Finding Personal Balance in Pursuit of Goals | ETP#80

[aaron_straker]: 0:26

yeah what's up guys happy tuesday welcome back to another episode of eat train prosper today is brian and myself and we are going to have a little discussion around finding the proverbial balance in pursuit of your physique health body composition goals and how that will vary for each of us before we jump into this conversation brian and i have some updates brian why don't you kick us off ye

[bryan_boorstein]: 0:53

as usual i have the majority of the updates as it seems to go but we didn't get to do them last week so last week we had cast on if you guys have yet to check that episode out i highly recommend it we spent over a hundred minutes talking to cass about muscle length research and the current state of things especially in the presence of a lot of this stuff that paul carte has been putting out about how certain muscles may or may not respond to stretch mediate hypertrophy i definitely encourage you guys to go back and listen to that conversation with casts from last week and with that out of the way jumping into up dates here um so i talked two weeks ago about how my body weight was low in the off season despite eating just this massive excess of food for the last few weeks and the trend continues we are now five weeks to the day since my photo shoot where i messed my foot up and where i i started eating mostly highly caloric palatable foods and for the most part this indulgence season for me has not stopped and yet my body weight has stopped climbing in fact has began going in the other direction so this is extremely interesting to me for a number of reasons one because of just general metabolic adaptation theory would be i guess theory is probably the wrong word to use there because it's not it's more than a theory but you know one of the components of metabolic adaptation is neat non exercise activity thermogenesis that in theory goes up when you eat more calories and goes down as you diet there's also this idea of people being more thrifty with their metabolism or less thrifty where adaptations can occur larger or smaller as you go up and and so as an example like somebody made diet on five hundred calories less than their maintenance and be totally good there for a really long time but on the other side only be able to eat five hundred calories over their maintenance or else they start gaining weight like a crazy person and then there's people on the opposite side of that spectrum which i think i am more on that side where i'm eating like four thousand plus calories a day right now but i have to diet on twenty one twenty four twenty one to twenty four hundred calories to get below one eighty five the crazy part of this whole thing is like it's not like a hundred ninety five or two hundred pounds right now eating four thousand calories literally i just waited in this morning at one eighty seven and five weeks ago when i did my photo shoot i was one eighty five so the disparity and the amount of calories that i can eat now compared to what i was eating when i was dieting is like almost two thousand calories different and yet the body weight is only two ish pounds right so i'll let you jump in and then i have some thoughts on it do you do you you have anything to say on this thus far

[aaron_straker]: 4:06

yeah so i mean kind of the term that i think you were searching for is the adaptive thermo genesis and

[bryan_boorstein]: 4:11

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 4:11

it's highly individual there n a good way to know how you may respond um i find it much easier to know how you're going to respond in gaining phases or if you're like hey if you need to feed yourself like nineteen ireturencylike nineteen twenty two twenty four twenty five x body weight or even up i have a um of a client we had to do like twenty seven to finally

[bryan_boorstein]: 4:38

wow

[aaron_straker]: 4:38

get like weight moving

[bryan_boorstein]: 4:40

oh

[aaron_straker]: 4:40

on the back end you were probably going to have to pull calories quite

[bryan_boorstein]: 4:46

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 4:46

not quite low but lower than you would probably expect because of that large adapt of thermagenisis there i am really interested in i mean what you have right now like the situation you are in brian is literally them what's the word i'm looking for it's like the it's the it's the perfect scenario right you dieted you got lean and now you're on this you're living a super flexible life style but you are vere close to what your low of the diet was there hasn't been

[bryan_boorstein]: 5:17

hm

[aaron_straker]: 5:18

a large accumulation

[bryan_boorstein]: 5:19

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 5:19

of

[bryan_boorstein]: 5:20

oh

[aaron_straker]: 5:20

um um fat posted diet which is fantastic that being said i think we we we hinted at this maybe two or three episodes

[bryan_boorstein]: 5:31

yes

[aaron_straker]: 5:32

ago you're the longer you play the game really well like the better you get at it and the more that you can get away with but you're someone listening and you're like completing your first year of diet or not your year of diet in your first like season of dieting whatever it's probably not going to be the case for you so tread arefully as you go into

[bryan_boorstein]: 5:52

hm

[aaron_straker]: 5:53

it

[bryan_boorstein]: 5:54

yeah yeah no i totally agree with that and i more i'm just amazed at like yeah like in past diets i've purposefully tried to keep my neat up because i wanted to stay leaner after dieting so i'm like oh well i'm going to be eating all these calories i at least have to keep getting fifteen thousand steps or something like that but my case right now is that my foot's been injured for five weeks and i'm not doing steps like my last my average has been six seven thousand and that's a lot of low intensity just kind of hobbling around limping after the kids or whatever but of course as i mentioned i have picked up biking so the thing as we know with cardio is that you don't really burn like that many or is i mean you burn more calories than you do weight lifting but the amount of calories that that you burn in like a period of time doing cardio can be mitigated by eating like one piece of pizza i mean literally i go out for a forty minute by ride burn you know four to five hundred calories which is yeah like a piece and a half of pizza something along those lines so so i don't really think of the fact that i'm biking right now as like the reason i'm staying leaner i more think it's related to just my body's internal processes raving up significantly so as examples of kind of what might be happening here i since i've been eating more food my sleep quality has gone down i mentioned this when i was dieting that my sleep quality was going up my sleep quality is much poorer now i'm waking up many more times throughout the it as per typical off season brian at two a m every night i wake up just like hot and bothered no matter how cold the house is and i can't get comfortable for thirty minutes my resting heart rate has gone up about eight to ten beats per minute every morning when i test it my h r v is lower um so anyways those are those are all variables and yes what you got there and what you got to say

[aaron_straker]: 7:50

are you waking up sweaty or just like uncomfortable

[bryan_boorstein]: 7:54

hot not sweating like there's not actual sweat

[aaron_straker]: 7:57

okay

[bryan_boorstein]: 7:57

on me but i am

[aaron_straker]: 7:58

hm

[bryan_boorstein]: 7:59

certainly hot and i'm throwing the covers off of me type thing

[aaron_straker]: 8:02

okay yeah i mean that is an indication of adapted thermogenesis going up just being

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:09

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 8:09

hotter at night sort of thing the last question i have there for and i'll let you get back to it what is your proximity to from your final meal to bedtime is it decently

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:19

i've still

[aaron_straker]: 8:19

closed

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:19

been doing the same thing where i stop eating six thirty seven and then

[aaron_straker]: 8:23

six

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:24

go to

[aaron_straker]: 8:24

thirty

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:24

bed

[aaron_straker]: 8:25

wow

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:25

i don't ever eat past six thirty seven might be like the latest latest but usually it's five thirty or six to be honest

