Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast
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Hungry Dog Barbell Podcast
Amie Landis
We're joined by Amie Landis, nutrition coach and owner of Fueling Fitness Nutrition, who shares her journey from martial arts to CrossFit and how proper fueling transforms performance.
• Beginning martial arts at age 7 and discovering her love for competition when she won her first tournament
• Using personal experiences with different diets to inform her nutrition coaching approach
• Overcoming Lyme disease while continuing to train in CrossFit
• The importance of tracking macros as a learning tool before transitioning to intuitive eating
• Why consuming carbohydrates is essential for high-intensity activities like CrossFit
• How sustainable nutrition plans should accommodate life events like vacations and celebrations
• The misconception that lifting weights makes women "bulky" when in reality it takes years of dedicated training
• The value of focusing on "non-scale victories" rather than just weight loss
• Working with clients to establish realistic timelines and expectations for nutrition goals
• The 80/20 nutrition approach allowing flexibility while maintaining consistent progress
If you're looking for nutrition coaching, reach out to Amie Landis at Fueling Fitness Nutrition to help you maximize your performance and health.
https://fuelingfitnessnutrition.com/
IG @fuelingfitnessnutrition
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What's up, dogs? We're back with another great episode. This week I'm joined by Amy Landis, crossfit athlete and owner of Fueling Fitness Nutrition. Amy is a nutrition coach. She works with athletes on the best ways to fuel their performance so they can maximize their gains. Every day in the gym, she comes on to talk about experimenting with her own nutrition in the past to find the methods that are the most sustainable, and also her journey into finding CrossFit, the weight room, and her past in martial arts.
Speaker 2:Tune in. I hope you enjoy the episode. Is this what you do full-time? How does your days look? Tell us about that stuff.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so currently this is full-time, which is nutrition coaching. I was a CrossFit coach and doing nutrition coaching, but then I had my daughter, so now I am a stay at home working mom, so I'm home with my daughter all day long and then I fit in nutrition coaching. I have lots of toys in my office for her to entertain herself. She sits on my lap sometimes and takes all the pens off my desk and throws them all over, but we get it done and then I work during her nap times. But yes, this is like the main gig is nutrition coaching now.
Speaker 2:You only fitness nutrition, right Like? Tell us about that day, where it came from, why you chose that like and how long you've been doing it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that like, and how long you've been doing it? Yeah, so I've been nutrition coaching for with like uh, eight to ten years is when I started integrating that in kind of at the same time of CrossFit. Crossfit was first, and then it kind of morphed into helping people with nutrition. Uh, I went to school at West Chester University for nutrition and dietetics and I was implementing that along the way. Um, but the name Fueling Fitness Nutrition I was implementing that along the way, but the name fueling fitness nutrition I was like, all right, what do I do every day?
Speaker 3:I was already a CrossFit coach. I was a martial arts assistant instructor. I am in this fitness space. What do I help people? Do I want to help them fuel their fitness? Because I want to work with somebody that already was like oh, I want to get healthier, I'm already stepping into the gym, I'm taking that first step. You know they're already motivated. I didn't want to work with the person, not that it would be invaluable, but I didn't want to work in a setting where somebody got referred to me because their doctor made them, but they didn't want to be there and they weren't motivated and I just like had to sit with them and try to tell them things and they weren't going to do it. I wanted to work with that motivated, normal person or athlete to help them get better at their nutrition and their fitness.
Speaker 2:So how did you first find CrossFit? And like, let's talk about like the very beginning of that, what were you doing like exercise wise, when CrossFit first came into your life?
Speaker 3:So I, when I first found CrossFit, I was in school for personal training. I did a trade school, so it was actually in person in Philly, the National Personal Training Institute, and it was a six month program. So I was there and I met Jim Rudder and I'm going to botch some names. He was the CrossFit Advance owner. Do you remember?
Speaker 2:I don't know his name, but I know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but they were there. I mean, this is like over 10 years ago, but I met them and they introduced me to CrossFit and I was like cool, what's like this thing? And I saw Annie Thoris' daughter on the internet one time, but I didn't know, what CrossFit was, but she was running up the hill at the ranch with a sandbag that was cool, that's neat, but I had no clue what CrossFit was.
Speaker 3:That was back in probably 2013, when I, like, got an idea, but I wasn't doing it until 2014, when I sought an internship after the personal training school. Cause I was like I'm 20 years old, how do I start this thing? I'm a personal trainer, what do I do? So I crossed at Westchester and I asked for an internship. They gave it to me and I haven't left since.
Speaker 2:Damn the OG days of people doing that. Like, everyone wants to go to a gym right now, get a free membership and get paid, you know, and like, make me a better CrossFit coach. It's like, dude, all the good CrossFit coaches that you see right now. If I could tell you and show you the five to six to almost 10 years of just being like crapped on working for pretty much free to learn the game.
Speaker 2:You know if you really want to go through it like the OGs. That's the way like everyone did it back in the days. So you've always been like fitness minded right, like well, it seems like in that territory. Right, like well, it seems like in that territory. Tell us about like your background. Like what was the first sports you played like did you have any definition of what fitness and health meant when you were younger, and how has that changed? Like, first, tell us like what sports you played, like that, like athletic background yeah, so first sports uh, I did martial arts starting at age seven.
Speaker 3:I had like a year of gymnastics before that, but it wasn't really for me. I wasn't into the leotards and that stuff. So then I tried martial arts. So seven years old I was in martial arts and that was part of how did you, how did you get to that?
Speaker 2:Was that like a parents push you into it? They did it before. Were you like hey, I just want to kick and hit people Like how do you?
Speaker 3:know that was. I'm five foot one, right, female, small, and my I have two sisters. My parents were like we are putting our girls in martial arts to gain confidence and learn how to defend themselves. So it started with that. It was parents put us in it and I'll say, be the first to say I didn't want to do it at first. For a long time I just did it because I had to.
Speaker 3:But then I, when I was I guess it was middle school age, but I made black belt and then I got into a competition. I was actually told I had to do the competition by my instructor and I was just like, whatever, fine, I'll do it. And then I won and I was like, well, that was cool. So so that was my first step into, you know, really actually enjoying martial arts, where I was like, all right, I kind of want to do that again, I want to win again. So then I started training more because it was this cool feeling to win out in this tournament and then that kind of took off from there. That was 2008 when I did that and won a tournament and that was like neat, I want to do that again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like let's keep going. What were those like years of you not wanting to really do it? Like you know where you're probably going three, five, who knows how many days a week. Do you remember that stuff?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was. We went Mondays and went two days a week, and it might've been actually a different day back then, cause I was like seven on up to whatever middle school age. I forget exactly how old I was 13, 14 years old. So you know I drug my bag out the door. I complained in the car, you know unwillingly, like I made a stink about it. I did what I needed to do in class, like I had respect for the instructors, I listened, but maybe my facial expressions weren't always the best.
Speaker 2:I understand Typical eight nine year old right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm just like, oh, I got to do this, but like I did it and you know I tried because I did, at least I wasn't so so rebellious that I didn't want to, you know, do well in class and at least like, ok, I pleased the instructor, sort of thing. But I'll be the first to admit that I didn't enjoy it at first, until I got that taste of competition, and then I was like whoa, that was really cool. Along the way, though, I also rode horses and did track and field. So middle school age track and field started, and then I was riding horses from like fourth grade up through out of high school, so about 10 years of that. So a mix of then multi-sport, but no traditional sports like other than sports. Yeah, I didn't do like ball sports, and you could say I didn't really do team sports, because track and field can be individual. Even though I ran relays, it wasn't like this is the team that wins, like I had my individual races.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what events did you do in track and field? You said a relays like what ones specifically did you mostly do?
Speaker 3:I was four by 100. So a hundred meter sprinter relay, and then I did the four by 400 and the a hundred meter hurdles. So those were my I was a sprinter, and then I had some jump in me, so I did the hurdles as well.
Speaker 2:It's really cool. How did that compare to like the training and the competition side of like martial arts? Like it's kind it's like 50 50 of team like in track, especially in the relay races. And then all of you in martial arts like how did those two things like compare in your brain, the training and the competition side?
Speaker 3:yeah, uh, I would say the training wise they were similar because in martial arts you need to be springy and explosive and then, being a sprinter for track and field springy, explosive again, I will say in martial arts it is a camaraderie, a team, even though you're individually doing this on your own, you do have that camaraderie of your fellow students. So in that sense it was very similar because, like in track and field, even though I had some team stuff with the relays, you still have your individual, like it's on you to run, like you're not relying on somebody else to run that hurdle race for you, whereas you rely on your teammate and say, like field hockey, like they're doing other stuff too, it's not just you out there on the field. So there was definitely some crossover between martial arts and track and field, but I would say, physically, that springiness of the sport it like really was compatible yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2:Like you still got to run your leg, no matter how your teammate before and after you does. You know, yeah, like usually what uh leg? Were you in the relay? Were you, like the middle person, the finisher, the start off?
Speaker 2:I was either third or fourth, so I was anchor often, or I was that curve, that third curve so one of those two yeah, I was a little faster I wasn't the fastest, but I was faster yeah, that's cool, that's cool yeah, it's fun so in that time period right, you're a sporty girl, even like riding horses, right, takes like some strength, as well as like the agility to sit up on the horse, like, were you ever in the weight room before you find CrossFit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, before I found CrossFit I had after high school and then, like you know, track and field is done. I'm still doing martial arts but I'm kind of like lost because I lost some of that training, that sport that I did. Some of my fellow like track and field friends introduced me to the weight room. So one of my buddies who actually then introduced me to my husband, he introduced me to the weight room. I started going there. He showed me the ropes of just like bodybuilding, like just standard bodybuilding, split stuff, some powerlifting stuff. I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker 3:I was 18, 19 years old when I was doing that but he at least showed me enough that then I could come up with workouts and find stuff online and do it, and it's just standard bodybuilding at that point.
