If You Could Start Fitness Over, What Would Be Your Advice?

Podcast Transcript

 Jerred: [00:00:00] To the Garage Gym Athlete Podcast, Jerred here with Joe Courtney. What's up Joe? How's it going? It's going well. Today we're gonna be diving into some updates from us. I know everybody loves to hear about what we're doing, how we're training, what we're eating, all those good things. We'll go over that quickly here at the beginning.

Talk a little bit about some stuff we have going on in a garage Gym athlete. A very kind of like secretive, cryptic way. More pay attention if you're a part of the community is what I'm gonna end up saying. But then we're gonna be going over the main topic for the day, which is if you had to start training all over from scratch, what would you do?

And we're gonna talk a little bit about training and nutrition. So Joe and I have been training for a long time. We're gonna look back at if we had to restructure things like from whenever we started to now, what would we do? But before we dive into that, Joe, how is life, how is training?

I.

Joe: Actually the first thing I wanted to mention is I took a a play out of your three 50 [00:01:00] micro and started experimenting Yeah. And using that and for different reasons, but it's still, I think it's. It's been really good and the main reason why I started doing it is not a blood sugar reason.

I don't know if it's has any effect on my blood sugar. It's not something I've ever had an issue with. It's more so like I'm a snacker. I'm a definitely big time snacker. And I can also get lazy in the middle of the day and not make an actual lunch. I can just figure because usually the middle of the day is I got other stuff that I'm doing, so I don't really feel like stopping and making something and eating.

So I just have a snack and then I'm like, okay, I can just go have a snack later and then I eat dinner. But then after dinner, I feel like I haven't eaten enough that day. So then I have a post dinner snack, and I think the main thing was the post dinner snack I think was starting to. Affect my sleep a little bit or I just wasn't liking always having, like relying on that snack after dinner.

So now I've, from the start of the day, I've went back to my epic scramble that I used to make all the time, like years ago. It was just now I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. That was like my thing. And so now I'm back to doing that and I think that [00:02:00] just really sets the tone for the rest of the day to where lunch, I still have to make sure to make something for lunch.

I usually make enough food. For us to have leftovers, but I'm never, not like I, I'm never like super hungry to even want to snack during the middle of the day because I had that bigger, better breakfast. And then my dinners, I've also been conscious of, okay, this is the last thing I'm gonna eat until 14 hours from now, so I need to make sure I eat a really good dinner and fill it with, vegetables and and stuff like that.

So far I think it's been going pretty well. I don't notice anything like. Performance wise or anything like that, it's just, I just feel like it's better for me health wise overall. I think having more separation between meals for digesting, it's lengthening out my fasting window. 'cause I think I was, that was starting to shrink a lot and I just think it's better.

It's been bit better routine wise. So I've liked the change, for slightly different reasons than why you did it. But I think it's been, I think it's, I.

Jerred: I did it for a lot of reasons, not just blood sugar. I think that helps, but at [00:03:00] the same time, it's like making sure you hit that protein amount.

'cause if you hit the protein amount, I just know I feel so much better. And I've got a lot of great feedback actually on the three 50 Micro, I think it's the simplicity of it. 'cause it's not like, groundbreaking, not counting anything. Like

Joe: really?

Jerred: Yeah, there's no counting. It's just like I'm only eating three times and I gotta make sure I'm hitting like some very simple things on the checklist.

So if anyone's like new or this is your first time listening to the podcast, it was really simple. It's three meals a day. No snacking, 50 grams of protein per meal. You can adjust that up or down. And then micros, making sure you get some micronutrients, which are typically gonna be, vegetables and fruits.

And what's funny is you mentioned the eating later in sleep. That's something I noticed that was happening a lot for me lately. I'd say over the last couple of months, even though I was still doing the three 50 micro, my last, my meal, number three. Kept. Kept getting pushed later and later because the kids' practice schedules with sports just like move around based off of the season and the sport and all these kind of things.

And so I was getting home with Graham from [00:04:00] like soccer practice, like between eight and eight 30 and I'd be like, crap, I haven't eaten anything. So I'd eat super late and then. For a long time, like I was doing this 'cause he doesn't practice like once a week, it's five days a week. Like I was just doing this over and over again and I was sleeping so horribly and I'm like, could it really honestly be just like eating?

'cause I wasn't eating like a giant meal. I was like, I'm just eating enough to like not be hungry and go to bed, between nine and 10. Dude, I changed that to where it's okay, you're eating before his practices start or you're not eating again. That was the rule I made for myself. You're not coming home at eight 30 and eating.

Let's see how that goes. And everything's flipped. Like my HRV has spiked back up. My resting heart rate is backed down. I'm sleeping so much better. My Garmin sleep scores are higher. And that's all I've changed within the last couple of weeks. So I really feel like there was a huge, and I thought I thought something was wrong with me.

My, and I don't know why I didn't connect it to that late eating, but that's what was happening was like my HRV was super suppressed and I didn't know why. It's 'cause of [00:05:00] the, when you have a elevated resting heart rate, the HRV gets suppressed just by just naturally. And I went through a long cycle of that and I thought it was like, maybe you're not doing as much aerobic training because you're, whatever.

And I think it was just eating late was the only thing that was affecting that, which is crazy.

Joe: Yeah, I think I was waking up when I had my snacks. I think I was waking up about two to three hours after I would fall asleep. And I don't know if that's when, like my stomach would just finally be empty or what it was.

