Unmasking Greatness
Join Fitness/LifeStyle Expert & Mentor Chris Kakouras talk about maximizing your health, business, mindset, and overall life! Let's get better together as I bring on amazing guest to interview and learn from!
Unmasking Greatness
Diet Struggles to Lasting Success in Weight Loss "Food Freedom Mater Class"
Imagine redefining your relationship with food and unlocking the secrets to a metabolism that works for you, not against you. Join me, Chris Kakouras, founder of Kak Performance, as I guide you through the transformative principles of the Food Freedom Masterclass. This episode is packed with strategies to abandon fad diets and create sustainable nutrition plans that incorporate enjoyable food choices, all while keeping guilt at bay. I'll share my journey in the fitness world and the lessons I've learned along the way, providing you with the tools to take control of your health and wellness.
Ever wondered why some people can shed pounds and keep them off while others struggle? Learn from the remarkable story of Dan Huggler, who lost over 100 pounds in 13 months through steady progress and diet breaks. This episode uncovers the importance of mindset and identity shifts for long-term success. We'll talk about setting realistic weight-loss expectations, the benefits of regular gym visits, and the perils of a constant caloric deficit. Reflecting on my own experiences, I emphasize the necessity of a balanced and sustainable approach to fitness, moving beyond the superficial allure of being shredded for social media.
Transform your health and confidence with actionable insights into portion control, macro-tracking, and the essentials of building a personalized nutrition plan. Understand the significance of increasing muscle mass to boost your basal metabolic rate, allowing for dietary flexibility. Discover how small, consistent habits can lead to monumental changes, and learn the importance of a supportive environment in achieving your goals. This episode is your go-to guide for creating a lifestyle that not only improves your physique but also enriches every aspect of your life.
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Welcome to Unmasking Greatness. I'm your host, chris Kikoris, a lifestyle fitness coach and mentor. This podcast is about unmasking your greatest potential, finding your purpose and crafting a life worth living. Health and fitness has been the gateway drug to all of my success. My continuous drive to keep learning and surround myself with other high achievers forces me to level up, which has developed my mind to something I never thought was possible. This podcast is here to share what I've learned and continue to learn with all of you. This is your sign to take back control of your health, mindset and personal environment. Strap in as we are recharged and always find value in the show. Please subscribe and share, as we can all get better together. Let's go. What's up, guys? Welcome to Unmasking Greatness. I'm your host, chris Koukouras, and today I have something very, very special for you. I have done something called our Food Freedom Masterclass. This was a webinar that I pre-recorded with a ton of value in it, and since I've already had it, I was like you know what? If you missed the webinar, today's your lucky day.
Speaker 1:I am going to share this recording with you and some of the things that we touch on inside. This Food Freedom Masterclass is helping you have a good relationship with food. You should not be feeling guilty or have wrongful expectations when eating healthy foods and going for your health goals. So we break that down in depth. We also are going to be talking about your metabolism. Yeah, what is your metabolism? That's a broad term. We're going to talk about it. We're going to also make sure that your metabolism is your friend. It is working with you and not against you.
Speaker 1:A lot of you think that your bodies are not on the same team. This is why that you're overweight or you're struggling with body fat percentage or not building muscle or any of your health and fitness goals. How can we fire this thing back up and get you some optimal returns on your investment? So I will talk you through that whole process and, most importantly, I think this is the number one thing that people want to figure out is how can I stop doing these fad diets and start doing a nutrition plan that's going to get me the results that I want and I can do long term? And that's exactly what I go through, step by step, showing you guys exactly how much you should be eating. How can you, how do you calculate it, where are you getting the foods from, and how do you craft it in a way that you actually get to eat the foods you enjoy? Nobody wants to eat just plain stuff all the time. We want to have some freedom. We want to be able to go out and eat. How do we do all that? I'm going to tell you. Okay, so this thing is slam-packed full of value. If you are a visual person and you would like to see the webinar, I want you to go to Instagram at coach underscore KAK that is my IG and I want you to send me a DM telling me that you listened, or want to listen to the webinar and have the visual, and I will send you a link where you can actually watch it. And if you do that, I will have a bonus gift to give you that will help you drop your next five to 10 pounds in 30 days. You, that will help you drop your next five to 10 pounds in 30 days. If you do what this thing says and you know saying that you have those 10 pounds to lose then I have something for you that will be very beneficial. All right, so, without further ado, enjoy the episode the CAC Performance Food Freedom Masterclass.
Speaker 1:So, for those of you that don't know who I am. This is me. My name is Chris Kikoris. I am a husband. I am a father to a little boy who is six now. I am the founder and owner of CAC Performance, which officially was launched in 2020.
Speaker 1:Fitness, nutrition, lifestyle coaching, and we have four amazing coaches to our team. If you guys haven't met them, we have coach T Zeno, suze and Andrina, so definitely keep up with us. I'm also an IFBB pro men's physique athlete, so that is a. I'm a pro bodybuilder and the most prestigious organizations period. Okay. And I also have a bachelor's in exercise science and a minor in psychology, which is also a good blend, because I think mindset is very, very important when you're diving into these types of things. So I've been doing coaching, training, personal training for over 15 plus years now, so I have a lot of experience working with top level coaches, mentorships, obviously the educational piece, and this is where I start to like put everything together. So that's a little bit about me.
Speaker 1:Now, why am I doing this webinar? Well, as you guys know, I have been doing this for quite some time and I've struggled. I even myself. You see me now. I didn't used to be like this, uh, 10 years of struggling to figure out the balance of being healthy and living a normal life, or, quote unquote, normal who wants to be normal? Right?
Speaker 1:So, getting into the health industry, there's so much information and most textbook info is science based, but there's no application information. This is where we struggle. So I'm going to fill in the gaps and tell what misinformation and what's actually factual. I'll bring the science down to a digestible understanding and application process that doesn't seem like a nightmare. An application process that doesn't seem like a nightmare. All right, so how many of you guys in here real quick, if you just want to leave a hand, raise me whatever have tried different programs, different, uh, you know, different extreme diets keto, atkins, beach body uh, 75 day hard and you guys have done that in here. I'd love to see if you guys have. Just drop it in the chat. You can just say me. Anybody read any sort of textbooks, things like that, but still kind of confused on how to actually apply it to your life. Yeah, awesome. So that's what we want to get into today, because everything works, everything works to some capacity, but the problem becomes one does it work for your lifestyle? Okay, there's a lot of templates, a lot of things on Google that you know, there's diets, there's workout splits and all that.
