Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Kido, savage.com. Today I've got special guest and good friend Dakota on the line. He's been working me for quite some time. He competed in October and November of last year, 2022, and he has since been going through a pretty long, extensive reverse diet period. So I wanted to pick his brain about what that has been like. This was his first competition,
first reverse diet. So anytime you do a first anything, you have this newfound sense of perspective and I wanted to kind of just pick his brain as to what that has been like as a first time competitor. We also dive into his home gym
setup. He's building out the pretty impressive home gym at his place and I want to kind of pick his brain as to what is what he's doing, how he's building that out, what equipment he would get again versus not and just kind of get that aspect of his gym situation down there because I'm also in the process of building out my gym. So I was curious 3rd into the conversation. Always good catching up with Dakota. Have no doubt they will take something from this.
So that further ado sit back, relax into the podcast with my good friend Dakota and we are live Dakota. How are your brother? Doing well, doing well. How are you Sir? I'm good man. I'm good. How are you feeling this far? Post Show. Back to normal, to be honest. Back to normal. Back to normal. And I know the reverse diet I think is worse than the the prep. To be completely honest, I
agree. I feel like a lot of people like, I'll say that on a podcast or I'll say that in passing and people were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but the prep is way worse. But honestly, from a psychological standpoint, I think the reverse diet is the most challenging part. I think it is cuz you you have a hard goal when you're doing a a prep. When you're in the middle of prep you have the show, whatever it is.
Like I'm looking at, you know the show poster for the one, the Washington State Natural. I got one from Aaron so I'm looking at it here on the wall and like that's your goal. That's an easy you've got a hard date to set, but then the reverse diet after. You know, you're like, I gotta take six months, eight months after with no goal there. There is no show day. There is no, there's no hard deadlines for anything, you know. Whereas when you got the show, you've got all the all the
structure there. It's easy, easier, 100% man. And for the listeners, let me give them some perspective. You started working with me for the prep on April 4th of last year. You started at 206.8 pounds at 2959 calories. And then you competed on. Let me Scroll down here. Yeah, let's see here. First show was 10. Cuz we had the WNBF which was October 15th and then we had November 4th, yeah.
Which was the NPC natural. And on that October show you got down to 168.2, it looks like was the lowest. So you went from 206 to 168, actually had a couple, you had a 166 day one, 65164.5, I think 164.5 was your lowest and then? Because that was that was the 110 pound weight loss. That's the lowest I've been in. Which a decade. So yeah, cuz when you you had lost quite a bit of weight before you ever even started working with me. So your heaviest weight was what?
275 That's the the heaviest known weight, heaviest. Known weight Preface that when you get to that size, you don't. You don't jump on a scale very up. Yeah. And I mean we get you pretty pretty lean man. I mean you were shoulder veins were popping 164. I mean that is a pretty significant change from where you were at the heaviest. Yeah, yeah, it was. I'm ready to. My shoulder veins stick around pretty decently, like anything below like 18% body fat, but I'm ready to have the bicep veins
come back and the forearm veins. You're in prep right now. Aaron says he's not prepping. I don't know what Aaron's doing right, but I'm a skeptical man. Aaron's. Prepping he's gotta be there's he's getting way too lean post mini cuts so I would and I talked with him stem I regularly and he's not letting anything slide but I'm like man he's gotta be going for for something. Well, I wanna know what he's doing so that I can step on
stage with the man. Well, I know he, so he can't compete in Washington and Oregon because the show's there. He runs the two, he runs the pro show. I think there actually there might be 1 WNBF show that's also a pro show. But I don't think he's going to do that, cuz him and I were talking. It's like he's got to go down to like the Bay Area or up to Bridge Columbia or kind of his options. Well there's there's several shows, there's several WNBF
shows that are coming. Most of them are you know third, third quarter, fourth quarter of the year which would be like if he's doing some of those later show that's that's a long, long prep. But I mean shoot I'm doing long prep. I mean I know he kind of generally gravitates towards the longer preps as well. But yeah he's he's a big wild card right now. But shoot, I want to talk about you man.
