Do you ever wonder how much our mindset influences our health goals? We’ve been doing some thinking about it too, and today, we bring you an enlightening chat with Nate Palmer, a renowned coach, best-selling author, and speaker. Sharing his remarkable journey from overcoming childhood trauma to becoming an authority in the health and wellness world, Nate highlights the transformative power of shifting from a fear-based mentality to a positive-based one.
We promise you a deep dive into the world of goal setting and language's powerful role in our approach to achieving these goals. Nate shares golden nuggets from his book, "The Million Dollar Body Method," and gives us a peek into the seven daily investments pivotal in reaching your health goals. But that's not all, we also have a candid conversation about nutrition, the pros and cons of intermittent fasting, and the significance of a high-protein, fat breakfast to maintain steady blood sugar levels throughout the day.
Taking it a step further, Nate guides us on understanding our body's energy levels and how to optimize nutrition around glycogen for sustained energy. We also unravel the enigma of parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system dominance and how it impacts our energy level and performance. Listen closely as we touch upon the importance of movement and finding the right balance of calories. To top it all, we reveal the benefits of a simple 90-second morning routine, the power of fasting for 24 hours, and the transformative power of positive self-talk. Remember, Nate is giving away a free copy of his book — you don't want to miss out on this offer!
Get Nate's book! Click here
Today's Guest: Nate Palmer
Nate helps entrepreneurs and busy parents get into the best shape of their lives using simple training & nutrition frameworks and without tracking a single calorie.
Being in amazing shape gives a massive advantage in business, focus, and family time, and that’s why Nate is so passionate about helping leaders maximize their impact and legacy using fitness and nutrition as force multipliers for their personal mission.
He also happens to be a dad, husband, the author of bestseller The Million Dollar Body Method, and he’s been told that he makes a mean taco.
Find out how to get back in the best shape of your life here:. http://milliondollarbodymethod.com
Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships
Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 200,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.
Website: www.kimberlybeamholmes.com
Thanks for listening!
Connect on Instagram: @kimberlybeamholmes
Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to the podcast and leave a review!
WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE!!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
Do you ever wonder how much our mindset influences our health goals? We’ve been doing some thinking about it too, and today, we bring you an enlightening chat with Nate Palmer, a renowned coach, best-selling author, and speaker. Sharing his remarkable journey from overcoming childhood trauma to becoming an authority in the health and wellness world, Nate highlights the transformative power of shifting from a fear-based mentality to a positive-based one.
We promise you a deep dive into the world of goal setting and language's powerful role in our approach to achieving these goals. Nate shares golden nuggets from his book, "The Million Dollar Body Method," and gives us a peek into the seven daily investments pivotal in reaching your health goals. But that's not all, we also have a candid conversation about nutrition, the pros and cons of intermittent fasting, and the significance of a high-protein, fat breakfast to maintain steady blood sugar levels throughout the day.
Taking it a step further, Nate guides us on understanding our body's energy levels and how to optimize nutrition around glycogen for sustained energy. We also unravel the enigma of parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system dominance and how it impacts our energy level and performance. Listen closely as we touch upon the importance of movement and finding the right balance of calories. To top it all, we reveal the benefits of a simple 90-second morning routine, the power of fasting for 24 hours, and the transformative power of positive self-talk. Remember, Nate is giving away a free copy of his book — you don't want to miss out on this offer!
Get Nate's book! Click here
Today's Guest: Nate Palmer
Nate helps entrepreneurs and busy parents get into the best shape of their lives using simple training & nutrition frameworks and without tracking a single calorie.
Being in amazing shape gives a massive advantage in business, focus, and family time, and that’s why Nate is so passionate about helping leaders maximize their impact and legacy using fitness and nutrition as force multipliers for their personal mission.
He also happens to be a dad, husband, the author of bestseller The Million Dollar Body Method, and he’s been told that he makes a mean taco.
Find out how to get back in the best shape of your life here:. http://milliondollarbodymethod.com
Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships
Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 200,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.
Website: www.kimberlybeamholmes.com
Thanks for listening!
Connect on Instagram: @kimberlybeamholmes
Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to the podcast and leave a review!
WE HAVE A NEW WEBSITE!!
Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!
Your mindset and your habits are likely keeping you stuck from feeling the way you want to feel and, honestly, becoming the best version of yourself. That's what we dive into in this episode of it starts with attraction. I am joined by Nate Palmer, and Nate is the author of the best-selling book, the million dollar body and, honestly, he's helped entrepreneurs and busy parents get into the best shape of their lives by using simple training and nutrition frameworks without tracking a single calorie and if anyone knows me, they know I love to eat and I don't necessarily want to know how many calories I've eaten. I just want to know that I'm full and that I'm satiated and that I'm moving towards my health and fitness goals. So I loved my conversation with Nate today. He's a coach, he's an author, he's a speaker, he has his own podcast called the low carb hustle podcast, but he's here today to talk to us about what we can do to help reset our mindset and Actionable things that we can start doing today To move towards our health and fitness goals.
Speaker 1:Let's dive into today's episode. I am super excited, y'all, to have Nate Palmer on with me today. He has written a book called the million dollar body method and it's fantastic. I'm highly gonna encourage you all to get one. We'll talk about that at the end and how you can get it, but we are just gonna be talking about mindset. We're gonna be talking about things we can do to have more energy and meet our goals. So, nate, thanks for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Kimberly, thank you so much for having me on. I'm so pumped to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thrill-tree to be here. How did you get into this space of health and wellness and mindset? What kind of led you to where you are today?
