Easy Effective Diets That Work
One of the most frustrating things about diets is this: most of them work.
They work for some people, sometimes, under some conditions, for some goals. So you can't dismiss the results of Diet A as a criterion for choosing to follow Diet B. If both of them work, which one is right?
Which do you choose?
In this episode, Andy talks with Josh Hillis about what principles underlie most diets that make them effective and how to figure out how to do the things that will actually work for you in your own life.
Unsurprisingly, it turns out that a big part of the solution is self-awareness, and in fact many diets work by simply giving you rules that force you to be more aware of what you eat. Having coached thousands of people to eat better for their own goals, Josh breaks down some simple and flexible tips for developing that awareness for yourself.
Resources mentioned
- Nutrition Plans: Eat For Your Goals
- Change Your Habits for Peak Performance
- Fat Loss Happens on Monday – Josh's Book
- Physical Autonomy: How to Build Confidence & Freedom with Your Body
Transcript of Nutrition
Andy: All right, all right, all right. Welcome to the Giant Monster Banishment podcast. If you have any giant monsters, we're going to get rid of them for you. Who you're going to call? So, today, Ryan is off doing important stuff somewhere, probably. Buying shoes, pricing pants, because that's all anyone ever asks him about on social media, is what shoes he's wearing.
Andy: So, instead of Ryan, I am talking with Josh Hillis, who is a friend of ours, a client of ours. He now works at GMB, as our official Nutritional Habit Development Coordinator.
Josh: That's a solid title.
Andy: I don't even know what to call you, man.
Josh: Me either.
Andy: Yeah. Josh has been around for a long time. He's used our stuff, he knows GMB really well, and he's coached tons and tons of people. He's done nutrition coaching for the last few years.
Andy: Today, we're going to be talking about, basically, how to do intermittent fasting, with only meat, but, vegan meat.
Josh: It's magic.
Andy: I can't even think of-
Josh: Magical results.
Andy: -a worse diet. You can't make up this shit, sometimes.
Josh: Nothing but Impossible Burgers, and a really short eating window. That's it.
Andy: Perfect.
Josh: That's the whole, yeah.
Andy: I'm just going to sit down and eat 25 Impossible patties, in one hour, and then fast for 23 hours.
Josh: You're set, you're set, dude. Yeah.
Andy: All right, guys. Thanks for listening, we will catch you on the next episode.
Josh: It's been great! Thanks! Always leave on top.
Andy: That's right, that's right. We've asked our community, what sort of questions do you guys have about nutrition, and about eating habits, and about how to fit these things around your life, so that you can really have … so that you can feel like you know what to do. I think this is really the thing that when we started asking, everyone was like, how do you know? Right?
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: There are all these different things. There's intermittent fasting, but you really shouldn't fast because it's catabolic.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Actually, all that is, is glorified caloric restricting, right?
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Then, there's, well, what if I just reduce my carbs? Keto is also in right now, right?
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Then, there's all these different approaches. The completely frustrating thing is that you hear stories of every single one of them working amazingly, right?
Josh: Yeah, yeah.
Andy: Yeah. What is that, man?
Josh: So, what it comes downs to is that it's really easy to market diet differences. It's really easy to say, this one's magic, or special because whatever.
Andy: Mm-hmm.
Josh: It's even easy to take little bits of research that are true, but insignificant, and build a diet around that. So, what we've got is, we've got a lot of different named diets, that are all doing a certain amount of things well. The things that they have in common actually make sense, and the things that they market on, the differentiators, are the things that don't make any difference.
Andy: Right.
Josh: So, what you get is, you get 12 people do 12 different diets. What worked about all of those, if they worked, was that they probably added some vegetables, they probably had some balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fat. They were actually paying attention. They were paying attention to the choices they were making.
Josh: There's probably something about the magic rules in the diet that made them more aware of mindless eating, between meals.
Andy: Right.
Josh: Maybe screen some of that out.
Josh: Then, something in there reduced … If they're doing it to lose weight, something in there reduced the amount of food energy that they're eating, such that they actually lost weight.