So you you you've been reverse dining since your second second show which was in November and you are still pretty much under 200. You have a couple high days where you're you tiptoe over 200 but for the most part you're still you know sub 200 pounds, which this far post show I think is a pretty big win. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely interesting. And like the days, I can tell you what days those are. Those are the days either. There's like some Saturdays and stuff.
I don't track, like my wife and I, you know, she's in the middle of a bodybuilding of her own. We've got kit #2 on the way. That's due here in August, but so we'll do like Saturdays, kind of like a. Like, I'll eat pretty close to what my normal macros are, but like Sundays after that or I'm a little bit heavier, or the days that I work till 9:00 o'clock at night. I don't get to sit down to eat until 9:30 or 10:00, and then I go straight to bed.
Like I can tell you the next morning I'm heavier, but that's just part of it. What's the there's? A little bit of variation every day. Yeah. And that's totally normal man. Like that is nothing, nothing to worry about there. Same thing is true with me as I'm dieting down like I'll have some, you know, high days, some low days. I had a low day this morning but then you know last week I had a
unexpected hire day. You know, like you just can't let that gnaw at you or else it gets in your head and good. What has it been like for you post show from a reverse that standpoint? Because what I have found amongst all my clientele and amongst my, my and for myself is that the first show and the first reverse diet are always the hardest because you just simply don't have any perspective as to what you can compare to. This is your first rodeo with the competitions and reverse
diets. So this is like the pinnacle of as hard as it gets per se. So what was it like for you emotionally, psychologically, as you're don't have a show that you're working for, but you're still trying to stay within some degree of, you know, consistency with your foods and not go totally off the rails eating everything Insight. It's hard. I mean, there are days that I remember like fairly early on at the reverse side, that there were days that I slept and everything insight was eaten.
And like, it's harder. With the reverse diet, mentally, because I don't have that goal and I'm I can be very goal oriented, not with everything but with a lot of things. So not having the the show day as the you know, like my focus and like that's what keeps me going makes it incredibly hard. It it just becomes harder and like we have dieted down. And reverse dieted a little bit before, so I had some
perspective. But it's completely different when you just do like a small cut and then a small reverse diet versus you're doing 6 to 8 months of a cut and then, you know, 6 to 8 months of a reverse diet. Like the time frame difference. It just wears on you. It wears you down. Yeah, for sure. What was it like? Like what was your your close knit group of people and family and friends around you?
Like when it comes to reverse dining, like, because I I think that's hard too, because after the show is over, they don't get the concept of reverse dining. So they're just like, well, you your show is over, you might as well join us for dinner, this celebratory meal. I mean, what else are you working for? You might as well eat with us. So, like, were they pretty supportive or were they just like totally not not understanding and not on board?
My wife very understanding, very much on board, very much my saving grace and how she didn't murder me at the tail end of Prep. I have no idea. I'm pretty irritable. Her family was pretty understanding for the most part because they they, well, my wife actually grew up like watching bodybuilding shows in the, you know, the late 90s, early 2000s, like her dad watched them when they used to be streamed on TV and stuff. So like there's a little bit more understanding from that
side from them. But my family who has zero nutritional background at all, does not understand like raising, for example. Like raising my son. Like there are certain things we generally don't, you know, a lot of the flowers and things like that. And like, oh, that has flower that has, shouldn't. Yes, those kind of things like. To you and me and a lot of the the bodybuilding and health oriented communities understand like it's hard to understand something that you have no grasp
on to start with. Yeah. So like I I I gave them as much grace as I could. But you know it's just like they don't under they don't understand so they don't but they never have the drive to compete in a show whereas I think. Like with my inlaws, I think my father-in-law might eventually do a master's class Nice. After going to the WNBF show with us, I think he kind of got a little bit of the bug. That's good. That's really good.
What was it like for you on the days where you would go off the beaten path and eat everything? Insight, like how did you handle that? Mental. Like, did you beat yourself up about it? Did you try and, you know, do something the next day to, you know, overcompensate for that deviation or you just get right back on track? Like what was that like? I was blessed with a very good coach, so that's super helpful. But yeah, I still beat myself up.