And I know like it, it's, and I've always had the issue of falling asleep. That's been my biggest I. Factor when it comes to quality of sleep. It takes me forever to fall asleep, but I think it's been a bit better these past, this past week or so, and I ain't even been training all that hard either, so it's not like I'm like super fatigued.

So that's been a good change. I also started doing, I got some like those mineral drops for the water and I've been doing trace. Yeah, there's yeah. So I've been doing those with electrolytes and greens every day, which I haven't had greens, usually only with a smoothie, but now it's become more of a daily thing.

[00:06:00] So we'll see if that, I don't know, again, I don't know if that's gonna have any sort of impact, but I did this week. I. Finally get my, a full like fasted blood panel. Eight, eight or nine vials of blood for all kinds of stuff. So in about three weeks I'll go back to the doctor and see what that's and compare my numbers from about seven years ago was the last time I got it.

So that'll be, dang. That'll be interesting.

Jerred: Yeah. Yeah. That's gonna be awesome. I have mine, my last blood panel was probably about. Eight months ago, and I have another one in two months. So I try to do it at least once a year. I have the last couple of years. That'll be, dude I want to hear about that, the seven year difference.

Yeah. I need to dig up those numbers. It might not bad in no honesty. Yeah. Like it might not be that bad of a difference, but yeah, that there's just some things that like are a little bit different as you get older with blood panels and stuff. I even got testosterone done for the first time, so that'll be interesting.

Yeah, that's something I've ke I've been keeping an eye on, like hardcore. Like I really pay attention to that number just to make sure I'm feeling good and doing everything I [00:07:00] can. But if you're doing, if you're sleeping well, you're getting a vitamin D like magnesium, zinc training, all those kind of things, I think your testosterone would be just fine.

And I won't get into the whole TRT talk, but yeah, it's I think TRT is like the last thing that you should do. Af you gotta check all those other boxes before you get on anything. But a lot of people see one scary number. With testosterone, maybe it seems a little bit low, but like you also have to realize what kind of test you're doing and when you took it.

So and I'm telling you this and everyone else listening is TRT levels can vary. Between like when you took the test, like when in the week, when in the day. So if you do go do a blood panel and you're like, oh no, my testosterone's low. And you're thinking about hopping on TRT with one of these mail-in services now that you can just get overnight, maybe take one more test, try and get a bunch of sleep.

Take it first thing in the morning, all these kind of things like. Before you jump on the replacing your hormones with something synthetic? Just my,

Joe: at least they had that. My doctor was like, yeah, we can do this testosterone, but you have to do it [00:08:00] before 9:00 AM 'cause that, 'cause ours testosterone is highest in the morning.

And it was perfect 'cause I was just having to be there first thing in the morning so I could get it done right away. But that's something I actually wasn't really aware of. So if you're doing an at-home test, which I know you can do just something aware of Yeah.

Jerred: Yeah, that's why I've had people come to my house for that and I typically always try and get them there first thing in the morning as early as they can come.

But anyway, anything else before I jump into some of the stuff I got going on? Cool. First off, I'll say I'm super excited for Project Delta that's coming up. Garage Gym Athlete. I feel like I'm in this weird, so this happens to me sometimes, like I'm in this weird pre cycle, like I've been testing Project Delta, but then I stopped as we like started prepping for getting it ready for all the athletes and so now my training's just been like.

I wanna say random, starting this week and last week I was on vacation, so it's like I'm just itching to go now. I'm like, all right, I wanna start Project Delta like from the beginning. I wanna get going 'cause I'll be doing it with everybody else when the new cycle starts. So I'm [00:09:00] really excited for that.

I guess when this publishes, it'll be a week from the day of this publishing project Delta we starting hard to kill. Yeah,

Joe: that's, and that's the next hard to kill Trek cycle. So when we talk about Project Delta, we're specifically talking about the hard to kill Trek.

Jerred: Yeah, I get a lot of questions of is another track.

There was one other You always.

Joe: I do. Because anytime you name something, people are like, Hey, I heard this. I want that. I'm like, okay, cool. That's the hard to kill track. And sometimes they're just like, oh no, I thought I wanted this thing, but I want the project

Jerred: Delta track. Yeah.

Joe: Yeah. I was like no, that it's just hard to kill. So just clarity again. 'cause I see I think two weeks ago or somebody was already asking, like specifically toward that. So I just wanna at every turn, make sure everybody knows hard to kill. So when you join, if you wanna, if you join or sign up, just it's the hard to kill track that's just.

Project Delta is what we're we've been talking about, and it's just been the lead up to everything else happening. So it's a culmination of it, but it's all going toward hard to kill Trek and Three Block is a condensed version of Hard to Kill Trek.

Jerred: Got it. So everyone, you know that now. [00:10:00] And then I said we, we would, I would allude to some like secret.

Announcements in which I'm not actually gonna make any real announcements, but all I really wanna say is if you are actually a garage gym athlete, meaning you're part of our programming, you're part of the app, all those kind of things, you're inside the community. Just be paying attention to what we're posting in the community and stuff this week.

Not only will it be about Project Delta, but we have a lot of other big. Giant updates, big changes for us as an organization with just some of the things that, like how we're working things, the introduction of some new team members, like all these kind of things. A lot of cool stuff happening behind the scenes at Garage Gym Athlete.