Speaker 1:And you look at that person. Well, that person, maybe they do this for a living. They don't have a nine to five, they don't have kids, they don't have a whole lot of obligations where they can just wake up, eat, sleep and train all day long. Well, that's great for them. But what about some of us that have normal, normal extracurriculars going on. Right, we got business meetings, we got family events, we got kids to take to school. We can't follow their six meals a day, diet routine and doing two days at the gym. Yeah, it's just unrealistic and I don't want you guys to think that there's a one size fits all and that's the only way that you're going to get like that individual. So let's go on.
Speaker 1:So some of the things that we're going to cover is, first, your relationship with food. This is really key because there is no, you know, good or bad food per se. I mean, there is to an extent. We'll talk about that. But also, you guys should not be feeling guilty when you eat. Okay, you guys should not be feeling some type of way getting into your emotions of when you're eating things that you should not be. I want to talk about that. Okay, we're going to reprogram the mind, too. We're going to talk about rebooting your metabolism to optimal levels. Okay, metabolism is very broad term thrown around. What is metabolism? We're going to break that down and I'm going to show you where you are in this cycle and what you possibly may need to do to ramp that thing back up.
Speaker 1:Okay, the third one. I think this is probably the most anticipated. I'm going to show you a very simple, step-by-step process how you can build your own nutrition plan based off of your goals. Okay, you want to do three meals a day? Great. You want to do six meals a day even better? Right. You want to eat certain types of food? Great. I'm going to show you all of that, and it's going to be super simplistic, and you'll never have to do a fad diet again, because now you're going to know how to create it for yourself. Isn't that? That's nice, right? You just get to eat what you want. So I'm going to break that down for you, okay. And then, lastly, we're going to touch on why the industry wants to see you get success as fast as possible. Okay, sounds great, doesn't it? Now, lastly, stick to the end. I got something really cool for you guys, but you got to stick to the end, all right.
Speaker 1:Next, let's get into your relationship with food. You must get your expectations in check and in line with the actual fat loss and what progress looks like. Amazing fat loss. Progress is right around a half a pound to a pound a week lost, consistently when averaged out over months and years. Now, I say that because, initially, if you guys have started any sort of plan, a nutrition plan I don't know. I see James said he did E2M you probably had a great, pretty pretty good drop right off the rip, right. Well, if you haven't been doing anything, there's some inflammation going on, there's some water retention, so a lot of that could be more so water weight and again bloat. So with that it will end up kind of slowing down and sometimes stalling, depending Okay.
Speaker 1:So keep in mind, if you've lost five, 10 pounds in the first week, you cannot continuously lose five to 10 pounds every single week. And that's something that you have to understand, because if you get caught up in that first week and why am I not losing that fast? It can be really, really frustrating, ok. So understand that's not all body fat that you had dropped initially. So, additionally, you should not be in a consistent deficit. Until you lose your desired amount, you have to take diet breaks and have maintenance periods. You're not going to be motivated all the time. The scale is going to fluctuate, you are going to feel like you should be further ahead and you're also going to get frustrated sometimes.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is if, if again, you're trying to shift your lifestyle and there needs to be a process. You don't want to do a complete flip. You don't want to go zero to a hundred really fast, because a lot of these symptoms of frustration and fluctuations can happen and you don't know what's going on. It's kind of chaotic. And so I give a really good example here. This is Dan, dan Huggler. Dan was the very first client I ever had to drop over a hundred pounds. He stayed with me and we have consistently lost over a hundred pounds, dan, over here. It took us right at 13 months Okay, 13 months of just consistently steadily dropping, like I'm talking about now. There was weeks his weight didn't change. Okay, there was a point where we had to do a diet break, and now I don't want to get too in depth about this conversation about having to take a diet break.
Speaker 1:But if you stay in a caloric deficit for too long, being in a caloric deficit, it stresses the body out. The body is not meant to be basically getting starved, right, it wants to have the nutrients, it wants to have the food. And when you keep in a deficit like that, now your hormones start to take a role in what you're actually getting. As a result, one of the things that starts to go up is cortisol levels, that is, your stress level. Cortisol is not necessarily a bad hormone, but it is bad if it stays elevated all the time. This is a great place where now body fat is going to start following.
Speaker 1:So taking these diet breaks. What that means is basically increasing your calories a little bit. It breaks. What that means is basically increasing your calories a little bit. Okay, let the body chill, let it relax and get your body's back to some sort of homeostasis during this time. If you do it correctly, you shouldn't be gaining weight maybe a pound or two, three, but it should be holding. So when we increase those calories, we can start pulling it back down because your body's ready to get back in that fat loss stage. And this is what we had to do for Dan, cause if you have a hundred pounds to lose, you have to understand this is a process and, honestly, 12 to 13 months is a great return from going from decades of being overweight right 10 plus years of eating, inactivity, unhealthy lifestyle, and you came to me in one year and we crushed that in a year's timeframe. I think most of us would take that any day of the week, okay. So don't don't get caught up in the timeframe either, cause I know if I told somebody, hey, it's going to take you one, two, three years to reach your goals, taking consideration how long have you been unhealthy, out of shape, overweight, and then put those ratios together, it makes things a lot easier to understand. Okay, next, lifestyle, nutrition, integration Okay.
Speaker 1:So, going back to the expectations, we need to understand we need to change our identity, to change to the person we want to become. We have to change the way that we think. We have to change the way that we act to get the results that we want that are different than we were before, and this is why it starts a lot into your mindset. I used to think, personally, I needed to be a certain body weight. I needed to be shredded and eating a certain amount, with only basic plain foods, to achieve my goal.
Speaker 1:Now a little backstory about myself. I have never been significantly overweight. I have been what you would consider skinny fat. So no muscle mass, body fat was higher than it probably should have been, and no muscle. I mean that was my body type. So once I got into exercise, I mean, that was that was my body type.
Speaker 1:Uh, so once I got into exercise, I I really my focus getting in the gym was just getting stronger. At that point, okay, I needed to get in there and I was just focused on lifting weights. I wasn't focused on nutrition. I was building that consistency in the gym and enjoying the process. Cause when I started to get a little bit stronger, okay, pr is now I'm getting better. As I got stronger, I was putting on more muscle.