I but I didn't go down the path of well, I over ate yesterday so I'm not gonna get it all today. I didn't go down that path. I don't think that that's good. So I tried to make it as mentally healthy as possible because I think like the beating yourself up, you're gonna take a little bit of a mental hit there, but if you go down the route of starving yourself the next day because you overeat, it creates. A disordered eating tendency. And that's what I wish avidly
trying to avoid. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't want to do that. I already, I've already experienced eating disorders. So I don't want to go back down that route. No, I totally agree, man. I think when you start going down the route of trying to make up for past events, that becomes a very slippery slope. That's honestly why I'm not really a fan of averaging out caloric intake goals over the running span of a week.
You know, cuz like you'll have a high day and then you've got to have a low day to, you know, correspond with that and it just winds up being a negative more often than not. So I think that that, like I said, it just becomes a slippery slope. So I'm glad you didn't go that route. Yeah. And I mean there's. It's going to take a toll on you no matter what. So you just kind of you're trying to minimize the damage. At least I was.
You know there there are days that you know things are harder. It's. I know at the very end, like you love the Stairmaster. I hate the Stairmaster. I I love that time every morning that I had to go do that. And, you know, but it's like there were some days that it was just a struggle And I'm like, oh, if I eat less than, do I have to be the Stairmaster? It's like, no, it's gonna mess it up. Yeah.
So no, for sure, man. There's everyone's gonna have a different definition for what is sustainable for them, what's in trouble for them, what is reasonable, what is rational, and what is just totally not worth it and not worthwhile. And a prep like anybody can recomposition their body and reach a new level of conditioning for them. And they can do it in a way that is sustainable and enjoyable for
them. They just to figure out what the levers they have to pull are and then pull them accordingly. Yeah. And for me, like, I freaking love the Stairmaster Man. I think it's very easy to standardize. It just works well for me. My body responds well to it and it responds. Most people's bodies respond pretty well to it.
I feel like it's a safer bet than trying to do like hill sprints or something like that, which is going to be a lot more volatile based off of you know, what your energy levels are like for the day or what your recovery is like, etcetera, etcetera. So yeah, it's just a matter of figuring out what you can adhere to, and then ideally some would enjoy as well. Yeah, it's like I found I've never used like a row machine. The gym I was going to had a concept too, and so I found that for me.
Sustainability wise, I could do 5000 meter rows much easier than and it would take you know 30 minutes. But it's I'm still hitting the distance and I found that easier than the 15 minutes on the Stairmaster. Yeah, totally man, Totally. Speaking of gyms, Speaking of what you've got access to in the gyms, talk to me about your gym setup cuz you were going a similar route to I and that we have had it with the corporate gym scene. We we're not really doing that and we've pretty much doubled
down on the home gym setup. And when I say home gym setup, I'm not talking about like you know, halfway squat rack in somebody's garage that's sitting next to their Christmas ornaments. Like, this is like a legit home gym set that you're building out here. It's pretty much done. I'm going to actually add another squat rack at some point here soon. I got to get two more uprights for it, but. Yeah, building a home gym is great. I was commuting, commuting an hour to the gym every day.
So then you throw the workout and that's two hours of my day every single day. That was time away for my family, time away from work and things that generated income for our businesses. So it's like it just didn't make sense so. We decided to start building a gym and we have an 800 square foot space that works perfectly for it. It's our old off the space but you know we did redid it and I mean I got an 8 post Rep rack with the area's cable. I've got one to 100 pound
dumbbells. I got a set of adjustable dumbbells too. I think I'm up to like 9 bars now. Something like that. For plates and all kinds of stuff. So I mean the only piece of cardio equipment I have right now is we have a one of those old Schwinn bikes. Yeah, yeah, that was given to us. But eventually I want to get a Concept 2 rower and then I want a treadmill. That's one of the like the assault runners, the non powered ones, the self powered ones.
Yeah, those are fun. They're spending and I'm just like no, they're surprisingly expensive. Like I was, I looked them up cuz I wanted one too. Like man, this is probably like under a grand easy and they're like 4 grand for the entry level ones. Yeah, the ones I was looking at for like 35 to 37. So yeah, it's like, I can think of a lot of different things I would rather spend almost 4 grand on. Yeah, no, for sure. Like a Stairmaster. You're definitely gonna get one of those too, right?
