31:56] For breakfast? Oh goodness. I could have some eggs, I could have three eggs with some ground beef, I could have - I'm really into this ground beef kick right now - so ground beef with sweet potatoes, which is our old girl Hillary's favorite. And I've been really enjoying that. You can have I mean Kim, Kim it's like unconventional breakfast. She has dinner for breakfast because, and you know what she's got me on this whole thing that doesn't matter if it's breakfast, lunch or dinner, or if the foods have to be a certain type of food at a certain time of day, you just eat it. She'll be waking up in the morning and she'll be having chicken wings in the air fryer at 4:30 before she's got to coach, and she comes and she's munching on chicken wings. Or she could be having some sort of roast that she cut into slices. And now she's got this big roast she's eating at 6:00 in the morning. Like it doesn't really matter.

 

Coach Kim: [00:32:39] Yeah it doesn't. And you know, people think, yeah, but I eat eggs and bacon for breakfast, but in two eggs, really, what does that work out to, like 14g of protein? That's not even half of 30, right?

 

Coach Jo: [00:32:50] And half of that is fat.

 

Coach Kim: [00:32:52] That's right, yes. And so that's where I was going with the eggs and bacon is that when you understand what you're eating, and I don't want to overcomplicate it, but essentially you would just do well to, you know, add a chopped-up chicken breast into your eggs and scramble it up with some spinach and tomato and crumble some feta cheese. And now we're talking 50g of protein, you know, like then you're there, or at least you're at 35 to 45, right? So, you know, like you really do have to start to think outside the box.

 

Coach Jo: [00:33:25] One thing too, when we talk about protein, I just want to interject, is that what are we trying to, like, eat in a day? Like, what does that all work and what does that all look like? Well, if I'm trying to get to a certain goal, I'm thinking I want to have one gram of protein in accordance to my ideal body weight in pounds. That's what I'm trying to eat. So if I'm currently, I haven't weighed myself in a while, but I think the last time I was like 160 pounds and I have to maintain a lot of muscle mass, so like minimum for me would be 160g.

 

Coach Kim: [00:33:59] And what would you average, do you think, if you were to estimate?

 

Coach Jo: [00:34:01] I think, I think I average probably around 150 to 170. Sometimes some days I'll be like, holy crap, and I'll be at like 190g of protein and it just feels totally fine. And some days I'm at like 250. I'm like, how'd that get in there? But I didn't even realize how much food I was eating. It just happened to be what it is. But I feel best when I'm higher. But that's due to my activity level. For most people who are trying to lose weight, say they're at 190 pounds, say their ideal body weight is 170 pounds, and then they want to have 170g of protein in a day.

 

Coach Kim: [00:34:33] And if you're currently eating 60 to 80g of protein in a day, then maybe where you start is 130. You know what I mean? Like, and this is, again, we're working with a coach to come up with some solutions. I think that always is really useful because you're just talking about somebody who's got the breadth of knowledge and experience and accessible wisdom right there to go, hey, how about this? How about that? Did you try that? Did you think of that? What about this? You know? Okay. So sustainable habits number two is prep and plan. Like that's just, that's just going to save your life. Batch cooking. Jo is really really good at doing all of her meal prep for the week. I hate that, that's not me. She will prepare, make it on a Sunday.

 

Coach Jo: [00:35:18] The Sunday ritual.

 

Coach Kim: [00:35:19] Portion it out, have it ready to go. She'll eat the same thing every day for breakfast and lunch, pretty much the same thing every day for breakfast, lunch, and me, I can't do it. But I have a different system. My planning and prepping looks like, it's all about my protein, so I have something always in the deep freeze that can be pulled out and thawed. I have something that's thawed, that's ready to be cooked, and I always have something that's cooked that I can nibble on so that I'm always prioritizing protein. And it's in this revolving door because I don't enjoy, and I'm a good like on the fly. As long as I have my protein, I can put it with a salad, I can steam broccoli, I can throw in some edamame, I can have it with nuts and drizzle butter on it. Like I, like I'm fine to wing it that way. I don't have to do recipes. So we're very different that way.