[aaron_straker]: 8:31

wow that's impressive

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:32

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 8:33

i just ate

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:34

and

[aaron_straker]: 8:34

before

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:34

then i go

[aaron_straker]: 8:34

we

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:34

to what

[aaron_straker]: 8:36

just i just ate before we came here at seven forty

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:38

h

[aaron_straker]: 8:38

five

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:39

m

[aaron_straker]: 8:39

will record

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:39

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 8:40

to like nine fifteen and then i'm gonna go home and eat again before

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:43

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 8:43

i could sleep

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:44

yeah i eat from or i consume calories from probably like

[aaron_straker]: 8:48

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:48

eight a m to six p m average most days

[aaron_straker]: 8:50

yes so something to test that you if if you have a gluecometer or anything like that in the morning

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:55

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 8:55

when you

[bryan_boorstein]: 8:56

i don't

[aaron_straker]: 8:56

are getting up if it's high it could be you could it could be like some fruit before bed could help mitigate that it is

[bryan_boorstein]: 9:03

m

[aaron_straker]: 9:03

something to explore like handful of

[bryan_boorstein]: 9:05

interesting

[aaron_straker]: 9:05

berries may be a key something like that

[bryan_boorstein]: 9:08

yeah um so anyway those are interesting and i think they can contribute to the idea of like the raving of the fire in my body and just like being more metabolically active with that adaptive hermogenes is so all that's really interesting part of me doesn't like this like like i obviously enjoy eating all the food but i don't enjoy like having shittyor sleep quality and having my h r v lower like h r v's dropped ten points my resting heart rates gone up ten points all within the last few weeks so anyway it's just kind of also on the heels of a number of episodes a go i was talking how maybe i meant to be in this smaller body or like eat less food or whatever and so these are all kind of clues to the puzzle here i do have a dea scheduled my very first one it's a shame that i didn't get it done and put it together at the end of the diet but at this point i'm not so far above where i was at the diet so will be scheduled for august tenth which is going to be a day after this episode airs and the awkward thing about my decks is the only appointment available was at eleven thirty a m and so i know that what we want to do is we want to be consistent primarily we want to be consistent with how we do them and so the way most consistent is to do them right when you wake up fasted etcetera etcetera now here's my question for you it's at eleven thirty i'm probably supposed to work out that day what if every time i do so i schedule them at around the same time and i work out beforehand and i have my way in gaterraite and no other food so it's always like the exact same thing each time do we think that that scews the data in an inconsistent manner or do we think that because it's doing it consistently each time that there is a variable of or that it decreases the variable potential

[aaron_straker]: 11:06

i would i would err

[bryan_boorstein]: 11:08

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 11:08

or i would side with the latter the just as long as you understand that and are consistent one of the things that i will tell my clients as long as you are accurate you're sorry consistent in your inaccuracies that's what we're

[bryan_boorstein]: 11:22

right

[aaron_straker]: 11:22

looking for you don't want to be

[bryan_boorstein]: 11:23

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 11:23

inconsistent with your inaccuracy so if it's always like hey i'm going to eat before my decks i'm going to train before my decks but i'm like that what i'm going to do i'm going to eat and train i'm always going to have my pre work out meal which for you is like the way in gaterate sort of thing i think that's fine the potential that i could see is like if it's one day it's aft like

[bryan_boorstein]: 11:42

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 11:42

a delt day and the next

[bryan_boorstein]: 11:44

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 11:44

day it's after like a glut ham and quad day potentially but you know we're kind of splitting hairs there i think it's just trying to like piece it system so what you don't want to what you want to avoid is going into it like super fasted and depleted one time and then going in like carbo hydrate recompensated after like a

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:05

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 12:05

pizza you know free meal

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:07

oh

[aaron_straker]: 12:07

night or something like that

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:08

m

[aaron_straker]: 12:08

because that you will get gut contents glycogen storage is going to bring water which is

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:13

oh

[aaron_straker]: 12:13

all technically from a deck i can't texas scan perspective lean body mass because it's

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:19

hm

[aaron_straker]: 12:19

not fat mass and that's how it's kind

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:21

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 12:21

of despairing

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:22

it's

[aaron_straker]: 12:22

you

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:22

a

[aaron_straker]: 12:22

get

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:22

three

[aaron_straker]: 12:22

like

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:23

factor

[aaron_straker]: 12:23

you

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:23

model i believe

[aaron_straker]: 12:24

you have

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:24

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 12:25

your i believe the bones are considered like a separate thing but then you have like lean tissue which is everything but bones and that mass

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:33

yeah no i agree with that as well so i'll just make notes of kind of like what i trained what i ate the night before and what i consumed during the work out or something along those lines but anyway i'm excited about that and then it comes with an r m test but i need to do that at a different facility and it's a different day so i actually haven't scheduled that yet but i think that would be relatively interesting just for like personal interest

[aaron_straker]: 12:57

have you ever done it before

[bryan_boorstein]: 12:58

no

[aaron_straker]: 12:59

it's i did it when we were in texas and it kind of sucked it you have this tube and you have to like bread out of your mouth for like i think it was like twenty minutes straight loki was kind of sucking hard

[bryan_boorstein]: 13:12

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 13:12

because they like put a pinch thing on your nose and you just have to

[bryan_boorstein]: 13:15

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 13:15

like kind huff and mouth breathe for twenty minutes

[bryan_boorstein]: 13:17

oh

[aaron_straker]: 13:17

straight

[bryan_boorstein]: 13:17

man

[aaron_straker]: 13:18

i was very uncomfortable and then at the end of it it was just like oh yeah your r m rs higher than you would expect and you are a one hundred percent carbohydrate burner there's like some some numbers it runs to say like how much of a fat burning to carbohydrate burning you were and i was like one hundred percent on the carbohydrate side and it was like i did it like in may and i had started my diet at the end of march so i'd already been like five or six weeks into a calory deficit that was going very swimmingly so i'm like all right i don't know how much i really buy into this

[bryan_boorstein]: 13:52

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 13:52

because it wasn't like eight

[bryan_boorstein]: 13:53

interesting

[aaron_straker]: 13:54

i for fifteen it was one hundred percent and zero so it's

[bryan_boorstein]: 13:57

right

[aaron_straker]: 13:57

like

[bryan_boorstein]: 13:58

well nobody's that nobody's that extreme

[aaron_straker]: 13:59

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 14:00

right that's like

[aaron_straker]: 14:00

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 14:00

the hip abduction is zero blots

[aaron_straker]: 14:03

exactly yeah so that it's interesting

[bryan_boorstein]: 14:06

oh

[aaron_straker]: 14:06

for sure

[bryan_boorstein]: 14:07

uh

[aaron_straker]: 14:07

let's put it that

[bryan_boorstein]: 14:08

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 14:08

way

[bryan_boorstein]: 14:08

for sure for sure all right jump into europe date real quick i must fill my water bottle up i'm parched so i will be