I don't have the ceiling right for that. I'm limited. I have 8 foot ceilings. I'm not blessed with your compound gym with like 15 foot ceilings, that's true. Didn't think about the situation. Yeah, the I haven't found one yet. That's a low enough profile, but it's like I have room for it. It's just I don't know what one I'm gonna end up with because of the way this there's. Cycle back, yeah. They required from 12 to 18 inches of additional height to clear the step trap as it cycles
under. So it's just that's kind of hard, makes it difficult. I don't feel like having my head in the ceiling. You could just have like a little cutaway just for your head. Like a little one of those. Like I got aquariums, you know, I got a little bubble cut away. You can just. Cut that out. I might need to do that. That might work perfect. But then if I ever want to move it, then I got to set another hole. Yeah, there you go. There you go.
Speaking of aquariums, I'm totally going to deviate from the the, the gym talk right now. Talk about that aquarium you Did you go to that aquarium when you were here or no? The the restaurant? No the the aquarium in Springfield, MO. Cuz you came and visited with me, I don't know, a couple months ago now, you did you stop by that aquarium when you were driving through or no?
No, we did not. OK, must been somebody else I was talking to. But there's like, this massive aquarium in Springfield, MO. Like, that's part of a bass pro shops, but they had like a, like multiple museums there. They had a rifle museum, all kinds of historical rifles there, an archery museum, this gigantic aquarium with all different kinds of exotic species in there. That's the one you guys just went for Rivals birthday, right?
Yeah, yeah, very cool. So next time you're in the area, man, you definitely gotta check that out. Yeah. No, yeah. We when we went down there, so we flew into Memphis. That was a mistake. Yeah. And then we spent a couple days in Memphis and then we went to Nashville. I had some work training out there, so I had the we were out there at one of our manufacturer
plants out there. And then we came out to you guys cuz it was an 8 hour drive and I'm like you know what, it's a like a 30 hour drive if I were to drive from my place here in Washington. So let's just make a couple hours hung out with you guys for a couple of days and then we ended up going back to Memphis before we blew back home. Take care man. It's a good time. Is a good time for sure. Well, I'm gonna come check out your operation in person before 2.
For long, I'll be able to use your home gym. When I'm in Washington for those competitions. At least that's the point. Yeah, I think I might need some more plates for. You though? Well, how many people are gonna be using your gym at any one point? You said you got like 8 bars. That's a ton of bars. Yeah, I've got.
So I joined the home gym Discord server, which watches out for like rogues deals, and they have like one deal that pops up from every now and then, but it sells out generally in about 20 minutes. But it's like $100 for a random bar. You don't know what it's gonna be. It's $100 if they ship it to your door. So I have a couple of those, I've got Ohio bars, I've got deadlift bars, all kind of stuff like that. My collection just keeps
growing. So one of my clients just completed Joe. He just sent me a rogue deadlift bar. And because I've never, I've used deadlift bars before, but I've never owned the deadlift bar and the rogue deadlifts are not legit, man. Like, I've I've trained the gyms that have deadlift bars, but they tend to jar. They just jar me. If I'm doing multiple reps, like if I'm doing a single, it's
totally fine. But if I'm doing multiple reps, most deadlift bars like, I don't like the way the weight disperses, you know, upon multiple reps. It just jars the hell out of me. But but this new rogue deadlift bar? I haven't had that issue at all. It's super smooth. Yeah. I've been looking at the Texas power in the bars, but I just haven't pulled the trigger yet. But I need more bar storage before I. Continue on. Well your your home setup man is I think it's it's more complete
than mine. Like you've got more equipment than I do. I believe you have that. You got every. You have the legend, though, so you got you got the well beat there. Yeah, but I don't know, yeah, pretty good setup man. How do you like the the Rep branded, the Rep fitness brand from like an equipment standpoint? Is that pretty solid? Yeah, I'm I'm happy with it. Overall it is a metric rack. So it's instead of being three by three, it's like 2.95 or something by 2.95.