Speaker 1:Of course, my body started changing. I'm getting a little more confident, and not only that, by going into the gym over and over again, and this is why I'm a advocate for you guys to actually get into the gym versus just doing things at home. It changes your environment, it changes the people that you are hanging around and it changes the conversations that you're going to start having on a daily basis, because you now are surrounding yourself with others that are on similar missions as you. So if you haven't stepped in a gym yet, this is me telling you this is your time. Get in there. If you don't feel comfortable, find a friend, talk to somebody, talk to myself. I know a lot of people will get you into a place where you can start to feel comfortable.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I quickly realized you know me being this certain weight shredded. Uh, it w. It wasn't true. I didn't need to do that. I was doing my body and metabolism harm by staying in a deficit and keeping my body fat too low only to post pictures on social media. By the time I realized what I was doing, I already caused some damage to my hormones and my metabolic rate. So for me, I was trying to hold this place. Listening to and trust me, some coaches are not good. I'm not going to.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to name who I started with first, but I'll tell you I was eating tilapia and asparagus multiple times a day with lemon water. That was my first diet I ever got. It was quite miserable. I felt really lightheaded all the time, did I? Yeah, the problem with that becomes when I'm getting leaner and my weight's coming down. Where did that weight come from? It could be water, it could be body fat, but if you're in too much of a deficit muscle, you're going to start tapping into muscle. Now you're going to be working backwards and we're going to talk about that here in a little bit. So, having a little bit of extra body fat you know me weighing a little bit more. Now I'm eating in a surplus to be able to build muscle. It changed everything for me and I can still look good.
Speaker 1:So we want to take a very healthy approach, and starving yourself is not always the answer, even if you're trying to lose weight, okay. So I want to show you this, because if you're trying to get started, these are kind of the phases that we take our clients through. Okay, our first one here is what we call the clarity phase. You got to know where you're going to start putting action steps in place to get you closer to that goal. Okay, so what is the goal? If you don't have a goal, that's a problem. We need to figure out exactly where you want to get to and why is it important to you.
Speaker 1:How is your life going to change if we get you from point A to point B, and everybody's is different? Maybe you want to get in great shape because you're going to get married, you're about to get wedding pictures that you're going to have forever, so you don't want to feel uncomfortable in your suit or your dress that you're going to wear. Maybe it's even more along everyday activity. You don't want to feel exhausted every time you leave your house, you walk up the stairs, you tie your shoes. Maybe you have kids. Your kids want to play on the floor and you don't want to get on the floor because it's uncomfortable. It's hard for you to get up and now you have to tell your kids when they're at the playground that mommy and daddy's too tired. You guys go ahead and play. You're losing memories. You got to know your why. It's got to be strong, because there's going to be a point where progress may slow down. You get a little bit frustrated and you have to remind yourself why am I doing this? What's the bigger picture? And something to help push you past that.
Speaker 1:Okay, you need to build healthy habits. These will compound over time. I suggest you starting with one and then adding an additional one, moving forward. It could be just getting steps, then keeping water bottle with you at all times. Then start getting into nutrition, you know, slowly, whatever that process looks like, but start small, because if you start small, you start to build your confidence in your ability to actually complete something. You need to understand the basics of nutrition. We're going to talk about that here in a little bit too. Again, this is going to help you have a better relationship with your food when you understand what you're putting in your body. We want to increase your productivity and your energy output, decrease stress to optimize your hormones Okay, and this is going to accelerate the metabolism for fat loss.
Speaker 1:Like I was telling you guys previous, in the past slide, what I was doing was keeping myself in this deficit, trying to stay lean, stressing my body out, and I go get my blood work done every six months. I realized that I kind of wreaked havoc on my hormonal system and you know I didn't even realize it. I just thought it was normal to feel the way that I was feeling. It was not. So getting your blood panel ran is super important because, again, did I have a six pack? Yeah, but on the inside. I wasn't healthy. So make sure that you guys are going and getting your panels run.
Speaker 1:Once you kind of get this clarity phase set, it takes you to the confidence phase. We've got that basic education, because education drives compliance. Nobody wants to be told hey, trust the process, just come with me down this dark hole, trust me. That's kind of sketchy. You're kind of I don't know, but if I told you exactly what's on the other end, could you see what's on the other end? You're going to be more entitled to want to move faster through that process. So you're going to have your confidence built through education. Okay, and you guys are going to be even more confident once you leave this webinar, controlling your mindset and emotions.
Speaker 1:This is a really strong point, because do you know the difference if you're hungry or bored? Have you ever thought about that? Am I hungry or am I bored? Have you ever been home watching a movie, netflix and you just want something crunchy? How many of you guys have done that? Have you guys ever been just sitting at home? Probably not even hungry. You just like I just want a snack. Has anyone done that before? Leave me a little like hand raise, I promise there's going to be some cause. I should put my hand raise in here. I've done it. You just want something, something sweet, something savory. So you gotta, you gotta ask yourself the question am I hungry or am I bored? Because that can get you in trouble, depending on the sweets that you're eating. Maybe it's ice cream cookies. Whatever it may be, this is adding to your caloric intake. It could be obviously increasing sugar content Again. Everybody has a different palate, so they'll be grabbing for something else.
Speaker 1:Yeah, here we go. Listen, we're human, okay, but here's what you can do. Sit with that for a moment. The next time you feel like you want to go get something, drink a glass of water and wait. Wait 10-15 minutes. If you're still feeling hungry, eat something, it's okay. Try to make a healthy choice. If you were just going because you just want a snack, you're fine. Just drink your water, you're good, okay.
Speaker 1:You have to give yourself your brain time to process and you actually be conscious of what you're thinking about, and now you can start to make better decisions moving forward. So obviously you're going to have more confidence within your self image, because if you weren't confident in the way that you look naked, well, hopefully now. You're shedding body fat, you're getting healthier, you're getting stronger, the body shaping different. You're going to be proud of that. You're going to be proud of that. I think having a good physique comes with a dose of respect, because I know what it takes to do that and you guys doing this. It takes some work, it takes effort, takes some sweat, and when you see somebody else doing that, you're like, yeah, I know, I get it. Okay, so definitely you want to have that confidence.