Speaker 2:childhood trauma. There's a lot of. There's a lot of big, strong guys in the gym who are hurt. Little boys inside, yeah, and so that's kind of my story a little bit. When I was 11 or 12, my mom had taken my two younger sisters to school and someone Knocked my front door. I didn't answer. He came around the back, broke a window broke in the house while I'm there.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I grab a steak knife out of the knife block and I go hide under my bed and I'm like terrified and I we have these hardwood floors. So I can remember very vividly him but the sound of like heavy work boots coming down the hallway and then him pounding on my door that I had locked with this little like Rinky dink, like push button lock. And you're 12 and I was like I guess I'll die. You know, I saw, I didn't, I didn't die.
Speaker 2:That was the, that's the spoiler earlier and yeah, but I think from that moment on I Wouldn't have been able to, like you know, say this at the time. But the lack of autonomy and then the feelings of powerlessness, I think, really deeply impacted me and I think from there I did two things. Number one I bought all these knives on eBay and they're like a U18. I'm like sure, sure, and then I would. I was started to work out because I thought that if I had bigger muscles Neck tattoos, a big beard, like no one could ever hurt me again. And so I operated out of that, out of like a fear-based mentality for 10, 15 years after that. And it wasn't until, like, I was into my fully into my, like coaching career that I was able to Transform that to a chasing something positive rather than running from something negative. But that's really where I think that spark came from and why I was so driven to figure out fitness as a whole.
Speaker 1:Holy moly. Okay, well, you have to end the story like did he just walk away? What happened when you were under the bed and he was knocking on your door?
Speaker 2:He didn't. Not, he didn't come through the door which he could have easily, thank goodness, yeah. So so I'm, I'm so scared that I'm like I don't even I'm too scared to call the police, because not only am I scared of dying, I'm scared of getting in trouble. So like I think that maybe a police may begin trouble. So I call my, my 75 year old grandpa, and he comes over and he's like you should call the police. But so the guy ends up stealing jewelry it's the, you know, it's the 90s, so VCR, you know some stuff out of our house and ends up leaving the cops get there like five, six minutes later, so never found him, never anything like that.
Speaker 1:But Wow, that's crazy. And it was three cell phones, so to like get to actually call the cops. You'd have to go to the landline, find it wherever it is in the house. Absolutely crazy. Wow, thankful that that happened and and love what you said about how you took it from. You know for so many years you were running away from something, but in the past couple of years you've realized what are you running to? Is that? How is that how you said it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, like almost switch the motivation from being like how do I get out of this pain and avoid the fear? Yeah, like, how do I get towards these amazing things that happen as a result of being in great shape and having a ton of energy and, you know, like using those to elevate my community, my family and the people around me?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that with in thinking about your personal story, but also in the people that you've been coaching. What do you see are some of the biggest mindset Obstacles that people have that even keep them from getting started on Moving towards what they truly want in life?
Speaker 2:People have a lot of stories. People tell themselves a lot of stories about themselves and we are always our own harshest critic. I say stuff to myself that I would never in a million years say to you because it's awful and I would never tell you those things because they're Not true, it's not kind, but we yet we say those to ourselves all the time. So I feel like when people start off with a program, for a long, really long time I was like I'm a personal trainer. I started off that and I love exercise and I got into that really heavily, super good at programming that sort of thing. But I realized that wasn't the answer. So I was like you know what it is? It's nutrition. So I went really deep on nutrition, wrote the book and our body method.
Speaker 2:But you know, even in the last three years I've realized that if you don't have these mindset pieces in place, you will continue to revert back to your old patterns. Because if you do not change your identity, you're not going to be able to sustain a lifestyle change. Because if you always in your head think, oh, I'm the funny fat guy that finishes everything off the plates at the restaurant, you'll never get like, get through a keto program or whole 30, something like that, and Go on to make better choices, you'll always revert back to your average. So I think that People need to understand how they talk to themselves and catch themselves in the moment of saying, oh man, I'm not good at exercise, I've never. I'm not comfortable in the gym. Because here's the thing is that you might not be good at exercise, you might not be comfortable in the gym.
Speaker 2:Those could potentially be true, but they're not serving you. Those beliefs are not serving you. So how can we reframe those in a way that's positive and continues to help us move forward? So, rather than being like I've never been good at exercise, you could say, hey, every time I exercise, I get a little bit better at it. Every time I go to the gym, I feel just a little bit more comfortable. I'm starting to understand where the things are. We're not where to walk and we're not to walk. So really it's it's a lot about self-talk and catching ourselves in those moments when we're like I'm just a failure, I always this, I'm never that, and and being like no, hold up. Let's change that narrative and then go from there.
Speaker 1:That's so hard to do in reality, though, right, I mean, when you say it it's like, yeah, of course that makes so much sense. Absolutely, we should all do that all the time. But Even in so, in the clients that you work with, like I'm sure you do just what you did here, like explain this to them, they're like, oh, I totally get it, but then what does it actually look like in practice? So you said, you know when you think of it, but these happen so quickly in our brains and we're just so used to some of these statements we may not catch it.
Speaker 2:It takes a lot of reps, I think, because the more you catch it, the more you catch it. And so previously on my coaching calls, when I was working with people, I would say like we'd be talking and they'd be like I'm so bad at preparing lunch, I just can never eat healthy at dinner. And I'd be like, okay, well, here's six different recipes you know, and solve the problem. My, by the way, I've gotten to be a better husband from doing this as well, so I would give them tactics. I would solve their problem. I was like I got all the solutions in the world and now I go okay, take a second with that.
Speaker 2:Like you just said you're bad at lunch. You said you're a bad sleeper. No, one's a bad sleeper. Everyone can be good at lunch if they try. So how go back and talk me through that? And then let's find a better way to say that and a way that can you can actually get out of your own head, and oftentimes I don't need to come up with a bunch of recipes now, because they already know recipes. It's not like if I lay out a bunch of food on a table, people are going to not have a hard time identifying what's healthy and what's not. Someone's going to point to the pizza and be like not healthy apple, healthy right. So we all know. But it's just about like catching yourself in that moment or having someone who's bold enough to call you on it and continuing to use that as a catalyst to change your identity and shift your self-talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm thinking about the some of the decisions we make, like in a day-to-day basis, of what we're going to eat or even how we talk to ourselves. Some of that has to be predicated on other things in our life, like how well we slept right. The less sleep we get, the less likely we are to make smart choices in our day.