Probably not gonna talk about it on the podcast. Most of it right away anyway just go be in the community and see what we post. We'll be having some cool stuff for you there. If you're not a part of that community, very easy to fix that problem. Go to garage gym athlete.com, sign up for a free trial, and you'll officially be a part of the Garage Gym Athlete community.

And we will, we'll show you round and you'll see [00:11:00] what's up. And so all that is coming. So if you are one of our athletes just go do that. Pay attention. Lots of cool stuff coming. Yeah. Other than that, training wise for me, not a whole lot going on, like I said, just itching to go for Project Delta.

And one thing, I was on vacation last week and this is like my only real update. We had bought this deck of cards that were like waterproof 'cause we were at the beach. And they're like these, they're just like plastic. Nothing special about 'em. But I was like, you know what I haven't done in forever was a deck of cards workout.

Have you ever done one? You ever done a deck of cards workout? Long time.

Joe: That was like definitely, that was definitely a deployment thing.

Jerred: Yeah. I had not done it in forever, so I just wanted to like if anyone wants a good travel workout, this might be like my new go-to travel workout. It is like running.

Just random whatever I feel like running, like when I'm on vacation, like 2, 3, 4, 5 miles, zone two or fast, one to two mile, whatever. But the deck of cards is gonna be my other go-to, and I think I might just always travel the [00:12:00] deck of cards. And so what you do, very simple. You can set up whatever you want.

You can do this however you want, but you will assign an exercise to a suit. And so you could say like diamonds or pushups and clubs are sit ups and what else we have spades are squats, so on and so forth. So you assign calisthenic reps to or to a suit a, a exercise to a suit, and then.

If you pull a two of diamonds, you would do two, whatever the exercise you just selected was. So you do two reps of the pushup and you just keep going through that. And then the face cards are where you can get, you can just assign them. What I did is I just said every face card is a 10. Is 10 reps.

And you could do that any way you want. I made ACEs like 20 reps, and I think I did, I think my four exercises were burpees, flutter kicks. Pushups and squats. That's what I did. And it was just an awesome workout. Like it was like the perfect workout. I went through the entire deck in [00:13:00] about 20, 25 minutes, something like that.

Got a ton of calisthenics reps in. I think I did the math and ended up doing I think it was like. A hundred something reps per exercise. It wasn't anything like crazy. Yeah. But then I started to I was like, man, this could be a cool, meet yourself Saturday. And what I started to cook up and what the athletes will probably see maybe sometime this cycle is I formulated a way that you could do a thousand reps.

With a deck of cards. Course you did. Just by assigning reps properly or whatever. So I'm working on that. I'm massaging a little bit because I want it to be good, but anyway. A thousand rep deck of cards challenge may or may not be coming to Garage Gym Athlete this cycle. But either way, doing the deck of cards, non thousand rep version.

If you want a quick 20 to 30 minute like workout, get some calisthenics in and keep the heart rate up. That's a good one. If you just keep moving through the deck fast. And then also, thousand. I'm really excited about this thousand [00:14:00] rep deca card challenge. So that's coming.

Joe: I'm just picturing 'cause it makes me think of stairway to Heaven and others where if you fail on something, you have to restart.

So say you put in like a hundred meter, run under 20 seconds, and if you don't get it, then you have to reshuffle the deck and you have to start back over from the deck. No, I'm not trying to give you ideas, but.

Jerred: No, there's not gonna be any running, I think the cardio will be burpees most likely.

That's gonna be the crappiest part of it. Oh yeah. But we'll just, it would be just something you can do in place and just pull a card and do it right there without having to move a whole lot that way. You could do it in a hotel room, you could do it, wherever. Like I did this on the balcony of, the Airbnb we rented. It was perfect. Yeah. But let's,

Joe: I mentioned you making a meet yourself Saturday out of your one hour of jump roping, but you said somebody might get rhabdo.

Jerred: Somebody might get rhabdo. So Yeah, that's, I'm pretty sure my calves were close after that, so I don't think, but jump rope's solid.

I think if you bring a jump rope and a deck of cards on a vacation, you're good to go. You can do basically anything. [00:15:00] But let's dive into this. Let's start with you, man. Like I said, the topic for today is just talking about if we had to start all over from scratch, what would we do?

We're gonna be talking about training first and then nutrition, what we would change, maybe how we'd structure it. But I wanna start with how long have you been training? What age did you officially pick up training? Or fitness

Joe: in general? I think I'd say 20 for actually working out to get better.

I always played sports year round growing up, but I never actually like prepared for them or lifted weights. I didn't get into that actual training, weightlifting and actual workouts until about 20.

Jerred: Okay. And I picked it up at 14 or 15. So just to give people frame of reference. And how old are you now?

I gotta think about

Joe: it. I actually got this answer wrong a couple of months ago. 36, I'm 37. I was I was telling Liz something and I don't know what we were talking about, but I was like, Liz, come on. Like we're 37. We're almost there. And she's no, we're not. We're 36. Whatcha talking about.

Anyways, we know what Emily keeps

Jerred: doing. She keeps saying [00:16:00] 40. I'm like whoa. No, that's enough. We got three solid years right here. Don't be just saying we're 40 already, but it's just this rounding up nature. But anyway, I wanted to give everybody a frame of reference.

