What's going on, guys? Welcome back to Eat Train Prosper. Today is episode 231, and we are talking about you just did a long diet to get lean before your vacation. Now, how do you keep it? So, this question, so this episode stems from a question of I'm getting really lean before a long holiday. Holidays used to this is an international person for our fellow Americans. And on this holiday, I'm going to be eating whatever. No alcohol though. What advice would you give on how long to keep the diet going before the holiday?

diet up until the day before holiday, or go to maintenance for about two weeks before holiday begins, all with the goal of not putting on fat when you go straight to a holiday after the diet. So there's a number of ways that we can uh approach this, and then the ultimate End goal of the episode and of the conversation is we just made a lot of progress on body composition, body fat specifically in this context. How do I keep as much of it as possible? Which is really could be extrapolated to nearly any diet that we speak about outside of contest prep. So with that, Brian, what are some of your high-level thoughts? I have a feeling we're gonna probably disagree on a decent amount of this, which I think is is probably totally fine. Yeah. so my approach, which I've had like a lot of success with over the course of time because I do do a lot of um holidays or vacations. I travel a lot, I'm eating out a lot. and so what I usually do in these situations is I purposefully uh keep the deficit up until like the very last moment. Like I'll even because I'm at maintenance most of the time. In my situation, I'll have like three to seven days where I purposefully go into a deficit that basically leads all the way up until we go. And then while I am there, I'm kinda much like this person, kind of eating whatever I want. I do have alcohol, but I don't have an excessive amount of alcohol, so I wouldn't say that that's like a huge factor. And I would say I exceed my maintenance calories quite significantly, like at least 1500 a day, if not some days up to two or three thousand above maintenance. And uh I just always make sure that every single day that I'm on vacation, I do some sort of movement. Uh whether it's a long aerobic workout or weight workout, I'll continue kind of alternating between the two and I'll continue fasting until twelve or one most days so that I can can fit all of these calories that I want to eat into a smaller window, which then makes me feel full and makes me kind of not be able to actually eat as much as I could potentially eat if I did it over four meals a day or something like that. ah and then I just kind of repeat that process. And honestly, I usually leave vacation not even much heavier. And and I know I'm saying I'm eating over potentially 2,000 calories over my maintenance, but due to like the deficit coming in and some of that, what do we call that when the the weight actually doesn't drop off until like later on, like the my actual weight when I leave for vacation is potentially not where my lowest point is. It just hasn't manifested yet. Um like someone will c will like call that like the WHUSH effect or yeah. hit my whoosh, so to speak, because I'd only been dieting for like three to seven days. And then that whoosh sort of hits me over vacation, even though I'm eating excessively, and then I'm still exercising, I'm fasting, I'm doing all these things. And then I come back home and I'm usually no worse off for the wear. And I just kind of jump right back into my routine and and go from there. So that's been the the way that has worked for me, but I'm very curious to hear uh your recommended protocol and then you know what you think of that approach. Yeah, I'll start with what I think of your approach. So one of the things that I was going to say when I got into my spiel about it, and I'll I'll be very straightforward here. Like this is not fair, it but it is a reality. And what that reality is is the bigger that the bigger you are as a human, the more muscle you have The leaner you are, the more that you can get away with. So for example, like Brian and my and then the longer that you've lived like a really health forward lifestyle, and the longer you've lived like really lean, you can get away with a lot. Like a like I could go do damage for probably four or five days and come out virtually unscathed. And I'm not I'm not suggesting this. I am being completely Transparent. But the bigger you are, the more muscle you have, the more active that your baseline level of life is. Like Brian is an incredibly active person. And he said, like, hey, I'm gonna go on vacation. I'm going to eat, you know, quote unquote poorly relative to his baseline. But every other day, or there's going to be a training on one day, the other day is going to be like a cardio-specific day. I'm sure steps are going to be high. And he has a system which is effectively, let's call it intermittent fasting, so that he can't. Dig the hole as dig as bit as deep as he normally would if he would go ham, you know, breakfast, lunch, dinner. If we're just doing