[aaron_straker]: 14:13

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 14:13

back in like thirty seconds yon

[aaron_straker]: 14:18

i just met

[bryan_boorstein]: 14:18

mute

[aaron_straker]: 14:18

yeah so

[bryan_boorstein]: 14:19

you're

[aaron_straker]: 14:20

i mean my biggest update that i have to

[bryan_boorstein]: 14:23

oh

[aaron_straker]: 14:24

i'll save the first one for one brian gets back so i'm in the calory deficit right now it is about week ten um calories are not it's a slow defisiteso it has been pretty interesting but something that i'm always very interested in is progressing training during calory deficits it becomes more important to time things more appropriately because what you may find especially training larger muscle groups like today was quads hams and glue ended up running some errands and stuff before i went to the gym

[bryan_boorstein]: 14:57

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 14:57

and it had ended up being like almost three hours after my pre workout meal to my training

[bryan_boorstein]: 15:03

yah

[aaron_straker]: 15:03

and i was getting like a little

[bryan_boorstein]: 15:05

yah

[aaron_straker]: 15:05

nauseous and like very kind of like just dizzy and things like that but i'm very very connected to the log book and especially on this day which has the hack squat and i'm like i want to progress that and i'm like giving it my all

[bryan_boorstein]: 15:19

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 15:19

and what's really like wild to me is like i'm now on week ten eleven of

[bryan_boorstein]: 15:24

oh

[aaron_straker]: 15:24

lower calories and then pushing these heavy sets

[bryan_boorstein]: 15:27

oh

[aaron_straker]: 15:28

and still progressing it's i'm waiting for when can i realistically not continue to progress this but i haven't really found it yet so that was one thing that was really interesting is just with the deficits things you can still progress training for a pretty damn good while

[bryan_boorstein]: 15:45

h

[aaron_straker]: 15:45

which is really really cool you just want to make sure that you're doing your your setting yourself up for success with your meal time in those sorts of things because it matters more when you are in a lower energy availability environment as opposed to the opposite

[bryan_boorstein]: 16:01

yeah so quick comment on this jordan

[aaron_straker]: 16:05

ye

[bryan_boorstein]: 16:05

lips and i

[aaron_straker]: 16:05

es

[bryan_boorstein]: 16:05

have talked about this a number of times when i've been on with him but this idea of like especially when you have new movements or new machines that you haven't used or that these neural adaptations they happen for so many weeks in a row that it's

[aaron_straker]: 16:18

ye

[bryan_boorstein]: 16:18

not often even that you just hit a wall and can't progress

[aaron_straker]: 16:21

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 16:22

any more it's almost more likely

[aaron_straker]: 16:24

m

[bryan_boorstein]: 16:25

that mentally you just have so much anxiety going into your session at the idea of having to progress that you kind of don't or you have to de load or you take a step back

[aaron_straker]: 16:36

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 16:37

kind of reload and build back up or like any number of other kind of psychological ramifications

[aaron_straker]: 16:42

ye

[bryan_boorstein]: 16:42

that result in you not progressing versus physically you being unable to continue to progress and it's it's like a subtle difference because for sure there's the psychological variables effect your physical output but it's just kind of an interesting thing that i thought of as you were speaking

[aaron_straker]: 16:59

yeah definitely and this i mean i really only get it with so it's two fold i care about the hack squat so much because my quads are like a lagging body part i want them to grow i know it's it's like a necessary evil sort of thing and it's like a big it's like a gut check movement you know what i mean so so i do have like a like a psychological connection or i guess i should say like an emotional connection to really trying to that week over week um especially with the current trading because it's not it is r r based but like my fourth set it's a set of ten and i'm like okay well last week i did eleven with hundred and sixty

[bryan_boorstein]: 17:41

hm

[aaron_straker]: 17:41

kilos like i want to i'm going to increase weight i want to hit ten reps again you know so i honestly i added another five kilos and i only got eight reps but i also progressed sets two and three

[bryan_boorstein]: 17:54

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 17:55

which

[bryan_boorstein]: 17:56

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 17:57

that's adding fatigue going into that top set sort of thing um but it is like really just it's a very interesting situation there but what i wanted to talk about first before when you kind of rent to get some water today was like the day where like my quads firing in like a squat i shouldn't say firing because of course they're firing the weight moving like the connection the mental connection there the amount the the my ability to contract and produce force through the quads and feel really strong in that posit and like finally came full circle like today at fucking thirty four years old

[bryan_boorstein]: 18:38

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 18:38

after trying for like years and years but

[bryan_boorstein]: 18:41

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 18:41

like full range of motion and i could feel the power come out of my quads like driving with my knees out over my toes and like the it felt really heavy but the weight was still moving and i had an incredible stimulus like by set three my quads like super pumped and i was like this is it this is like what i've been searching for for however many fucking years and i've finally figured it out today so it was a really really cool feeling to finally get there with a muscle that i want e wanted to get there with for so long

[bryan_boorstein]: 19:15

very cool no i love that so much do you have your toes slightly turned out are they straight forward what's the width of your feet

[aaron_straker]: 19:24

the feet are decently narrow like i would say a little bit closer in the then hip distance with a very slight maybe ten degree

[bryan_boorstein]: 19:36

cool

[aaron_straker]: 19:36

out in

[bryan_boorstein]: 19:37

that's

[aaron_straker]: 19:37

that

[bryan_boorstein]: 19:37

about how i do this as well

[aaron_straker]: 19:38

and that just allows me to get the biggest range of motion without stretching my adductors too much

[bryan_boorstein]: 19:44

yes yep

[aaron_straker]: 19:45

um and i can a big part of it i can still drive really forced like through my full foot with my through that heel to um and that's kind of like my default setting there where i feel like

[bryan_boorstein]: 19:59

cool

[aaron_straker]: 19:59

really powerful and my joints line up really really well full range of motion if it feels really good there

[bryan_boorstein]: 20:06

very cool anything else to say on

[aaron_straker]: 20:09

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 20:09

the up dates

[aaron_straker]: 20:11

no i need to start writing them down throughout the week because every tuesday

[bryan_boorstein]: 20:13

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 20:13

night when i'm like i'm gonna what did i do this week is there

[bryan_boorstein]: 20:16

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 20:16

anything new i can really remember stuff from tuesday i have some i have really cool things going on behind the scenes but i am just keeping them under wraps until they are pretty much where they're going to release but more on that in the coming weeks i should say