I've been training from, I think I was around 14, 15. I'm almost 40. I've been training that entire time. You've been training since you're 20, you've been training for 16 years. Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. So anyway, just to give people a frame of reference. So if we had to go back. To that timeframe, and we like we got to coach or program for our younger versions of ourselves, what would we change?

What would we do starting from scratch? So let's start with you, man. If you're starting over from scratch, like what would you do training wise? What adjustments would you make to what you, and maybe tell us what you did initially and maybe how you would change it.

Joe: Yeah, so I think I think a lot of guys, but myself included, started off pretty good in in the bodybuilding world to have that base level of strength.

And even for myself, and I don't even know completely why I did it, maybe just 'cause I wanted to do it more solo is I didn't even touch a barbell. I [00:17:00] rarely, 'cause it's always like chest day, back day, stuff like that. I only use dumbbells. And then like the Hammersmith machines, not even like cables.

So I never did like bench bug barbell bench or like incline bench. It was only just dumbbells. And I thought that was, and I think that's great because that works a whole lot more stability than just the barbell. So that's something that I would keep. I think the main thing when it comes to the strength portion is I would change my mindset of it instead of, 'cause you're, when you're looking for bodybuilding and stuff, it's aesthetics.

But for, I would change the mindset of strength, endurance. I would like rep for endurance eight to 12 in that rep range. And maybe even, probably do a lot of what, like the human program is that we have or our indoc program. So something like that to where it's a lot of supersets, maybe even the full body splits or not.

But. Keeping it to those supersets focusing on stability and getting that nice base level strength all the way around. Probably never even lifting. I probably wouldn't even do a max out until at [00:18:00] least like six months or something. And then that's feel okay, now I have a baseline of I'm stable enough to lift heavy for the first time because you're not gonna throw a new person in and start working off of a percentage.

I just think that's, that it just. It's wrong for one. And I think you, you're just gonna, your gains are gonna be so fast in the beginning anyway, that it's gonna be null. So after six months, I feel like you have a good base of, a lot of dumbbell type work, a lot of body weight work to get your base level good.

And then for the conditioning I would also hint, hit on the fact that like the interference effect is BS and I would probably do more conditioning. Now I did some back then, like basically my condition back then was either sports or I was on active duty. So we had like mandatory pt, which I did, I only did, I only had to do that like once or twice a week because I always had a 90 or above.

And like they lowered the amount of times you had to go to a group pt and that PT was basically just a two mile run almost every time. So I would run like a two mile run every week and that's about it. That was my cardio. So [00:19:00] I would probably add in some more zone two and, some all out like field sprints some more of those just for complete output power.

'cause even though I was new to working out, I wasn't new to running 'cause I always played field sports. I could always run, I could always sprint really fast. So I would just keep up with that on certain days. But the strength would be more of a widening my base and preparing to eventually lift heavy.

Jerred: Yeah, I think that's, I think that's awesome. I think I'm, I'm in a similar boat. With me starting, I definitely started in the bodybuilding, hypertrophy mode. I did do a lot of barbell training early on, bench press, squatting, all those kind of things. I remember I had this, I don't know if I'd call him a mentor, but just a guy at the gym. But he was like, he worked at the gym. He was really cool. He'd give us advice and stuff but he was like, al he would always make fun of the people who skipped a leg day. And, that, that typical stuff. But he, I caught that at the age of 15.

He was. And I was like, okay, never skip leg day. And so I [00:20:00] just never did, like I always did legs. Like I always had a big squat day, big leg day. I do a ton of stuff. So anyway, I love the hypertrophy start. I don't think I would change any part of that. Think that's really good for all kids, like I've talked about on the podcast.

I'm training my boys right now and their current ages as I'm recording this 12 and 10. And I'm not starting them there 'cause it's too early. I'm just starting them with some mixed modals like circuit training. Yeah. Yeah. And some plyometrics and running like ba very basic stuff. But I do think what I would change, similar to what you're saying, I would add more aerobic training and sprinting on the conditioning side.

'cause I did no conditioning. I was. I was in track in other sports in high school, but like other than that, let's just say when I started focus more on track, like it was only, I was also a sprinter, so there was like no, like hardcore conditioning. I would say. I would [00:21:00] structure sprint, sprint training a little bit more, and also my strength training.

I would take more of an athletic approach. I don't think that there was anything. Wrong necessarily with doing hypertrophy training. But I definitely wasn't like doing strength training that could get me, make me a better sprinter or better athlete. So I would take a more functional approach to a lot of my strength training, I think is one thing I'd stick with a hypertrophy, but then just add in some I.

Some like single leg stuff. Like I, I didn't do a lot of that. I didn't have any plyometrics in my training. Those kind of things is what I would compliment to my hypertrophy. 'cause otherwise I would keep that. And then I say I would add a little bit of aerobic, but not a lot. I'm not, I wouldn't go back and be like, oh man, I wish I was running, 15, 20, 30 miles a week going back to when I was 15 years old because I was a hard gainer and I could not put on muscle.

It was so hard. It was so hard to put on muscle for me. I had to eat so much to make that true. So if I just dumped running [00:22:00] on top of that, I, there's no way I would've been able to gain weight just from the pure calorie burn. So I don't think I would've, I would change it that much. I would add a lot more sprint training.