lunch, dinner, you're just gonna get full. The you know, even if we're skipping breakfast. So even with it, it's it's a system still. So it's not just a free-for-all, it's a system, and like he said, part of that system that I forgot to mention is I'm gonna diet for you know anywhere from like four to seven days beforehand. So I'm going into at some level of a deficit to s to start. And The only thing that matters for for any system is how it serves the person that's implementing it. And for you, Brian, like that's that system works for you. You've used it over a number of years, over a number of different trips. And then it gives you a best, you know, best of both worlds. We get to deviate a little bit, you know, eat foods that are our are guilty pleasure foods, well, whatever you want to call them, our vacation foods, but you come out for lack of a better term, like unscathed and happy with how things go on the other side. And and I think that's the absolute best. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean I c I even told you on offline before the episode that it's it's like for me I've figured out how to game the system. Like that's it's a system and I've figured out how to game it for myself. Exactly. And I think that's what's what's most important. now how would I kind of answer this from a high level? If I'm gonna break down the the question and there's a couple key parts of the question that I think are are really important. Before the a holiday where you'll be eating whatever. So I'm assuming that's I mean, I'm not gonna assume we're eating just like pizza three times a day and candy like a s 15-year-old sort of thing, but we're gonna have, you know, quote unquote non-healthy foods. And the goal at the end is all with the goal of not putting on fat when you you know on the back end. The ultimate reality is there will be some level of fat, But whether it's like an appreciable or noticeable amount, right? Because let's use the best context that we have here is as actually contest prep. Oftentimes we'll see and think like 10 days after a show, like, wow, what happened? I look better now after I've had this burgers and you know, bullshit, whatever. And it depends on how we're defining better. Like your sh your your feathering between the muscle is gone because that fat has been covered again. But we have more blood volume due to like higher sodium, like there's more of a pump. So you're you're still very lean, you're bigger, more full, but we're m l losing those, you know, minute details that would get exposed on stage. So you're you're not leaner, but the look, depending on what the goal of the look is, we could argue it is improved. And I would generally Agree with that. So you're going to put on some level of body fat, but whether it's a negative amount, a negatively perceived amount is the real answer or the real question to answer. So what I would suggest in a situation like this, I would not go to maintenance for two weeks before if you plan on eating whatever you want. So that I want to send you in basically as depleted as you can be. So hopefully that first two days of holiday, vacation, whatever you want to call it, we're just super compensating like glycogen repl replenishment again. Because the the more depleted you are, the more that you can get away with in that really depleted state before you're kind of back to maintenance-esque. For example, heading into my last show, one I got sick, uh like a like a Balibelly, and I was so depleted, it took four consecutive days at 600 grams of carbs before I could even get a pump again in the gym. It's wild. So like and if like yeah, then like these things are when you diet hard enough, like these are very real plausible and when you're lean enough, these are very real plausibilities because your body's getting so efficient with its energy usage, which is uh an energy conservation tactic, that can that can be a real thing. So if someone's food by design or by um what's the word I want to use here? Like uh Mmm, man, why can I not think of this word? By like your your interests, right? I I'm gonna I wanna have all these foods that I haven't been able to eat on my diet. I fully intend on on enjoying those. I want to send you in as depleted as possible because like I said, the leaner we are, the more depleted we are, the more you can absorb that food because your body needs resources to get back to baseline. The potential downside here is if we diet you even harder and send you in very depleted, we do get what I would argue is a nonlinear increase in food focus and food desire. So you may overeat more than you would be, would have if we didn't diet you so hard right up until. The unknown is that we do not know where that threshold benefit kind of lies. Because if you're so depleted, you can eat practically fucking anything for like a 24 to 48 hour period. And it straight up does not matter. Your body supercompensates in the expenditure. And it really doesn't matter. But that's being very dieted and very depleted. So it's it's hard to say. You don't you honestly do not know. so there's that. Now, if