Andy: Right.
Josh: You could pull that out. Something I love to talk about with clients is, okay, you've done the last five diets, you didn't last five years. They all had those things in common.
Andy: Right.
Josh: What if those basic things are the only things that matter?
Andy: Right. What you're getting at is there's a few principles that seem to work, in general, but that those principles, people come up with different gimmicks to trick people, or to give people a device for applying those principles.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: It's not even tricking. Tricking doesn't always mean a bad thing. If David Copperfield comes and pulls $100 bill out of my ear, I'm not going to be upset that I got tricked. I'm going to take the $100.
Josh: You're into it.
Andy: Tricking isn't bad, but we use these devices to trick you into consuming fewer calories, or to trick you into being aware of how much protein you're getting, and stuff like that.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: That's the trick itself, the gimmick, isn't the thing that really does it.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: It's the underlying mechanics that it tricks you into doing, right?
Josh: Yeah, yeah.
Andy: Awesome. Yeah, I think that's true. I'm very, very picky about my tshirts.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: I just, I am. I'm one of these guys that, I find a shirt I like, I buy 10 of it, and then I don't go shopping for another three years.
Josh: Yeah, you're set. You like it.
Andy: Yeah. Perfect. I don't like having to make decisions about things.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: I think, about three years ago, was the last time that I had to start buying shirts. Yeah, it was four years ago, because I was wearing these American Apparel tri-blend shirts. American Apparel went bankrupt. I was like, oh shit! What am I going to do?
Josh: I'll buy a whole pallette.
Andy: Right? Four months of frantic research. I did buy a massive box of the shirts, just to have. Then, I was like, I have to find out what I'm going to be wearing in the next few years, now, because it's going to drive me nuts until I decide.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: I started looking at things, I found these shirts. Oh, they don't wrinkle. Then, I found another one that's, oh, these are great because they don't smell bad if you wear them two days in a row.
Josh: Oh, yeah.
Andy: Oh, this shirt, it'll last a really long time with daily wear. These things are all important to me, because I do spend a lot of time traveling.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: I don't like to carry 15 shirts with me if I go on a trip.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: I don't plan on doing laundry and stuff. It turns out that the wrinkle free thing, that wasn't really a big … any kind of massive, new technology. Nor was the thing about not smelling bad, because it's anti-microbial.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Nor was the ability to go longer without washing, nor was the breathability. Not of these things were the magic sauce, but I saw four companies marketing nearly identical shirts, based on each of those different things, right?
Josh: Right.
Andy: It's very similar to the diets.
Josh: Oh, yeah.
Andy: It turns out, wool shirts. That's it, my shirts are wool. I wear wool shirts now. That is the thing.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: I switched from cotton to wool, and now I get all of those benefits. But, you have different places to sell wool, because people think wool is scratchy, or wool is hot, or whatever.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: So, they have these other ways that they try to trick you into wearing the wool shirt. And trick you into paying $70 for a tshirt, too.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: It's a lot more expensive to make than cotton.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: That's the thing. It turns out, all you need to know is wool.
Josh: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Andy: Then, with nutrition, then, and your eating habits and things like that, what are the things we really do need to know? What are those principles, under the stuff?
Josh: So, there's two things. There's the principles under the stuff, and then there's what makes it work.
Josh: The basic principle, nutritionally, that most people are looking for, is there's going to be a balance of food that has you feel more full for less food energy, less calories, or whatever, right?
Andy: Right.
Josh: That's usually you're going to have vegetables, you're going to have protein, you're going to have carbohydrates, you're going to have a little bit of fat. Usually, I'm point people towards like, ish, half a plate of vegetables, a quarter plate of protein, a quarter plate of carbohydrates, and a tablespoon-ish of fat. Somewhere in there, is a super general guideline.
Andy: Mm-hmm.