Speaker 2:Did you like the weight room? Did you like lifting? When you first got in there, did you develop a passion for it?
Speaker 3:I really did enjoy it. Yeah, there was just something about it. I'm not sure that I could put my finger on what it was, but I did it. And then when I realized like oh, I'm kind of strong, like I didn't know what strong meant and I was deadlifting decent form, I had good form, because of martial arts taught me how to move really well. Awareness, I picked up on things pretty quickly. And then when I deadlifted for the first time, I pulled like 225 off the floor. My friend's like well, that's kind of good. And I'm like what is this Like? I don't even know what's on the bar. How do you do this math? So I didn't even know.
Speaker 3:But I was like oh, kind of strong, so that was neat, right, I certainly wasn't like anything special, but it was like oh, like that's kind of cool, like I'm kind of good at that. I like to pull this heavy stuff off the floor. And I had an uncle who did powerlifting, so I was familiar and he was like really good, like he was a bodybuilder, powerlifter. So it was cool to then talk to my uncle and then he was all like proud and like cool, this is great. Like one of my nieces is, you know, doing bodybuilding and powerlifting. So I had a family to talk to and my dad lifted weights. He didn't compete in anything but you know, it was kind of within the realms where it was like, oh, this is neat, like it's a family thing too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that you brought that up. So you said your parents wanted to get all three girls um able to defend themselves and teach them discipline and morals and values right In martial arts. So everyone's pretty active now. What about, like the fueling yourself side? Like, how was family dinners would you guys eat? Like, was that like a conversation you guys had in the house about being healthy and what that looked like?
Speaker 3:um, tell us about that uh, I wouldn't say it was a conversation where we were cognizant of it but we tried to have, just like good food in the house. It wasn't, wasn't that we never had junk, but my parents weren't like if we asked for something that was junky, they didn't always say yes. It was like no, that's not good for you, like we're gonna eat real food, but it wasn't a big deal. Like they didn't harp on food all that much, I would say growing up. And then what they've told us later on it was like pick your battles with the kids, the toddlers, you know, the young adults is food Wasn't a battle that they were going to pick. It doesn't didn't mean that we ate junk. They bought stuff. It was in the house. You eat it or you don't eat, kind of thing. Like you know you have some options.
Speaker 3:But uh, it wasn't like a conversation maybe, as what I would have now, of like these are healthy foods. You know, with all the knowledge that I have and what I talk about, it was definitely a little different. But we had, you know, I would say like standard dinners of like a protein, a vegetable, a starch. Um, breakfast, I wasn't a big breakfast eater in like middle school, high school, I kind of skipped it. Maybe grab the grabbed a snack, um, but then there was a little bit of let's. You know, make sure you're eating before and after you work out. Did you pack a snack like little bits, but nothing crazy, um, yeah, just standard, I would think, which is very common from what I hear from athletes and young adults that I work with and talk to. It's kind of the same, which is something that I would like to change, where athletes know that they can feel a little better.
Speaker 2:Right For me. I grew up single mom, so like I was just making my food a lot like it would be junk food like on the regular. Growing up in a household where you're used to just eating whole foods, you know like cooking dinner that's comprised of like actual ingredients, it puts you on the path that it's natural and normalized to really just eat like that for the rest of your life, you know. So you had that like a little bit of that starting point already so that as you grew up you're like all right, let me do some research into a little bit more of how I can fuel myself to. If I want to like progress, I could go this way If I need to maintain, just stay here and then if I ever get into any of the sickness realm, I know what to do to get myself out of it. You know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I will add to that it didn't make me, um, immune to having, like some body issues, like as a teenager through high school. I definitely had a just a little bit of a disordered pattern going on in high school with food. So I will say that even though, like, our household was pretty stable, we had food, we had snacks, it was there it wasn't a big deal if you know kind of what you're eating. I just through being a teenager and being exposed to social media or other people, or you know, you look at the body images of some of your fellow track and field mates that are like that lean runner body. I was definitely, you know, shorter, a little bit stockier as a sprinter and then martial arts and horseback riding.
Speaker 3:So you just, I definitely wasn't immune to that and I think that's what sparked more of my interest in nutrition was I was like, well, you know how one was, how do I look different? Like what should I do something else? And then when I did go down a little bit of a route of not feeling well for a period of time and trying to lose weight and losing maybe too much, and then sports suffered a little bit, it was like I need to actually feel for this. I didn't know that the term should be fuel. It was like I should, I'm I'm being told I need to eat more. How do I do it the right way now? So?
Speaker 3:I have that little switch, but I went down, I guess, the path of too much trying to be quote unquote healthy and then had to rethink of how that looks as well. So it's certainly not immune to, you know, poor habits or having a weird relationship with food at some point or another, even though I would say now it's definitely like fueling, it's a good relationship. You know, eat your food and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:You get caught up in diet culture, you know, and diet culture for probably two to three decades, diet just means losing weight, right, like being in the negatives, you know. So that has harmed so many people over the past, like probably 20 to 30 years. Do you remember like the first instance or time period where you like looked at yourself and thought I look different, or maybe had like a disparaging thought about the way you look compared to other people in that time period?
Speaker 3:Yeah, there was definitely a couple of things that stand out. When I was like early teens like maybe 12, 13, 14, maybe even younger than that I remember somebody commenting that I had abs and I was like what, what is like? What do you mean? I think I might have been like 10, like a little younger when that happened and I'm like what do you mean? And and like it was like they pointed it out. So then it became a thing of like, oh, I have some apps, sure, whatever that means. And then later in middle school, do you remember those Like? I don't know if you ever were familiar with those anonymous websites that you can like sign up and, like your friends from school can comment things to you, like one of? Those things Right.
Speaker 3:Right, I shouldn't have had one but had one. So you get like your high school and middle school people commenting shouldn't have had one but had one. So you get like your high school and middle school people commenting and then like somebody made again like a, a, a body image comments of like being more muscular, more stocky type thing, and it was more in a negative tone and I was like, oh, that's kind of yeah. And you yeah.
Speaker 3:And like I don't like, oh, I look different. Like, oh, that's, it was. Just gets in your head, right, when somebody makes that, you don't know who made it, like it's anonymous. That definitely spiraled into me focusing on that and then wanting to look different and just yeah, pretty much that path.
Speaker 2:So when do you think that flip switch back the other way? Where you're like I'm proud of these things, Like having abs means that I'm strong, you know what? Do you think the switch flipped the other way?
Speaker 3:When I found CrossFit and so we're talking now, and if that was in middle school, the decade later like a decade later, basically is when we're kind of talking about that like post, post high school, getting away from kind of the clicks in high school and all of that, finding the weight room, the gym with that friend that I said from track and field, and then finding CrossFit and realizing that. So when I was doing the weight room stuff it was about how I looked, so I was still trying to do that, but I like that, I was kind of strong, I enjoyed working out. And then when I found CrossFit and it became more about performing well and that took a couple of years, it wasn't right away because I was still doing CrossFit under the impression like I want to look different, I want to, you know, look like I do CrossFit. And then it became like, oh, I can perform really well. So when it became about performance and how I was performing and moving and getting stronger, that's when it really changed. And it probably was, you know, seven, five to seven years really into CrossFit that I really honed in on that, where it was a solely performance and it was a complete switch flip, not like the transition.
Speaker 3:It took a little while, cause I also felt like, not that I was doing it on my own, but I felt like I was still trying to pave this path of I didn't know how to fuel. I didn't have guidance in that, so then I went to school for it to learn it and then so that learning process going to school helped me kind of recover through it and now I'm hoping that I can be that like stop point for people of focus on your fueling first, not how you look. How you look will come. It's a byproduct of performing well and eating well and it takes time either way. So you know it's not going to be overnight that you hire a nutritionist and like everything switches. It's gonna take some time but we'll work through it. But if you perform well, your body's gonna, you know, be an expression of that performance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that you just said that, man, because so many people think that it's going to be that, especially in today's culture where we have fricking, the what are they even called? The pills that people take they think it's going to happen overnight, right.
Speaker 2:Like injections, the pills, all of that oh my God, they think I'm going to go change the way I eat and then, by from Monday to next Monday, I'm going to be looking different, you know it's it's a hard thing to undertake, like I love the old saying of like, however long you spent getting to where you are, like, just imagine that it's going to take about that, or at least half that amount of time to dig yourself out of the hole you know if you spent 20 years being sedentary, eating like a idiot. Then you can't just change it. In a week or even six months you can make progress towards it, but you're not just going to undo all the work that you put in to get yourself there.
Speaker 3:Yeah absolutely, and I try to tell people that I'm like, think, when they're struggling, we're like a couple of weeks in or a month or so in they're struggling, that, like they, they haven't gotten to their goal yet. I'm like, but think about how long you were doing what you were doing before, Like it's only been, you know, two months of making changes. The first month is really an adjustment to beginning to make changes. The second month you probably like got it down, but like consistency. Now you really need to be doing it for a prolonged period of time. It's, you know, yeah, like you said, if you spent 20 years of your life doing it one way, it's not going to take just a month or two to change it. And maybe it takes a few months to get that habit to switch, but you're not going to see the expression of that habit for a while. It just it keeps taking time. It might not take 20 years, but it's going to take, you know, more than a few months.