 

Coach Jo: [00:36:07] But that's also based on busyness. So you're at an age where your kids are out of the house. So Kim has time to what am I going to do today, where I have to drop my kids off at school, kid on the bus, kid at day home, I don't have three kids, I only have two. I don't know why I said three things there, but I have to, I have a lot of stuff that in the week, like in the morning, I just don't have time to get my food ready for the day, and the evenings we're doing sports. I don't have time to do it there. I find that if I can get my stuff done on Sunday, then I only have to think about dinners and it's just refreshing. Before I had kids, I was the nightly ritual. Kind of like Kim's talking about, it'd be like, how could I figure out for the next day, the nightly ritual. So there's your Sunday ritual, there's a nightly ritual, and then there's also a monthly thing, meaning you go to like Costco and you spend 200 to $300 on meat, and you section it off and you get it all organized for that month.

 

Coach Kim: [00:36:57] Yeah, totally. And there's all, there's other ways of doing it too. Like, I have worked with clients before where we have just focused on what am I eating for the next 24 hours, plan it out, just know what you're eating tomorrow so that you can follow through on just that thing. You're just living in 24-hour day tight compartments where you're setting yourself up to win.

 

Coach Jo: [00:37:17] Exactly. So number three is sleep. You got to make it a priority. You got to have a cold room. You got to have blackout blinds, curtains, get your phone out of your room, turn off your TV in your room. No screens at all. That just goes into a whole wormhole. We should have a whole podcast on that, to be honest with you. And setting up your own proper sleep hygiene, your nightly sleep hygiene ritual, and keep it the exact same. Uh, you know, we're running, like we're looking at bears all day long. Where, when I say that, I mean our nervous system goes, huh, or I'm busy and I'm running around and your body's tensing and primally that was you looking at a bear and being like, holy crap, there's a bear. But we do it every single day. We're looking at bears every single day, all day long. And then we expect ourselves to go to bed at night and we're wondering why we can't sleep through the night when we have this blue light shining in our eyes, pouring into our soul and our--

 

Coach Kim: [00:38:06] -- and a glass of wine on the bedside table.

 

Coach Jo: [00:38:09] Like there's just so much distraction for us just to get sleep.

 

Coach Kim: [00:38:13] And with interference. Interference to good sleep. Like we have just, again, it's all cultural, societal, acceptable behaviors. We scroll, we stare into the blue screen while we watch television, Netflix, on repeat. We, you know, have a glass--

 

Coach Jo: [00:38:30] -- why is sleep so important? Tell them. What would you say is why is it so important? Is the number one, two, three things.

 

Coach Kim: [00:38:36] Top three things? A) it's when your body does all its healing and cleaning and reparation. You know, it repairs itself. It's also when your hormones reboot, like it is proven that if you are chronically sleep-disrupted, you're going to have a harder time with impulse control, with willpower, with, you know, making good decisions like, you know, so, and sleep is just, that is how you are remaining mind top of your game. Like I think there was a time in my life where I was like, oh, you know, sleep, whatever, I can, I'll sleep when I'm dead. I can remember saying that.

 

Coach Jo: [00:39:15] My dad still says that and he's turning 78 this year.

 

Coach Kim: [00:39:18] But now I sleep like it's my job. And maybe because I've got so many perimenopausal/menopausal friends who don't sleep, I'm like, bitch, I'm sleeping because I'm gonna sleep as long as I can sleep, because I sleep like the dead, 7 to 9 hours every night. Like, you know, a couple of exceptions when I coach on the floor and I'm up early, you know? But Jo hit the nail on the head. I have painted my room gunmetal. I don't think it's, I think it's called cracked black pepper. It's dark. I got a blackout blind. I got an orange glow lamp by my bed. I am charging my phone in the hallway. The next step, husband beware, is that I'm going to fucking turn off the Wi-Fi at night. Like, literally I don't want any signals. I don't want any beeps. It drives me crazy that I got an alarm panel with a green light. Like I'm gonna make myself like cavewoman sleep.

 

Coach Jo: [00:40:13] Well that's when you have the best sleeps is when you are in a cavewoman state.

 

Coach Kim: [00:40:16] Yeah. And cold. That's my favorite thing. As soon as I can get the window open after winter, when the frost is gone, that window, I'll, like, get into bed and, you know, as soon as I warm up, dead sleep.

 

Coach Jo: [00:40:28] Cozy up.

 

Coach Kim: [00:40:28] Water.

 

Coach Jo: [00:40:29] Well, dehydration, electrolytes, I mean, we talk about inflammation, we talk about, I would say so many people are dehydrated and they have no clue.