Josh: Super, super general guideline. Everyone has this question of, what do I eat? Then, we have to realize that there's nothing magic about that. That's just about feeling full. You get all the things you need, and you feel full, we're set. Then, we can move onto all of the other things that matter, which are going to be things like, how do I not snack between meals when I'm bored, or stressed out, or tired, or whatever? How do I notice when I'm full? How do I notice when I'm hungry? Actually, that's about it.
Josh: Those are the games we're really playing.
Andy: Right.
Josh: It's like, okay, how do I have a balanced meal? Then, how do I have those a few times a day, and not snack in between, because I'm bored, or because my boss yelled at me, or because I'm stressed out, or I'm tired, or whatever?
Andy: Right. It seems like, yeah, there's definitely two levels this is working on.
Andy: One is, the mechanical level, even though it's more chemical in a lot of ways, too. What you eat.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Then, the other side is the emotional, and the self-regulation side of making sure that you're able to stick with it. I know this is a thing our community has told us, too. How do I keep using something, even if I know it works? How do I make it still work when things get difficult?
Josh: Yes.
Andy: And stuff like that. A lot of it really is, like you said, eating because you're bored, or because you're stressed, or whatever.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: There's those two sides to what we're doing here. Is that accurate?
Josh: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's dead on.
Andy: All right. Then, let's look a little bit broadly to it. Maybe, examples of a few things? We've said there's a few principles here. Then, we've got things like, high fat diet, high protein diet, high carb diet.
Josh: Right.
Andy: Low carb diet, no carb diet.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Intermittent fasting. Like we said, all of these things can work. On these two levels, how can some of these things on both of those? Maybe you could just pick a couple of things?
Josh: Oh.
Andy: Give examples of how they would, maybe, satisfy both of those?
Josh: Yeah. Someone's on a high fat, high protein, low carb diet.
Andy: Right.
Josh: They're like, wow, that cuts out most of the junk food that I ate.
Andy: Sure.
Josh: That really works, right?
Andy: Right. You can't really get Cheez-Its into that.
Josh: It's tough. Yeah. Almond flour Cheez-It? Yeah, it doesn't work.
Andy: Yeah. When they come out with the no carb Cheez-Its, though, I am there for that party.
Josh: You're into that. Oh.
Josh: All of a sudden, they have enough protein.
Andy: Right.
Josh: They have enough vegetables, because you have to have some vegetables. You're like, oh, okay, that kind of works.
Josh: Then, the flip side, you've got someone that's vegan.
Andy: Mm-hmm.
Josh: They're like, oh, wow, I'm eating a lot of fruit and vegetables. That totally works. The same kind of thing, where they're like, there's all this … I'm going to be so much more aware of my choices.
Andy: Right.
Josh: They're paying attention to what they eat, in a much different way. That works, also.
Andy: Right.
Josh: Intermittent fasting is cool, because for the people that do well skipping breakfast, what a simple way to reduce calories.
Andy: Right.
Josh: It's simple.
Andy: I came up with the ultimate hack for the intermittent fasting hack.
Josh: Yeah?
Andy: I, basically, consume about 900 calories of coffee in the morning.
Josh: That's actually my favorite. You're like, yeah, I totally fast all morning. I just have my coffee with butter, and MCT oil. I'm like, that is probably bigger than your breakfast was.
Andy: Right. I don't put butter and MCT oil in my coffee. I use heavy cream, and a little bit of whiskey.
Josh: Yeah. That, I could get behind.
Andy: But, I'm also not trying to lose weight, so I figure it's all right.
Josh: Throw a scoop of ice cream in there.
Andy: For real.
Josh: Lets at least enjoy it, right?
Andy: Right. Yeah. I at least don't call it fasting, because I know I am consuming a ton of calories in my coffee every morning.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: In fact, if I did want to try to lose weight, probably cutting out my coffee would be the number one leveraged activity I could think of.
Josh: Right.
Andy: I think you hit on a really key point there, it's awareness, right?