Speaker 2:Right, especially for it to be like noticeable. Like for me, I started tracking my macros and getting back on track like, I think, may of last year, and it's like over the summertime especially, you know, three to four months of just like all right, just diligent, eating the same thing pretty much every day for three to four months, and like you live with yourself every day. So it's hard to see any difference and it's hard to really even feel any difference, even if you're like the first things, I definitely started sleeping better right away. You know, like I definitely was able to just do my daily tasks better every day in the first few months and then, like four to five months in someone's like, hey, you are starting to look different. And you're like you get that in and you're like, oh, you look at yourself a little different, like, oh, they're right. So then you double down on it, you get that little bit of reward and you lock back in and it's like, okay, now a year has gone by and I've lost 20 pounds, but the body fat percentage has completely changed. The energy that I have daily has completely changed. Like all of those other things that may not be things that you could put your hands on have changed, that you get the reward and the value out of it.
Speaker 2:Right, and now, even if I don't track every day, I still know like I can look at my banana and be like, all right, this is this many carbs. I know where I'm kind of at. This is what I have for breakfast. I know where I'm kind of at. I know what I need to do with the rest of my day. Oh, maybe yesterday I went a little bit over on my fats, like I'm not going to try to stick on, stay on track. You know, like that kind of thing. And that's where most people need to get to the intuitive eating, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah and I'm glad you brought that up because that's where I try to take people is you need to weigh and measure. Most people need to weigh and measure for a period of time to understand what the eyeballing looks like, to understand that you can, like you said, look at a banana and like, okay, that's roughly this many grams of carbs. It's okay if it's a little bit off here or there, you know in this range. But if you don't, you know, weigh and measure it for a period of time. You will never know what that looks like. You need to use that as a tool.
Speaker 3:I like to use it as a tool for everybody so they can learn portion sizes for themselves and then later they take the training wheels off.
Speaker 3:They don't have to weigh and measure every single day. They can eyeball. It releases this like freedom around their food where they can feel like they're still on track. But they can understand kind of the guidelines that they should continue to follow to maintain where they're at, to fuel themselves properly, and then it's like, all right, I can know that that banana medium size, good enough for where I need here. It's just you need that baseline to be formed and that's like the first couple months is really forming that baseline and then you can kind of transition off of that and of course, depending on the goal, if it's weight loss, you want to be a little more diligent. If you're trying to gain muscle again, you want to be a little more diligent that you're in the surplus. So sometimes that tool of weighing and measuring happens a little longer. But when you're looking at maintaining it's like, yeah, you just need to lay the foundation and then you can kind of take off from there.
Speaker 2:Right. You'll be able to feel it when you are in a surplus, like you're trying to maintain, and you go a little heavy on the weekend, go a little hard like have a little bit of extra fun. You'll feel it Monday morning and that feeling will get you to lock back in. You know when you're dragging, when you first wake up and you're not really, like interested in doing the things that you need to get done that day, you'll feel that stuff. So you'll intuitively know, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I just learned that.
Speaker 2:Did you come out of high school wanting to get into this stuff, like into personal training, like into the fitness world? Is that where you were headed, like right away when you went to college, into the fitness world.
Speaker 3:Is that where you were headed like right away when you went to college? No, so after high school I had. Actually. I got into Widener University on scholarship. I was going to run track and field and I was going to do computer science and then I realized I don't like sitting down at a computer for long periods of time, so computer science is probably not it for me. That's funny.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was like I really because I was into website design in middle school. So my mom was into that. She had a website. She designed it. It was information-based for dog training and dog behavior. But that whole background of the website stuff I was interested in.
Speaker 3:I built one around horses because I had horses. The website might still be up. It's horseswithamycom, if anybody's just connected. I have not updated it in so long but like I loved horses and I liked, you know, creating that stuff, it just was a lot of information about horses. So I did what my mom was doing, but with horses, and then I was like, well, cool, I could like make money doing this. But then I realized I really don't enjoy sitting because you know, I was in school at the time. So I did a lot of sports. I was up moving. We lived on a farm, but then I was like, but a whole day job of sitting at a computer? No thanks, probably not it. So I turned that down.
Speaker 3:I took a year and a half off from school. In general I just had a job. I worked at the local PetSmart and I was instructing martial arts in the evening as an assistant. And then after about a year and a half I was like I kind of well, that's when I found the well. There was a couple of things that happened. I got really sick. I found out I had Lyme disease. I got sick and that was a detriment to my health and my fitness and through that I realized I needed to learn about, you know, physical fitness, how the body moves, how the body's working, nutrition, stuff. And then I applied to the personal training program because I was like something you know, I need to do something. Let me go to school for personal training. It's six months program. It'll get me, you know, physically in the door there, I'll learn stuff and then I can be a personal trainer. I don't know that I really knew what all of it meant back then, cause I was like 18, 19 years old.
Speaker 3:But I like to do something with myself, and that's what I did. I absolutely loved the program because, again, I was instructing martial arts, so I was always sort of doing this thing of teaching physical movement, and I started that when I was 15. So I became an assistant after doing it for a long time and then I was like well, I know how to teach people how to move. Well, like, let me learn more about that. Right.
Speaker 3:Getting sick, having this detriment of my health, pushed me into that, and then I really was using it kind of personally of how do I fix myself? Yeah.
Speaker 3:I need this but then I can also help other people and make some money helping other people, things like that. And then that was then finding CrossFit Westchester, the internship, things like that. But that was again, you know, not going to school in that moment right out of high school was good for me. And then I found fitness. Thereafter and during that year and a half before I found that personal training school. That's when I was introduced to the gym and to weightlifting and to bodybuilding. So that's also helped spark that interest of the personal training and then going through different treatments. I really liked the nutrition side of things, that I needed it because I was on a lot of antibiotics for Lyme and I needed to heal my inside out from antibiotics and the gut flora and that whole premise there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it all like worked out, all came together. It was kind of meant to be you know?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it definitely was. I was definitely, you know, being guided on that path and even if it was, you know, a way that I wouldn't have wanted it to go back then of getting really sick and that being the reason that I kind of went down this route, got interested in nutrition and, you know, gut healing and just proper fueling, it's what I needed, because it made me understand a lot about the body. So, in the end, it was, you know, a good thing that that happened to me.
Speaker 2:And so you were coming off of Lyme disease, coming into the gym fresh still pulling 225.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that was before. That was before I had my first treatment. So I I, according to my doctors, they think I had Lyme before then, but you know, it wasn't really progressive or maybe, who knows, I got more of it. Um, but that was the bodybuilding in the regular gym, pulled to 25, was before I had my first treatment. Now I'm still working out. It was oral antibiotics at first, so I didn't have anything stopping me from working out, other than if I just felt poor or okay, and it definitely interrupted things. But I still tried to be as active as I could. I continued martial arts, I continued bodybuilding and stuff as much as I could.
Speaker 3:I had my second treatment when I was going through the personal training school and I finished it up as I transitioned into CrossFit, so most of it was pre-CrossFit. There was one which would be the hardest treatment was in 2015. So probably six months in the CrossFit, because I started the summer of 2014 and then this was like fresh 2015. That's when I had a treatment that I had a PICC line in my arm, which is a catheter essentially running a tube up the bicep into the heart. So the antibiotics were IV and it would get distributed from my heart across the whole body versus ingesting it and then having it go through like that digestive system.
Speaker 3:It was direct bloodstream, like there was no other processes of getting it into the body.
Speaker 3:It was like directly into the heart and disperse it everywhere because we need to rid this thing of the body, that that treatment was really, really hard, because it's a type of chemotherapy, I mean. In a way it was five days a week, so Monday through Friday. I went to the office and I sat for 20, 30 minutes, however long it took, got the infusion and then went about my day. And I was at that point I had decided I was going to enroll into college officially. So I went to community college. Within the same month of getting the PICC. Line is when I started my first semester of college.
Speaker 3:I don't know why I did all the things all at once.
Speaker 2:You're like just go.
Speaker 3:I just kept going. That was like and I think that was what helped me get through it is I had something to always work towards and look towards and it was school at that time and newly finding CrossFit, and I just kept going as much as I could, because if you, if you're idle, that's when things are going to, you know, go south and you know who knows if I would have got through it as well as I did. But I had those treatments five days a week. It was 60 total treatments, so five days a week, so however many months. That then spans of every single day, weekends off, because the office is closed, otherwise they probably would do weekends too. So I was doing that Now with the PICC line.
Speaker 3:I was told obviously, you know, don't do as much with that arm. And then at one point they were like try not to sweat too much. And I was like, do you know what I do every day? I was like I don't know if that's possible, but they say that because if I constantly had a band over my arm, so moisture and sweat underneath of it could cause some type of infection on the skin, which happened to me because I was sweating, so I had some type of bacterial skin infection, literally just where the band covering was and at the insertion site, where they like keep antibiotics on it because it's open into the vein. I mean there was a tube going directly into my vein.
Speaker 2:So right, so you can't close that off completely, yeah exactly.
Speaker 3:They can't close it Now where they have the like patch over that with always putting fresh antibiotics every time I was in the office.