So like I have Go Strong Roller Jacobs for example. They fit perfect on rogue racks, but they're a little sloppy on the Rep rack. So I've got to get some spazers made. But overall I'm super happy with it. So it was a little bit of a pain because so Full disclosure, if you spend more than $10,000 for the Rep Fitness in one purchase, you are considered a commercial
account. So they give you a discount and it varies based off of how much you spend, but you need to be way more specific when you're with building it through the commercial side. Then if I were to just go on their website in order. So that was a little hard because we had some missing pieces and things like that that weren't put in our order that I didn't catch. So it took me a couple extra weeks to get that all sorted
out. But overall I would do it again a heartbeat and you if I had the hype, I would have gone with Rogue. So. Yeah, I like my rogue stuff. I haven't had any issues thus far. And you, your rogue rack is super nice. Yeah, like my rack. I I got that one specifically because I want to add the belt squad attachment to it because they've got that drop in Rhino, you know, the Rhino, yeah. Belt squad. Which Aaron's got as well, and he was singing its praises.
But you got a belt squat attachment that is like just the the pivot on the the column, right? It's just like a a pivot on the one of the rack, one of the rack arms of the squat rack. And you can just load that with plates right? No, I have one that actually
attaches to the cable machine. So I have £300 stacks of in the back of my rack but it and I have the lat pull down attachment with it. So I have a cable that goes up and then I have a base plate that goes drops in like the Rhino but it's just a lot smaller that I can do the belt squat that way. Gotcha. So it uses a lat pull down basically and just pins it at
the bottom for a belt squat. It's it's nice, it's not as nice as the Rhino. I had the privilege of using Aaron's when I was down there for opposing class. Yeah, it's way nicer than this, but it's also, you know, this is like a 200 dollar $300.00 setup versus I don't even know what the Rhino is, I. Think it's like 2500 or something like that. Yeah. I mean, your cost difference is huge. But I have never used the Rhino, so I'm glad to hear that you.
I also use it and are a fan of it because it's always kind of. I like to use the equipment before I get it, but I feel like it's been pretty well tested from the people that I would consider reputable people. When it comes to knowing what the equipment feels like, it should feel like it's way smoother than anything else I've used. As far as belt spots, I've only used a handful of them, but honestly, the Rogue One is probably the nicest.
And I did consider the they have the Rhino with the deadlift platform modification, where it's like the Rhino can also double the deadlift platform. I've seen people build that out, but it's just the space thing at that point. Like that's a huge footprint. So I may do that in the future, but you know. It's always good options, man, Always good having options. Home gyms are never done.
Yeah, that is the truth man. Because I've honestly, I have not added that much equipment to mine over the past, I don't know, probably 4 years because we built our home gym out originally at our first compound in Bryan and all we had, that's when we got that legend fitness like jungle gym thing and then we had a squat rack and then since then. And we had our dumbbells. Since then, I've gotten an additional squat rack, but that's pretty much it.
Like, I've done pretty much all of my training for the past four years on free weights and some simple cables, and I don't feel like I've got any glittering holes in my workout at all. I think the barbell the was the most, the most efficient piece of equipment you can use. If you have like limited space. Yeah, totally a barbell and a couple of plates and you can knock out every single muscle group you need to. It's not gonna be perfect, but it's something.
Yeah, 100%. Well, all these crazy fancy gyms, they have like all the different types of equipment in the world. And a lot of people in the bodybuilding space are trying to train very specific muscle groups and isolate everything and target something through a specific Rep range. And it's like they kind of like turn their nose up to just, you know, simple dumbbells and free weights. And I've done literally, like I said, nothing but those for the past four years.
And I don't feel like my physique has got. Any glaring weak points as a result of not having all the fancy equipment? Like, I feel like everything that I've wanted to bring up has been brought up using just the basics with training. I think that is that's important cuz I feel like a lot of people get so same as nutrition, they get so hung up and all the minutia out there.
There's just so many different ways of doing things and there's so much content now that people come into the nutrition space and like, Oh my gosh, do I need to? Count net carbs, total carbs. Or do I need to worry about seed oils or do I need to do keto or do I need the carb cycle? The same thing happens with training. They're like do I need to do drop set super sets? Do I need to do a deload week? Do I need to have a certain body parts split or trained full body?
It's like just get in there and freaking transist to A/C T Fletcher song when I was working out today and he was like the hell with range of motion. Just get your body in motion, you know? And I feel like that's that's half the battle right there. Yeah, I think well. And I think exercise, diet and everything blows down to sustainability. What is sustainable for you? There are certain people. I mean, you can get stupid lean, you know, if it fits your macros.