I were to kind of ch change the approach a little bit, let's say we're going on a vacation, and it's let's say you just you just got to this level of of leanness for the first time, and it's very exciting for you, and you're afraid to lose it. I am going to give you a more moderate approach, bring food up before the diet in hopes of reducing your food desire of seeking all of these foods you haven't been able to have. Because let's face it, the harder you're dieted, the more food focused we are. Like that's very, very obvious. No one could could argue against that. So if we can pay for some of that on the front end, controlled, There's a uh likelihood, uh percentage probability, sorry, that you wouldn't seek as much over the holiday as you otherwise would. I can't really say one is better than the other. What I think ultimately matters is how lean you truly are. Because some of these things that I mentioned, that supercompensation, we have to be well below 10% body fat. As a male. So we're talking six, seven, eight sort of thing, for that to really matter. Yeah, I I feel like my sense is that the the the desire of a male to go on vacation and then not be food focused, if you're going into this already with the decision of like, hey, I'm gonna throw caution to the wind or eat whatever I want type thing, I don't know if being at maintenance or being underfed going into it actually changes that at all. And I'm trying to think of like an analogy to illustrate this. So like maybe this is bear with me here. Let's see. I'm making this up on the fly. So If you're a dude and you've like have you're you're going to a NASCAR track to race like a NASCAR car for the first time or whatever and you've never done it before, does it really matter if you've driven really fast and gotten close to that before going to the NASCAR track? Does that mean you're not going to push the car as hard on the NASCAR track as you would otherwise? I I I don't really know. And I kind of think of eating on vacation to be like a similar dynamic. Um, so that would that would just be one thing I thought I have on that. I think that's a good analogy. Yeah, because it's like l let's say, let's say you've only ever because the NASCAR car, let's say in a perfect world you can actually drive it and you know safety things are restricted. Like the NASCAR cars go about like a 200 miles per hour, if if I'm not mistaken. Maybe you've driven 130 miles per hour before, which is you know quite fast. Or maybe you've driven 180, which is significantly closer to 200. Regardless, you still want to try and go two hundred, just because it's there, sort of thing. Yeah. clarified that a little bit. But yeah, that's the idea. And then I also think um When you talk about the idea of keeping the look throughout vacation, when I when I made the statement in the beginning that I can get through that whole week of vacation eating whatever and then end up no worse for the wear or whatever afterwards, that no worse for the wear is what happens like four days after vacation, once I've gone back to like normal lifestyle and everything kind of settles. But during that period of time where I am on vacation and I'm Eating this excessive amount of food, there is a level of bloat that is occurring that 100% diminishes some of the vascularity and physical appeal that I had going into that vacation. And so this idea of throwing caution to the wind and not having it affect your physique during vacation, I don't think is a realistic proposition. It's realistic to not be worse off a week later, once you've normalized, but during that period of time when you overeat. It is going to have a negative impact on your physique in some A hundred percent. I'm really glad you brought that up. Yeah. There and that would be another argument for dieting right up until like the day before the trip. Because let's let's choose a number of days to make things a little bit more straightforward. Five five day vacation, five day holiday. If we diet right up until the day before you will probably look your best on day two or day three of vacation because of that food coming up and and being able to really get away with things for the first like 48 hours. And then days four and five, you're gonna be bloated and you know watery and things like that. If you go to maintenance beforehand and don't have that additional buffer day one will probably be your best looking day of vacation before you have your second half of the first days of vacation food. Honestly, if that's important to you, that can help steer your decision. But if maybe you're going somewhere cold and you don't plan on having your shirt off and and don't plan on training or anything at all, then I don't think it matters. But if the goal is to look good on the on the vacation, you're building yourself a buffer by dieting right up until the vacation. And it probably to to your very great analogy, won't change your food decisions that much anyway. Even if you have intentions on not going ham on on the vacation, many people fail that. challenge with themselves. They'll have really good intentions