 

Coach Kim: [00:40:40] Me. I am dehydrated, chronically, totally. And it's just because--

 

Coach Jo: [00:40:46] I told her she had to stop drinking coffee about two years ago. And then today she finally came up to me, you know, I really got to get a handle on my coffee. These four cups a day aren't working for me. And I'm just sitting there just smiling like, yep, I think you're on the right path, Kim.

 

Coach Kim: [00:40:57] Oh, man alive. Yeah, I love coffee, I love it. It's the ritual, it's the warmth, and it is sucking the life out of my skin and my body. So electrolytes, what are your thoughts on electrolytes and dehydration?

 

Coach Jo: [00:41:11] Well, hmm, I would say that people don't really realize if they have an electrolyte imbalance 99% of the time, and it's usually the people who are drinking so much water, but yet they're always still sore and they're not rebuilding quick enough, or they're not recovering enough after workouts. All of that stuff leads into the fact of, well, you're not actually hydrating yourself, you know, like you're, you've got like a negative, positive balance inside of a cell. And if you get that out of whack, it just causes a whole--

 

Coach Kim: [00:41:45] -- yeah you're right. Just a ton of problems. And, you know, to electrolytes, what I always try to do is just make sure, like, even a little bit of lemon or a little bit of salt or, you know, some BCAAs, like, anything that you can do that encourages you to drink more water is probably a really good thing, right?

 

Coach Jo: [00:42:07] And like they say what, half your body weight in ounces? I would say generally a good rule of thumb for anybody, you know, in Canada when we're talking litres, they could say 2.7L for women and 3.7L for men. That's always a good starting point.

 

Coach Kim: [00:42:21] So almost three and almost four liters a day. Number five nutritional habit that have worked for us is movement as medicine. Movement, lifting, some cardio for me, walking a lot. Flexibility. Just, you got to move.

 

Coach Jo: [00:42:40] Kim. Kim, don't do cardio.

 

Coach Kim: [00:42:41] No, I don't love cardio. Now I have decent cardio. I think that, like, I have decent cardio.

 

Coach Jo: [00:42:47] But you put effort into that. Yeah.

 

Coach Kim: [00:42:48] I'm not signing up for cardio. I'll do it because it's a necessary evil. I will lift, lug, carry, sling shit all day long.

 

Coach Jo: [00:42:56] The hard work.

 

Coach Kim: [00:42:57] But I will not run. Yeah.

 

Coach Jo: [00:42:58] That's not fun for some people. And for some people it's what they love. But you need to move because movement is medicine for your joints. Motion is lotion on your joints. You need to move your body. If you don't use it, you lose it. Yeah. How many old things can I say, right? You have to keep moving your body because if you're not actively building tissue, you are actively dying.

 

Coach Kim: [00:43:22] Yeah, true. That is actually, it is true. You know, here's the other thing is that I always, there's a window between about 45 and 55 years old where if you don't have an established movement practice, it ain't getting easier. And you will begin to degrade in a way that makes everything harder, everything harder.

 

Coach Jo: [00:43:50] Like bone density, decreasing sarcopenia, which means loss of muscle mass, mobility, flexibility. And I think what--

 

Coach Kim: [00:43:59] Even your metabolic rate.

 

Coach Jo: [00:44:00] Like everything. And I know it's what Kim and I preach so much is that we're doing this for life, and we're looking for the person who's way in advance 70, 80 years old. That's the person we want to live for, who's independent, who can move around, because the statistics on falling, I mean, it's frightening what happens if you fall and you don't, you aren't able to support yourself on the way down and you get injured. So I think we see the data, we see the science, and we preach it every single time we're with our people. Keep moving. You're doing great. Like--

 

Coach Kim: [00:44:28] -- I and-- well, sorry to cut you off. I will say, as a 54-year-old person who also, at some point, I always say fear is a poor motivator. Right? Like for most people, they're like, yeah, yeah, I'll think about that when I'm 78, right? That's not a great motivator. For my girls who are between 22 and 30, and my son, who's 32, that's not a great motivator, being afraid of what you're going to be like when you're old. However, as a 54-year-old female, I will tell you that the biggest payoff for having a strength training practice for the last decade, consistent for 12 years, where I'm walking minimum three times a week, working out, I might take a week off here and there, but I am consistent, is that I feel like a badass in my body. I do not feel 54. I feel strong, lean, supple, I bend, I do what I want, I go where I want, I put on what I want, I never have to, my pant sizes don't change.