Speaker 2:I literally put out a reel on that exact topic today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, it's so true. Sleep is one of my favorite things to do and to encourage other people to do. And my favorite and this happens like people on my team all the time they're like, oh, Kimberly, I don't need more than four to six hours of sleep tonight and I'm like, okay, let's have a conversation about that. But I digress. The bottom line of it is it's kind of just catch 22 in some ways, because you want to encourage people to have a better mindset. But there are certain things that can help them have a better mindset that they may not be doing because they're stuck in their mindset. So, practically, where do you kind of get people to start?
Speaker 2:So I might butcher this, but Byron Katie has a series of four questions that I have people ask. So number one is this true? Okay, so I'm like, maybe, maybe you're a bad sleeper. Could be true, could be not be true. The second question is is it absolutely irrefutably true, Okay, no, not necessarily true that I'm a bad sleeper? Okay, what happens if you believe that I'm a bad sleeper? Well, I don't get a lot of sleep. I always wake up feeling groggy. I got brain fog, you know I'm not and I'm not going to get to bed as on time. You know what would happen if you believed something else or the opposite, and if you can ask yourself those four questions, I think you can lead yourself down to the ground like a coaching rabbit hole, where you can start to coach yourself and start really understanding what are those stories you're telling yourself and how can you change the narrative to be in line with the goals and the life that you desire.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I like that. Even just as you said, changing the narrative, even just the way you say that about yourself, because I'm bad at this is kind of a cop out, like it gives you an excuse to just not work on it, exactly yeah. Or as opposed to, I'm struggling with this, or it's an opportunity, like my biggest opportunity right now is in enhancing or optimizing my sleep. Then it's like, oh well, what can I do in order to get there?
Speaker 2:Right, I love that framing of just, it's not hard, it's not bad, it's just different. You know, it's not a problem, it's an opportunity. It's an opportunity. And when we take things out of, like, the problem bucket in our head and we add it to the new or different or opportunity buckets, we can approach them differently, with a little bit more energy than those things that were like, oh, another diet or exercise program. We just feel like weakened by it. Right? So it gives you the ability to like play with your own brain and, almost self hypnotized, by using language to push yourself towards the goals you want.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you encourage people to even think about the goals they want? Actually, in the podcast I recorded earlier today which I don't know which one's going to hit first, but this was something that came out of a lot of people just kind of say things like I want to lose 10 pounds, or I want to do X, y or Z, but they don't necessarily know why or why that's a goal for them. So how do you encourage people to think through setting goals and working towards that goal?
Speaker 2:So I first start off in the, in my intro, like sales call. I get really in depth with people. So I believe that that's like the first contact is a coaching call and so I start coaching right off the bat. And it's not necessarily like me telling them stuff, but it's me trying to pull back the layers. So, like this happened a couple of weeks ago where a guy came in and he's like I want to lose 25 pounds and I was like who cares? Why do you want to lose 25 pounds? He goes well, I want to get healthy, like.
Speaker 2:Why do you want to get healthy? You know, like, and people start being like yeah, yeah, yeah, I know you're getting out here, but it's important and I always go like this is going to be an annoying series of questions, but at the end of it you're going to have a lot of clarity, okay, so why do you want to get healthy? Well, I want to live longer. Well, who cares if you live longer? Why is that important? Well, I want to be around to, you know, see my kids grow up. Okay, why do you want to see your kids grow up?
Speaker 2:Because my dad wasn't there for me when I was growing up and I don't want my kids to have that same experience and you're like boom, like okay, that is a reason why doing, to do something, and that's going to keep you motivated and moving forward, more than just like a 25 pound loss, because anyone can lose 25 pounds and regain it. You know, look at the biggest loser contestants. But if you have a really deep why I need to stay healthy so I can walk my daughter down the aisle, because I want to be the dad that I never had growing up, holy cow, like what a difference in motivation. Like I get like chills just even saying it Right, absolutely. So I think that's the first thing is getting very, very clear on why. Because losing 25 pounds and getting healthy are not why Right, it's never. It never is, it's always deeper than that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I 100% agree with you on that, nate, and I think it's a brilliant place for people to start as as their setting goals. The a lot of in your book, which is called the million dollar body method, and we'll have links in the show notes of where you can get Nate's book. Actually, it's getnatesbookcom, but be sure you listen to the entire episode. Don't go now. You gotta listen, you gotta listen to everything. You.
Speaker 1:You really outline these and it's kind of written probably more so in the mindset of, like an entrepreneur, someone who's really wanting to be at a high level, perform at a high level, cares a lot about getting maximum return on invested time, because time is limited. But this is just as applicable for the mom who's busy and feels like she can't, you know, but that's kind of how the book is written. But you talk about these daily investments. So where did you come up or not necessarily, where did you come up with it? But why do you focus on these seven daily investments? Why are these the most important ones you think that are out there for people to meet the health goals that they have?
Speaker 2:So I took the things that I've been talking about with clients for years and years and the things that I think that people who are the most successful do on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:So, like, like you notice, I didn't say anything about sleep, but I have right down your three critical tasks for the day and I think that is honestly more helpful for some of these people that I work with, because they sit in bed and their head just spins Absolutely and they're thinking about all the things they need to do tomorrow.