Taking a vegan approach, A keto approach, a chronicle approach. You can do it in any any nutritional manner you want. You can also, you know, get stronger using if you're doing a full body split, push, pull, legs, you're doing your eight day rotation, you know you. There are so many different ways to do it. It's just finding what works for
you and sustainability in your lifestyle. 100%, ma'am, 100%, Well, what, what's in the pipeline for you from a competitive standpoint like you and I are still working together with your reverse? And I mean kind of going into the building phase now your calendars are getting high enough where you're starting to tip into a surplus that allows you to build more muscle. But what do you want to do from a competitive standpoint? What do you, what do you foresee
the future looking like? So you're competing this year and then you generally take two years off. So what's that 20/5/2025 that you're going to be competing next again? May that would be pretty early for me. Certainly not any earlier than that, but maybe an additional year 26. Why you trying to step on stage with me? Yeah, I'm trying to get big enough to where hopefully I can do something. I mean, ideally my goals next time around is when the novice class, yeah, then go in and
compete and be open. When it open class, then win it overall and maybe a pro card depending on, you know whether it's like OK if I win my class, so like the Washington State Natural Pro AM, that's a super pro qualifier for the WNBF. It's like the winner of the class gets a pro card. So that would be great. But you know, I don't know, I just wanna take some time, get bigger. There are certain body parts that I have that are lacking. My lacks are definitely that one for me.
So I'm going to be working on those pretty heavy for the next couple years and then definitely want to bring up like my hamstrings and glutes and everything. You felt like they didn't come in tighten up. So and then we'll, I mean we'll see like 2526 is kind of the time frame. I'm looking at competing next. Give my wife and my family just enough of a break to where they forget about how miserable I could be at the very end of prep. To where?
Hopefully this time around, this next time around, I'm a lot better to where she's not even realizing I'm in prep. That will most certainly happen, man. Like I like I said, the first show, the first prep seasons of the hardest, because you just don't have that perspectives the next time you go into a cut. Like, you'll be so much more aware of when you're being an ass to your family and you'll catch yourself beforehand, ideally. And then not be an ass because that's what I'm trying to do
with my prep now. Like I'll like, I'm I'm nine weeks in as of today, this this is the my nine week, nine week mark. And I don't feel, granted, my counters aren't that low yet but I don't feel like I've been rude at all. I don't feel like I've been short at all and it gets easier and easier the more preps you do. So, like, I feel like the fact they're even thinking about that now.
It just ensures that you're in the right head space, and when that time comes, you'll just be that much better for it. Now, if you would have caught me, like, right after the first show when I had just gotten completely mopped by everybody on stage, you know, and you'd caught me before one of the gals backstage. Her name's Effie, but she actually works for Aaron quite a bit. But before her and I talked about, you know, it's the first
show. Like, I don't remember exactly what she said, but it like completely turned around in my headspace. And, you know, she's just one of the sweetest, most genuine people you'll ever meet. So she, you know, if you would have caught me before her and I chatted, I probably would have told you I'm never doing this again. Yeah, now you know, post that show, post the NPC show and a couple, you know, several months into a reverse diet. Yeah, I'm gonna do it again.
What do you think? I'm definitely gonna do things differently. Like what did she say? What triggered? Like what do you think the the catalyst for that tipping point was? I think it was along the lines of it's your first show, you're learning and you know your goal next time around needs to be to beat yourself, not you know. You win a pro card on your first show like that's a pipe dream, you know, but you know just doing better than you were yesterday.
And I think that's a very much a mentality that like since then I've just tried to adopt into everything, cuz I think I kind of swept that all under the rug. I'd be a better father, be a better, you know, business owner, be a better son, husband, whatever. In every aspect of your life, be better today than I was yesterday. Yeah, and people say those things and they make great quotes, and it sounds so cliche that people just kind of brush over it. But it's so important, man.
Like, if you just simply fixate on that and truly try to be better than you were previously, that is a monumental leap of progress. You know, like if every single time you step on stage you look better than you did previously, and not just simply look better, but also have a better outlook, a better mentality, better relationships throughout the entirety of the prep like that. That has a if that happens.