Speaker 3:that section was not infected, but the rest of my skin had like a skin thing and they were like you seriously need to stop sweating because the risk was like sepsis potentially. That got in. Now me, being I was 21 at the time was like do you, I like to work out, do you know? Like I didn't, it didn't really process the risk that was taking place at that age you're, you're invulnerable, no matter like what you're going through.
Speaker 3:Right mentally, yes yeah, I, I kind of got it, but I was like I want to move and work out, but I stopped because I realized at that point, when they were like super serious, I was like, yeah, that okay, the doctors being like super serious, I was like, okay, authority figures, I'll listen to you, I guess authority figures it was like, fine, I'll stop.
Speaker 3:So I stopped. I kept going to CrossFit, I kept showing up there to see people. I was also still interning, so I did stuff. But I was like I mean you could probably ask any of the owners Jimmy, jenny, steve like how they saw me then, but I just remember always being like depleted, defeated, couldn't work out, tried to do what I could but wasn't supposed to sweat.
Speaker 3:That was when I sort of stopped actively going to martial arts, because the long sleeves, uniforms that we have to wear and like you're always sweating, I mean it's just you move and you sweat in there and long sleeves aren't helpful. So I sort of transitioned out of martial arts through that taking place, still definitely connected to it, and I went back since then a few times but yeah, yeah, there was like that transitional phase of that happening going to school, going through that final treatment, still trying to do CrossFit. I actually did a weight lifting meet when I was cleared and the infection was gone and they were like, okay, you can work out, be really careful, but like we will let you, because I think they could tell that it was like affecting me, because I saw them like every day for a long um five days a week, yeah five days a week.
Speaker 3:You really get to know somebody and you see the same nurses and the same doctor five days a week. Um, and then they were like fine, go work out again, be careful, try, you know, don't don't do too much. And I actually then signed up for a weightlifting meet, so you're like where's my?
Speaker 2:singlet, let's's go.
Speaker 3:I was like, let's go, I'm allowed to do it, I'm going to sign up. It's this this far away. You know, I'm going to get back into whatever. I forget where that one was. I could probably look it up. I think it was in Jersey somewhere, um. But yeah, I did one and I was happy about it. I still have the pick line. I put an extra wrap around it just so it wouldn't move. I don't know like what went through my mind doing all this and like having that in my arm. I just did it yeah, dude.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you can right, you want to. That's the thing about your health, like you want to use it to be able to do all this stuff, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's what people work out in general. Well, that's what people should work out to enhance the rest of your life, so that you can do like anything you want. Really, you know talking about it, but what was your mentality when you're going through this, when you're thinking let me ask this question Did you ever think that you might not be able to go back to moving so much?
Speaker 3:It definitely was a thought, especially when they told me I couldn't work out and just the way I felt. I did feel really sick. I mean, you're getting antibiotics in your system five days a week, you're not going to feel great. I felt really run down and I definitely had, I guess, looking back, probably some depression around it in terms of not being able to move, feeling like my health might not ever be mine again and I'm not 100% certain what helped me get through that.
Speaker 3:Definitely, showing up to CrossFit Westchester and people treating me the same like people, not treating me like I was sick.
Speaker 3:They understood what I was going through so they were empathetic about it, but they didn't treat me like I was, like some foreign person that was sick, like I was still Amy showing up and you know, doing my internship stuff and hanging out with people and even though I couldn't really work out too much, like I just like hung out at the gym with people and like that definitely really helped, especially because going to martial arts wasn't really working well with the long sleeves and just what I had to do with my arms. There was less available because of just the nature of the sport it was hard to just do leg stuff, lower body stuff. In my parts there was some stuff still possible, but I felt like I could do so little that it was more depressing to keep going there, unfortunately, um at the time, than if I was just kind of transitioning into something that I could at least keep doing like squatting or just like some leg stuff or bike even poles, you know anything?
Speaker 3:yeah, exactly, single arm, like I just did whatever I could, being mindful of my arm, and then, of course, once they cleared me to do a little bit more, I started doing lighter snatches and cleaning jerks and getting back into all of that. Um, and it was winter time, which helped, so the at least sweat level wasn't long sleeves.
Speaker 2:This is our go right now.
Speaker 3:Hell yeah yeah, yeah, it was definitely not a doors open crossfit in the summertime, so that was helpful. But yeah, I mindset wise when I think back to it, like, yeah, I was definitely. I went through waves of like depressed about if I was ever going to be fit again, if I was going to be able to, you know, do what I'm doing. But I also just knew if I just kept going, you know why would I not just keep getting better, if I just kept working on my health, keep showing up Like why would I not try at?
Speaker 2:least. Yeah, yeah, the effort you know could take you there and it's like if the only thing holding me back is my effort, then I'm willing to give that, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and that's all I can give every day. So even when I started competing like more competitively in CrossFit so like 2017 is when I was like I'm going to actually focus on CrossFit and do it I did weightlifting before, that really focused in, got to university nationals and like that was the thing. I was like I kind of like that CrossFit stuff I want to like.
Speaker 3:I want to be able to do muscle ups and like do all this fun stuff. I could do some of it but I was not like very good, like comparative to anybody. But then I started focusing on it and it gave me something new to like work on. It gave me a new skill. There's always something different. It was hard but like it really built it up. It was like if I can just give my best effort every day, why would I not get better? Because you see the games athletes talking about the trials that they go through and they just kept going. And then here they are, you know, at the games and doing the thing. I'm like why not?
Speaker 2:Right, you can relate to that, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Like why not just keep going? And maybe I won't be a games athlete, but at least I can do it and be a little better.
Speaker 2:Right, I can maximize my potential Absolutely. That's really cool. So when did you take your first nutrition client and tell me about that? Like you already are used to teaching people, what's it like to work with someone on their nutrition and their health?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't say this was like my first official, but I dabbled with helping people in nutrition, probably in like the 2015-16 area when I was through like the personal training school too, I sort of helped people, but it was more like you're doing, like mob client helping, so it wasn't really real. But then, you know, I started trying to just like give people advice and help myself and see if something worked for somebody else was very unofficial. First official client was probably just like a year or two after that so 2017, 18, somewhere around there like this is an official client, like they're paying me to do this, not just people, and see if it works and see where it goes. And it was.
Speaker 3:I don't know that I would say it was seamless, but I tried to develop a plan prior. So I worked with a nutritionist with the idea and I told her, like I'm going to school for this, I want to learn how to do this. I want to help myself, but I want to learn how to help other people. So I was like I want to be a client so I can learn what it's like to be a client, learn a bit of a process of what being a client means and then how somebody helps a client. And she sort of mentored me through some of that too. So I did cuts and masses and maintenance and performance, like I wanted to do all the things so that when I did work with somebody, I would have a better understanding of what they were going through work with somebody I would have a better understanding of what they were going through.
Speaker 3:And then also just like years of dabbling with my own nutrition, like post high school kind of early on, trying keto and trying intermittent fasting and trying like raw diet and like all the different weird, flashy, fun things, just seeing what they were like oh keto.
Speaker 2:What a diet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know, and even if I didn't have the right mindset about doing it like my reason for doing it back then wasn't maybe the right mindset of why I would do it it still at least gave me this idea of what it was like. So I had some experience with those things and my own trial and error mostly error and then it kind of brought me into actually learning about nutrition when I went to school and transferred into Westchester out of the community college that I was like oh, this is what you know, real nutrition and physiology and all that stuff. Is that makes sense. No wonder the other stuff doesn't really work very well.
Speaker 3:Here's the real deal. Let me now take what I'm learning from my nutritionist and start applying it to people that I was already like personal training and working with in CrossFit and stuff. So it was marrying the two. Yeah, more or less that long winded answer with that.
Speaker 2:That's great. I mean, dude, I similar to what you said, like when I first got into CrossFit I tried a keto diet and I do not miss eating, like the cheese balls and slim jims or freaking, uh, all the beef jerky all the time, like just super high fats, like I would have energy for my workout and that was pretty much all I could do for the day. You know, everything else would be like at 50, 60 percent, you know, um, as far as energy level wise, because it would burn all the fats then and have no other energy source for the rest of the day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you have no glycogen stores, like if you're trying to do anything high intensity, you need carbohydrates.
Speaker 3:If you're walking a lot and doing maybe some more endurance like lower intensity stuff. Sure, you can probably get away with keto, low carb for a while, but you would probably still feel better if you ate carbohydrates, even do stuff. So it and again. For some people it works. For some people they can sustain it and like that's all cool and dandy for them. For the majority of us it's not going to be the way, especially in the CrossFit space. I don't think I know anybody who successfully does keto and CrossFit. Right.
Speaker 3:And like actually feels good and can really say like they're maximizing their performance.
Speaker 2:And not even competitive CrossFit like just CrossFit classes for their exercise, you know.
Speaker 3:Exactly Just like regular average person coming into a one hour class and doing that and feeling actually good throughout the rest of their day. I just don't see it. It just isn't a thing.
Speaker 2:You know what? I love the post that you put up the other day. Like you know the trend online right now that the propaganda I'm not falling for. I'm going to say this so, when we're talking about counting macros, that it's always negative. When you're counting macros, propaganda that you're not falling for, that's so great because, like I know that some people can attach a negative stereotype and like addiction to that. Like you get overly addicted to counting your macros and you have to hit these numbers and it's tied into your body image and all these things.