and the food starts flowing. Maybe it's maybe there's out maybe there is alcohol and your inhibitions you know fall by the wayside and what you planned kind of goes out the window. So by dieting right up against it, it's a little bit of a bet against yourself, which I would generally recommend taking. Yeah, I think that's the prudent move and it gives you a little bit more leeway and freedom to look and feel still maybe not feel look look your best during the during the vacation period for as many of the days as possible. Yeah, so I think we covered that part pretty well. Upon returning now What I always say with clients in these things or situations, let's not evaluate ourselves critically after a period of atypical activity. I want to critically evaluate after a period of typical activity. So we don't really make any large adjustments or anything on the day one returning from trip. I want a seven day seven days at baseline. And that's maybe maintenance minus a little bit. So let's say for really simple uh basic numbers, uh calorie maintenance calories are 2,000. maybe we're you know a smaller human. We were dieting at 1400, 1300, something beforehand. I might put you at 1900 that next week. And I just want the dust to settle. I want bowel movements to normalize again. I want hydration restored, fluid intake restored, and some of the bloating and sodium h highs to to excrete themselves. And I watch weigh-ins over and and we watch weigh-ins over that next week. The sheer number delta on the scale is also helpful. We know in those final days leading up to the the holiday that scale is going to be at its lowest because we've been dieting right up into it. But let's say we come up five, six pounds from from the low to the high. I'm like, that's pretty I'm I'm happy with that because I know we have at least two pounds that's going to be, you know, inflammation, bowel movements off, those sorts of things. So we're realistically looking at like about a three, maybe a three pound delta. Like I'm I'm three and a half. I'm pretty happy with that. Now too. Like it's not even Yeah. Exactly. Like I think that's pretty good. Now in f in full transparency, I've had clients come back like 14 pounds up after a holiday. And this is this is at at a like the example that I'm thinking of. This is a male who was about 180 pounds. 180, 80 pounds. That's huge. Well in and full transparency, you f you fuck that up badly, about as badly as you could have. Um in a situation like that, let's let's be generous. Six pounds of of of water weight and stuff. But after that, I mean you yeah. say I think when I go it's about a pound a day is more or less what like my body weight appears at at the end. But then like I said, four or five days later, like all of that has dissipated. Yeah, but if if you're coming up twelve, fourteen pounds delta, you have probably a solid six to eight pounds at least of body fat accumulated over that trip. That seems kind of wild. Like I I I don't even know how you can to me that almost appears as if somehow their body like inflamed and stored water and sodium and stuff at like a much more rapid rate than than somebody else. Like I I I struggle to believe that somebody could l realistically exceed their calories by over 3,500 calories for five days in a row or seven days in a row or whatever they just like like most people's appetite just doesn't allow that to happen. I I I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it multiple times. And then for example, so the the con the the use case that I'm thinking of, this was a client who was with me for a couple of years. Uh and in full transparency, when the the whole our coaching relationship ended after one of these trips, I think he was embarrassed or ashamed and just completely ghosted me. Let us let his pa let his payments fail and just stop responding to me. Um But this ha multiple multiple trips of at least eight pounds or or more. And then when we would come back, we would have to diet for five, six weeks to get back to our previous baseline. So I know it wasn't just s sodium and stuff because it wouldn't come off. Yeah. That was gonna be my question. That's really impressive. I'm actually like less bothered by that and more just impressed by it. And I would like to actually have a log and see what this human ate over the course of this week to facilitate such a weight gain. Yeah, no, I know, I know, but like more like fly on the wall scenario. Like you can just kind of like have a sense of what they're eating and be like, wow, that is that is Extremely impressive. Yeah, i it I was uh every time shocked. And then even knowing, hey, the last two times this happened, let's be a little bit more adult like in this approach and it just would not happen. So yeah, it it it was uh interesting and a and a sad end to a long coaching. And we had a lot of success coaching together too, like incredible success. Yeah. But um just didn't really the the principles didn't never landed as I hoped they would have. So on the back end. We have a week at baseline, we let the dust settle. We don't make any gigantic decisions