Some aerobic training, but I'd probably add more like mixed modal aerobic that still had like heavier loads, which would be, in all honesty, more like strongman training. I think that's what strongman training is to, to a certain degree. It's like mixed motor aerobic. It's just way heavier. And not as long as like we would do mixed motor aerobic.

So those are the things that I would add in. And then I think if I fast forward from like high school to college. The sheer volume of what I was doing in college, when I look back at it was insanity. Like I was training in the morning every morning with Air Force, ROTC, every single morning. I would train with them.

I would then I also train. By myself or with a friend and do like hypertrophy, bodybuilding, strength training. And then I was [00:23:00] also on the Texas Tech racquetball team. And so I would play racquetball for three to four hours, like in the evenings. And so just how much like conditioning, like how much of everything I was doing was quite insane.

And so I may have I had a lot of fun doing all that, but I may have structured it a little bit differently on ultimately probably doing a little bit less in all honesty. Because a lot of the things I wasn't able to accomplish if I wanted a bigger aerobic base, I. Or if I wanted to gain more muscle mass, which were very hard for me in college, had to do with the fact that I was just putting in so much damn volume.

I couldn't eat the, whatever, 6,000 calories a day that I needed to gain muscle mass. And I didn't really none of that really clicked. I was just like having fun. And so it didn't really matter, like the Air Force stuff, I just never counted. I just it didn't even count it. I was like, it doesn't count.

'cause it doesn't have, it doesn't have to do with me gaining muscle or, playing a. A racket sport. And so I just didn't count it, but there was, it should have counted. It was a full [00:24:00] hour of like pretty intense exercises, right? So anyway that's some of what I would structure differently, I think earlier on.

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, moving from you when you get the base, I'd probably go, once I actually introduce the barbell, I'd probably start with tempo lifting with a barbell. And it's still, you're not working off of a percentage on that. It's more about just the reps in the tempo. And only then after that, probably, we're talking nine months in is when I'd start to do any sort of like percentage based lifting, at least just for me.

Jerred: Yeah. And that's a big change I would have as well once. 'cause that's we, I think we hit a similar, spot in our training, let's just say post college or whatever. We were trying to get stronger. I would, very similar to you, I. I, I put it more in the terms of I wouldn't chase numbers as much.

'cause that was the biggest thing. I was after after bodybuilding was over I was, I moved in more into like power lifting, like straight strength training, and I wish I would have gone like you're saying, tempo based, quality movements, those [00:25:00] kind of things. I didn't care about any of that.

I just was like. Okay, I want a triple body weight deadlift. I wanna be able to squat 400 pounds. Like all it was all about a number that the barbell had on it. And I don't, I wish I wouldn't have done that, in all honesty. And I've talked about that in some of the po previous podcasts, like things for my kids to avoid, but I.

Your muscles don't know the difference. It's all about time under tension. They don't care if it's a 400 pound or 320 pounds move slowly. Like it doesn't matter. Like it can, you can still get a lot of results in both directions. You can even get way stronger. I just would've focused, I would focus differently on my strength training.

I wouldn't have chased the number so much, and I would've just purely go off of really quality movement. A lot of time under tension, tempo based lifting, like what you're saying. That's a big thing. I would've changed for sure.

Joe: Yeah, I don't really know actually. From there you probably just, go wherever your heart's content kind of thing.

Hmm.

Jerred: I wish what I would've done when I was in the Air Force was a lot more aerobic conditioning, with how I know how to do it today. 'cause everything that I did back in [00:26:00] the day, aerobic conditioning, 'cause I didn't care about my size as much anymore, like early on. So we'll just break down the stages.

In high school it was bigger biceps, right? And I say biceps, but I just mean muscles in general. I wanted bigger muscles and it was very hard for me to do that. I was a hard gainer going to college. Still wanted more muscle mass, but there was the air force element in ROTC. So like I was still wanting to.

But I still, I maxed out the Air Force PT test even in the run in college, but that had everything to do with sheer willpower and nothing to do with my aerobic conditioning. I'd be like vomiting, dry heaving on the last lap of the run because I was pushing myself so hard but did not have the aerobic base to actually run fast as I was running.

So anyway, like I still did well, but like I didn't structure let's just say college was college, I didn't care. And it's okay, post-college, you're in the Air Force, it's your actual career. Now you're doing these things. I would still run 'cause I'm like, yeah, this is important for my PT test.

But I would just run like five miles at zone five, like I, I just didn't [00:27:00] know how to run back then. So once I got in the Air Force, and this is more like my adult life moving forward. I'm married, I have kids like, who cares about the size of your biceps? All that kind of stuff. I wish I would've just that's like the final piece is I would've structured my aerobic training differently, which would've been more zone two runs.

More tempo runs. And then having that third run, which I was already doing, which is like a threshold run, I was always doing threshold run, like 90% of my runs as an adult were threshold, which is being, I'm just running three to six miles as fast as I can at the highest heart rate possible. Um, and really probably 'cause I didn't I wasn't wearing a heart rate monitor.

I didn't know any of that stuff. I was just like, I had a Timex, I was seeing how fast I could run five miles, right? So I would've structured it differently. A lot of easy runs. A lot of I said tempo, interval, and then threshold. I would've done one of those each per week. I, it, the Air Force PT test would've been a whole lot easier in my career if I would've done something like that.

And that's kinda the final piece I think I would change on the aerobic side.

Joe: Yeah, for sure.