Speaker 2:But it can also be good you know, to like consistently know what your numbers are and then just follow that plan. Right, absolutely Everything can go poorly. People can have negative relationships with anything in the world. You know you can even drink too much water. Like everything can literally be bad for you, right? So, like the influencers online that are like, oh, body image, love your body, that's great and all. But for some people that can have the relationship of, hey, these are the numbers that I want to do. This is my plan I want to stick to. I want to see it through and see if I like hey, six months, I'm going to try to be as diligent as I can on hitting these numbers and then see where I am six months from now and then reassess. If I want to leave a bit behind, that's fine. If I want to like up the numbers, if I want to down the numbers, and whether I want to build muscle, lose fat, maintain, like, do that. But like, if you start something, see it through, you know.
Speaker 3:Absolutely yeah. There's nothing wrong with taking some time to like experiment with tracking, weighing and measuring, um, because you don't know until you try Right, and if somebody's goal is to lose weight, that's not a wrong goal. It doesn't mean they don't love their body. It means that maybe they love their body enough that they're willing to do something to better their health, which might be lose weight, which might be lose body fat, which might be eat better. Maybe it's they need to exercise Like you can like yourself enough to want to make healthful changes.
Speaker 3:You don't have to do those things because it's always you hate your body, right? What if you love yourself to want to learn about nutrition, learn what your body needs, do some physical fitness, because those things are actually good for you too. There's nothing wrong with wanting to do those things. So it's not. It's not always negative. It can be right. There's definitely people who take it and they get obsessive and it turns into something negative and we need to pull them back from that and be like OK, it's not that you don't have to be married to weighing and measuring, you can leave it behind and still be OK.
Speaker 2:It's a tool, not like a crutch is 100% facts, like I wanted to lose weight, get in better shape because I love myself and I want to keep loving myself and I want to have a lot of years of being able to do whatever I want.
Speaker 2:Right, like if we want to go hiking one day, go do that. If there's only one person at the 930 class and I haven't warmed up and I didn't have a great night's sleep last night, I can still work out with them, right, like unexpected. You know, like you shouldn't be able to just do a workout, like I think that we get lost a lot of the times and that most of the time we are in perfect scenarios. That, like you, should be able to do things even without a perfect scenario.
Speaker 3:You know, like I always want to be able to go do a pull up.
Speaker 2:I always want to be able to go do a pull-up. I always want to be able to just do some air squats, Like I always want to be able to just go for a run. I always want to be able to like jump. You know, I don't want to have to have the perfect scenario for me to be able to go do those things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and do you want to be able to, like you know, if somebody who has kids get down on the ground, play with your kids, pick them up? If there's an emergency, can you pick up your 20 pound kid and run with them?
Speaker 2:Can you?
Speaker 3:carry them for a prolonged period of time. Can you like something falls like they knock over furniture Cause I did that as a kid. I knocked a dresser on top of me when I was young. Can you pick that dresser up off your kid? Like you know, these could be far-fetched scenarios, but they're also real scenarios. Potentially you might need to pick something up and run with it and, like you do that and not just get gassed in the first 10 seconds like will you survive an emergency?
Speaker 3:yeah you know you want to be able to live your life comfortably, but be able to flip that switch, and by comfortably meaning you're capable of doing things. Not that you get to lounge on the couch all day, like no, I want to be able to do my yard work and come back in and like pick up my daughter, carry her around you know we have chickens so like fill up their water container, carry it like a farmer carry, while holding my daughter in the other arm. So like I do that because I have to sometimes.
Speaker 3:She doesn't want to be put down. She's not walking yet so I'm not gonna like. Just I wish I could plop her in the grass and leave her. What if she doesn't want that? I gotta carry her and carry the water bucket and like get it over there, can I?
Speaker 2:do that? I hope so. I'm gonna guess that if you plop her in the grass she's gonna go chase a chicken I would guess what would happen there.
Speaker 2:But I think the next part of your life starts when those things start to become the important things to you, right, like? I just had this same conversation with one of my members the other day, like she was telling me she had like two back-to-back days of excuses of why she didn't make it in a class, even though she had reserved the reservation. She's like oh, I got stuck at work with a. She works at a bank, like talking with this customer, and I was just like, hey, man, she's got a three-year-old. Right now. I'm like I'll be honest with you like five years from now it's going to be more important to you and your daughter that you could do a full air squat or that you could run around with her than it is. Whatever you got out of that 15 minutes you split with the customer. You know like. I got it.
Speaker 2:Work is important, but like we all have the ability to be like, oh hey, like we need to resolve this now. You know, obviously without being rude, because I need to go, and especially if it's a routine thing where you're consistently like, oh, I couldn't make it because of this. You know, multiple days in a row, multiple weeks in a row, that's most likely a you thing and not actually the customer or whatever is going on at work, and so like, how can we get you to understanding that you?
Speaker 3:know. Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, and sometimes I even tell people, especially when I was coaching CrossFit like, even if you're five, 10 minutes late, show up, like if that's not a routine thing that you do. Like if you are having trouble that day and you might be five minutes late to my class, I'd rather you still get there and I'll warm you up while I'm coaching the rest of it, and you know you might have to do a little independent warmup. I'd rather you show up under you know weird, random circumstances, that a little bit late, than just decide to literally not come at all and then have that be your repeated routine. Things happen, you might miss a class. But I have told people that before. Like if you're not consistently late to my class, it's okay. If you show up late once in a while, right, not a big deal.
Speaker 2:If you are consistently late, I like I know what that's about, you know, like I know that's a you thing and it's like I will have the conversation with you Like hey, man, you're doing this where you could probably avoid it, you know yeah because you can always tell the people that are like, oh man, this person's coming from an hour away and they're just trying to make it like they're doing dealing with all these things, versus the person that's just, you know, late because they're late right, yeah, they're just a late person on the, the body image thing, man, like it's not always bad to have the rough conversations with people, or to have someone have the rough conversation with you, or to hear a rough conversation.
Speaker 2:Like a year ago, dude fricking, andrew Hiller was like going on these posts about, like, what makes a CrossFitter and like that's something that I talk about a lot, right, because like there's the community at large but like, like we're not really connected. You know, like the members that go here, they probably don't know anyone that goes across at westchester, they probably don't know a lot of people that go to across the generation, like all that stuff. So, like, what makes a crossfitter? Is it doing the workouts, is it following the games, blah, blah. And he said something that really stuck with me because it's the true essence. He was, like you're a CrossFitter when you care about and you are intentional about what you put into your body. That's what it truly started from and it's like hearing those words. It's like, dude, I haven't been intentional about the things that I put it into my body in so long. So to me, by my definition because I agree with that I'm not a CrossFitter. And that like just flipped the switch to me and it wasn't over, and that propelled you into it. Exactly, it propelled me into it.
Speaker 2:It wasn't overnight. I had to go do the work, right, like to get back to it, but it was like you know what, hearing that, it sucked because it's like I'm not what I think I am. You know, like I may do the workouts, they're freaking crappy and they might not be a hundred percent better right now, but, like I'm not trying to be a competitive athlete, but I want to care about my health and I want to. I want to push that message to other people. Right, it's like, oh shit, that was hard to hear, but it flipped the switch for me. It's's like all right, this stops now. You know we're back on the train.
Speaker 3:Yeah, tough love is good, like sometimes saying the truth, and you can say things that are tough to say in a loving way, because you're really saying them, because you care about the person you're saying. You know we should care about the things we put in our body. Ingredients matter I think I put that in the propaganda thing like eating minimally processed whole foods is better than eating highly processed foods Doesn't mean you can never have something highly processed, ever. But it's like, okay, there is truth to eating. Well, that's good. We should hear that message.
Speaker 2:And you don't have to feel like a bully because you're saying that you know.
Speaker 3:I'm not trying to bully anybody by saying we should eat well and minimally processed and I use the word minimally processed very intentionally, because every single food undergoes a process. So I think I just saw you have like a I was just gonna say that, yeah. It's like, okay, that's apples, and probably maybe some sugar or something else in there, unless it's the sugar free one. It's like it was an apple that's now sauced right through a process it got processed.
Speaker 3:Yes, right it got processed into a saucy form, but it's still a like a minimally processed, relatively whole food. It's apples, right. It's now conveniently packaged for you to have as a pre or post workout. That's a great thing to do, especially if you're in a pinch or need something quick or you you know, you just enjoy having it.
Speaker 2:But we're going to sit down on a call in between the two like things of fitness that you're going to do. You know exactly.
Speaker 3:Exactly, you have two fitness sessions, something in between. That's something that's really good and easy for your body to digest. You have a competition something again really good and easy for your body to digest, but it's still like I would consider a minimally processed food and you check the ingredients and you make sure it's mostly not crap and it's mostly like the regular whole ingredients that it can be even better. It doesn't mean that you can never have something, that's not that but it means that most of it should be like and there's nothing wrong with saying that nobody needs to get like their feelings hurt or all uptight that somebody had to say that it's just, it's literally the truth, but it doesn't mean that you can never have a sweet treat.
Speaker 3:I talk about the 80 20 rule all the time. I have posts about it on my instagram. I tell all my clients because they're like, what if I have a birthday party or a vacation and I'm like, have you heard of 80, 20, 80 of the time, I want you to eat whole, minimally processed foods on the plan that we're trying to follow, because you have these goals. Goals matter, dosing matters. Why are we doing the thing? But you have these goals, so we want to do the thing that's going to get you to those goals. Otherwise, why are you here 20% of the time? Do the other things right and when you actually break down what 80-20 looks I have a post on my website about this and I forget the exact numbers, but like 80-20 across the week is like five and a half days on and like one and a half off.