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: A lot of these things do bring your awareness to what you're eating, when so many of us do eat habitually.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: You get up, and you pour the cereal in the bowl, or you start buttering your toast, or whatever. Or, you have your break from work, and if you stay there, you're going to work. You don't want to work, you want to take a break, so you walk down the street to the café, or whatever.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: And you get a thing. You get what's there.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: The place that has nice seating for you and your coworkers might not have the thing that's the most nutritionally sound.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: You get what's on the menu. We have these environmental things, too.
Josh: Totally.
Andy: Since we're creatures of habit, we have an environment, and we have our habits, that we end up making these decisions. So, awareness of it, if you go to that café, and I'm not going to eat any carbs, then you skip the giant baguette that your sandwich is on, and you just eat the meat and vegetables, and you're probably doing better.
Josh: Yeah, yeah. It simplifies things. Rules like that can simplify. It can be like training wheels for building skills and awareness.
Andy: Mm-hmm.
Josh: Where the problem is, that we don't necessarily, then, pull those skills and that awareness out of the rules.
Andy: Right.
Josh: Right? The thing is, if you've got some rigid diet rules, you're going to get to a point where they break.
Andy: Mm-hmm.
Josh: At some point, you're either going to get tired of it, or you're going to be at a social event, or you're going to be really stressed out, or your schedule changes. At some point, you're not going to be able to hit those rules. If you had pulled out that awareness …
Josh: You go to that place, and there's the sandwich with the giant baguette, or whatever, and you actually take two minutes and you stop, and you think about what you're going to get, taking that two minutes was more useful than the rules that were your training wheels to take two minutes and think about it.
Andy: Right.
Josh: Right?
Andy: Absolutely.
Josh: It's okay to have guidelines to learn these things, but we can't have rigid rules, because they're the number one cause of diet failure.
Andy: Right.
Josh: They're the number one psychological cause of diet failure, to be clear.
Josh: Then, also, they're actually really bad for our well being, and our relationship to our body. They actually cut off … It's one those things where if you use it as a hard rule, there are going to be times where you're denying actual hunger, and denying actual fullness, and following a rule. That has a negative impact on our relationship to our bodies.
Andy: Right. This is something that Ryan and I talk about on the podcast, too. It's a big part of our programs, too, in GMB. We have a lot of things where people ask us, how many reps should I do? When is it time to move on to this next version of the exercise? And things like that. I think a lot of it really does come down to that awareness.
Andy: We answer so many questions with, it depends. Or, I don't know. Or, try it and see.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: I know that frustrates some people. We try to give them more context, of course. You really do have to build awareness.
Andy: For example, if you're working on building up your leg strength, and you're doing lunges so you can eventually do a split squat, so you can eventually do the shrimp squat.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Things like that. How many reps of this do I need to be able to do, so I can go to the next one? Well, the answer is, when you feel really, really solid on what you're doing, and you feel like you can try the next one easily.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: There's no, once you can do 25 reps of split squats, now you can do the shrimp.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: People like to say things like that, but it doesn't really work that way. You have to build the awareness of your body, so you can know. I think that's one of things that is really, really underrated. People love rules, because they're simple. It takes that hard work of developing that awareness out of it. Right?
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: We can work out while watching Ellen.
Josh: Right.
Andy: We don't have to pay attention to what our body is doing, or how we feel about the exercises while we're doing them. We don't have to develop any kind of awareness, or spacial abilities, or anything.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: We don't have to learn how to control our bodies at all, we just pound the treadmill, and watch Ellen dance.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: That's how it works.
Josh: That the perfect, perfect analogy, yeah.
Andy: Awesome.
Josh: For real.
Andy: That's why we work well together.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: That's why your approach fits with GMB so well.
Andy: Just on that, we've talked a lot about different … some of the principles underlying different dietary approaches that work. We're getting more specific with that, a little bit. We talked about why so many different kinds of things work.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Just before we move on, real quickly, how do you know that a thing is working? If you do try a new approach to your nutrition, if you do try something, or if you just try to adopt better principles and habits without rules, without strict rules specifically, how can you know that something is working?