 

Coach Jo: [00:45:31] Lift more, age less.

 

Coach Kim: [00:45:33] Like 100%. And so when you look at movement as medicine, the movement is in healthy muscles, blood sugar regulation, better hormone management, better brain chemistry, like the benefits are in. I'm 54 living like I'm better than I was at 34. Like I will swear on that, that I was, I'm living better, stronger, healthier, happier, more fit, more sexy, more vibrant now in my body, in my skin than I did at 34.

 

Coach Jo: [00:46:05] The first time I met you, to where I'm looking at you now, 1,000%. 1,000%. Totally.

 

Coach Jo: [00:46:11] She was an influencer.

 

Coach Jo: [00:46:14] We'll tell a story about some crocodile pants in the future. So the last one that Kim added is bio-individuality matters. And tuning into your own body. Kim, do you want to go off that?

 

Coach Kim: [00:46:25] Yeah, I do, you know, like, we continually outsource our own power when we refuse to listen in and learn our own signals and cues. We get it all the time. People will come to us and say, just tell me what to eat. I'll do whatever you tell me. You just make a plan for me and I'll do it. And here's the thing is that you're outsourcing, you're not listening to yourself. Your cues, your signals, your food, your habits, are going to be different than mine. You are going to have to make this a journey. I'll coach you, I'll give you ideas and suggestions, and we'll talk about how that works for you and how it feels for you. But you got to listen in and that, I think, we are always seeking external validation. Did I do a good job? Did I hit my macros? Did I hit my calories? Did I do it right, coach? And the fact of the matter is, is that the proof is in the pudding and that is you in you. That is, like, that's all I can say about that.

 

Coach Jo: [00:47:27] Well, like, going off of like, she wrote down here, if you know, dairy makes you bloated, then you got to leave out the dairy. If we know sugar makes us feel like shit, why are we still having sugar? If we know that when we drink seven beers one night, I'm out for an entire week and my training lacks and I'm behind in my entire life, and I'm tired and I'm bitchy and I'm crazy, what the fuck are you drinking for? You know? Like, I think that's what she's talking about is listening to your own body.

 

Coach Kim: [00:47:49] Well, and bio-individuality meaning Jo and I don't have the same genetic code, we don't have the same lineage, we don't have the same blood type, we don't like, and so--

 

Coach Jo: [00:48:01] We're just Geminis. That's all we can figure out.

 

Coach Kim: [00:48:04] And so the fact of the matter is, is that what works for her is going to be unique for her. And what works best for me is going to be unique to me. This episode went way longer than we anticipated, mostly because we're just so frigging passionate about it. And we love this. And because it's our experience in working with our people. We'd love your feedback. You know, here's the thing, you're going to have to bear with us as we grow, because we're riffing cold off of point-form notes and dialoging. And so, I'm not going to lie, there are times where, like, my brain can't keep up with my mouth and the lingo is still trapped inside the gray matter. So, you know, like so sometimes I think it doesn't come off as educated as we really are, but that's also just part of riffing it out and real talk.

 

Coach Jo: [00:48:51] And that's why we named this, like, Perfectly Unfinished Conversations.

 

Coach Kim: [00:48:56] Okay. Love you.

 

Coach Jo: [00:48:57] Subscribe. Bye bye.

Coach Jo: [00:49:01] You probably got a sense of who we are by now and what our personal approach is to developing a lifestyle that creates really great health and strength. Using a relational common sense coaching approach that is backed by knowledge and personal experience

Coach Kim: [00:49:16]There are a couple of ways that you can work with Jo or I, one on one, remote or you can actually train here at Iron Lab. 

Coach Jo: [00:49:24] The first is the Metabolic Blueprint, personalized coaching program, which is customized for your life and your body.

Coach Kim: [00:49:31] We work together very closely either in person or remotely to help you conquer old diet drama and to get lasting results. 

Coach Jo: [00:49:41] Ideally, we'd love to teach you how to never buy a quick-fix diet program or app again. 

Coach Kim: [00:49:47] Next, there is the accelerator academy, which is up to 12 months of self-paced weekly bite-sized lessons and journaling exercises, that we’ve created to help you create the lifestyle habits that generate a true transformation. 

Coach Jo: [00:50:05] Find out more on our website: ironlablacombe.com/metabolic-blueprint