[bryan_boorstein]: 20:31

we all right i'll finish up with a couple quick updates here paragon had our second in person seminar this past week end it was here in boulder which was super cool because i was basically just gone all day saturday but

[aaron_straker]: 20:46

on

[bryan_boorstein]: 20:46

i still was able to kind of be like send my present parent and i got to show all these

[aaron_straker]: 20:50

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 20:50

people kind of some of my hood and and everybody really liked it so the laurie was like a hue fan of the time she spent in boulder we did a full day of like lifting and instructional education nutrition kind of q and a stuff just kind of bonding with the group and having a whole lot of discussions and things that people wanted to learn about and then there was also two well there was one big event the following day everybody went on a hike like it's really amazing for i'll hike up in the mountains which i couldn't do because of my foot unfortunately but we had a pre ike coffee so i biked from my house to the coffee shop which was super cool that i was able to do that since it's in bolder and had coffee with everyone got to connect again after the day see how every feeling there their thoughts on the seminar and everyone just was so excited about it which obviously makes us feel great and feels like we're providing value which is of course a great feeling and my foot is continuing to get better so i bought at the request of the oh did i actually haven't even updated this but i went to see an orthopedic surgeon last week about my foot just to get the official diagnosis and the prognosis and so as it as expected it turns out that i did completely rupture tear my plan or fascia it was the a full tear of the medial planner pasha which is going to be the one on the inside of the foot which is makes sense because that's where it hurts and then a partial tear of the middle planner fash but lateral one on the outside of the foot is completely fine so that is why i was able to walk on the outside of my foot with no pain for the last four weeks my left knee has been bumming since trying to hobble around for the last five weeks it's really targeted my left knee in some really nary ways and i think that it's brought to the surface an old cross hit injury that i had to my left knee i remember one day where where there was a lot of three red max back squat super set with a hundred meters dead sprint and uh i remember my knee just not doing well for a couple o weeks after that and then it kind of went away and i didn't think about it much but it's the exact same spot in the same knee that that that was you know six years ago so i got the orthopedic surgeon to write me up a m r i and i have that scheduled for today today actually so i'm going to go in and get my left m r id my guests would be at this point that it's probably a miniscus especially based on the symptoms of like hey it kind of comes and goes like sometimes like some things can aggravate it and make it worse and and that a thing so so if it is meniscus then hopefully they can just go in and scope that thing and it's a matter of like two or three weeks and i'm back to life as normal but it has really been bothering me since i injured my foot on especially on knee flexion leg girls so it's not terrible on likerdls and stuff like that but things where i'm bringing my heel to my butt like i feel it like rolling over something as as i'm going through de flexion right in like the middle range of the movement there's like this rolling popping thing that's occurring and so that is kind of part of also why i think it's it's manis base but my foot has been much better i just started rehab yesterday with my mob board m o b o and it's kind of this like wabbly board that you put one foot on and try to balance and do these kind of foot control mechanisms on it and so i was able to start that yesterday which was great and i feel like i am least on the mend as far as that goes the orthapetic surgeon said probably four to eight weeks of like me dedicated using the mob board and he thinks i can probably get back to ninety nine point five percent i was prior to

[aaron_straker]: 25:01

that's fantastic except for like the potential new surgery as well but i mean when

[bryan_boorstein]: 25:06

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 25:06

it comes to new surgery that's about like as good as it gets sort of thing which i was always really

[bryan_boorstein]: 25:10

ah

[aaron_straker]: 25:10

surprised about how quickly people would return from them

[bryan_boorstein]: 25:13

yeah i mean we'll see if it is just an orthroscopic thing on miniscus then that's one thing if it's something else than who knows um okay cool while we can jump into the episode and then my last update was just going to be some sentiments have that kind of feed into this so our topic is about like finding balance in training right

[aaron_straker]: 25:31

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 25:31

and so this thought that's

[aaron_straker]: 25:33

ye

[bryan_boorstein]: 25:34

been pervasive in my mind for now a couple of months maybe since the end of my diet as i kind of started to dwindle in like psychological arousal before sessions and things like that

[aaron_straker]: 25:43

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 25:44

i keep having it's like life keeps throwing this idea of minimalist training at me and david abel and i did an episode a number of months ago where we talked about like what would minimalist training look like for us if if we were to design like a training program that maybe it's like just above what would be maintenance like you think maybe you can make a little bit of progress but it's like as to use an israel term like minimum effective volume across just like the body you know and what would that that minimuls dose be and so my thought has always been that i keep any time i find myself in these psychological states throughout my history training i've always resorted to a full body split that essentially trains the full body every two to three days so you might think like a monday thursday sunday wednesday saturday type thing so you get like five sessions in over two weeks or something along those lines and in the past it has always been the basic movements that are you know relatively barbell specific because i've been in crossfitgyms where it's like one day you'll like squat bench press ben over row and then another your hip hinge overhead press or dip and vertical pulls like a pull up of some sort but on the episode with david abel i kind of thought about the same idea but what if instead of it being barbell specific you could just choose any movement you want that fits that movement pattern so you have your squat your your chest press type movement and your ro type movement but maybe that can be a pendulum a t r row and a cable chess press and then alternatively maybe it can be like an r d l on the other day i can be like an r d l u an incline dumb belling hear your dealt press and a iliaclap pull down so something along those lines and i don't know why i just like in the last few months my mind has just kept kind of creeping back to like hey maybe i should do this maybe i should do this and i keep justifying it as okay it's an experiment and maybe it will be like cool to see if i can do i gain anything is it just maintenance or on the reverse maybe i actually end up sliding backwards and i realize that this isn't enough for me and that at this stage of my training have to do more if i want to continue progressing but but i'm doing a lot right now i'm training you know five days a week end my sessions are like an hour and a half each so i'm putting in seven and a half hours of training each week and it would be kind of cool for me to try this minimal is training put in an hour and a half two to three times a week and if i find out that i don't actually go backwards or if i can even continue to make slight progress at this stage of my training like any progress is good progress so if i can do that with less than half of the amount of training commitment that would be really cool and so i think that fits really well into beginning this conversation around balance and how finding the right dose of training so that you can progress towards your goals without doing so much that you're i guess it would be called junk volume like if i do find out that i can progress on half of what i'm doing then in theory i've been doing junk volume unnecessarily so um anyways it's an interesting thought my brain and curious what your thoughts are as we head into this discussion

[aaron_straker]: 29:25

yeah so the first one that i would my first thought was well this is a fantastic time because we're gonna have the dexa and then you can do it for a period