Andy: A lot of people approach this as if it's only about scale weight.
Josh: Right.
Andy: Which, in some cases, that might be the most important thing.
Josh: Sure.
Andy: If you are very much overweight, and scale weight coming off means that you're losing fat and getting healthier.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: For a lot of people, that's not the most important thing.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Also, changes do take time. Especially if weight is the thing, those changes do take time to be sustainable. How do you know in the short-ish to mid-term, instead of having to look back over a six month period?
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: What sort of indicators would you have, that the approach you're trying is working for you, and is something that you should continue with? Or, if you're doing it well?
Josh: The most concrete thing that I would tell people to look at is, create some sort of a log of the behaviors that they want to do, and actually track doing those.
Andy: Right.
Josh: If you're doing more, you're making progress.
Andy: Right.
Josh: Or, if you're able to do those behaviors in harder situations, like under more stress, or when you're tired, and things like that. That would be the very concrete way. I think it's always cool to get really behavioral, because it's easy to measure.
Josh: On the higher level, we have to take a look at what our values are, what matters to us. Are we about family, or growth, or connection, or conscientiousness, or reasonableness, or self compassion? If we can pick out a few things that are, here's who I want to be around food. A good way to do that … You can look at a values list, and pick a couple. Another way to look at is if someone has kids, it's like, what kind of example do I want to set for them around food? Sometimes that little bit of perspective taking helps.
Josh: Let's say we get, conscientiousness, and self compassion, and connection.
Andy: That's personal values that you want to make sure that your approach to eating is consummate with, right?
Josh: Yeah, yeah.
Andy: Okay.
Josh: Let's say you spend some time on it. This is a process, also, and that takes time. You might want to journal about it. You might want to look at values lists, and things like that. Let's say you come down to that.
Josh: Then, the highest level is, can I pick the eating skills that I'm working on, based on whether or not they fit with this? Can I make choices based on whether or not they fit with this?
Andy: Mm-hmm.
Josh: That opens up a whole world of stuff. Okay, I'm not going to starve myself to lose five pounds this week, because that doesn't fit with self compassion.
Andy: Mm-hmm .
Josh: I'm not going to skip the birthday cake at my son's birthday, because that doesn't fit with connection. You can start making these really high level things. Am I moving towards the kind of person I want to be, or the example I want to set, or the character strengths I want to have around food? Really concrete, every single thing is a choice point, either towards that or away from that.
Andy: Right.
Josh: That's the meta level.
Andy: Cool. I like where you're going with this. It seems like … Again, this is something that fits really well with the way we approach exercise, too. You're not trying to evaluate based on some idea of what objective results are. Which, just for the record, I don't believe in objective results, I don't think there's any such thing, because anytime …
Andy: I went to a technical school. I was really involved in math, and stats, and stuff. It's really easy to juice one metric at the expense of others, basically, is what happens. If you're metric is scale weight, but then you fuck up your body chemistry to get there, is that a win? No.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: If you say that you're trying to get to zero carbs, but you end up eating nothing but salami
Josh: Yeah, yeah.
Andy: That's probably not good for you.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: On the whole.
Andy: We have these objective measures where I just want to see my abs but turns out I'm pissing the most vile smelling thing known to man, because of what I've done to my body to get there. That's probably not a good indicator of health.
Josh: Right, yeah.
Andy: You've got visible abs, though, so congratulations.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: What I'm getting at is all of these things that people think are objective measures, a lot of times, you're really juicing one metric at the expense of others.
Josh: Right, yeah.
Andy: Objectivity is based on a narrow sample, a narrow view of what you're looking at.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Instead, what you're saying is to track and rely on personal integrity, who you want to be. Yes, you do need to pick good habits, and good, sound choices, but you need to back those up with, like you said, your values, what is important to you. If you're tracking things based on, am I making good, nutritional choices that are in line with who I want to be, then that's probably, admit that it's subjective. We've got a whole episode on subjectivity and exercise, too. Go on and just let it be subjective.
Josh: Right.