Speaker 1:Dropping the body fat, eating more food oh, how do you do that, chris? Increasing your metabolism and we're going to talk about that after this. So you don't want to feel like you're restricting every time you eat. This is the biggest component. I mean anybody in here ever feel guilty after they eat something, like you know, even though they were, like they told themselves it's okay, Like I'm going to go have a burger, I'm going to have a slice of pizza. You ever feel like, oh, I shouldn't have ate that you know? Like afterwards I used to feel like that Give me a hand, raise. How many of y'all felt that way? I felt that way a lot of times and again I was more of that extreme sense because me getting especially into, like bodybuilding, very restrictive. It went from restricting to binge, right, because I was restricted during the week and hopefully I got a cheat meal at the end of the week and I would indulge. So restrict, indulge, restrict, indulge. I did that over and over again.
Speaker 1:Now, can that work? Yes, it can work if you're a bodybuilder, but for someone that is not trying to bodybuild, that is not the approach you want to take at all. Okay, it is better for you to take a little bit when you want it versus restrict and then indulge. So, for example, whatever you want, whether it's a cookie, maybe it's a little bag of a snack that you like, I don't know right let's just use an Oreo, for example. Let's say you like Oreos, okay, I would rather you eat one or two Oreos a night, versus you wait to the end of the end of the week to eat a whole sleeve or a pack. Ok, and if you do it in this capacity right, you're being mindful Small dosages through, you'll notice it's not going to affect your physique that much.
Speaker 1:First off, you're probably not going to want to do it every day. You probably do it every couple of days, just whenever you want it, whenever you feel like it, but again, you're not going to just completely sabotage yourself at the end of the week and have extreme guilt afterwards being like I can't believe I let myself do that. And then just this whole, you know, rinse and repeat cycle. So it's better to have a little bit throughout the week instead of just like. So it's better to have a little bit throughout the week instead of just like just indulging in a whole pack. Ok, so this is the approach that you need to have. This is why I like to do like 80, 80, 20, 90, 10, you know, split healthy foods 80 percent of the time. And then, you know, a little bit of wiggle room OK, but you've got to be mindful of what you're doing. Crunchy, quest chips yes, there you go, quest chips. So again you um. And then once you kind of get through that, we go to that phase three and this ultimately, if you do things in the right pattern, you'll be able to keep the results that you've earned. You'll have more trust and confidence in yourself and making health and fitness more automatic. Right, we've ingrained these habits to where we don't even have to think about it anymore. New identity shift okay, again, we got to change the way that we think, to change the way that we act, to get the results that we want. All right. Next, let's talk about it.
Speaker 1:Metabolism okay, reboot your metabolism to eat more and burn body fat. What's metabolism? Your total daily expenditure, tdee, or the amount of calories, energy required to support you and all your bodily functions, depending on several factors, many of which can be manipulated. Let's review the four main components of TDEE and how your habits can influence them. So, how many anybody in here think that their metabolism is shot Like? No, they're not good anymore. Bottomed out, things aren't working. Anybody in here? Or is everybody's metabolism like through the roof? Right now, you can eat whatever you want and not gain any weight. Let's see anybody good metabolism. Maybe I'll just skip this part. No, all right, so let's get into it. The reboot okay, how it works.
Speaker 1:Lean body mass okay, this is muscle tissue is one of the main determinants of how much energy we expend every day, because it influences the biggest component of our BMR, which is basal metabolic rate, comprised of your bones, ligaments, internal organs and muscles. Increasing the amount of lean body mass on your frame can significantly increase your energy output or calories burned each day. Want to enjoy more food while maintaining or losing weight, you need to prioritize strength training in your workout routine, okay. This is why it's so important that you guys are doing some sort of traditional strength training throughout the week. I get it. If you guys wanna do bootcamps, if you want to do these high-intensity training intervals, they're great, they serve their purpose, but they will not build the muscle tissue that you want. You need to put the muscle under enough load and stimulus to say, hey, I need to get stronger and I'm not going to get into the science of that because that's not what you want to hear, but the point is, if you're not in the gym lifting weight in a hypertrophy range eight to 12 reps and it is tough you are not going to be able to do this.
Speaker 1:All right, you can see this graph over here, this pie chart. This is metabolism. This is what makes up your metabolism. So let's break it down. We have what we call the TEF thermic effect of food. This is five to 10% of your metabolism. If you want to increase this, you would eat more food and high calorie diets, because it takes more energy to digest certain foods. Right, and this is why, like, if you're eating. Um, you know high protein diets. Why it works really well? Cause the body takes a little bit longer to digest some of these protein sources, and why it's also better to eat more whole foods versus protein shakes. Protein shakes need to be meant for supplementing your nutrition plan, supplementing that little bit of protein that you're missing, but you should not be drinking shakes all day to get your protein intake, because it's just quickly absorbed and the body doesn't have to work for it, which means that this is not going to get increased. So if you're doing any sort of nutritional plan, that's all shakes, no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Eat Exercise activity thermogenesis. Okay, this is 10 to 15 percent. Okay, if you want to increase this, you will exercise for longer with higher intensity. Right, we're spending a lot of energy. This is your exercise. You want to decrease this? Don't exercise at all. Right. Shorter exercise durations, lower intensity. Stroll through the gym, not doing much. Keep a pace at the gym. Keep your heart rate up at the gym. Now, we're getting it up. Okay, that's exercise. Now look at this Neat. This is a neat. A good little portion too. This is non-exercise activity thermogenesis. This is about 30%. Now, this is what I would consider.
Speaker 1:Not exercise physical activity. This is you just being more active throughout your day. You're standing, you're walking, you're fidgeting. I'm standing when I'm doing this webinar. I get my steps in through the day, those sort of things. Park further back in the parking lot, take the stairs instead of the elevator. This all contributes to need.
Speaker 1:So you want to increase this? Be more physically active. Okay, it doesn't mean exercise active throughout the day. So if you have a sit down job anybody in here have a sit down job in front of a desk that you, you predominantly the majority of your day, you're just sitting in one place. I can tell you I do. You see it right here. But I can give you a little key tip Get a walking pad, get a standing desk. You can. I promise you you can get to walk in 30 minutes to an hour and not even realize it by doing that.
Speaker 1:So there's ways that you can do and manipulate your environment to still help you reach your goals, but sometimes it's just bringing awareness to it, you know, and asking somebody that's already been doing it James yeah, truck driver, truck driver. Every time you take a stop, man, I would be, I'd be making, making some rounds walking. We used to have a truck driver that we used to coach too. I would have her keep bands inside her truck so when she would stop she would do a little, a quick 10, 15 minute exercise, right, and we call that microdosing exercise throughout the day. Now, I'm not going to get into that, but there is something called that. You can look it up, all right.