Then everything that led up to that and everything that's happened as a result of that has also had a compounding improvement effect on your overall life and everything interacting in your life. So it's a huge win on all fronts. Yeah, I mean what is it like if you make a 1% improvement every day you're it's I think it's like 35 days or something that you've made 100% improvement. Yeah, I can't remember the exact math, but it it's some along those lines. And it's it's a I don't know,
it's a beautiful thing. Like, I look at the mentality I have now when I'm training even, and I like enjoy the workouts, like I push myself and I'm I'm hitting new Pr's. But I legitimately look forward to working out. I have fun with it, whereas I remember at points in my, you know, first competition prep. I hated going to the gym. I hated working out. I hated the way it made me feel.
I hated feeling depleted and trying to, you know, put this this weight on my back and go down and come back up with it X number of times. Like I put all this pressure on myself, which I mean, no telling what my cortisol levels were with that first prep, but like, it just it sucks the fun of them at the end of the day. Bodybuilding. Is like a sport. Like people go and they play tennis because they like tennis. People go and water ski because
they like water skiing. People go to bodybuilding ideally because they like bodybuilding. If you're absolutely miserable through it all, then what's the freaking point? Yeah, if you're not, if you're not finding some sort of enjoyment, why are you continuing just making yourself miserable? Yeah, totally, man. Totally. Well, I'm stoked for you, bro. I'm stoked for the the future competitions. I would love to step on stage
with you. Although I will warn you, man, like, if you're up on stage of me, like, I ain't gonna be going easy on you. Yeah, I know. That's why I gotta figure some things out first, you know. Gotta get, gotta get bigger than you. You probably wouldn't. I mean, you've got more size than me for sure. So like you would most certainly outsize me. And I'm never gonna be the biggest count stage. Like I'll never hope to be the
biggest count stage. I just wanna get, like I've said, the latest man alive that is, yeah, and that's, I think, okay. So we went to an NPC, an untested NPC show here in Vancouver April 1st. But I was looking at the level of competitors, comparing the WNBF, the NPC, untested, and the tested side the natural one. Man. The WNBF competitors are just a different level. You look at them like, yeah, they're not nearly as big. Yeah, that's to be expected with
a lot of them. But man, they're way later. It's just, it's crazy. Yeah. And so I look at some of the NPC guys and they're I'm looking at them going, man, you look like some of these WNBF guys that I know that you know are just getting, you know they're halfway through the prep and you're you're stepping on stage right now. It's just it's a different level. I think the WNBF and I don't know if the Federation you went pro and looks at it this way too, but like the leaner the better.
I I think that is definitely what embodies the sport of bodybuilding most, you know, like it's great to have size. But not at the expense of definition. Like if you are outsized, but the person that is bigger simply lacks that conditioning. Like that to me is much less impressive like I am. Like you obviously want to be
somewhat, you know, developed. I mean you don't want to walk up on stage at 110 pounds as a man in the open bodybuilding class and be peeled out of your mind but have no size at all because it's not going to be good. But if you've got. You know, I would much rather sacrifice size for conditioning and most natural bodybuilders share that same sentiment. You know, that is that is where the work is put in.
That is where the the, the dieting philosophy and mentality and just you know, discipline comes in. So that that is key that that to me is what embodies the support of bodybuilding and I don't know why A lot of the NPC competitors there are certainly some really shredded and PC competitors.
So not to take anything away from them, but I feel like such an emphasis is placed on size In the untested shows that conditioning is oftentimes just put on the back burner, and I think that needs to be flipped for sure. Yeah, I agree. But you know, each federation is gonna have their their biases and their preferences like some are gonna want. They're gonna put maybe a little more emphasis on the symmetry side rather than the size.
It'll. The lameness and conditioning or others are gonna put the conditioning in the front versus size like the smaller guy may give it because he's more peeled, but the NPC has and that's the beauty of the different federation. So you get to pay and if you have a certain an advantage like you're. The bigger guy in the room, and you're very broad shouldered, but you're not able to get his lean.