Andy: Track that, instead of pretending it's something objective that isn't really.
Josh: Right. Yeah. I love that, I love that. We really can get so narrow that we start hurting all kinds of other areas. Anything from body chemistry, to even alienating our friends.
Andy: Mm-hmm.
Josh: If you have a diet where you cannot hang out with people that you care about, that's so, so terrible.
Andy: I'm going to look … Next time I tell them I don't have time to hang out with them, I'm going to look so good.
Josh: You can text them a picture of your abs. I'm not there.
Andy: Hey, guys, sorry. I can't hang with you losers at Applebee's, but check my six pack. That's the text I want to send.
Josh: Yeah. Winning!
Andy: It's a good way to go through life. It's a very good way to go through life.
Josh: Yeah. You can play that everywhere.
Andy: I mean, we're joking. I think that we can get away with this, because I'm pretty sure anybody who bothers to listen to more than one episode of the GMB podcast, probably, this fits with your world view.
Josh: Yeah, yeah.
Andy: If not, then-
Josh: Now you know.
Andy: -politely … Right. You can ignore this advice, and pick the things that work for you, and that's fine.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Cool.
Josh: Oh, can I throw in one other thing about that?
Andy: Yeah, please.
Josh: You mentioned short term, mid term, and long term.
Andy: Mm-hmm.
Josh: One of my favorite things about using a values-based approach is that I can tell if it fits at the next meal. It isn't … Goals are always this super far off thing, this really grand thing.
Andy: Right.
Josh: People tend to approach values like that also. The reality is, it could be really values congruent for me to eat slower at the next meal. That could be self compassionate, that could be conscientious, that could be connect. It could be all those things. I could do that in an hour, when I have dinner.
Andy: Right.
Josh: That's live, right now.
Andy: I think that's actually really, really useful, because that gives you, actually, much, much faster feedback than what you would tend to look for, and is actually really easy to do. You think, okay, this is what I have just put inside of me. Next time I eat, I'll consider it. Then, next time you eat, you think, well, I had a really, really good lunch, that was awesome, and filled me up. I am not dying of starvation now, I probably don't need a ton on my plate. I feel really good about what I ate, so I'm okay putting a little more sauce on this.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Or, whatever.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Or, the other way, I completely snacked on ice cream earlier because I was feeling stressed out, and I should probably just stick to greens for dinner.
Josh: Right, yeah. Yeah. You can course correct immediately.
Andy: Yeah, yeah. I think that's a great way to put it, it's course correcting. This is what we want to get to, also, is how to actually make … Again, whatever approach you take to use specific principles and rules that you want to follow, how do you make that work for you?
Andy: I think this is a great thing, is course correcting, because we have so many people, as you mentioned earlier, that have asked us about, what happens when I break the rules? If you have certain rules, you will break them. You will. How do I make something work for me, even when my life is not optimal?
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Even when my kid is sick, even when my job has got me running for weeks straight.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Even when I'm absolutely broke, and the only thing I can afford is Chipotle.
Josh: Yeah, yeah.
Andy: How do I make sure that I can course correct, and follow something to the best of my ability? I think that's really a huge, huge, huge skill to develop.
Josh: Yeah. That's my favorite question. That's my favorite, favorite.
Andy: Awesome, awesome. Take it.
Josh: Here's the thing. If you've got rules, then it's implicit that you have to follow them all the time. The thing about a skill is that you don't have to practice a skill every single minute of the day to get better at it. I can practice guitar three times a week and get better at it. I can do pushups three times a week and get better at it, it doesn't have to be every day, it doesn't have to be three times a day.
Josh: So, if you've got a skill like noticing when you're full and stopping … Let's say you're working on … You're like, I'm going to do balanced meals, I'm going to eat slowly, and I'm going to notice when I'm full, and I'm going to stop. You're working on those things. Right now, everything in your life is cool, you're doing all three of those almost every meal. Great.
Josh: Then, next week, your kids get sick, and you get an extra project at work, and things are super busy. You have less time, less sleep, less everything. You're like, you know what? I don't even know if I can make it to the store to plan balanced meals.