or anything. And usually if you were a little bit overboard on trip, you have a desire to return to mean because you probably don't feel the greatest. And maybe you're a little bit unhappy with the bloating and stuff on the back end. So it's generally pretty encouraging. And then once we have that week, we have an honest assessment of where do we go now. Most often post a diet, I am a big fan of what I call a smell the roses phase, where we just enjoy being lean and reaping the the reward of the fruits of our labor. So if we pushed you To be leaner than you really cared to be before the start of the trip, knowing we would have a little bit of a jump up in body body weight and body fat, we're probably still comfortably in that smell the roses phase. And then usually it once we have a solid two, three weeks of of appropriate intake, the body's body weight and body fat will even settle down a little bit more as well. And then I'll start titrating food up. relative to finding comfort a and and learning how to live at this new level of body fat, which is a a part that's very often not talked about. Learning how to live at let's put some numbers in. Let's let's put in numbers but not overly, you know, bodybuilder-esque numbers. Learning to live at twelve percent when you've lived at sixteen to eighteen percent, it's a meaningful difference. live your life in certain s situations, you know, food, family, holidays, work events, work trips, those sorts of things. So that's a new skill in and of itself, but I truly believe very, very doable and attainable. It's just you have we need practice at it. Now conversely, if it's someone, let's say we did get very bodybuilder specific esque, and one of the things that just to be a little bit more transparent with everyone, one of the things that you hear in bodybuilding is like after you go through like a season or you you prep. How you feel about like your relationship with the word fat changes. And I didn't really think that that would happen to me, but boy, boy, it did. Now when I'm at 10% body fat, I'm like, dude, Aaron, we gotta get it together a little bit. Like you're looking a little bit fat. And I'll like look back to pictures like the first time I got to like 11% body fat whatever, I thought I was the leanest person in on planet Earth. But now I'm like, I'm at that same point. I'm like, that's not really how I want to look. So we can have negatively skewed perceptions of what is realistic or even healthy for certain people. So if you're someone who has a, let's say family is very important to you. You have a close-knit family. They're, they cook together regularly and it's part of you know, your your your family units, uh togetherness sort of thing, you're gonna you're going to have to be okay with living at a little bit higher level of a body fat outside of of a prep season or something like that, because that's what it truly looks like for you, unless you're going to do borderline unhealthy things to manage a leaner body weight or body fat, let's call it like eight percent, seven percent, um, for a longer period. That is perfectly fine based off of your life. If you're the example I'll use is myself, I don't have that with family. Uh and I'm a little bit different where if someone says, it's if you don't eat this, it'll hurt my feelings, I'll say, that's okay. That's a you problem. That's not a me problem. I'm not eating it because I don't want to. So it's easier for me to live live like that because the things don't have the same amount of meaning. There is no right answer, there is no wrong answer. It's just what what are other parts of your life, like family, relationships, things like that, that influence that, that either make it easier to live at a leaner lifestyle or later or or higher. One thing that I do think is a very real practical, uh Piece of uh kind of importance is your age. The younger that you are, the more of life's let's call them opportunities or situations that you still have to live. So it will be harder to say no to things because you haven't had those experiences yet and it feels like you're missing out. For me in my late 30s, Brian in his 40s, like we've we're fortunate, like we've lived a lot of life. I've lived a lot of life. So now if someone's like, we're we're doing this thing, it I'm like, yeah, I'm okay. I've done that a lot. I don't I'm not missing out. So it's easier for me to say no to things because I've already spent so many years doing them already. And I think that's something that's not talked about enough. The the social pressure and aspect of missing out and how that may impact you. It feels generally feels like you're trading off more the younger that you are because you haven't had as many opportunities to do those things yet and it's still new and exciting and you don't wanna miss out. Whereas once you're older, it's a little bit easier because you've already done so much of that. How do you feel about that? Cause you're still you guys are still like pretty active, I feel like for I I I don't know if that like fully applies to my scenario. I I've gone through waves of