Speaker 3:Okay, realistically, that's 80-20. That means you can have a day that's like not great, like the whole day. That's what that means and you can do that across. What does 80-20 look in your day? That you can do that across? What does 80 20 look in your day. That's like one meal, that's like thrown out the window if you're eating, I think like three meals and a snack or something like that, and then it's what does it look like through the week, through the month and then through the year? You go as far out as that. That's a little extra far. But like month week day is kind of what I like to look at for a client. It's like, okay, in the month you can have I think it's something like five or six days thrown out the window and you're still 80% on track.
Speaker 2:Boom You're doing it and as you get more and more consistent with it, like you will start to crave all these whole foods and that's what just naturally happens. We went to Lynn Villa orchards two, three weeks ago, picked a bunch of delicious strawberries, left with some tomatoes, like a whole bunch of produce, and it's an orchard. They also have the bakery in there. We left with an apple pie. Last year we would have had the apple pie in the house. The apple pie would have been gone within two, three days, because every day I would have had a slice.
Speaker 2:Now, the first day I haven't had any sweet treats in a while, it was really good to have the slice the next day. Like, all right, we shared a slice instead of, like both of us having one the night before. Now it's been two weeks and there's still half a pie in there, cause it's like you don't crave it anymore, right, like that's just naturally what has happened, you know. And so even the things that it makes you appreciate the breaks from your strict on diet even more. Like, oh, that was good Instead of that's just a natural part of my diet. Like that was a good treat Instead of that's just something that I have every day.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Yeah, your body gets used to one way or the other. Whichever way you go, lots of sugar, lots of processed fatty foods or lots of whole, minimally processed foods. Because, again, like things like cheese and sourdough bread, like they're all like undergoing a process, like we said with the applesauce, like that's why I say minimally processed whole foods, because it doesn't mean that you can never cook your meat. It's like, obviously, when you cook your meat which we should do your process you're processing your meat right. It's like, okay, we don't have to be so married to the word process. I know people, some people jump at that. It's like everything is processed. You can't say the word.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like truth. Everything is literally processed. But you know what spectrum are we going with something that's processed? Um, but yeah, like you can still have those things in and it's a treat. Now it's not your every everyday. It's something you looked forward to, you enjoyed it, and then you were like I don't really need that, I'd rather eat something that makes me feel better.
Speaker 2:Right now it's like, like literally okay, it's Wednesday night, Like I'm just getting home at seven, 30. If I go home, have my meal, that's going to like take me close to my macros, right, or like the numbers that I need to hit. By the time I shower and eat that food, it's going to be nine o'clock. Man, If I have a slice of pie there's, I'm not going to sleep well tonight, you know. Like so it's just not worth it and it's going to take me over all my numbers and I'd rather just hit my numbers at something that's close and sleep well. So then it becomes like oh, this is an easy decision to make, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I want to talk about this. We just went on on like a little bit of that tangent I want to talk about. So, say, someone comes to you new client and they want to work with you and their goal is fat loss. We'll talk about this one first. Like, what are some of the first things that you go over? Like, is it on the habits? Like what they eat now, conversations about like stuff to add in, stuff to take away? Like what's the start of that process?
Speaker 3:Like, yeah, very first thing I do is I lay out the process and the timeline of how long it's going to take One. We go over their goals, like is this realistic? Is the number that you have in your head whether it's the end goal I want to be this weight or I want to lose this amount Is it realistic for where you are? And then we look at your timeline and I ask people to write this in their intake forms. I want you to give me your goal one month, three months and six months out, like where do you see yourself and what do you hope to accomplish? And then I review that and if they're like, in one month I want to lose this much weight and I'm like probably not going to happen, like that's going to be a little later. And then I explained the first month. We adjust to a plan. We adjust your portions, we adjust your meals, we take a deep dive into what you're doing and how we can make all your meals nice and balanced.
Speaker 3:And I do give people a tangible plan because I think that's important when they can say I have this thing, this thing is my map of how to eat, but they're not married to it Because, again 8020,.
Speaker 3:You have this thing called the plate method where you can look at your plate and say half your plate vegetables, a quarter protein, a quarter starch, and like that's your foundation, your fallout. But then we can say like okay, for me individually, this is how many grams of protein I ideally should have in my meals carbs, veggies, all the things. So I like to give people a tangible plan. If somebody isn't already used to weighing and measuring, I say let's look at protein, forget the rest of the plan. Let's nail down your protein over, whether it's one, two weeks, and let's just like make your portions of protein even and what they, what you need them to be in your meals. When you feel comfortable with that, we'll look at fat, carbs and the like and maybe the first two months is just building their meals and we'll be as simple as possible. If they're like I can't do it for all the meals in my day, let's do breakfast, that's right, let's focus on breakfast.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one meal at a time, one macronutrient at a time, whatever they need. But step one is I lay out the foundation of the timeline because I need people to be realistic in what their goals are going to take. Typically it's six to eight months and I lay that out. I say in the first four weeks I established your foundation. We're not in a deficit or a surplus. I'm estimating your baseline calories of what you need. We're going to do that for a month, for four weeks, because that's usually how long it takes for somebody to feel pretty comfortable weighing, measuring, eating what they need. Then they have these things called non-scale victories that we look at in that first month, especially your energy levels, your sleep, are you full, are you hungry after? Because then I adjust, like if somebody's like hungry, okay, I might have miscalculated what their need is. We're going to adjust that in those first four weeks because I want you to feel satisfied after your meals, not hungry, and hopefully be coming to the point of being energized and sleeping better in the first month.
Speaker 3:Right, and we lay that foundation and then it's whatever it is. So if it's weight loss, it's roughly like this eight to 12 week process, depending on the goal, depending on how they feel. Maybe a little bit longer than 12 weeks, but usually not, because there's a lot of fatigue that can happen when you do a deficit and it's progressional. So I just pull some once you have your portions. I pull portions away every three to four weeks and that creates that deficit for somebody. But it starts with that intake form and it starts with the timeline and then, based on your goals, I make sure you understand what's realistic for your goals and we're like on the same page, because I don't want somebody being two months in. I didn't lose this much weight. I'm like OK, we need to be realistic about when. We'll see that how much go back to the map right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like, this is your map. It doesn't mean that we don't take a different trail at some point, but like, this is the process, the foundation of like what we're going to be looking at. Do you agree? Yes, let's go, do you not agree? Let's talk about why you don't like something and let's see where we can be in the middle, because I want all of my clients to have this realistic look on their nutrition. Nothing fancy, nothing fluffy, all just like straight up. This is what it's going to be. I'm going to be in your back pocket every step of the way. Email me as much as you need to. There's no like limit and like, if you have like weird individual questions, like, shoot them to me, like, let me know if you, you know, you want me to look at a menu when you're going to a restaurant because you have to go there because of X, y, z, send me the menu, I'll help you find something that works. It's, it's whatever that person needs. And then, um, hopefully I'm not going too out in the weeds on your question for weight loss, but that's like. That's like where it starts and everything else after that. It's not that it doesn't matter, but it's like. If we can't establish that beginning timeline, we're not anywhere.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, at that point we're sort of streamlined a little bit. We hit any bumps and hurdles along the way. I've had people do like great. I call them cuts and masses. So the cutting phase, that weight loss phase. I've had people go through really great cuts, even through the holiday season because again, 80-20 when that holiday comes up and what I really like is when they can go on a vacation, have a holiday, a birthday party, work conferences while they're working with me, because I say here's the guidelines I want you to take to, that when you're done with it, come back to me with how it worked and we're going to reassess your plan the next time you have that. So I'm like bulletproofing everybody for all these events and if they don't have, if they have, this perfect timeline of I'm doing zero things that will interfere with my nutrition while I work with you, I'm like you're going to have a harder time making this sustainable Because when it comes up later you're not going to know what to do and I might not be helping you at that point.
Speaker 3:Like I want you to go on vacations to do your normal life. Don't hide yourself from the normal world, because then I can't help you in the normal world.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:That kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Like, how long are you going to be in that state where you're not doing anything? You know? Exactly Right you might run into that long stretch of four months, six months, where it's like, okay, I could just stay home, go to work, come home every day, go work gym and then come home every day, but how long is that really going to last?
Speaker 3:You know Exactly Like I want to bulletproof my clients for that. So when they do, when I do lay out that timeline and it's weight loss and they're like, oh, but I might have this thing and I can't avoid it I'm like, good, don't avoid it, we're going to work through it, I'm going to give you stuff to help you get through it and if it goes poorly, it's a learning tool, right, you're going to learn from it and we're going to reassess the next time. It's not going to go so poorly, like, unless somebody's gone for multiple months. It's like, how will it go so poorly that you're gone for a couple of days or a week that you're going to completely derail everything? It just like doesn't happen. That you're going to completely derail everything. It just like doesn't happen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can learn from that experience and then you feel better about one. I now I can go away and I actually felt better on that vacation by sticking with some nutritional parameters, making some better choices, having less alcohol. And then they come back and they're like I felt great, like, look at this, like I can do this. You know it builds their confidence when they're going on vacation or having a holiday or a work conference or something like that, and then it just again lights that fire even more, because they had success and that success gives them the motivation to keep going, even though they need discipline. Motivation is fickle, but it's like it gave them a little spark of like oh, I can do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, there's nothing like if you're especially on vacation and you wake up in the morning and everyone else is like so slow and groggy, and then you're ready to get to it. You know that that gives you everything that you need. Right there You're like oh, I want to keep getting this feeling. I want to keep waking up and having this feeling, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah people don't know how good they can feel until they start feeling good, and that's like my husband and I sometimes talk about. Like we're like wow, how does that person like drink so much and like wake up this early and stay up this late? And I'm like, well, they don't know anything else, they don't know how they can feel unless they start feeling good because that's what they're used to.