Andy: Mm-hmm.
Josh: You know what I can do? I can still eat slowly, and I can still stop when I'm full.
Andy: Right.
Josh: You can say, you know what? I am super busy. There's no way that I can eat slowly at breakfast this week. So, you just don't. You're like, I'm just going to have lunch and dinner. If you're tracking, you can still put in. It isn't yes, no, or win, lose, like a diet rule. You can be like, you know what? I practiced that two times today, and one time the next day, and three times the next day. Even the times that I didn't practice that, I still noticed when I was full and stopped.
Andy: Hm.
Josh: You can look at your week and you can say, you know what? On the week that was great, I did all these things 21 times. On the week that was rough, I did two of them seven to 10 times. Even though you did less, you stayed in it. You were still practicing.
Josh: I might argue that the practice that you do, that you practiced that skill one time per day when you were super stressed out and exhausted, might actually be more important practice than you nailing it when everything in your life is glorious.
Andy: Right. Yeah. We say the same thing, too, with a lot of physical performance. Ryan and I come from a martial arts background.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Being able to execute a kick, or a throw, or a take down, or a knife attack or something, in perfect conditions, when you're warmed up, you're feeling good, you know the person who you're training with, you practiced with them 1000 times, the floor's not wet, there's no broken glass on the ground, no group of 20 people standing around, drunkenly-
Josh: Shouting.
Andy: -leering, and cheering, and about to stomp someone's head. Under perfect conditions, you can do those things.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: In martial arts, you have to plan to be able to execute your skills in imperfect conditions.
Josh: Yes.
Andy: How do you improvise? How do you do this when you're facing an opponent? We call this an asymmetrical engagement. You don't know what the other person's doing, you don't have an agreement, you're not friends.
Josh: Right.
Andy: It could be tournament conditions, it could be sport fighting conditions, it could be actual fight conditions.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: If you can actually do it then, well, that's when you really have mastered a skill.
Josh: Yeah, exactly.
Andy: So true, I think, with habits, too.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Even just non-nutrition related.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: I'm trying to build a habit to practice guitar. If I'm trying to build a habit not to get upset when my daughter says this, but to have a little more compassion and maybe try to model better behavior, instead of just being, "What the hell are you doing?"
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Doing that, when I'm really stressed out, and frustrated, and busy, and on my way out the door is a lot harder than doing that when we're both relaxed, after bath time.
Josh: Right.
Andy: Completely different.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: I think that's huge.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: I think that's huge.
Andy: On that, how strict should you aim for? We're talking about awareness, and developing this, and being able to practice these skills, even when it's not ideal. Still, if you're not doing them well, not executing well most of the time, you're still not going to get either objective or subjective, good results on this. You're not going to be able to say that you're living in integrity with your values if you're only doing this 10% of the time.
Josh: Right.
Andy: What should you aim for? How strict should you try to get? I don't know if strict is even the right word. How can you tip the balance, I guess?
Josh: I think it's really cool to be practicing a skill at least one time per day. I think that's … As long as you're doing that, you're absolutely getting some legitimate practice in.
Andy: Right.
Josh: I think it is also smart to … Okay. Two different things.
Josh: One, the skills are harder than guidelines. A skill, noticing when your full and stopping, is really hard.
Andy: Yeah.
Josh: Most people have ignored that for a long, long time.
Andy: Yeah. It's different factors influence, right? Environmental factors, what's on the plate, stuff like that. Totally.
Josh: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. Let's say you're even good at it, but you slept three hours last night. You're not going to be great at it that next day.
Andy: No.
Josh: You're not. In those situations, I think it is cool to lean towards a guideline like, planning balanced meals, or putting my fork down between bites. Or, waiting 10 minutes before having seconds.
Andy: Mm-hmm.
Josh: Putting in these really concrete things, that are fairly easy … Not easy, clear.
Andy: Right.
Josh: Just really clear. It can help to do those when skills are hard.