[bryan_boorstein]: 29:34

h

[aaron_straker]: 29:35

of however long we get another dexa and see what happens with you know lean body

[bryan_boorstein]: 29:40

m

[aaron_straker]: 29:40

mass ultimately um

[bryan_boorstein]: 29:42

hm

[aaron_straker]: 29:43

the next thing to me is like well how are you defining success right progress i should say

[bryan_boorstein]: 29:50

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 29:50

is it progress in terms of hypertrophy lean muscle mass carried is it gress in terms of strength that's like

[bryan_boorstein]: 29:58

hm

[aaron_straker]: 29:58

one of those things and i've been having this conversation

[bryan_boorstein]: 30:00

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 30:01

much more with clients where where i'm asking them well how are you defining progress is it strang base type things or is it physique and

[bryan_boorstein]: 30:10

m

[aaron_straker]: 30:10

like lean muscle mass because they are similar but not one and the same sort of thing so i think that would be the first thing is really like how define that progress

[bryan_boorstein]: 30:20

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 30:20

because i know that to me what it is it's how much muscle mass i'm carrying

[bryan_boorstein]: 30:25

yeah but that's like such a slow caterpillar pace

[aaron_straker]: 30:28

yes

[bryan_boorstein]: 30:28

even slower than it's like a injured caterpillar pace um so yeah you're totally right and the fact is that because i would be decreasing my training volume and frequency the chances of my strength adaptations going up quicker is actually probably a reality so what would happen as i do this is i would gain strength really

[aaron_straker]: 30:51

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 30:51

quickly in the first few months just because my fitness fatigue

[aaron_straker]: 30:55

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 30:55

spectrum

[aaron_straker]: 30:56

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 30:56

it shifted more towards fitness and unless towards fatigue whether that correlates

[aaron_straker]: 31:01

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 31:01

to more muscle is anyone's guest i mean

[aaron_straker]: 31:04

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 31:05

the truth of the matter is that

[aaron_straker]: 31:06

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 31:06

if you're a natural twenty five years training and your continuing to get stronger over time that is probably the best proxy that we have for gaining muscle but man does it become ambiguous when your strength continues to go up because you're dropping volume and we know that volume is correlated to increase muscle it just it becomes this really confusing piece of

[aaron_straker]: 31:32

i

[bryan_boorstein]: 31:33

of data

[aaron_straker]: 31:34

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 31:34

and maybe you're a hundred percent spot on that if i were to do this it's like hey here's my tea at a hundred and ninety pounds body weight or whatever it is before doing this training and then i do this training for six months or whatever period of time it is and i go back and do a dea at hopefully the same body weight and and see at that point i don't know how realistic all of that exactly is that my body weight stays the same for a six months period of training but it is definitely an interesting idea

[aaron_straker]: 32:06

yeah what's really funny in brian you and i have of course talked to talk about this off line but i'm currently in the depths of like very dry hypertrophy book and it's like the deeper that i go it's like how how much i realize how little i know and how concrete even what they like experts say in terms of like it's really shaky concrete among experts looking at the same studies sort of thing because yeah like what you said is over here long enough his tory like as you get stronger it would make sense that you have more muscle but i can tell you right now like i'm i'm considerably weaker than i was when i was like nineteen but my physique is

[bryan_boorstein]: 32:56

hm

[aaron_straker]: 32:56

leaps and bounds better than it was when i was nineteen even though from a weight standpoint we are within the same seven eight nine ten pounds so

[bryan_boorstein]: 33:06

hm

[aaron_straker]: 33:06

it does get ambiguous once you get out of those first couple o years i think of training in that beginner to early intermediate stage for sure

[bryan_boorstein]: 33:16

like even looking at the pendulum like i don't even think i could say if my pendulum ends up fifteen pounds heavier at the end of this minimalist training period than it is now i don't think i could even say like that for sure

[aaron_straker]: 33:28

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 33:28

means that i gain muscle in my quads at all it's just yeah i think there's there's something to you know like subjectively doing more sets not necessarily getting stronger just creating that tension

[aaron_straker]: 33:41

yes

[bryan_boorstein]: 33:41

in the muscle over time i mean it's issue yeah it's very ambiguous

[aaron_straker]: 33:47

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 33:48

yeah so this is my this is how i think of balance obviously like there's so many components to balance but the

[aaron_straker]: 33:54

so

[bryan_boorstein]: 33:54

first place my brain goes always is training like how do i find training balance in the rest of my life and so frequency becomes a piece of that and like time commitment overall and how much psychological effort or energy you're putting into each the the commencement of each training session how much anxiety it causes things like that so so when you think about

[aaron_straker]: 34:18

a

[bryan_boorstein]: 34:19

balance what are the components that kind of go into your definition of it

[aaron_straker]: 34:22

yeah so i think it's great to start on the training side like like you said the interesting thing with training and how it works is when you are newer to it you you need to not need but you can give it the least amount of effort and your progress is like the biggest and best so it's like a very kind of flipped sort of situation where

[bryan_boorstein]: 34:47

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 34:47

is like you don't really have to take training like that seriously until you realize it's something that you really want to add more into your life because in the beginning like as a beginner just training three times per week and doing your some traditional lifts and challenging yourself like you you're going to make really good progress and then by the time you decide that like hey i really want to become like a solid intermediate to advanced type person like it's already been a while of you're bought in like you've already achieved escape velocity of that it's a lot more fun um it's more like it's a hobby est things so i think in terms of balance and then from there you really have to decide it's either something that you want to take a less balance in your life and it's going to take up a larger part you make faster progress and then you reach a point where it's as natural it's it's slow regardless here in this for eight ten twelve fifteen twenty or like brian twenty four right now years

[bryan_boorstein]: 35:51

yep

[aaron_straker]: 35:52

so i mean that's

[bryan_boorstein]: 35:53

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 35:54

my take of the balance there on the training side

[bryan_boorstein]: 35:57

yeah no i agree with that and i think almost unconsciously i started finding maybe some balance in implementing this biking into my routine that i've been doing where i've been doing this you know three or four times a week and it's a mix of like sprint sessions that might just be or seven minutes of as hard as i can go with like longer drawn out like forty minute sessions with some hill climbs and stuff like that i don't too often go over forty minutes though i have but i like really enjoy it and i think one of the coolest parts about it is that i'm almost a beginner not in the sense that hey i've never biked before i'm a nube but like

[aaron_straker]: 36:37

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 36:37

in the sense that my erobic system my card astcleer system so undeveloped that i'm getting new begins and that's been so so so fun and