Speaker 2:But if you can get really clear on what I do tomorrow to constitute a win, then you can go to sleep, wake up with clarity and go about your business and be much more effective. So you know, like I try to like encompass, kind of the full spectrum of health and wellness into a couple of different things that you can do over the course of the day. That's going to bring you energy and help keep you on track, because you know, going back to the why a lot of the entrepreneurs I work with, they will, they'll skip the gym to go sign a deal or to do a meeting or, you know, do business. So how can we make their nutrition lead to better business success. So that way they're like well, I know, when I eat healthy, when I follow these investments, I'm making more money. And again, just like, how do we keep people sustaining these things longer? Because a lot of diets are good and they work, but if they don't, if you can't continue to do them for months, years or decades, then they're kind of worthless.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've done the whole 30, I think three times.
Speaker 2:That's a tough one. That's probably one of the toughest diets out there.
Speaker 1:Well, it's to your point of I do it for 30 days and on day 30, I'm like I feel I feel great, I should keep doing this, but old habits die hard, clearly, and actually my husband and I did it once for 75 days and I lost so much weight I actually became very unhealthy and was having panic attacks on a daily basis. It was not good. I was not eating enough for what I was doing and for how I was training and I was probably intermittent fasting in there and in different things like that. All of it to say for me, and I know many of my listeners and just many people in general, we tend to focus more on the exercise part of it. Oh, if I need to be healthy or lose weight, I'm just going to exercise or exercise more.
Speaker 1:And your protocol, your system, which I agree with it, really has more to do with the nutrition side of it, at least first getting the nutrition dialed in. And one of the things you talk about is how breakfast is a really important meal of the day. I really want to ask you about this because I have skipped breakfast for seven years. Interesting, that is interesting. So I'm not saying it's the right decision, it's just what I've been doing, so let's talk about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I mean like right off the bat, like I used to prescribe intermittent fasting. I did it for about two years straight. I liked it, I thought it was good, but what had ended up happening and that made me kind of shift away from it, was that it became like the first meal of the day, like lunch at 11 or 12 or one or whatever became this big experience where I was so excited to eat that I was dragging the rest of the day and wanted to fall into the desk and take a nap. I just didn't feel that good. So when I started eating something that's higher in proteins and fats in the morning, I had an easier time sustaining my blood sugar all day. I would then eat again at like two o'clock, you know, have something really light to give me through to dinner, and then dinner would be my biggest meal of the day, and that was a great way of just maintaining great energy throughout the day, because I think blood sugar and energy levels are highly correlated and no one's talking about it.
Speaker 2:Secondly, to your point about intermittent fasting, I don't recommend it for women anymore because it seems like at the four to six week mark it can be detrimental from a hormonal standpoint. So I'm talking specifically to pre-menopausal women. Post-menopausal, they do great with intermittent fasting, but sometimes what you'll see in that demographic is decreased sleep or insomnia, hair loss, fasting periods, things like that. That are really, really negative, because fasting is great, I love it, I promote it, but I like a prolonged fast because fasting is a stressor and exercises a stressor too. They're good stressors, you stress right.
Speaker 2:But if you're having that on a daily basis, ongoing, your body is going to prioritize reproductive health above your own health. So, like when a woman is pregnant, you know her body will pull nutrients from her bones, from her muscles, to make sure the baby is fed. So if the mom's not taking care of herself, the baby's going to get his or, you know, theirs. But you have to be prioritizing your own health there. So your body is very, very smart and it wants us to reproduce. So it's going to do what it takes to get that and if that means you lose out on some nutrients, that's what's going to happen. So I don't recommend that for women for very long.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when in your in the book you talk about one of the first daily investments is the morning routine, and then right after it it's the breakfast, and your morning routine includes exercise. Do you think that exercise is? You get the most bang for your buck doing exercise early in the morning and then eating your first meal right after that?
Speaker 2:Yes, but not because it's special to do it in the morning, but because most busy people don't have time in the afternoons or their days don't belong to them after like 8 30, you know? Yeah, that's very true. So I found that just getting it done it starts your day on a great note. You have a lot of energy, your body's more able to actively utilize calories, like afterwards, and then there's more chance of it happening on a regular basis. So for that reasons I always push people towards a morning workout, but I don't think there's anything inherently special about it. I tend to prefer it myself, but I think it's mostly just a way to stay more consistent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I think that's really smart. Throughout the book you also talk about optimizing your nutrition around glycogen, so can you talk about what that means and then what that looks like in a daily practice?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I always think back to when I was working as a bag boy at Albertsons really illustrious job, a lot of people are talking about it but when we were, when we would restock the milk in the back, basically, you know people would come in and they'd grab a milk out, but we didn't take the new milk and bring it around front and put the new milk in front and let the old milk sit there, because that's going to result in milk going bad, you know, losing product, that sort of thing. Yeah, so call it first in, first out. So what we do is we come around and we put the milk in the back, right, and that's how we want to think about with our body's natural energy sources, which is called glycogen or glucose. That's how we use, that's what we use for energy to power our muscles. So each pound of muscle can hold about 11 grams of glucose. Your liver can hold about 110 grams and we use it during the day. We use it for thinking, we use it for movement, we use it for exercise.
Speaker 2:So, generally during the day, what I want to be doing is not refilling those glycogen stores, because your body's always going to take what you give it first.
Speaker 2:So like if you eat a hamburger and french fries for lunch, your body's going to go to work burning off the hamburger and french fries before it pulls from fat or stored energy, and then, if there's a leftovers, they'll be like oh, it goes on right on the love handles, nice. So we want to make sure that we're all day long utilizing our stored glycogen so that way, when you do have a bigger meal, you have more carbohydrates or something at night, which is what I recommend. Those are not going to be going towards the love handles and the belly fat. They're going to go to refill the stores that you emptied out during the day. And I think when you can start wrapping your mind around this because glycogen is a big scary term that no one likes, but when you can start thinking about it as like a gas tank or that milk analogy, you can start being like okay, I just need to move a little bit more before I refill my stores.