Speaker 1:Lastly, the biggest part of this pie your BMR, your basal metabolic rate 60 to 70%. Okay, remember what I just said about muscle tissue? That's that part of the pie, right, we need to increase your muscle mass to get your new caloric baseline higher so you can eat more food. So, with more lean body mass and avoiding long periods of calorie restriction or under eating, we can increase this rate. Okay, with less body mass, less muscle tissue, long periods of calorie restriction and under eating, this goes down. So you can see why, if you're doing extreme workouts all the time in a calorie deficit and you started tapping into that muscle tissue, this could be very detrimental long-term, because the biggest part of the pie is starting to get smaller.
Speaker 1:We need to increase that, which means that there's got to be a strategic process to go through this, okay, and always focusing on trying to build or retain the muscle that we have. That is. That is number one, and keep in mind if you want to look a certain way, you need muscle. That's how it's going to. That's how you're going to shape and fit in your clothes, fit in your dresses, fit in your your shirts, get tighter sleeves, whatever. Whatever look that you want, you got to focus on building quality muscle tissue and this is also why, when you get to a point where now, maybe when you started, your calorie baseline meaning this is how many calories it takes to just maintain where you're at is like 1800. If we can increase the muscle tissue, what if we can get that calorie maintenance to 3,000, 2,800, 3,000 calories?
Speaker 1:You want to think of calories almost like an allowance. Imagine if you had an allowance. If I told you your budget for a day is 100 bucks, well, you'd probably be a little cautious where you spend it, right. But what if I told you your allowance for the day was like five grand 3000? Well, you'd be a lot more flexible with what you're doing and you wouldn't be so stressed out. Body's the same way. Let's get that body allowance higher and this is where you can eat more, not be stressed out, have more flexibility, but you have to do the foundational work first. So I hope that understands and breaks down the concept of what actually metabolism is.
Speaker 1:Now, this, this is what everybody, I'm sure, the most anticipated. Okay, with building your own custom meal plan. So I'm going to keep this simple. I don't want to get too technical and making you guys do tons of equations. I want to make this very tangible for you so you can implement immediately. Okay. So what you're going to need when you start this okay, you will need a scale to portion out your food, and the one reason I say a scale is because you can do it by the ounce or the gram, just depending If you use measuring cups. There's a little bit of wiggle room there, like, how consistent are you every time you do a cup of rice right and types of rice. That's a whole nother conversation how that can be manipulated too. So just get yourself a food scale. You get on Amazon, probably like 15, 20 bucks.
Speaker 1:Next thing you guys will need you will need a online tracking app on your phone, like my fitness pal. I recommend my fitness pal. We use this with our clients. With my fitness pal. There's a free version and a paid version. The free version is plenty. Um little secret tip Okay, put your location to Canada and you'll be actually be able to use the food scanner. Okay, I learned that the other day. So they make you pay for that in America for some reason. Uh, but if you put your location for Canada, somehow it opens up. So there's a little tip if you want to use a food scanner and that's where you can scan items at the grocery store and you know it'll pull it straight into the system so you need a calorie tracking app and education from this training. Okay, so that is what you need to be able to do this.
Speaker 1:Next, let's break down just some basic information. When we talk about macronutrients okay, because we hear the term macros what is macros? Macronutrients are your carbs, fats and proteins. Okay, they make up the food and your body needs them in large amounts in order to function properly. Many eating plans focus on changing the amount of carbohydrates, fat and protein in your diet, and this is because manipulating how much of them you eat can have a big impact on your body composition. No healthy eating plan should totally restrict any of the macro nutrients, as your body needs them to perform certain functions. This is why I don't, like you know, keto style diets or super high fat diets, restricting carbohydrates, all that, like you need it all If, even if you want some mental sanity, take my carbs away and see how well I try to repeat this whole thing. It's going to be a lot of uh, oh, uh. My brain is not functioning at that point. Okay, so we need to get this thing going.
Speaker 1:Also, another reason why we want to focus on macronutrients is because some people say, oh, I dropped my calories 200 calories. Where did it come from? Your protein, your carbs are fat. What ratio? It is not the same. Okay. This is why macros is a better approach. Your macros will equate to the calories, so focus on the macronutrients the majority of the time. Okay, so what is what is tracking macros actually mean? The term of macros means that you're logging your food in an app such like my fitness pal. Rather than focusing on overall calories, you're aiming to hit a particular number each day for carbs, fats and proteins.
Speaker 1:Tracking macros is not the same as counting calories. Counting calories alone won't tell you the balance of fat. Yeah, okay, so I just repeated myself with that because it was on top of mine. But, yes, tracking the, the particular and I will say this don't think you have to hit the number exact. We're trying to stay within a range. Another side note is when you look at a nutritional fact label, the FDA has a 20% error that they can do surplus or deficit. So why are you being so anal about hitting the gram? It'd be like hitting the lottery. Okay, so just stay within a range. You know. Five, 10 grams is is okay. Anybody in here. Track macros before drop a. Yes me, and if you were successful, you could say that too. Let me know. I want to know if anybody has ever done this before. We're going to get into the tactical part here in just a second Macro tracking any courses done? Okay, no problem. Okay, michaela, yeah, all right. So awesome, awesome, yeah, macros is a great way to really open up some freedom. You just have to be careful when doing it, okay, um, so why tracking macros is helpful.
Speaker 1:Learning how to track macros is one of the best and most effective ways of gaining control over your physique for life. This is a learning curve to become consistent with tracking macros. It won't feel easy at first, but the more you practice, the more you plan ahead, the easier it becomes, and once you have mastered it, you'll have a clear understanding of how much food your body needs in order to thrive clear understanding of how much food your body needs in order to thrive. You'll find that, over time, this will be no more guessing how much food your body needs in order to grow lean tissue or burn body fat, because you'll know exactly how much to eat for your goals and you don't have to track macros forever. But the reality of changing your physique is that you need to first bring awareness to your current habits, and then of changing your physique is that you need to first bring awareness to your current habits and then get specific in regards to what you need to change in order to move towards your goals. Tracking macros is a great tool for this. Again, you have to know where you're starting.