[aaron_straker]: 36:47

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 36:47

maybe that's been part of why my brain has been meandering towards these lower frequency s for weight lifting because i'm so much enjoying these new be gains that i'm getting from biking but inevitably if i'm really like tying my horse to hey these new b gains are so fun well they're about to run out like

[aaron_straker]: 37:06

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 37:07

my biking nuwbgains are pretty quickly dissipating so i like i can see that in the improvement in the courses that i run i have a ten mile course and you know initially it was like p r by five minutes then it was three minutes then it was two minutes and then it was a minute nd a half so like all at these p rs are dwindling and i'm having to ride for forty one and a half minutes to get a p you know um

[aaron_straker]: 37:30

hm

[bryan_boorstein]: 37:31

so so yeah it's balance can come in many forms for me because such a predominant importance on my training regardless of what type of training it is it's interesting that my my balance has come by just implementing a different form of training into my life one i can feel success again in a rapid way

[aaron_straker]: 37:54

yeah that that definitely makes sense i think when i initially was thinking about it of course by our own natures right i am primarily a nutrition coach and you're primarily like a hypertrophy coach strength and condition kind of coach i was thinking more along from the diet side of things and just seeing

[bryan_boorstein]: 38:12

hm

[aaron_straker]: 38:12

what i see with a lot of client or

[bryan_boorstein]: 38:14

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 38:14

having these conversations and i think you kind of come out

[bryan_boorstein]: 38:17

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 38:18

into this from two aspects you come in as the you know maybe high school athlete maybe collegian athlete or someone like like it was like a cross fit athletes post college where it was everything and the balance was by us kind of pulling back and realizing that

[bryan_boorstein]: 38:36

m

[aaron_straker]: 38:36

some

[bryan_boorstein]: 38:37

yes

[aaron_straker]: 38:37

of the things we were doing was pretty superfluous right training seven days per week um doing like all these really unnecessary things so like by pulling back some of that balance we re like reduced stressers those sorts of things and it was actually

[bryan_boorstein]: 38:51

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 38:51

a needle mover forward or you have the complete opposite side of the spectrum where someone is maybe just doesn't there is no good maybe roll models in their life for a healthy life style sort of thing and everything is coming from a very very like negative or super flexible just tons of alcohol you know life

[bryan_boorstein]: 39:10

hm

[aaron_straker]: 39:10

is a planned hedonistic deviation sort of thing and then they're trying to find that balance in the middle and that is where i kind of was my initial thoughts were and the reason there is how i will explain it to clients coming in is like people think they go from like far left let's call left like for all intents and purposes like the unhealthy side and then the pendulum swings and just stops in the middle and they're like oh well i want to get to this health point but i want to make sure that i'm still have flexibility in my life i can still go on dates and have beers and all these things but then they're like discouraged at their rate of progress without realizing that for most things right using this pendulum analogy we need to swing far to the opposite side and kind of not

[bryan_boorstein]: 40:00

hm

[aaron_straker]: 40:00

find an extreme but see what that's like before you can actually

[bryan_boorstein]: 40:04

m

[aaron_straker]: 40:04

find that balance um

[bryan_boorstein]: 40:06

hm

[aaron_straker]: 40:06

and that's kind of the conversation i wanted to have because i know so many people are out there thinking around i want to make these improvements but i don't want to become like one of those psycho people or what happens if

[bryan_boorstein]: 40:16

m

[aaron_straker]: 40:16

i need to like track my food at a restaurant or all these things and it's all relative to your rate of progress and how important

[bryan_boorstein]: 40:24

hm

[aaron_straker]: 40:24

it is to your life so that's

[bryan_boorstein]: 40:26

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 40:26

like the conversation that i wanted to get rolling there anything on that brian

[bryan_boorstein]: 40:31

yeah yeah i think that's a great point and i think there there are certainly

[aaron_straker]: 40:35

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 40:35

degrees to how ambitious you need to get with with letting that

[aaron_straker]: 40:42

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 40:42

pendulum swing to one side and so the components that might affect the degree at which would be how close you are to that goal so you're your experience over all right like if somebody is with twenty years experience they're going to have to optimize things much more to see the needle move towards that goal whereas when you look at me and biking like i could probably sleep like ship like ship and everything but i would still see adaptations and success in biking because the adaptation is so new to me but when we're talking about wait training or increasing my pendulum or something like that if i have chitty sleep and chitty nutrition and shady life style decisions then that probably goes the other direction

[aaron_straker]: 41:31

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 41:32

so so there certainly varying degrees to that based on what you're trying to achieve and how close you are to that goal and then also i think it's similarly related i don't even know if you can call this like a different topic but i keep thinking thinking about like you know somebody on a diet that's cutting and how in the

[aaron_straker]: 41:51

the

[bryan_boorstein]: 41:52

beginning

[aaron_straker]: 41:52

best scenario to use

[bryan_boorstein]: 41:53

you have so much more freedom in the beginning of a diet to flexibly eat play a little bit of tetris if that's your thing and then as you get closer to the end goal of that diet the super super flu perfluous

[aaron_straker]: 42:11

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 42:12

superfluous man neither of us can ever say that word but those foods they got to go man you gotta you got to just keep in the most critical ingredients and so the example i always uses you know my plate of food in an off season phase might be you know i'm having two burghers that are eighty five fifteen with cheese on them and a bun and a side of potatoes maybe they have some cheese on them and there's like brockley with like some olive oil and stuff so so it's very very dense food with all the palatable fats added to make the food even more enjoy

[aaron_straker]: 42:48

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 42:48

and then as you go through the diet it's like okay the first thing that goes is the cheese but you can keep the bun and whatever and the olive oil then you're like well now the cheese is gone i'm gonna have to i'm still not making i'm not making progress so on cut the bun out okay now i got to cut the olive oil off the broccoli and by the end of the diet you're left with two burger paddies they're no longer eighty five fifteen

[aaron_straker]: 43:07

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 43:07

they're like ninety three seven

[aaron_straker]: 43:09

i

[bryan_boorstein]: 43:09

so you have like two ninety three seven burger paddies you have some geese with nothing on them except some salt and pepper and you

[aaron_straker]: 43:16

a

[bryan_boorstein]: 43:16

have you have some potatoes also dry with nothing on them except salt and pepper

[aaron_straker]: 43:19

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 43:20

so so this meal that was like almost restaurant quality in the beginning has now become

[aaron_straker]: 43:25

ye

[bryan_boorstein]: 43:25

just like this depressing thing that you don't even feel full from at the end and it doesn't even taste good oh