Speaker 1:How would someone, can someone know when they need to refill their glycogen stores? Because really, what is that? It's eating carbs, right, like at this yeah, yeah. So how would someone kind of know, can they? Can they know if they're depleted and need to eat more, if they have too much and need to burn it off first?
Speaker 2:Yes and no Most of the time. People right now are very not in touch with their bodies. So we feel hungry because we've been eating at the same time for the last two decades. So it's not about necessarily feeling hunger and being like I need food. It's like feeling hunger from either a sugar craving that gets sent to your brain because there's bacteria in your gut that feeds on sugar and it doesn't have enough. It'll say send this signal to your brain using this hormone called ghrelin. It's like, hey, yo, let's get some food in us, and instead of eating like a handful of blueberries, we eat a donut, right? So most people are not in touch with their body enough to know this and really, when it comes down to it, it's really hard to unload all your glycogen. The endurance community has a term for it. They call it bonking. You heard this?
Speaker 1:I don't think I have no.
Speaker 2:You're running for a long time or cycling or doing an Ironman, and all of a sudden you just are like that's it. I have to sleep now.
Speaker 1:I'm done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's when your body's actually out of glycogen. You bunk or you just kind of get lightheaded. You get a little bit like I just can't anymore. We don't want to get to that point. But I will say that I don't feel like very many people are training at a high enough level and eating carbs at a low enough level, that this is problematic for 99% of people. If you are a triathlete or if you're working outside digging ditches all day, yes, let's have that conversation, but for most of us, we have plenty of energy stored that we can start making use of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So your recommendation is your first two meals of the day, for those to be protein-heavy, vegetable-heavy, but not starch or carb or sugar-heavy.
Speaker 2:Correct yeah.
Speaker 1:And you save that for nighttime.
Speaker 2:Which is so much more fun, right? Yeah, I don't want to eat dessert at breakfast. Well, that's true, although all breakfast foods are like it's a must-have, you're like that's cake.
Speaker 1:Right, it's basically a cupcake or a very small layer of cake, you know, like a pancake. Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's very true and that's something I've even just noticed anecdotally over the past couple of years. If I eat something super carb-heavy at lunch, I'm just dead in the water, like exactly, I'm like I can't focus, I'm like I'm not going to eat my brain fog. But at night, like that's typically when I eat my most, that's when I'll have my sweet potato or you know whatever. Do you recommend that people try and evenly space out the size and calories of their meals? Or do you recommend like a lighter lunch, not just in it not being carb-heavy, but also like not a thousand calories?
Speaker 2:This is a great question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I recommend eating a lot lighter during the day, saving most of your calories and your carbohydrates for the PM, because if you have a really nutrient dense breakfast like eggs and sausage, eggs and avocado or protein shake, then you're having, like you know, six to eight ounces of meat, and then a handful of baby carrots and vegetables or something like that Even like a piece of fruit at lunch can be a great option, but you're not necessarily ever getting full to the point where you feel like you're lethargic or you have low energy and then you have so much more flexibility.
Speaker 2:It's like nutritional insurance, so like if you have a glass of wine or you have a cup, like a slice of cheesecake, it's not the end of the world. Are you going to lose weight doing that? Maybe not, but you will be able to maintain your current weight until you get a little bit tighter, which I think is a fun balance to play with, just having like that tool or the framework to be able to make sure that you are like eating on plan, no matter if you're at a restaurant, at grandma's house or you're at a hotel. The reason for this, though and it's interesting is because do you know the difference between parasympathetic nervous system dominance and sympathetic nervous system dominance?
Speaker 1:So dominance? No, and this is the one I always have to remind myself, so parasympathetic Is the fighter flight Opposite.
Speaker 2:I always get.
Speaker 1:It's good. Why Sympathetic is the fighter flight? That's about as far as my knowledge goes on the subject.
Speaker 2:I always think of it as like para. That's like you know, like like handicap wheelchair. So if you're parasympathetic you might be sitting down. That's my mental model there. But sympathetic is fighter flight or like what I like to call of shake and bake, you know. So it's not necessary. Like there's a spectrum right Over here you're running from Sabre to the Tiger, but like in the middle of like that's when you're tuned in, you're focused, you're doing a podcast. Like right now I'm in sympathetic nervous system dominance. You can hear that in my voice because I'm talking really freaking fast. It's a lifestyle.
Speaker 1:You're energized. That's what it is. You're just energized.
Speaker 2:So during the time, during the day, that's when we're like hunting, right? If you think back to how we, like, came up, we've only been an agrarian society or industrialized for a couple hundred years. So most of the time we think we can think of it as like hunting or resting, right. So during the day, that's when we're hunting, we're working, we're focused, we're trying to be on, and if you never push yourself to being full, you never shift into that parasympathetic nervous system dominance. But then at nighttime, like you said, you're having those sweet potatoes, you're having more of your carbs. That night You're naturally going to shift into kind of a rest and digest state, which is going to set you up for better sleep as well as helping you wake up with more energy. And then you have all the glycogen stores that you filled at dinner, that are going to be full for the next day.
Speaker 1:Full for that early morning workout. That's right, get you ready to go. That makes a ton of sense. How do you think about? Well, actually I want to go back to the. I want to go back to the fasting thing first. So do you recommend any kind like, even if it's a 12 hour intermittent fast? I know in the book you talk about a 24 hour a week fast, I believe, which freaks me out. But tell us more about what you do think about fasting.
Speaker 2:So I love these prolonged fasts and prolonged is anything after 24 hours. I'll never have anyone do a fast that's longer than 72, because after about three days your body will start breaking down muscle tissue. We just don't want that. It's expensive, it's hard to build. But the thing about prolonged fasting that's amazing is that once, like, a 24 hour fast is worth about eight 16 hour fasts, as crazy as that sounds, because at the end of 16 hours your body is just starting to switch on the autophagy process where you pull out broken and like a like used cells and repair and replace them. So it's just starting that and it's then you're starting to get into a really significant fat burn state as well. So if you just take it the extra eight hours, you're getting way better results. And then the cool thing about it, kimberly, is I think that when you are able to fast for 24 or 48 hours is kind of my favorite it starts to reset your body's natural settings.