Speaker 2:They're just operating with their 80%, believing that it's 100% every day. Yeah, so what about if their mass, if they're trying to put on a weight, they're trying to put on muscle mass, anything like that? Like similarities, differences in the starting process?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I would say mostly the same in the timeline in the beginning and laying the foundation of like that first four weeks that's all the same with anybody, no matter what their goal is we lay that foundation and the timeline of their goal. Massing is like the opposite of cutting, so progressionally increasing calories over time and then really looking at and I do this for cutting too, but looking at nutrient timing. So I like to work with active individuals to some degree. It doesn't mean they all do CrossFit, maybe they just like go on a lot of walks or they do some running, whatever it is. But like active people, I like to use nutrient timing around their physical activity. So we really capitalize on, you know, fueling and refueling for that fitness when it comes to putting on muscle, especially because we want more fuel.
Speaker 3:You've just, you know, tested your muscles. You just did whatever you need to do. You want to build muscle, we need to eat more right after. That's the end goal. You need to eat more in general across the day, but capitalize on that recovery period and capitalize on recovering faster after that workout. So I know sometimes people are like, oh, you don't have to eat 60 minutes or 30 minutes after the workout. But if you're trying to build muscle, why would you not stop the catabolic process of your muscles in the body and start an anabolic process of recovery? Why would you not do that sooner, if you could? Right, if you're going to try to recover and build your muscles, let's do it as soon as possible to get you to that spot.
Speaker 3:And then I always have conversations and this is definitely with my like personal training and coaching background conversations around. You're trying to build muscle. Like what are your, what's your fitness look like, what are you doing? Are you lifting weights? Are you doing more hypertrophy? Like what does that look like? I'll give you advice. Even though I'm not writing fitness plans or workout programs right now or anything like that, I want to at least give them a direction because I can, you know, look over their plan and see whether or not it's going to be compatible because of the background and fitness coaching and stuff.
Speaker 3:And I have written weightlifting programs for people before. I just don't prefer that. I prefer the nutrition side, but I'll review. So that's like one of the you could say a free perk If somebody's trying to do that. I'll review your fitness plan and see if it aligns with your goals and if you can tweak it, or if I can throw some resource your way that I found and like, hey, this might help you. Why don't you try some of this and go from there? Um, because, the yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you want to put on muscle, you have to like lift weights. You have to do yeah, like. If someone's coming to you, they're like hey, I want to build like max straight strength. Right, I want to get x amount stronger in these lifts. And then you're like what are you doing? And they're like oh well, I mostly do like orange theory in the morning and then I do some bicep curls and stuff like that. Well, you're like well, you're probably not going to develop your overall strength, you're not going to get weaker. Where you're like well, you're probably not going to develop your overall strength. You're not going to get weaker, but you're not going to develop overall strength, you know. And then vice versa, in any kind of a fitness worlds, you know.
Speaker 3:Exactly. You have to look at their goals and does it align with what they're doing? And then you know, help steer them in the direction that it will. So that's all just about goals, with everything.
Speaker 2:Right, like just making sure that you properly set your intentions and go to the beginning. You know from all three sides. I love that.
Speaker 3:That's like the biggest thing is. I have that conversation first of what is your goal? This is a pathway to get you to the goal, like, are you willing to do this or does this make sense to you? Maybe some people even realize, when I explain that process, that that, oh, maybe that's like not actually my goal, maybe I actually want to do something different. I've had that.
Speaker 3:I've had somebody sort of shift their goal, maybe not change it completely, but like shift it a little bit, because I explained what something looks like and they're like oh well, maybe instead of losing weight, I actually want to perform better and like actually fuel this. Actually want to perform better and like actually fuel this. And it's not so much the weight loss, because they realize, because they might like give me this inkling of they're doing this sport or they're training for this thing and they think losing weight or restricting their calories will help with it. And I explain we want to make sure you feel fueled and recovered for this. We'll still get your weight loss, but like fueled and recovered. And they're like oh wait, but maybe I want to actually just be fueled and recover, like right, let's, let's then do that, let's not be in a deficit.
Speaker 2:Right, like the girl we talked about earlier that's always a fast date she what she really wants. She says she wants to tone, and I'm like so you want to build muscle mass, right? She's not a super overweight or heavy person, you know. Like she maybe has a few extra pounds that she wants to lose. I'm like so you need to lift heavier weights and then eat more, right? And then if you do that for three to six months, I bet you would have the results that you wanted. She doesn't want to compete in CrossFit, but she wants to be strong. She wants to do one more pull-up next week than she did this week. The comment she always makes is look at Carrie Underwood's legs, look at X's arms, things like that. So it's like you're not looking at small people, you're looking at people with definitive muscle on their body and you want that. That they didn't get that by eating less.
Speaker 2:That's just not what happened with that person you know, maybe less than what you're eating right now because of where you're putting the water into the buckets of what you're eating, but definitely not like hey, you should, just should just restrict, restrict, restrict, like that's not what that person did, you know.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Yeah, when somebody comes with the word toned, I do just like you said. I'm like so you want to build muscle? Like I explained what that word is, I'm like you know you have this goal of being toned. You know being toned really means this. It really means having muscle and then revealing the muscle. So I just want to be like on the same page of if you want to be toned, we need to make sure you have muscle first, because that's what toned is you have and reveal that muscle.
Speaker 3:You know that I don't really love that word all that much. You see it mostly with women when they're like I don't want to get bulky, I want to get toned. I'm like okay, you probably don't work out enough to get bulky right, for in their head, bulky is I'm like you, you inserted so and so's name, who's a competitive CrossFitter who, like their life mission is getting bulky, and like that's all they got so far and like't necessarily consider them bulky, because perspective on everything too and I'll respect people's perspective of who they think in their mind looks bulky versus not but it's like you won't look like insert that person because you don't work out like that person, you don't train hard enough to do that. So, yeah, you know, toned and bulky, um it just like won't happen for most people.
Speaker 2:You're not going to become Brookwells because you do not go straight from being a collegiate track athlete to go into the CrossFit Games for 10 years and having sponsors to you know, not pay for but help you with your food and do all this Like you're not going to just eat 15 more grams of protein and 20 more grams of carbs 30 more grams of carbs, and it looked like Brookwell's, like that's just. It's not what's going to happen to you. You know you're not going to devote four hours to the gym every day for the next two years. If you do that, yeah, you can you're going to end up looking like her, but when you see her in person, I bet that the in-person thing is going to look a lot less bulky than what you're referring to it as, like when you're next to her.
Speaker 3:you know yeah, photography and like video on the internet you don't have that perspective of person versus like that angle and the lighting and the sweat and like the glisten, it's like that's all to enhance the way they look. Like like uh, tia obviously is the top of the sport, but she's not very big. She's like 135, 140. So at least we see it here on the internet and like she's not like super tall, she's not like a large person. She has a lot of defined muscle but she's not a large human. She's a very much average, average, you know size like height, wise female and like on the lighter side for most athletes.
Speaker 3:Sure, athletes like being 135 140 is a small athlete.
Speaker 2:It's not a huge athlete I mean even jenny butler, dude like she's tiny, but she's jacked right yes, absolutely if she was on those screens right now and like the angles that she would definitely look big. You know, if people didn't know her they'd be like oh, this chick's probably got to be at least five, five, five, six, you know, in way like and the 150, jenny is probably what five, two, you know, like 128 yeah, yeah, she says that what is it?
Speaker 3:the 58 or 59? They changed it like somewhere right around weight class. It's like the lightweight, yeah, yeah that's just under 130 for olympic weightlifting like yeah that's not large at all and she's jacked exactly like. She's extremely strong and, like you know, lean and jacked like right, like goals right there for that.
Speaker 2:But it's yeah, if you just saw pictures you'd be like whoa, she's super big right right, right, I mean she looks like powerful in person, but like it's not like a overbearing, like oh damn, you know, like that kind of thing. Right, but she's super strong. You know cameras can do so much to these people, man. But yeah, so at the end here for all you people listening, like you're not going to get bulky from eating the 20 extra grams of carbs.
Speaker 2:I think that's not what's going to, especially if it's like rice potatoes, things like that. You know, like that's not going to, that's not going to happen to you. You're just like you said. You're not going to do that work to get the the the size on your body, like the people that we see on our screens in general, like across the board, not just at the CrossFit space. You know you're not going to end up looking like the rock in a Fast and the Furious movie just because you ate an extra potato a day. That's just not what's going to happen to you.
Speaker 3:Or just because you stepped in the weight room, suddenly you're like going to gain a whole bunch of weight, like I'm sorry, you don't like lift up something like a dumbbell and all of a sudden put on all this muscle. It doesn't work that way. Eating the amount of calories to match your activity level is not going to build you a lot of muscle. It's not really necessarily conducive to building muscle. You need the surplus. It's like you know. Trying to just eat enough is not going to suddenly turn you into the Hulk.
Speaker 2:Right, that's the big thing that I've been like working with the past year. You know like you lose the weight, you lose the like weight, then you lose the body fat percentage and then strength depletes as well because I've been eating at a deficit for so long. In the beginning my nutrition coach upped my carbs and my proteins there. She did that approach because I was under eating on carbs by so much every day and doing a lot of liquid carbs, that kind of thing. So whole foods, foods up the carbs like up at like 275 280.