Speaker 1:I talk to people every day and they're like well, I eat clean. I get it, I have no doubts about that. How much of that clean eating are you eating? Well, you know, I just kind of put it on the plate. Okay, you're guessing, okay, and it's okay. But you gotta be, you gotta accept that that you don't know how much that you're eating. And if you don't know how much you're eating, how do you know how to make adjustments? Because your one plan that you, you create, that we're going to create, is not the one that you're going to do for the next six months. You have to know how to watch the body, to be able to manipulate it and change it as you go through the process. I'm going to show you what that's going to look like too, so understand that when you put something together, it's bringing a lot of awareness to what you're doing and over time, you won't have to do this forever, because, just like I used to work in the kitchen and I'll give you a little quick story Uh, I used to have to slice ribeyes 10 ounce ribeyes and our slicer that we had was the.
Speaker 1:The measurement was broken. It was well, it wasn't broken, it was faded. I couldn't see the numbers. So I got so good at it I didn't need to see the measurement anymore. I could just hit it one time, slice it and weigh it, and it'd be right on right, pretty much right on point. Every single time. And it's the same thing with you guys, when you start to eat the foods that you're enjoying. You're doing it over and over again. You're watching your portion controls. You'll get pretty darn good at being able to eyeball your food, and that's a sweet place to be. Good at being able to eyeball your food, and that's a sweet place to be. So something to note.
Speaker 1:All right when we get into this, because there's different macro ratios that you can start. So I want you to remember this. You got to understand what kind of body type you have. This is just again. This is a rough starting point for you, because if you enter your information in my Fitness Pal, it is going to give you. It doesn't matter what you put your, what you put your stuff in, it's macro ratio is always carbs is like 50%, I think. Um, fats are somewhere around like 30, 35, and you know the rest is protein. So it's just the same every single time. It doesn't take in consideration your body, your metabolism, any of that kind of stuff, and this is why those calorie trackers is is helpful for a starting point, but it's it's not exact, okay, and this is why you have to watch these kinds of things.
Speaker 1:So we have three body types ectomorph, mesomorph, endomorph. You could be a hybrid. Okay, let me say that it's not so black and white. You could be a hybrid. Ectomorph is going to be your very skinny, thin framed individual. Typically, their metabolism is kind of fast to begin with. Okay, they can take a higher carbohydrate diet. As you can see, I'd probably start them on a 40, 40, 20. When it comes to their macro ratios, mesomorph is your just typical person. You know, not too big, not too small, just like an average. You know, maybe a little extra body fat, nothing crazy 45% protein, 30 carbs, 25 fat. I would kind of consider myself in between those as well. With endomorph, this is your bigger individual. You've probably been overweight all your life. You've just been always kind of thicker. Maybe you joke and say I'm big bone. You know those sorts of things. You are more endomorph, which also means that you need to start with a little bit of a lower carbohydrate diet. Okay, so you can see higher protein. We want to keep the thermogenesis up high, lower carbohydrates, 35% fats Okay. So these are good starting points and references. Okay, but you can be a hybrid.
Speaker 1:So again, this is all about reading the data, collecting the data and making those adjustments. Now, this is it. I know you guys think this is going to be something super, super fancy. You know technical. Um. Four steps, okay. Four steps you got to do to create your own nutrition plan. First, again, you do need your your app. Okay. When you download this app, or if you have it already, you'll just update your information. You're going to put things in like your age, your weight, your height, your activity level, okay. And then, once it spits out how many calories it takes for you to reach your goals, then you want to manipulate the macro ratio that we just talked about. Okay, just put it to where it's supposed to be.
Speaker 1:I also suggest if you are trying to lose weight, do not put two pounds a week, just do one half to one pound a week. The reason is is because what it's going to do is it is going to cut your calories drastically, and the motto and the method always needs to be to be able to eat as much as possible and still be dropping weight. Because here's the thing let's say you can eat 1900 calories and you're dropping weight right, you're dropping that one pound every week that we talked about. Why did you start at 1200? Because, remember, I just told you guys, you can't stick to a plan for the next six months. You have to manipulate it. And manipulating in a weight loss phase means six months you have to manipulate it. Manipulating in a weight loss phase means we're chipping away at that 19,. Maybe going 19, 1850, 1800, you know, slowly bringing it down. This is what's going to help you not reach a plateau. If you start at 1200 calories, you have shot yourself in the foot, so be careful when you do those things. Now, if you're a female, that's you know, four, nine, 95 pounds, that could be a little different conversation. Okay, but understand, you don't want to just cut those calories so drastically like that. So I suggest just one pound is plenty.
Speaker 1:Next step meal cadence. Okay, this is where you start thinking about your lifestyle. What kind of life do you live? Truck driver, do you sit in front of a desk? Do you have an active life? Do you sit in front of a desk? Do you have an active life? Are you around a kitchen where you can constantly go in the kitchen? Do you work from home? All these things you need to take into consideration.
Speaker 1:Do you want to eat a breakfast, lunch and dinner Three meals a day? Do you want to throw in a snack somewhere? Okay, three and a snack. Maybe you have really long days. You wake up at five in the morning, you don't go to bed till like nine or 10 at night. Maybe you need five total meals.
Speaker 1:Again, you need to think about that, okay, and what's actually doable for you? There's no right or wrong answer. I suggest three minimum Okay, because I mean imagine you having to eat 15. I mean, even if you had to. I mean, just think of the calories, right, you're just taking, whether you're doing three meals a day versus five. Five meals, smaller meals, right. Three meals, bigger portion meals, so heavier meals. You know, even if it was the same calories, you're just breaking it up through the day. So think about that meal cadence.
Speaker 1:Okay, step three what do you like? What kind of foods do you enjoy eating? And I would suggest finding creative ways to season your food. Sodium does not get you to retain body fat. It holds water. But if you're drinking enough water throughout the day, you don't have to worry about that. Anyway, the body needs sodium. So do not cut sodium out of your diet, okay, unless you have high blood pressure, blood pressure medication then that would be something to talk to the doctor about.
Speaker 1:But in sense, you want to be able to season your food the way that you want it. The only thing I tell our clients to do is watch for specific sauces that have a high sugar content ketchup, teriyaki sauces, barbecue sauces, those things. They can catch you on the back end without you even realizing it. So just be mindful of those sort of things. You want to make sure that you find a way to enjoy it, and then, from there, you take the foods that you like and start plugging in. Don't think portions, don't think anything like that. Just start making those meals.