caring about things and missing out on things. Um like in the very early CrossFit days, you know, I went extremely paleo, basically cut out alcohol, except for an occasional like gym party that we would have, you know, a couple times a year. and I went so hard on, you know, being the best CrossFitter I could be and all that went into that. And I did miss out on a lot of mid-20s Pacific Beach San Diego shenanigans that other people were out doing. And then I definitely had a period, like I I had a period when I first got into hypertrophy training as well, call it after CrossFit 2016-17 range, where for about three or four years I was also extremely dialed in and I didn't want to do a lot of things. I wasn't going out like partying, having a bunch of drinks with friends. I was much more of a homebody. Some of that was during COVID too, so there's that aspect. but now I feel like I have kind of we've taught I've I've talked about nihilism a lot on here. And we didn't whole episode about nihilism. I think it was episode 100, which is for anyone that doesn't know, nihilism essentially is this idea that nothing matters and that your actions aren't really going to like change things all that much. And and I kind of feel like I've settled into a bit of nihilism again where I'm lifting, I'm doing my cardio, I'm eating more or less whatever I want. And to your point, that is keeping me at about 15% body fat instead of 12, where I would have to actually like be a little more focused and watch what I'm eating and make better decisions if I wanted to be at 12%. But I'm like able to to lift and do my cardio and kind of eat whatever I want and have alcohol once or twice a week and go do these concerts with Kim once a month where we're out till like 3 a.m. and I don't really sleep. And all of that has just kind of left me in. more or less the exact same place. And so it at some level, like I I get the mindset of of what you were talking about, but then I also get the mindset of, dude, it's it's life and it's it's only as long as it is. And I want to experience as much as I can. And even if I've experienced this thing before, like it was awesome and I want to experience it again. Um so I think there's there's a there's a point where you have to Determine whether your goals are important enough for you to sacrifice and how important those sacrifices that you're making actually are for you. And so yeah, it's just this equation and this dynamic where you have to decide where your priorities lie. And where I'm currently at, I think this balance that I have is is great. But I totally understand why somebody would be in a different place and make different decisions. I love that answer. And I think what the when you were explaining it, I my mind was going in a direction, and then you wrapped it up in that exact direction. It really comes down to my priorities, right? Do will these deviations negatively impact my priorities? And in your context, I I don't think so. I would say I for my you know training, physique, appearance, priorities, these things don't really change it at all. And these uh deviations, for lack of a better term. also positively contribute to my life. So I get this positive contribution to my uh existence, let's call it life enjoyment, and it doesn't negatively take away from these other things that I care about, why would I not add them in? Yeah. I mean it's like do I do I wanna change all of these things and and take away all of these joys that I have in life so that I could potentially be like one percent better or two percent better than I am right now. And I I don't think that that sacrifice is worth it for me at this point. I I love that. And and I'm I'm hopeful that I will get back to a point like that, potentially. Um, but while while we're here, what I think in I feel really iffy talking about this, but but I always want to be really transparent, so I will. That's been one of the things that I struggle with most coming back to the US. and it's not necessarily the US, it's it's my new environment. I didn't really realize this until you leave, but the people that I was around in Bali, like my circle there, everyone is are are killers. And what and we created say we, I don't think I contributed that much to it. This environment of everyone s swinging for the fences on every aspect of their life. And it's like that success breeds success, pressure breeds pressure. Everyone's killing it. And I mean there's no denying if you look at me like 2022 when I, you know, got to Bali versus when I left. I mean I'm fundamentally the same person, but like the things that I've achieved in success is literally exponential and the in the environment is is a hundred percent contributory to that. Now returning to you know closer to normie life, when I when I go to the gym, many times I'm the biggest guy there. Um training the hardest and stuff. I i it's harder. And I'm very much um I've always been a person. This is like a product of their environment. You put me in a really competitive good environment. I revert, you know, upward toward the mean. You put me in a very much