Speaker 2:In the beginning I was stuffed and it was so hard to eat all that food and then I settled until after like six weeks it's like, oh damn. Like now I'm like hungry after I've like uh, like settled into this like stage and then it's like not stuff, but I'm full every day after like three to four months of like eating like that you know, like this is the number that I need to be at. But then, like some days, it's like, okay, it's a little bit harder to do like a CrossFit workout and then try to get any strength in that you know or talk to people about is if you're in a calorie deficit, I expect you to get fatigued.
Speaker 3:I expect at some point your workouts are going to feel a little more gassed and taxed, like we have that realistic conversation because I don't want them to be surprised and but it's like you know, this is your goal. It's short lived in a calorie deficit before we build you back up and and like, like you said so, your nutritionist had you eat more in the beginning. That's that foundation that I like for people. Oftentimes I have them eat more and sometimes they still lose weight because suddenly their body's being fueled and I did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, like the body doesn't feel stressed to hold onto that body fat because there is no famine right. They can fuel their activity, get their baseline, baseline down and then they can actually sometimes lose a little bit of weight in the beginning before we hit the deficit. I try not to have it be much because I don't want them accidentally in a deficit. Before we bake, like make the deficit, I want them eating well, so they know what the baseline is and then we move into that deficit. But yeah, like you said, it's, it's about establishing that foundation. And then, yeah, expect some fatigue to settle in because you're under fueling. What do we expect when we under fuel?
Speaker 2:to not feel as good like four months, but it was like body composition changes, you know, like completely. So that's that point where we talked about earlier that there's like you don't realize it until someone else kind of does. First. Then you're like oh shit, I guess my clothes do fit differently and like I do look different. You know, it has to be like an outward thing, you know and that's.
Speaker 3:I'll try to talk to people about what non-scale victories are. So that's what I call them and that's're you're referring to. And like somebody else brought that up to you of, like, oh, you're having these, like other non-scale victories, like the scale's not moving, but you look different. So I'll I'll at least talk about that, cause I'll look at people's weight trend and when I see that maybe it's not moving as much, but I want them to give me daily feedback about their day and I hear things like you know, their workouts getting better, maybe they PR or their clothes fit better, the towel wrapped around them a little bit better after the shower, I'm like, yes, non-scale victory here here, here I'll even send people. You know, these are all these non-scale victories. Are you having any of them? Like, let's talk about these, because it's not just about the number, because you can weigh the same.
Speaker 3:So I sometimes use myself as an example of back in when I first started CrossFit, like 2014,. I weigh the same now, like 11 years in the CrossFit, my weight give or take like a five pound range is literally the same, but I look completely different. If somebody knew me or saw a picture of me back then versus now, after like doing it competitively at this point I had a daughter and stuff like that. Like things have changed but like I look different but I weigh the same. I have a lot more muscle and I'm leaner now than I was back then. But it's like the number on the scale never really moves that much for me, you know, aside from a bit here and there, overall, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:You put that. You toned up right. Well, amy, this has been a great conversation. At the end, I want to ask you, like, what's next for fueling fitness nutrition? What are your goals? What are you hungry for?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'm definitely striving to broaden my reach. So I work coached at two CrossFit gyms. The majority of my community has been within those two CrossFit gyms. I'm trying to reach more people, whether it just be free stuff I put on the Internet that might help guide them in the right direction. Whether it's sponsoring events like your competitions I try to like jump on some sponsorships with your competitions. I'm sponsoring the Metcon Rush competition as well. So just like getting myself out there trying to be more present on social media as, like my face talking, I don't typically like to do that as much I'm getting more comfortable. This podcast was a great opportunity to do that, I know yeah.
Speaker 3:I can talk to people very well in person, and this is different because I'm speaking to you but like talking to my camera and then looking at myself and then like, all right, I'll publish that to the internet. Like it's just weird. I much rather have like a conversation with somebody. But all of that to say, I just want to kind of reach more people within the fitness space, whether it be CrossFit or running, triathlons, martial arts I am diving a little bit back into my martial arts community. I was in their program, so I actually have it right here for a tournament which I'm on the back cover of the tournament program for them, let's go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, a bunch of stuff. And it's like, all right, I'm fourth degree black belt, like I did that thing A lot of people in that community still know me Like this is for my martial arts school that I was at and I was like, let me continue to be a part of that community and, you know, help the martial artists, because I know what it's like to do martial arts and how you should fuel for that. Like now, like I understand all of that and what that entails and can I help those athletes because it is really important for them as well. And like my competitive career in martial arts uh, fueling for it was important back then.
Speaker 2:Is martial arts, uh uh, weight class based too.
Speaker 3:It uh, no, it's more so sometimes. I should say it's more so rank based. So your, uh, your degree, your belt, your ranking, that's kind of your category. And then men and women, um, I don't, there might be some avenues that are a little bit weight class. I think I only did there might be some avenues that are a little bit weight class. I think I only did one that might've been a little more weight class oriented, but ours is not so what we typically did, like even if somebody was a foot taller than me, if they were, you know my rank, my age range, you know woman we would be in the same, like it didn't matter what you weight, similar to CrossFit. It doesn't matter what you weigh, it matters how you perform. Um, so with that, it's like you should capitalize on your performance, not capitalize on your weight yeah, bring it in the weightlifting world, man, because they're freaking always changing the weight classes.
Speaker 2:Dude came down to weight classes like I'm gonna crush it this year, then they freaking the weight classes now are like 94, then the next one's 110 for men. I'm like that's a large disparity, like, yeah, 94 being just over 205 pounds to up to uh, freaking 240, like that's huge and that makes a difference when, especially the higher up in the weight class, you get like mass moves, mass right I remember that's.
Speaker 3:I loved competing in weightlifting, the snatch, snatch, the clean and jerk. I did not love that. I fell awkwardly between two weight classes where I naturally was around like a 60, 61 kilo lifter. So am I going to cut down to 58 or 59 when they kind of changed it, or am I going to try it? It was really hard for me to be a 63, like, a full 63. Like, and you can ask some people like ask Jenny. I tried really really hard like I. I just could not maintain it because it just wasn't my build, like I had to get an uncomfortable amount of food, but like falling so awkwardly in between those weight classes.
Speaker 3:if I cut I might lift less but I might not be able to capitalize on, you know, being at the lower end of this next weight class that I'm in if I don't want to cut. So I totally get that, um, which is another reason I liked moving into CrossFit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, cause it's all about the performance, right, like I my I probably like naturally, would be good at like the 93, 94. That's probably like where my body would like would be maxed at. You know, when I first got into crossfit, I was what we talked about earlier, you know, addicted to like doing it so much. I was like 175. Well, I used cross in the beginning to like get in shape, like after freaking high school and college, like destroying my body, like in the very beginning I got down like 175 and I was like way too small. You know, like uh, then I found weight lifting and probably had like the the peak years of sitting in like the 195 to 205 range. So that's probably where my body sits naturally, the best you know. But like having to get down to that like and the only other thing is 110, you know, like that, like that's huge, it's 16 kilos.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a really big it's. It is unfortunate sometimes where those weight classes fall, cause that is a big, big difference. I was talking to um, a weightlifter who I'm working with nutrition wise, and like she was falling awkwardly in between the weight classes and it's like, okay, what, like? What do we do? Like we could make it to the smaller weight class, but you might not lift as well, or we just focus on getting you as fueled up as possible and as strong as possible and just, you know, it just is what it is that you're in this higher weight class.
Speaker 2:It's a tough situation for sure that's where those like long-term honest plans come into play, right like hey, maybe we sit back and we go all right, maybe not the next, the meat that's three months away, maybe not the one that's six months away, maybe we plan for a year away where we fill out our bigger weight class. We get you properly fueled and as strong as you could get in that one, and then you keep going from there.
Speaker 3:You know yeah, absolutely, because like wouldn't you want to lift more if you could?
Speaker 2:right, right. Be as strong as you can be in that bigger weight class. Your body probably feels naturally better so it's going to recover better on the data on the day to day. So I think that's probably a lot of people's game plans. You know, unless you're in those upper, upper echelons of weight classes that you like all right now to make a world team and stuff like that, I need to be in a slower weight class. Then you have that other honest conversation, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, the higher up you get, the different the conversation is. If you're more on a local level, you're doing it because you enjoy it and you like it. Okay, let's be realistic. Are you trying to be on the world team or are you just trying to get as strong as you can?
Speaker 2:Right, right, 100%. Well, guys, this has been Amy Landis, a fueling fitness nutrition. Guys, this has been Amy Landis of Fueling Fitness Nutrition. Like she just said, you'll hear and see some promotional stuff coming from her for the Brawl and the Burbs coming up in July and then also Metcon Rush. Is that in July too? I think it is.
Speaker 3:Yes, that one's July. July, like 12th, 13th.
Speaker 2:I think it's the weekend before it. Yeah, I think I moved the Brawl date because I want to go to that. I want to make it out to Hagerstown, Maryland, to go to that man. Shout out to Tim. Shout out to Back on Rush. If you guys are looking for a nutrition coach, reach out to her man. She's got all your needs that you could ever need. It's been a great conversation, yeah.
Speaker 3:Thank you for inviting me on. This was awesome.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent. I'm glad that we finally got this down. Man, I'm sure both of our schedules are crazy.