[aaron_straker]: 43:33

one thing that i will say on the back of that though is i

[bryan_boorstein]: 43:36

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 43:36

find that your taste buds shift over

[bryan_boorstein]: 43:39

yes

[aaron_straker]: 43:39

a diet

[bryan_boorstein]: 43:39

a

[aaron_straker]: 43:40

like

[bryan_boorstein]: 43:40

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 43:40

i've had clients who who have like kind of jokingly message

[bryan_boorstein]: 43:43

oh

[aaron_straker]: 43:44

that i've ruined drinking for them because like through our diet they're like hey i really

[bryan_boorstein]: 43:48

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 43:48

want to give the smile like i'm not going to drink alcohol for like six months or whatever and then we like we get there we achieve it and they ere back in and they're like alcohol is not making me nearly as happy as it used to like i am not enjoying that pa like i used to and i'm like yeah your taste buds will change like at the end of a diet like free literally

[bryan_boorstein]: 44:08

yes

[aaron_straker]: 44:08

tastes like candy

[bryan_boorstein]: 44:08

yes

[aaron_straker]: 44:09

it is insane um

[bryan_boorstein]: 44:10

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 44:11

and that's one of those things where i find that people who try and keep the tetrusts and i i f i m too long into the diet oh it almost starts working against you because you like the fruit isn't sweet enough you need that like real sweetness where as a post like when you just go all in an okay i'm not going

[bryan_boorstein]: 44:30

oh

[aaron_straker]: 44:30

to have it that fruit

[bryan_boorstein]: 44:31

oh

[aaron_straker]: 44:32

like goes through the roof

[bryan_boorstein]: 44:33

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 44:33

and it's like palatability

[bryan_boorstein]: 44:34

ah

[aaron_straker]: 44:35

and what it it's like what those boxes it checks for you sort of thing

[bryan_boorstein]: 44:39

ah if you have desert like if you like fit in macro tetruss and suddenly you have like i don't know a knole or a piece a bite of a chocolate claire or just like something and you're like a hundred calories of this well then the last thing you want is fruit because the fruit doesn't taste good after that you know but but if you finish that super bland meal that i just reference and then you're like man i'm so glad i have a hundred calories left for seven for a hundred and ightyfive grams of strawberries or something like that i mean that's the most delicious thing you could possible have at the end of one of those meals

[aaron_straker]: 45:10

yeah exactly so the the thing that kind of the one thing that i wanted to bring up is like with that when you are starting something new something that's really really important is getting that escape ful o city and what i generally recommend is like a temporary right raven the flags here temporary highly increased effort for creating that escape velocity because what that's got to do is get you quick winds and get momentum moving right and for a lot of people like using the example you just you gave with walking that meal like you know the levels it goes through is like you chopped the little hanging fruit the problem is after you chop the low hanging fruit when you need to chop the next layer of fruit it's not as quite low hanging as the first layer was and you got to keep chopping higher and higher and kind of like what you're saying was like as you near in proximity to that goal your margins get smaller unfortunately

[bryan_boorstein]: 46:12

hm

[aaron_straker]: 46:13

and that requires a higher more detailed effort to further continue to produce those adaptations that you're after and so many people do not you know they don't understand it or maybe their coach doesn't explain that to them well well enough but then it's after after like achievement you can start layering that flexibility back in and that's when the pendulum starts swinging back to like you know our quote on quote left side and then you can

[bryan_boorstein]: 46:41

hm

[aaron_straker]: 46:41

find that balance but it never swings like when you watch a pendulum swing the first time it swings as it comes back that second time it never goes as far

[bryan_boorstein]: 46:50

oh

[aaron_straker]: 46:51

in either direction as it did on that like first swing and then over enough passes back and forth you settle into that middle and like that is like i feel like just such a fascinating um like metaphoric representation of dieting and then getting to a body composition you want getting more flexible with your life style again in the quote unquote off season but like you brian like you're like and when you first were starting remember remember we were like two two hundred and five two undred and ten pounds back in the day like

[bryan_boorstein]: 47:24

yep

[aaron_straker]: 47:24

you're never going to be that weight again probably

[bryan_boorstein]: 47:27

no

[aaron_straker]: 47:27

you know what i mean like

[bryan_boorstein]: 47:28

yeh

[aaron_straker]: 47:28

the amount like like you we started the episode what you're talking about everything you've been eating over the past five weeks

[bryan_boorstein]: 47:34

ye

[aaron_straker]: 47:34

and you're still fifteen to twenty pounds from like old school brian you know

[bryan_boorstein]: 47:39

isn't that wild man

[aaron_straker]: 47:40

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 47:40

because like in those cross fit days we were working out so much that for me to get to two o five or two ten i must

[aaron_straker]: 47:49

eh

[bryan_boorstein]: 47:49

have been

[aaron_straker]: 47:49

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 47:50

eating just in ord amount of food

[aaron_straker]: 47:53

that and i think too it is not the totally derail episode but just the high court is all very very high stress environment what that does with with sex form

[bryan_boorstein]: 48:04

hm

[aaron_straker]: 48:05

s over time and we know like well i mean i do not want to go down this rabbit hole but the hormones impact the calories out part of the equation

[bryan_boorstein]: 48:14

m

[aaron_straker]: 48:15

so when

[bryan_boorstein]: 48:15

hm

[aaron_straker]: 48:15

like endicran system humming

[bryan_boorstein]: 48:17

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 48:17

and things are really really good your calories

[bryan_boorstein]: 48:20

m

[aaron_straker]: 48:20

out is higher when things are not in a great state that's just lower and that small part of the equation but i think that was a big part of him and we were i mean i know person was living incredibly stress like prone environment my sleep was garbage um very low carbohydrate right very high glicalytic activity tons of alcohol it's a breed ground for high stress and environment

[bryan_boorstein]: 48:46

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 48:46

you know what i mean but

[bryan_boorstein]: 48:47

yeah for sure

[aaron_straker]: 48:48

it's one of those things like the longer you play it right the more iterations you go through that pendulum doesn't swing as far and you get better at it so it's kind

[bryan_boorstein]: 48:58

hm

[aaron_straker]: 48:58

of like understanding that it's not that you never drink alcohol again or you don't have pizza and stuff like that but it's just the periodization really is like the key to it but so many people get stuck never making it through like the first season of periodization one

[bryan_boorstein]: 49:17

hm

[aaron_straker]: 49:17

to reap all the benefits that come on the back end of that and what that takes is a higher acute temporary effort to get through that first perization and

[bryan_boorstein]: 49:29

oh

[aaron_straker]: 49:29

it might mean pulling alcohol for like three months or something like that i

[bryan_boorstein]: 49:33

hm

[aaron_straker]: 49:33

like to think of it as like a challenge sort of thing like that's what mind started as you would have told twenty fourteen twenty fifteen