Jerred: What would you do, [00:28:00] nutrition? How would you change nutrition differently?

Joe: Man, I don't even know. It's not like I ate terrible when I was active duty. It was just the old I still always packed my lunch. Obviously I ate out a whole lot more. I guess I would definitely focus more on the quality and the amount of protein. But not like relying on a bunch of protein shakes.

Like I don't, like one a day is fine, but. Being more, having more of the complete meals and probably water. I was not really a water drinker back then.

Jerred: Water. That's hilarious. That's a great great takeaway. I would've drank some water. Yeah.

Joe: I wasn't your typical Air Force guy that was cranking out monsters.

I was never really a big energy drink guy or anything like that, but I just, water wasn't, I think tea was more of my thing

Jerred: like. Like hot tea,

Joe: like nesty,

Jerred: Oh, okay. Or Arizona tea. I would say the biggest mistakes I made in nutrition, [00:29:00] I would say all through high school and college. I didn't even honestly get serious about my diet or do, and it wasn't that I wasn't following a meal plans.

This is my meal plans are stupid back then. Anyway, I didn't do anything like healthy with nutrition until Emily and I were off on our own. Married. We got into researching that stuff. Paleo is where we started. So like since then I've been okay, like I'm not perfect. There have been some ups and downs with that, but that's a solid whatever, eight years of not good nutrition.

And I wish I could go back to the high school days and and change a lot of that because I remember going to like the local supplement shop. It wasn't even A GNC, it was like a local one and they just. I just like whatever was on the bottle. Or the canister, I'd be like, yeah, okay. This is what it says it does.

That's what I'll do. And it would be like a weight gainer meal replacement, and it'd be like a thousand calories and it would have 120 grams of sugar or something like that. And I wouldn't even, I'd be like, yeah, this is what you need. So [00:30:00] crappy. So crappy. Like just the supplements. I relied way too much on supplementation for my protein, even if I was focused on the protein.

So going back to that like you said, I'd focus on protein, but it would have. I would try and get it as much from meat and eggs as I possibly could, especially early on. I would focus, I would greatly control the sugar bring that down significantly and just focus more on almost like what I'm doing now, three 50 micro.

I think that's a good, like at all stages. So I would just focus on having more micronutrients, which I think I probably didn't eat. Fruit or vegetables for like, all through high school, start of college. I don't think I really ever focused on eating any of those. So I definitely would change that. But I think the biggest thing just from a macronutrient standpoint is focus on protein, make it quality protein, probably bring the carbohydrates down a little bit, especially like the sugars and try and go with more like sweet potato those kind of things.

I think that's the biggest issue I had. My, my nutrition was like, I [00:31:00] was trying. It wasn't like I was just like eating whatever the hell I want, even though I did I'd have fast food and stuff like in those years. But even when I was like on a meal plan, all I had to do was really was with the total caloric amount.

'cause that's, I didn't know a whole lot better, especially in high school. I'd be like, okay, I need to eat 4,000 calories. And then I would just go around my house and be like, what gets me to 4,000 calories? And I had no idea about what a good macronutrient breakdown would be for those 4,000 calories back in the day.

And that just caused a whole lot of okay, you're gaining weight but you're also fat. Like chubby, you don't look great. Is this what really what you wanted? And I didn't know that was like, I was just doing nutrition wrong. I only had half the story painted, half the picture painted for when I was doing all that stuff.

Joe: So I, in high school, I wish I actually had or knew about, or actually took protein shakes. I didn't do that until I actually started working out, but I would've needed, in high school, I was definitely under fed in high school for, playing lacrosse and burning a ton of calories doing that.[00:32:00]

But I. As far as two things that I probably would've taught my adult self once I started actually training is one would just be, not even like what to eat, but just how to food prep how, like all of my techniques and stuff that I do now to make food prep so much easier and cooking in bulk to be like, here's what you're eating.

Instead of just throwing together a crappy sandwich or stopping off of some fast food like here. This is your food prep. This is how you do it simple enough. Pick whatever you want to eat and eat that. And to cut out dairy. 'cause I think dairy was cutting that out when I started. Paleo was one of the bigger positive changes that I basically stuck with for forever now.

And then that was my early twenties. I think I started eating paleo about time when I was 25 or so. And then I learned about. A whole lot more when it comes to quality. But is I, if I had the consistency of food prepping, then I think it would've been a whole lot better.

Jerred: Yeah. I would like echo that and I think if I could just go back to my give myself like, you're only allowed to talk to yourself for 30 seconds, like back in the past. So you just get a quick message across. [00:33:00] I'd be like, even if I changed nothing with my training, I would say seriously, you take me back in time.

It's a 15-year-old version of me, and I get to say something for 10, 15 seconds, I'd be like, keep training how you're training, but start obsessing over your nutrition and figure that out. That's, that would be my advice to my younger self because if you wanna look a certain way or even perform a certain way.

It has so much to do with your nutrition, and like I said, I had, I would check the boxes. I'd be like, oh, I'm gaining muscle, but I'd do it improperly or I wouldn't fuel for certain things the correct way. And I figured a lot of that stuff out. It just took a long time. I think if I would've started there, everybody knows nutrition is important to a certain degree, but if you really want results with your body like I did back then.