less environment like that. I revert downward to to the mean. Uh and for the first time in my life, like I I don't want to revert downward. So I'm trying to protect like that that I had and what that is is like me not really making new friends, not training with people and just trying to protect what I what I was or what I had because I still have like all these goals and stuff that I wanna literally keep swinging for the fences on. Um so yeah. and Jenny have fostered any friendships yet in Utah that are outside of the fitness gym environment. And I guess to extrapolate on that, hat or expand, did you have friends in Bali that were outside of the fitness gym environment? Mm, to answer the second part, like Like everyone in Bali is in the fitness gym environment. I I I ever I th I'm sure there I'm sure there are not. You know, there's people who just go party and stuff all the time, but when you never go to those places, you only meet people from the gym and so so that one, no, but then here I mean we we're friends with our neighbor. Our neighbors Dave and Diane, they're like in their seventies or something. Yeah, I mean friend friends. Like I mean you guys don't go out and like do things together. but no, but I I don't I really don't do anything. And I I if if I'm really honest, if uh if I look over a week, a seven day period, the only times I'm leaving the house or to go to the gym or f for example or to Costco or I have to go to the dentist tomorrow, I won't go anywhere else. And I'm just I'm I'm just so focused on, you know, getting everything ready for baby and business is really good right now and capitalizing on that. And, you know, on Tuesday I fly to Italy to peak a a client for for uh Euromasters in Milan. Like I'm doing nothing but working and training and preparing to be a father, but it doesn't feel like I'm sacrificing anything because I don't want to go out. If if Jenny was like, we're gonna go out to dinner with like so and so, I'd be like, I I lied. Yeah, we we are going out with people in like two weeks for for dinner, but they're fitness, they're like coaching friends, you know? Um but I I I like that. I like that right now, yeah. it's gonna be really interesting and it won't happen right off the bat because your kid is gonna be too young. But at some point, maybe two, three years old, when he starts preschool and then kindergarten and then first grade and like all the way through, you're gonna end up meeting so many parents. And like I know you're not a fan of the like five minute conversation at drop off or whatever. But you're gonna have a lot of those and then you're gonna realize through those little like five minute conversations that there's a few people that you kind of connect with, even though they're not really like your people. And those relationships are gonna foster and blossom. And then they're gonna have interests that maybe interest you that are outside of fitness and you'll you'll start kind of expanding your your interests a little bit and it it'll be it'll be uh an interesting kind of sociological experiment to watch. Yeah, I I understand that. And I and one of the thing I I'm I'm always I'm very open. about how you know as your life changes and experience change, like you change as a human, you know. Um, and I'm very much forward, as much as I'm more or less enjoying the phase of my life that I'm in, like Aaron's bodybuilding arc, I'm excited for when it's over as well and what I do. I'm excited to get down to, you know, 220, 215, and not be as big as I am now because it's there's many parts of it that aren't enjoyable. So I'm definitely welcoming, you know, those those phases And how we just all continue to evolve as a human. As humans. Cool. else to add to the back end of this one? No, I I don't think so. I I think just understand that whatever choices that you make, there's some level of consequence to some degree, and just decide whether you're willing to pay for it on the back end or on the front end. Right? That that's the best way. We either have a little bit of control over vacation and then therefore not potentially as much of a solution situation to manage on the back end or if you're like you know what I'm gonna have the time of my life and eat whatever the hell I want to you just have to realize that you may have a situation to manage on the back end there is no right there is no wrong it's whether you want to do all the work on the back end or some of it on the front end and still the most on the back end. Yeah, and feel free to steal my tricks like eating only half the day and making sure that you prioritize movement while you're on vacation. And those two things have been huge factors in me being able to kind of manage this for myself. Yeah, the walking is a is a huge one. Just walking around to see and do things, if you can put together fifteen to twenty thousand steps per day on on a on a holiday, like you would be amazed at how much of an impact that truly does have. Cool. All right. Of course, I will be gone uh next week, so and potentially two weeks for for us to return. All right, see you guys. Later.