Josh: If you're having trouble with guidelines, then, really, we want to do some obstacle planning. We want to look at what's going to come up this next week, that's going to get in the way. Most people have different flavors of the same obstacles, over, and over, and over again.
Andy: Right, yes.
Josh: You can look at, if I don't go shopping, I'm screwed. Can I go shopping? What's going to get in the way of going shopping? Or, oh, I've got this social event. Or, I'm going to see my parents, and they're food pushers. Or, we've got this … all the different things that could come up. Most people can look at their schedule, and see those things ahead of time.
Andy: Right.
Josh: And come up with some sort of a plan. If this happens, then I'm going to do that. The funny thing about that is, you don't even have to do the exact same thing that you said you were going to do, just by virtue of having looked at, oh, there's an obstacle coming.
Andy: Right.
Josh: You're better set up. Most people just get caught flat footed, over and over again. Oh, I thought everything was going to be perfect.
Andy: Right, yeah. If you go through without looking ahead, and without strategizing about things, you are going to get blindsided by stuff.
Josh: Totally.
Andy: Like you said, if you just take a few minutes and think about what's coming up, and try to identify threats, so to speak.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Even if the actual situation is different from what you imagined, by virtue of just having thought about it, you'll recognize it, and you'll, again, have a chance to think about it when it does come up.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: I think that's really, really important.
Josh: Yeah. You're way more aware, and you're also making choices with that awareness. You actually get to make the choice in an optimal situation, before you're in the heat of the moment, when it's super hard.
Andy: Right.
Josh: Right?
Andy: Awesome. I mean, we've covered a lot of stuff.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: It's been a little discursive at points. I think that's good, because there's so much involved here.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: We all, every single one of us, has eaten at least 100 times.
Josh: At least.
Andy: Right? At least. I'm talking 99.999% of us have eating 100 times or more.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: We ingrain these habits, and it becomes subconscious, we don't think about it.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: You sit down to eat, you don't think about it. I think that this is, really, one of the key points is just bringing your awareness to what you're really doing.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: And why?
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: That's one reason why all these different diet approaches work, is because they do make you think about it. Right?
Josh: Yeah. All stuff you have to consider.
Andy: Right.
Josh: You have to make a choice.
Andy: Yeah. Practicing that, even just that, I think, can be really, really big for people.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Awesome.
Josh: Can I throw in something about that?
Andy: Yeah. What else do you think is super important for people to get out of this?
Josh: First, just about that, I was going to say that, that can be a hard thing for people to figure out how to do.
Andy: Right.
Josh: They're like, how do I put in more awareness? Actually, just putting in a waiting period is magical. Where, that could be, I'm going to wait 10 minutes before I have seconds. That's 10 minutes to check in with yourself. Be like, am I full? I'm going to wait 10 minutes before I have a snack, after having that urge. You can actually check in. Am I stressed out, or do I actually feel this in my stomach?
Andy: Right.
Josh: Do I just want the candy, or do I actually need to eat some real food right now?
Josh: You can even do that before plating. You can take 60 seconds, and actually check in. If people are looking for training wheels for that, putting in a little waiting period breaks up the different between stimulus and getting the habitual thing.
Andy: Right.
Josh: Right?
Andy: Cool. That's really good. We've talked around a lot of different techniques, and a lot of tactics, and ideas, and rules, and things that might work.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: In terms of bang for the buck, I think that's really great. Putting in a little waiting period, just so you have time to consider.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: And really, actually choose.
Josh: Yeah.
Andy: Awesome.
Josh: Yes.
Andy: Cool. Well, Josh, thank you. We will have you on the podcast again in the future, and talk more about nutrition, and habits, and more specific things.
Josh: I can't wait! This is fun.
Andy: I appreciate you banishing the giant monsters.
Josh: I do what I can.
Andy: Awesome.
Josh: About giant monsters.
Andy: All right, cheers. Thanks for listening.
Josh: Thanks, man.
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Easy Effective Diets That Work
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