Speaker 2:So, like we talked about earlier, most people aren't in tune with their body enough to know when they need carbohydrates. Well, if you start fasting and you're fasting 48 hours on a regular basis what's going to happen is these hunger spikes that you get at breakfast and lunch and dinner at 9 pm, they start to get more and more and more muted because it's now going from being this cognitive thing of like I eat at 8 30 to being like I don't have to eat if I don't want to. You develop this mental fortitude. It's really similar to like cold plunging or things like that doing something that's hard, especially in a world where we're just inundated all the time with food and food ads. You know we're not ever in a place where we can't eat. So putting yourself in a position where you're like I'm not eating, I'm not eating until dinner tomorrow night or whatever that is, is so powerful and so rewarding. So, going back to even our early in the conversation about that identity shift, so, let's say we say I'm going to fast for 48 hours.
Speaker 2:Now you're the type of person who can fast for 48 hours. So you said it, you did it and you're changing your beliefs about yourself, while you're changing some of your body's natural rhythms as well, which is so, so cool to see, because after a while people will be like yeah, I wasn't really hungry for lunch today, so I just had something like really really light. I didn't need any food, I just kind of went through it, or I just drank some Aminos and I was good. And once you get to that point like it almost becomes a game. It's fun to be able to see how you feel, how long you can push yourself, and the moral superiority is real.
Speaker 1:For sure, do you? This is a really random question and it's only because I'm currently reading this book that well, I'll tell you what it said after I asked the question what do you think about calories? I love them. You love them so good Like you love to eat them. But do you? What do you think about like the kind of like the standard American diet or whatever? They recommend 2000 calories per person. Agree, disagree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you and I should be eating the exact same amount of calories. I think about that, no, I know like. I mean, I think that like 2000 is kind of like the one they put on the back of the labels. Right, to just give us some some metric, but I am I like everyone has individual calorie needs based off of like lifestyle, your stress levels, how many steps you're getting, how hard you're working out.
Speaker 2:What are you doing on a daily basis? Do you stand or do you sit at a desk? Are you twitchy or not? Just something like, just like toe tapping. Just a random toe, like someone who is a little like a bit of a toe tapper, will burn a couple hundred extra calories Per day doing that. So there's, there's a massive swing in what people need, so I don't really agree that everyone should be having 2000 calories. What I do think, though, is that everyone should be having their body weight and grams of protein and prioritizing that, and I think that's a pretty easy rule to follow. But if you want to go into the standard American diet, I got stuff to say about that, so you just let me know and give you your soapbox and yeah, in just a minute.
Speaker 1:No, I 100% agree with the protein. I'm listening to this book called Burn and it's about metabolism, anyway, the interest in it. I need to finish it because I'm just kind of in the middle of it. But it said that the reason that everything says 2000 calories on you know boxes and things, is just because about 20 years ago, 20, 30 years ago, they did a study and they had like couple hundred men, couple hundred hundred women, self report the amount of calories that they ate in a day and the average between the two was 2000. I'm like, wait a minute. First of all, they self reported, which cannot be right, and secondly, like you're averaging men and women together to get that bottom line of it, is the other, the soapbox that I would love for you to get on having to do with calories is the people who say, well, I'll just eat 1200 calories a day.
Speaker 2:And that's funny how that's like. That's the standard weight loss calories for women. Yeah, men, it's men and 1500 women. It's 1200 calories and that's just it, that's all you get.
Speaker 1:I love food and the thought of 1200 calories being my maximum in a day is very sad to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that, like, yeah, you can do that and lose weight. And the reason that it's such a common number is because a lot of trainers, dietitians, nutritionists, will put their clients on that because they know it gets results. People will always lose weight on a 1200 calorie diet and then then, fun, they'll always regain that same weight. It's just really, it's great, but there's nowhere to go from there. Like, I think that you know, if you're trying to cut down let's say you're, you're a 225 pound man and you want to get down to 185. You're on 1200 calories. You get down to about 210. What are you going to do? Cut to 800? Right?
Speaker 1:You know like no, you're not nowhere else to go.
Speaker 2:So I much prefer focusing in on just nutrient rich foods and then adding in some movement too, because movement is amazing, it's medicine for sure and the more movement you do and the more muscle you have in like in that order the more calories you can burn. So someone who's 200 pounds with you know 10% body body muscle, is going to burn way less calories in a day than someone who's 200 pounds and has 20% of their, their skeletal or their their weight coming from skeletal muscle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when in thinking about movement. So I'm thinking about two groups of people. There's the person who's like I don't even know where to get started in working out. It's all intimidating, I don't know what to do. And then maybe there's the person who feels like they should be at a certain level, but they're not, and so they don't want to go to the gym because they don't want to be embarrassed. Where would you recommend that people start when they're just needing to begin movement?
Speaker 2:If you're first starting out and you just go outside and walk, if you can walk for an hour a day, try to get about 8000 steps. That's one of the best things you can do, because not only is that a good way to burn some calories and a higher percentage from fat, but you're also de-stressing, you're getting outside. It's like it's a win-win. So if you can do as much, as much walking as possible, that's an amazing place to start. But if you're living in North Dakota and you can't walk outside because it's horrible. One exercise technique that I love I call it 30, 15, 3. And so I recommend this to people. It's something you can work up to, but it's 30 minutes on a 15 incline treadmill at a three speed, and obviously, if you started at eight incline and two speed and work up, that's great. And also, don't touch the handles, don't hold on at all.