It's nutrition like, it's 80, 90% nutrition in all honesty. And then the training is important, but it's if you wanna look a certain way, perform, feel, it's all nutrition based. And I never really [00:34:00] I even have a hard time believing that's true now, I'm like, I just, because of how ingrained it was, like training's the most important and then it's nutrition.

I think that nutrition, if you wanna, like I said, look a certain way that's the biggest part of the battle there.

Joe: And I guess that's context as to why I chose the stuff that I said for nutrition is because like I was never a big person. I always burned all of the stuff that I ate.

So like even back then, I ate crappy, I still ate fast food and all of that. It's really more about I, I should have eaten better to do. Do with all the stuff that I was doing in the gym and stuff. I've never, I never was trying to cut back then. But if you were somebody or are somebody that does need to, do the weight loss and the cut and that definitely shifts how you should be thinking about stuff.

And that's when, you know the nutrition would be much more about the quality and the amounts versus just making sure you're eating.

Jerred: And the whole burn it off thing only goes so far, right? Like I, what I've noticed and I hope this doesn't come across as judgemental or anything like [00:35:00] that, but one thing that I have noticed significantly is with my kids' friends.

If they're over and say we're at the pool, and we're all swimming or whatever, I can tell which kids I. Are consuming a lot of sugar even though they're still skinny. I can just see it like when once you take your shirt off, like I can see it and it's not, they're not fat.

It's just okay, I can tell like you, you consume way too much sugar. And again, I'm not sitting there like saying anything to them. I'm not judging them on their body type or whatever. It's just like they are out burning, like they're not. Fat, basically, because they can just put in a lot of work.

They're doing a lot of physical activity and stuff, but they pay zero attention to their diet or their parents just don't have the correct knowledge or like whatever. And so they are just, they don't look super healthy. I don't know how else to phrase it like, or how else to put it, but like you, it's almost like that skinny fat, [00:36:00] but I feel like it's becoming prevalent at younger ages than it did with our generation, because some people.

Some, a lot of and I would say that's almost more rare. I feel like a lot of people are more aware of some nutrition stuff these days, but there's some kids who I just can tell that they're, they have, they or their parents have no knowledge of it. They have zero cares about sugar because they use that whole like, oh, you're just gonna burn it off anyway.

It's yeah, but if you're consuming like 250 grams of sugar a day. You are not, it doesn't really matter if you think you're burning it off, like there's still gonna be issues with that. And there are some kids who like just slamming bags of candy and then like having, a Coke with dinner that also has bread and pasta.

It's damn, like it's gonna, it's gonna add up and these habits will translate into them being older. And, we'll see how those things work out over time. But ultimately I think those things are really important, like the whole burn it off thing. Something I thought for a long time as well, which I don't necessarily believe is true.

Like you technically will [00:37:00] burn it off, but I, there's like a health component that's not I. Not happening when you do that.

Joe: Yeah. And part of it has to do, this is just gonna get off in almost a side tangent, but what's at stock in certain grocery stores and we travel all around Europe and it varies country to country for how certain countries stock kids foods.

And like you go to one country and they'll have certain pouches, like yogurt pouches with all kinds of great ingredients. Then you go to another country and you can't even find those pouches or it's just straight. Straight ones with just a lot of sugar. And I've noticed this going over other people's houses and like they go, they'll get like these big packs of Costco yogurt pouches and then like we'll be over at their house and they'll tell, oh yeah, Landy can have one.

So we go and we look at it and we're like, there's zero protein in his. There's sugar, it's basically just fruit and some dairy and it's fat free dairy. So they're not even getting much fat in this. They're basically just getting a bunch of carbs and sugar and it's not complete. That was like the coolest thing about England.

We went, when we went there. There are grocery stores all over the place and they have such great variety in dairy. Everything is full fat. [00:38:00] They're yogurts, there's protein in all of it. It was fantastic. And so like you would have to be somebody who, you'd have to be the parent that goes and reads all the nutrition labels and goes searching versus just like not grabbing the stuff that looks healthy.

So it's like on the grocery stores too about, of the quality of what people are stocking and putting out there. 'cause like you can only feed a kid what you have access to for the most part, unless you're really gonna hunt around and then it's kids are picky anyway. So we even dealing with this and trying to find the right brands and.

The right ways to get it in here and there, but I yeah, it just takes a bit to, to navigate those grocery stores or certain products.

Jerred: Yeah, dude, I think I could do another podcast on kids nutrition, but this is probably my final tangent point. 'cause I think my, with my kids, I think with training, they're gonna be fine with nutrition.

They're gonna be either super jacked up mentally and definitely I'll have to pay some for some like future therapy to undo the damages I've put in their brains about nutrition and stuff. But it's very important to me, so I don't really care, [00:39:00] like if other people are like, think I'm doing something wrong.

I think it's like a major part of your life and is very important. But with my kids we were on vacation recently, I mentioned, and we were at this place that had these world famous milkshakes and so we were like, okay, let's get some milkshakes, and so we're family of five. We ordered two milkshakes.

'cause they're, we saw how big they were. They're not like massive, but they were pretty large. We're a family of five. We ordered two milkshakes, basically one chocolate, one vanilla. And here's how my kids broke it down. Eleanor basically didn't want any of the shake. She just wanted to eat some of the whipped cream off the top.