[bryan_boorstein]: 49:40

uh

[aaron_straker]: 49:40

you know twenty fourteen twenty fifteen we wouldn't be drinking alcohol anymore like he i've never believed it but like here we are sort

[bryan_boorstein]: 49:48

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 49:48

of thing and that's like a really really good way to approach it and sharing that with the people around you sort of thing it's ike temporary challenge sort of thing and then laying back in the flexibility

[bryan_boorstein]: 50:03

ah i love the way that you phrase that with metaphorical representation for for the pendulum because that's that's exactly what it is so so i know we need to wrap up here in a second but

[aaron_straker]: 50:13

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 50:14

my question for you is with this idea finding balance how often do you generally have clients spend practicing maintenance which would be you know the proto typical balance

[aaron_straker]: 50:27

yeah

[bryan_boorstein]: 50:28

and then do you find

[aaron_straker]: 50:28

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 50:29

that that number of practicing maintenance increases or decreases with the clients call it training age but you could just call it like optimal life style age or something along those lines

[aaron_straker]: 50:43

yeah so everyone starts at maintenance essentially and the reason is twofold we need to actually identify what that maintenance

[bryan_boorstein]: 50:52

ah

[aaron_straker]: 50:53

really is from a caloric standpoint

[bryan_boorstein]: 50:55

oh

[aaron_straker]: 50:55

we know it's a it's a moving target and it's going to be different for every person but the real reason is it skill acquisition it is a period of skill acquisition the hard and fast truth that is that ninety five percent of clients that want to sign up and diet do not have the skills understanding s yet to successfully execute a diet without blowing it and i mean what

[bryan_boorstein]: 51:19

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 51:19

i shouldn't say blowing it like crashing and burning trying

[bryan_boorstein]: 51:22

yeah because

[aaron_straker]: 51:23

and that

[bryan_boorstein]: 51:23

they're there they're on the extremes because they're on one extreme or the other extreme

[aaron_straker]: 51:26

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 51:27

and they can't find that balance so so that totally makes sense but with that idea the goal ultimately is to become better at balance in your life kind of like this is the higher overarching goal like hey i found balance you know i'm never going to be too ten again and obviously not going to be one sixty or something like that but but i've found my balance you know yeah but yet given the way that we know that with training age or with optima lifestyle age you have to become more dialed in over time it seems like despite the fact that balances the goal you're still going to have to veer off of balance slightly so that pendulum has to go like five percent one way if per cent back the other way like it's never stable directly in the middle the higher your training age or optimal lifestyle ages you have to continue to kind of push the boundaries a little bit on either side

[aaron_straker]: 52:24

yeah and i think what i'm finding most with my clients now is people want ter okay i'm i'm happy i got pretty lean i'm pretty happy with that i want to go through gaining period now and now it's like the like the end of the diet or which would be like the end of the reverse diet the recovery diet and the start of the the gaining period kind of like we start blending that and it just becomes like this very slow moving wave over the year where they're like okay i'm up however much weight over like the winner summer's coming i'm happy with the gains i've made in want o lean out again so it's not so much like where act maintenance for like four months because people like to have goals you know and

[bryan_boorstein]: 53:04

hm

[aaron_straker]: 53:05

and the goal of staying the same is like really kind of subjective

[bryan_boorstein]: 53:08

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 53:09

and since since maintenance a moving target like just

[bryan_boorstein]: 53:13

oh

[aaron_straker]: 53:13

slowly adding calories is generally a good idea because

[bryan_boorstein]: 53:17

okay

[aaron_straker]: 53:17

you can find what that upper threshold is before your weight average actually really starts moving

[bryan_boorstein]: 53:22

hm

[aaron_straker]: 53:23

so it's what i find that like most of my clients are asking about not so much like

[bryan_boorstein]: 53:28

yeah

[aaron_straker]: 53:28

okay i want to go back to me and it's like no i'm going to put on some muscle now sort of thing

[bryan_boorstein]: 53:32

yeah so maybe a way of putting it into perspective for the listener would be that like if maintenance is directly in the middle of that pendulum where the needle isn't moving at all maybe the real balance that we're trying to search for is balance within the extremes so if you have the extreme that goes in the deficit extreme where there's like the one way of doing it with tetrus and extreme ating and extreme food elimination et cetera and then on the other side it's like you're almost mating and so you know you're barely losing weight at all there's there's a balance in the middle where you just you become better at dieting like the process of dieting and it doesn't feel so extreme the pendulum doesn't oscillate during your diet where you're like oh i had a cheat day oh i'm really in the depths it now i have to compensate for the cheat day you know pendulum doesn't move so far on that side it just kind of oscillates a little bit but it's still off middle and then same alternatively on the other side it's like instead of going and eating seven thousand calories one day on being sick and throwing all of it up that would

[aaron_straker]: 54:35

oh

[bryan_boorstein]: 54:35

be like a super extreme example but that would be like your pendulum on the on

[aaron_straker]: 54:40

a

[bryan_boorstein]: 54:40

the gaining side maybe it just stays a little bit shifted to the side of maintenance but on the side of like just eating a little bit more calories than that so so that balance exists within the extremes

[aaron_straker]: 54:52

exactly and then my kind of closing thoughts and statement will be with the perodizations you can take advantage of that side of the pendulum so like obviously a gaining period is going to lend itself much more towards the hedonistic side of the pendulum

[bryan_boorstein]: 55:07

hm

[aaron_straker]: 55:08

because we need to eat more anyway in a lot of these hyper palatable foods or your restaurant meals your date nights your friends meals there just it's inherently higher in calories that's the way it works works great for when you are eating more and then periods when you are not just steering some social you know gatherings i should say to friendlier types of things for that current periodization or pulling back having periods without alcohol or drastically reduced what that may be in pursuit of the goal but understanding that there's both and that you can leverage those you know that perpetual swinging of the pendulum to your advantage when you just understand how to play the game a little bit better

[bryan_boorstein]: 55:54

yep super well said

[aaron_straker]: 55:57

cool anything else on this one brian

[bryan_boorstein]: 55:59

a man that's good i think next week we should definitely delve into some of that data driven podcast on muscle lengths with milo wolf because it's a good one on the heels of kind of our conversation with cass so we'll give everyone a chance to list the cas episode and then address that

[aaron_straker]: 56:14

yeah we will i saw a brief thing about it on instagram s i'm going to go back and find that and slot up that that episode to listen to for sure

[bryan_boorstein]: 56:23

very cool

[aaron_straker]: 56:24

always guys thank you for listening if this episode was valuable or helpful for you guys in any way please let brian and i know you can obviously tag us in anything on social media we always appreciate that as well as always thank you for listening we will talk to you next week