Speaker 1:Maybe breakfast you like eggs? I'm going to have, I want to eat two eggs and I want an English muffin. Cool, there's one meal. Okay, the next one. I want a snack. I'll probably just do like a protein shake and maybe a piece of fruit. Okay, there's your snack. Lunch I could probably do like chicken. I could put it in some like rice and veggies. You know tacos James said tacos. Yeah, corn tortillas, use some corn tortillas. All right, you can start to get very creative with the way that you're doing things. So you're going to start plugging these pieces in.
Speaker 1:Now, let me say this as a side note food quality matters, okay. That's why I just want to emphasize that, because your body does not digest food the same ways. This is why I try to suggest 80% of the day you're eating whole, organic foods, because the body processes it very nicely and easily and it takes the nutrients and absorbs it into the body. If you eat highly processed food, the body doesn't know how to break it down. This slows down metabolism because it's trying to figure out how to get it out of your body.
Speaker 1:There was a uh, there was a study done. Two groups of people Okay, they both created equal calorie macro ratio cheese sandwiches. One was highly processed with Kraft cheese. Okay, kraft cheese is called Kraft cheese because it's actually a cheese product. They can't even be legally called cheese, all right. And then they did another one that was whole grain bread with Swiss cheese. Okay, gave it to them. They tested these individuals, the ones that ate the highly processed bread, even though it was the same calories. Their metabolism got cut in half 50. So food quality matters.
Speaker 1:All right, make sure at least 80 of your day You're getting it from healthy food sources, and then the last 10, 20 you can have a little wiggle room, but they need to be making sure that you're staying within those ranges. All right, plug those in. Then, lastly, this is it. You just create the plan. So you take what those meals were, you plug it into your my fitness pal and now this is where you're going to start manipulating the portion sizes. Okay, you're going to start manipulating that to get as close as you can to your calorie goal and as close as you can to your macros.
Speaker 1:All right, it's a little bit of math going on there, but it takes a little bit of time, but you can do it. I have full faith in you guys. All right, you're just trying to get those numbers to get as close as possible, not exact. All right, you get close. Boom, that's it. You're good, and that's how you create your own meal plan. I make that sound very simple and it is as simple as that, and then you can start to manipulate it when you want. But again, this is how you're going to be able to craft something that you want, and you can even take things from meal prep companies or meals that are already made and just plug in those uh data points. Okay, but you got to stay within those ranges.
Speaker 1:So next, oh, lastly, I'll say please do this before you start eating the food, because you can't take out the food once you already ate it. Okay. So I told you guys earlier you can't do this for the next six months. You will have to manipulate. How do you do that? When do you do that?
Speaker 1:Here's some key points that you need to watch. For One, you got to understand your baseline. Okay, what we just did, what we just created for you, that technically is a little bit of a deficit, but it's going to create a baseline. A baseline means that your weight will more than likely come down and it will hold steady. Okay, so you will need to monitor your body weight first thing in the morning before you eat or drink anything. That is the only time you should weigh your weight and that is your true weight. Okay, you've got to understand what that is.
Speaker 1:So this is the calorie macros which we created for you guys that you know that you can handle without gaining or losing weight. Again, remember, your body's going to hold that weight pretty close for about a day or two. Okay, it takes. About seven to 10 days is typically what I see. We are looking for your weight to gain or lose, depending on your goals, and hold steady. At this point, we have a true caloric maintenance. Now this is the time that you're going to make those adjustments, so you're going to analyze your gain or loss.
Speaker 1:If you are gaining or losing weight too fast after following your macros for seven days, then you know your metabolism is not efficient enough or too efficient to handle that amount of food. So if you're gaining too fast, I would suggest reducing your carbohydrates, first by 25 grams to 30 grams. Okay, a little bit goes a long way. If you're losing too quickly, then increase it 25, 30 grams of carbohydrates. Don't worry about changing the proteins or fats at this point in time. Only the carbohydrates Goal for dropping weight.
Speaker 1:The idea again is to eat as much as possible and continue to drop weight. Each time your weight maintains for a week or two, it's time to decrease your carbs or fats a little more slowly, chipping away at the body fat to maintain the muscle. And maintaining the muscle in a deficit means that we do it in that slow manner and you're eating as much as you can. So these are the kind of things that having a coach helps watch for. We're monitoring your body, monitoring your progression, so you don't second guess yourself and you don't adjust too soon or too late. It's never really too late, but the last thing you want to do is be hovering a weight for two, three months. Then you're wasting time. Something needs to change and you just again.
Speaker 1:If you guys are going to be doing this, you need to be keeping track in some capacity tracking, and be measurable of how you're getting progress. Weight is just one. Okay, you could be doing tape measurements, you could be doing a belt loop, you could be doing how your clothes fit. There's a lot of ways to gauge your progress outside of just the weight. But initially, when we're talking about macronutrients, I highly suggest that you track your body weight. Now I do want to.
Speaker 1:This is a warning, okay, warning. Big red letters, okay, uh, this happens when you stay in a deficit for too long. Okay, most individuals are trying to lose weight, have done a little research, maybe tried a few different diets or extreme workout routines, but the general context is always eat in a deficit and you will lose weight. How many of you guys have heard that just eat in a deficit and you will lose weight? I mean, you guys have heard that just eat in the deficit and you just start like weight just starts shedding off. Who's who's heard that in here. I'm sure plenty. I'm sure plenty. All right, yeah, I wish it worked out well for everybody. Okay, it does for some, but not for everybody.
Speaker 1:But what happens is when you're training a ton and start getting close to that thousand calories or less, your body's not responding anymore and your progress has come to a complete halt. Do you increase the cardio even more and cut even more food out? That sounds pretty horrible, right? You're already gassing it, and now you've got to go even harder. What we need to do is take a step back. We need to restore the body's metabolism, and one way to do that is reverse dieting. Reverse dieting is essentially when we turn to when a client has been chronically under eating.
Speaker 1:When you eat an extreme calorie deficit for substantial amount of time, there are several negative side effects that can occur to the body. As a coach, we are looking to see if you suffer from eating low calories and not losing body fat no energy, low sex drive, hormonal problems, acne, bad sleep, decreased performance in the gym meaning you're not getting any stronger, etc. Many of you experience these symptoms because there are a ton of natural bodily functions that are being downregulated to ultimately keep the body alive and survive. This is why your metabolic rate slows down, lowering the digestive enzymes, causing gut issues, suboptimal hormone production and function, causes unexplained weight gain or loss, skin issues, difficulty sleeping, et cetera, and many other bodily issues. So if you have been following a plan, you're dieting, you're pushing yourself in the gym you're not seeing any results.