Speaker 1:That is not a joke of a workout right there. What you just said is difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so take some minutes to get there. Yeah, it's so great because it's done in 30 minutes. You get a great sweat. You don't do any high impact activities. It's better than running, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that you build up with the posterior chain, which is the fancy trainer way of saying the back of your body. So those muscles that don't get a lot of love because we're always focused on the mirror muscles, you know, yeah, yeah, that's where I would always have people start. Strength training is awesome, like I get that there's a higher bar, like a barrier of entry to that, than just walking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah for sure, and I think those are. Those are two great ones. I also had someone tell me this was probably 10 years ago and I don't I guess it can't, it's not wrong, but I'd never heard it since then that doing that same thing, like putting it on a 10 to 15% of you know max incline that the tribunal can get, also helps core strength. Have you ever heard that?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, I mean like if you've ever go do that with a weight vest on, you'll understand like your abs are sore the next day because you got to be leaned in, you got to be moving, you know. That's why it's so funny when you see people at the gym and they're holding on and it's a huge incline. And they're holding on and like walking backwards, it's basically making it a zero incline. You're like that's defeating the purpose. Why?
Speaker 1:don't you put it flat Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. What about how often a week to try and work out?
Speaker 2:So one of the daily investments is move for 20 minutes, and I think that that's something you like. We need to be working on, like sweat every single day. Never let a day go by where you're not sweating at least a little bit. It's just so important to do. That being said, I don't think you should be in the gym pounding weights seven days per week. I like to do, you know, maybe like between three and four workout days per week, three and four cardio days per week, and then walking on any day where I'm not doing either of those things, and also walking on days when I am doing those things, because it doesn't really impact my recovery, except for to improve it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you? Well, I mean, I know in the book you talk about waking up at a set time doing your workout. But when you start kind of adding some of these things together, like if you're going to do cardio, if you're going to do strength training, if you're going to walk on top of that, how do you recommend people just think about their day and managing their time throughout the day to make sure they have time to get their work done, but also that they're prioritizing their health?
Speaker 2:So I think that's what the first couple hours of the day or four is waking up a little bit earlier and using that time for the main thing that you're focused on. So if your main thing right now is getting into really great shape, then putting fitness at the front of your day is probably the best option. If it's blowing up your business, then sitting at your computer and doing those that deep work that needs to get done. I think you can get three hours worth of work done in an hour if you do it first thing in the morning. So I always recommend do the important thing first, and then I love the idea of bringing people with you.
Speaker 2:You know I like a lot of people like well, I don't have time to walk, I have to be with my family. I'm like you can't walk with your family, like, show your kids what it looks like to live a healthy lifestyle. Like kids don't care what you have to say, because more is caught than taught anyways. So, if you can, if you can like see the neighbor across stream. Like hey, you want to go to walk with us? You know like, hey, we're going to get a workout in at the park this Saturday. Hey, we're all going on like going going outside right now.
Speaker 2:If you can just continue to bring people with you, I think it eliminates this idea of like oh man, I wish I had an accountability partner. You're the accountability partner, you're the one who's bringing it up and then, by proxy, it's the same thing as me, like, I got, you know, a couple thousand followers on Instagram and if, if I'm like, not adhering to my own standards, if I'm eating a bunch of crap and not working out, people are going to call me on it. So if you're the type of person who's bringing other people with you, taking the family on a walk when you, when, like you don't go for a walk for a week, your kids are going to be like what's up, you know, and then you have that additional accountability just baked in. So I always think it's like, the more often you can bring people with you and like have the, have your kids at the gym, workout at home, how the kids watching you, like, like, that's quality time, you're getting it done and you're show, you're showing the standard, which is, I think, a huge win.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely I agree. I agree, my kids sometimes like to go on the walk with me Some depends on how far depends on how far. Nine and six.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we're a little younger than that, so we're still in the stroller, which has been nice. A big wagon I push.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I can see that being way easier, although my six year old is my son and he loves running. So he'll like sprint probably 50 yards as fast as possible or 50 meters as fast as possible, and then I'll kind of catch up to him and then he'll do it again and then he's totally worn out and everyone wins and it's a great. It's a great thing. Well, nate, we're in. You know there's a lot of topics that we've kind of touched on today. Of course, your book goes more into detail about each of them, but in one of the things I love my listeners to take away with is what is something that I can begin to do today or tomorrow to make a positive change in my life? So, of everything that we've talked about, what would you say are the is the top thing and maybe your secondary encouragement of where people should get started and why that is the most important.
Speaker 2:I would say we didn't really go into detail on this, but the morning routine is really critical because the more decisions you force yourself to make in the morning, the less energy you have. You get that decision fatigue later in the day or it impacts your business right. We don't need to spend time thinking about what we need to make for breakfast or what color shirt we need to wear. Have a lot of those things on autopilot. Have your AM routine on autopilot. For that reason, I recommend just a super simple 90-second morning routine that you can add on. You can do your journaling, affirmations, cold plunge, whatever else. Start off with 60 seconds of explosive exercise like jumping jacks. Just do 60 seconds of jumping jacks and drink 32 ounces of water. One minute exercise, two glasses of water.
Speaker 2:I think that is in a fantastic place if you want more energy in your life. Both of those things are designed for energy. The exercise is going to again activate your sympathetic nervous system and then the water is going to rehydrate you and get your brain working, because all night we're breathing out moist air. We're getting dehydrated. It's one of the things you can just start doing in 90 seconds that's going to have a profound impact on your day, because not only is it going to feel good, have more energy, which is going to allow you to make better choices, but if you get a bunch of wins early, then everything else just starts rolling your way.
Speaker 2:If you wake up and you're behind and you're late for a meeting and you can't figure out how to tie your tie, how hard is it to catch up and rest your day back and actually get back on track? Most people can't do that. If you can get up a little earlier and have that system in place, it makes it super, super easy. The second thing I would say is, if you're looking to get leaner and live longer, do it fast. Do it 24-hour fast. Stop eating tonight, eat again tomorrow night. Just try that. See how you feel and watch your self-confidence improve from that.