'cause she doesn't really like sugar that much in general. She doesn't have as much of a taste for it. Graham refused to eat it. He wouldn't eat. He wouldn't have any milkshake. And I told him, but I, that's something I've been working on him with because we'll tell him about like pros and cons of these things and he was like, nah.

It's gonna make me like slower and these are things like, I haven't even told him. He just thinks it, and I'm like I don't [00:40:00] teach you this way, but it has come across somehow that you're like, I will not be as good of an athlete. 'cause that's super important to him. I won't be as fast, I won't be as strong.

I'm not touching that fricking milkshake. And I'm like, a part of me is that's awesome. Let's see where you end up. This could be amazing. Or it could be like, like I said, I'm having to pay for therapy and 10, you gotta have the

Joe: diesel talk.

Jerred: Yeah, that's what I did. And so ultimately I was like, Hey man, I think you'll regret this.

These are like world famous milkshakes. I was like, and I always explain to 'em like having, you could drink this entire thing. So long as you're not doing that every day, you're gonna be fine. If you just do this every once in a while, you're gonna be fine. So he ended up having some, but not a lot.

And then William, he's he's like more mature than Graham and he he is already been through that stage and he had some, and so we, between the five of us, we had a half of each milkshake and then just left it. And the kids didn't even want anymore. They had some, and then they were like.

I don't want anymore. That's too much. Not because like we're saying anything. They just they lose their appetite for it pretty fast because they don't have a lot of sugar in their diet as is. So it's that's a huge win for me. [00:41:00] 'cause I'm like, go balls to the wall, whatever you want. You can have this milkshake, eat it all.

And they don't even do it. I don't tell them like, here's a good stopping point. Anything like that. So that's a big pro. And then another thing that happened recently was William's grandma would pick him up from school like once a week. And occasionally they would go to Chick-fil-A. Now we don't eat a lot of fast food.

And I'm always like, okay, whatever. I'm not gonna set a hard rule on that. But after he did this three or four times he has, he's in track and he had track practice and he is I just noticed that when the days I have Chick-fil-A, like I don't feel like I do as well, like at track.

And I was like. What do you feel like what's different? And like he just told me like he doesn't feel as on point, he doesn't feel as fast, like all these other kind of things. And whether that's true or not, I have no idea. But like his stomach doesn't feel right. He says he just and it's because he doesn't eat a lot of that stuff already, so there's no like tolerance built up to those things.

And so now he has decided he just doesn't wanna do that anymore because it's affecting his track performance. And I'm like, [00:42:00] again. Right where I want you to be. Like, I didn't say anything. I didn't say a word. I was like, whatever. You're gonna do that with your grandma once a week. I don't care. I'm not gonna ruin some sort of tradition about Chick-fil-A.

You guys go knock yourself out. And then a month into it, he is I don't think I wanna do this. And I'm like, it's up to you man. If you wanna do it. If you don't. And so he just stopped. So anyway, a lot of the mistakes I made with myself, I'm hoping to fix with my kids on the nutrition and training side.

We'll see where it goes. And I'll keep people updated.

Joe: Yeah, we've definitely had a few. A little bit relaxed of what Landon eats compared to what we eat. Like we feed him to stuff that we're not gonna eat just because he needs to eat something and it still has some good things to it. But he still eats pretty clean and pretty well for his age.

But I did have a, recently a proud paramount. It's similar to that, about a month ago he went to his first birthday, so he's about to be three in a couple of days. So he went to a three year old's birthday party and they brought out cupcakes and he was. Just 'cause he's always hungry.

He's, he was the first one to reach for the cupcake. So he got one and he lick the icing and he makes like a weird face. And he tells me to take the icing off and he just wants to eat the cake part. 'cause the icing was just way too much.

Jerred: Wants [00:43:00] muffin. Yeah. Yeah.

Joe: And he just ate like half of the muffin.

He is no, I'm done. And the kid still won't eat chocolate. He does not like chocolate. Won't even touch chocolate. And we have no idea where that came from because both of us eat chocolate. He just doesn't want it. It's hey that's all pretty cool though.

Jerred: Is it because you eat dark chocolate and he.

Kids probably don't like their gum. It might be

Joe: that's all we have in the house. And so maybe he's just Ew, chocolate's yucky. It's bitter. We've had some regular stuff too. He just hasn't even wanted to touch it. He loves, he's a a gummy, like a fruit snack kind of guy, which is just, which is all what all I'm all about.

I love gummies, but other than that he's not, he doesn't have that sweet tooth either, which I think is great for right now.

Jerred: Awesome. Alright, I'll have to put a pin in this one for. Potentially further podcast episodes about parenting and fitness, parenting and nutrition. So I've just been, I've been dealing with so much.

We did have recently

Joe: still have one or two people ask about your training your kids' episode. That, that somebody has emailed us asking for the links for that, that I sent them. So it is definitely of interest to some people, and I know, like I said, Landon's almost three. But I will get into training him, seven years from [00:44:00] now.

Jerred: All right. I'll do an update on that soon, especially with summer coming up. So I train them more seriously in the summer and during the school year. It's like here and there. We do some stuff together maybe on the weekends, and like I'll push them to do some things and I've actually got some cool strategies and stuff that I've done with them.

So I'll talk about that maybe in a future podcast episode, and then training in the summers where we really pick things up and try hard and we're on an actual program. So I'll definitely do a podcast as we're like rolling into spring, going into summer. Time here in the next couple weeks. But that's it for this one.

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