Speaker 1:This is you. This is you, and we've even had people come into our program that was already here and it's a scary conversation to have to tell somebody that wants to lose weight Well, we actually have to restore your metabolism and the way that we have to do that is we're actually going to have to get you to eat a little more and I need you to pull back on doing as much cardio yeah, no, eat more and the ones that listen to that. We can get you into an optimal state to be in that fat loss stage, because pushing harder you're going to burn yourself out and you're going to get frustrated and you'll be like this isn't even worth it anymore and you will give up. I've seen it over and over again. So the fastest approach is not always the best approach. All right, you got to understand what's going on inside of the body. Sometimes that means we send our clients to get blood work done. Anybody suffering through this, anybody like, has has done this in the past or they're currently going through this. They're, they're dieting, you're training hard, you're doing everything you think you're supposed to be doing, but you're not seeing results. Anybody in here, anybody resonate with that? Cause this could be a conversation to definitely have anybody resonate with that, because this could be a conversation to definitely have.
Speaker 1:Lastly, what I want to touch on is why you know, I'm I'm a fitness professional. Okay, I've worked with a lot of people very high ups. I've done my education, I put my time in the schools, my head in the books. I've done it all. Okay, and this is why I like to make things very simplistic for you guys, so you can make some tactical application processes to get you the results that you want. This is why I'm embarrassed with the industry. Okay, they want to see you win quick and fail just as quick.
Speaker 1:Okay, you'll hear claims in the industry take this X supplement and start losing weight. Okay, do this X diet, uh, and rip off 20 pounds. Do this X extreme workout and just watch everything melt away. Okay, and when one doesn't work, they sell you on the other thing that you didn't use being the reason it didn't work. Right, you did the diet, but you didn't take the supplements you were supposed to. We took the supplements, but you're not doing the workout we're supposed to right, so it was a caveat to it. Or it works really well and really fast, but they give you no exit strategy and you end up gaining all the weight back.
Speaker 1:Then you realize you need to do it again because that was the only way that you could actually lose weight. So my question for you if this is you and you can resonate with this if you didn't maintain the weight loss, did it actually work? Did it work? We talked to tons of people that we get on calls with and they like well, I'm just going to do what I did before because I back back. When I did it, I dropped, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 pounds. Sure, you can do that, but let's not forget, you gained all of it back. So you're going to do it again. Is that in the plan? Is that in your plan to for the next couple of months? You're going to do it again? Is that in the plan? Is that in your plan to for the next couple of months you're going to do this extreme routine, suffer through the process because you don't really want to do it, but it's going to get you the results. You want to know that you're going to regain the weight because there's no exit strategy to do this process over and rinse and repeat. So this is why it's important and why I do things like this to give you guys some real education. If you cannot create something that is sustainable, that gets you results that you actually enjoy doing, this is something to look deeper into.
Speaker 1:Who has like a favorite TV show, a favorite sport? They like to watch something that you enjoy doing. Maybe it's playing an instrument. I'm sure some of you guys have something like that in here. Anna is a prime example too. Extreme diets, extreme diets, feeling horrible, not looking the way that she wants, and we got Anna on stage and she crushed it. Okay, now, not everybody's going on stage, but the point is, anna has been in the gym ever since, ever since.
Speaker 1:That's a lifestyle client for you. Okay, back to something that you enjoy. Does anybody have to tell you to go do that thing that you enjoy? Does anybody have to tell you, hey, go watch that favorite TV show? No, you're probably waiting for that thing to happen. Anybody tell you, oh, my favorite sport team is playing at 6 pm. Anybody tell you you have to go watch that? No, you want to go watch that. We need to find a way to get you like that when it comes to your health, fitness and nutrition.
Speaker 1:How can you look forward to going to the gym? How can you look forward to the food that you're eating? How can you look forward to having better conversations with those around you? These are key questions to help you create a sustainable lifestyle that's going to get you the results that you want at optimal levels, and imagine how much better you will be to serve others. You're going to show up as a better leader. You're going to show up better at your job or your work. You're going to show up as a better husband or father. You're going to show up better as a friend. You're always going to come in better because those conversations that you have are not. You know poor me. I'm going through all this tragedy. It's what are we doing? What's next? What are we looking forward to? Your conversations start to change big time. So real champions are built, not bought.
Speaker 1:If you want real sustainable change, it is not in 30 days, three months or even one year. You need to be playing the infinite game. Okay, this means you learn basic skills when it comes to fitness, nutrition, the mindset to get you the desired outcome. You also are learning skills on how to pivot. Every time, life does what it does best Change. You're going to move. One day You're going to get a new job, you're going to have a baby, something life happens. And if you stop every time, something hard happens. This is a problem. This means you haven't learned anything. You need to learn how to pivot.
Speaker 1:Imagine if I told you here's a football, go on the field, run a touchdown. There's no opponents, no defense. You just have to run the field to the other end. That's pretty easy. People would love that right Now. What if I took you that's how you practice all the time and I put you in a real game. You can get smashed, you can get dead. Stop. You ain't going to get 10 yards because you didn't learn how to pivot. You didn't know how to angle yourself, maneuver, do a spin. You didn't learn the skills to get you past those sort of blockers, right?
Speaker 1:So if you start training like that, if you start training the mind, training the body, understanding the plays when we go through we're about to go through holiday season. Anybody think about that? Probably not. So planning, preparing, understanding the strategies this is what's going to help you be a real champion, okay, lastly, you must control your environment and surround yourself with those on the same mission. Your conversations and interactions will determine your day-to-day action. You have to change your environment. Period. That means not putting things in iSet or hands reach snacks, cookies, things like that. Put them in the back of the cabinet.
Speaker 1:All right, where do you go hang out with people? Well, it ain't at the bar. And if it is the bar, it needs to be the bar at the gym. Right, go to a nutritional event. Go to a conference, go to a meal prep company. Go to these places where these like-minded people will be. And if you are in the upstate, cac Performance has now brought that to you. Every month we're going to be having an event, the fitness networking event, at Carolina Iron in the upstate of South Carolina. Show up, show up, hang out. It's fun. We just had one. I'll introduce you to different people. You might find a workout buddy. It's all about networking and I'm going to introduce you to other local businesses that can help you along with your fitness journey as well. You have to find places to surround yourself with. I think a couple of people in here actually were at the at the event, so I'm sure you can chime in about that.