Speaker 1:Women and women, no matter what age, healthy to do. You specified it a little bit, but when does the 24 hours actually start? Does it start when you wake up one morning and you just don't eat, or does it start after lunch on a certain day? When do you start the clock and when do you stop it?
Speaker 2:As soon as you stop eating, then start the clock.
Speaker 1:As soon as you stop eating.
Speaker 2:I know you're going to be digesting food for a couple hours, but I think it's a little moot point to really split hairs on that.
Speaker 1:Do you recommend a sundown to sundown type of thing? So people just eat lunch, they don't eat dinner and they eat dinner the next time, the next night.
Speaker 2:I recommend honestly eat dinner tonight at 6 pm and then eat dinner tomorrow night at 6 pm. Oh really, that's 24. Easy, right, that's not a big deal.
Speaker 1:That's not a big deal, I could do that.
Speaker 2:You could absolutely do this. We're going to be doing a challenge here in the next couple of weeks doing a 48, though working up to a 48, making sure that we're free of processed sugars so we don't have the sugar cravings, giving some really good vitamins and nutrients to our bodies to prepare ourselves and then doing 48 straight. I'll let you know when that goes.
Speaker 1:Now, when you say we are doing this, is there a community that's doing this? Where do people find out about that?
Speaker 2:I'll put out some more information on this actually today and tomorrow, but me and my buddy, JC, who is on Instagram, has wronged to strong. He's an ex cartel member, found God and now works in the prison systems helping certify women to get their personal training certifications.
Speaker 1:That is so awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's a rad dude, so we're going to do it together for our communities and to raise money for him to get some more books.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's fantastic. Yeah, you'll have to definitely send me more information about that. We can put it in the show notes. Here's the thing I've done 48 hours fast before and I know that once I get into it it does feel it's not as hard as I think it's going to be. Once I get into it, it's the mental thought of oh my gosh, I'm going to have to go that long without food that makes me not want to do it.
Speaker 2:Lean into the savagery. Kimberly, I think that's one of the cool things about it is that you are so different from everybody else who needs to eat every three hours because we're addicted to processed food, and so I like to harness that, because I'm contrarian by nature, just to be like I'm not doing it like that, and I think that really helps me. When people are like you want some food, I'm like how dare you even ask me Like take that, just have a little bit of a chip on your shoulder from the standard American diet, from people telling us to eat just a bunch of BS all the time.
Speaker 1:That's it. Beauty is a competition. I'm a very competitive person, so if I'm like competition, that's what we'll get. Nate, this has been a fantastic conversation. Where can people get your book and where can they find out more about what you do?
Speaker 2:Well, if you want to grab the book I can give, I'll send it to your audience for free. Just go to gitnatesbookcom and I'll send you either a PDF or the Kindle version, whatever works better for you. If you want the audible or the hard copy, they're on Amazon. And then, if you want to connect or see more of my stuff or go watch that reel on sleep I put out recently, go to Instagram and follow at underscore. Million dollar body. You just have a million dollar body and I'll be there because I'm the best.
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right, that's awesome. Well we'll put links to all of those things in the show notes. And Nate, fantastic, I love what you're doing for people, for men and for women, just helping them have better habits, better systems, better health overall. Fantastic to talk to you and I appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me on. This is a blast.
Speaker 1:Here are my key takeaways from today's episode with Nate. First of all, I absolutely love the simplicity of the framework that he offers and highly encourage you to go and get his book. He's giving it to you for free, to our listeners, and I have looked through the book, read many parts of it and it's really good stuff, just super helpful in getting started giving some frameworks if you feel stuck where you currently are, so go to gitnatesbookcom. Here's one of my favorite takeaways the morning routine. It was the last thing he said and when he said it I thought oh, nate, we could have probably talked about that for much longer than we did. I love my morning routine. I love for you to have a morning routine. It really does help get your day started off on the right foot and helps you to focus on the things that you really want to achieve and get done during that day, especially when you put it first. It's a great way to ground yourself.
Speaker 1:So think about your morning routine. Do you have one? Have you implemented it? Does it need to be optimized? Is it maybe not doing for you what you wish it would do right now? Well, maybe you just need to shift some things. Maybe you need to add in working out and taking out journaling. Maybe journaling is better for you at night. This is something that isn't set in stone. It's something you can play with for your age, your situation, your season and life that you're in. All of those things can be thought of as you're thinking about your morning routine.
Speaker 1:Second key takeaway is prioritize protein. When I talk to people about my five favorite facets of health and nutrition, as always, number one is sleep, number two is nutrition and specifically under nutrition is prioritizing protein. It's one of the best things that we can do to help build and keep muscle and as we age, muscle is one of those things that deteriorates if it's not diligently kept up with, and muscle is going to be a huge part of what helps us to live a long and healthy life. I want to be able to get on a plane when I'm 70, 80 years old and put my suitcase in the overhead bin and you know what's going to help me do that? Muscle and maintaining my muscle, which is why protein is important.
Speaker 1:And then my third key takeaway from today's conversation is that your mindset and what you tell yourself about yourself and about your situation can make or break the progress that you see or that you have in that area. If you tell yourself that you're bad at something, you're shutting down your brain's ability to even move forward. But if you look at that same situation and say, I have an opportunity to get better at this or to enhance my sleep or how I eat or whatever, then you're opening your brain up to be creative and to find possibilities. What is the lie you're currently telling yourself and you're shutting yourself down from even finding a solution because of the narrative in your head. And how can you reframe what you're saying to be an opportunity, to be something that you can find a solution to and work towards optimizing and making better in your life? As always, please share this episode with a friend who might benefit from it and please leave a review. The reviews are so helpful in helping the podcast to reach even more people. Until next week, stay strong.