Like the NPC might be a better option for you if you're wanting to be more competitive, yeah, versus if you have a really hard time putting on size. But you can get freaky lean and just peeled out of your mind, you know? OK, maybe you go look at the WNPF for the OCB or one of those other natural federations, 100%, man. Yeah, always good having options when it comes to federation. There's certainly a lot of federations out there now, so options are abounding everywhere.
What about coaching, man? You started coaching yourself as too as well, right? How's that going? It's it's going. We really haven't. It's so it's my business season. We also own a pool and spa contracting company. So we fix and repair pool and hot tubs. And so we're recording this on Memorial Day which is one of like four days a year. I take off and this is we just got done with our big push. So now we're going to kind of float through to 4th of July.
We're going to have another big push there right before then. So it's like I don't put too much emphasis on the other business right now, which is Gal Strength Co, which is just like you guys is. We're not coaching competitors. I don't want to. We started this because Alyssa wanted to help moms who are postpartum and I know. Crystal kind of feels the same way with the bounce back mentality of that's unhealthy, like, oh, I lost all my baby weight. It's like, yeah, you've gone
from one face to another though. You've gone from creating life to feeding the life. Like you need to not worry about, oh, I'm, you know, got to get back to my, my prepregnancy weight. It's no. Let's focus on, you know, things like milk production. Like just getting you feeling better or getting strength, you know, losing some of the, the unnecessary but still focusing on the important thing. So we built that for her. So, but I haven't put much into that just because with the other
business I'm so wrapped up with. But it's it's fun. We had a couple clients for a little while. So a lot of them, because we do take the Kyo approach. They think keto is great and just gonna be, you know, bacon and eggs and that's all they're gonna eat. And then, you know, we take a whole food approach and they don't like it because they're like, well, I just want to eat potato chips now. It's like, well, that's not how we do it. Yeah, so finding that niche is
kind of hard. But you know, under a year old, it's actually under, it's six months old now. So I didn't expect it to be. Any profitable for the first like 4 years. So hey, growing it bit by bit, day by day, man, that's the name of the game. I mean, having your own niche carving that out, I love like the focus on, you know, postpartum moms and getting them healthy and not fixating on their weight necessarily so much as their compositions. I think that is absolutely key.
Yeah, I mean, shoot. Look at a. You know, because we're talking about moms. Look at 140 pound mom with 110 pounds of lead mass versus 140 pound mom with, you know, 70 pounds only in mass. Like they're going to have two completely different compositions regardless of the weight being the same. Yeah, totally, man. The. Scale is a number. It's not going to hurt you. That's hard to understand, but. It's great data but it's not the end all be all you know there's so many more things.
It's like the the non scale victories are more important. You know the hey, this shirt fits a little looser now or you know, oh I have to go buy my favorite pair of pants in a size down now. Like those are the little things that you know, we need to focus more on rather than just oh I'm sub, whatever. Number it is, yeah, totally agree. And I feel like bodybuilding can force people to operate on either of the extremes when it comes to that relationship with the scale and weight body
composition. You know, like it really. When you do a bodybuilding show in a healthy, sustainable manner, you're able to appreciate what the body is capable of and how various compositions and weights look on you. And then you can take that knowledge and leverage it going forward throughout the normal daytoday building phases. But I think at the same time, people can oftentimes fixate on the negatives and focus on the things that aren't as important as the actual composition.
But if done correctly, I think bodybuilding just opens one's eyes to what's possible and what their weight at various compositions can look like. Yeah, there's. I mean, there's a whole lot more. To all of this than just one number, one number isn't gonna define you. You know your your day-to-day functional strength is gonna be a huge, huge thing. How you feel every day is gonna be an important thing.
If you're you know, yeah you can you can be keto or you know heavy carb or vegetarian or vegan. But if you feel absolutely miserable the entire time. I think you need to re approach it. Really look at it and approach it at a different angle. Totally. Cuz it's about moving forward in a positive direction and finding what works for you as an individual. And I don't. I Kito works for me, Kito works for you, it works for my wife. But it doesn't work for everybody.
Not everybody sees it that way, like my brother. Was vegetarian and vegan for years and he found that work would be well for him for several years and then he, you know, has moved away from that side. He doesn't think it works for him now. So now finding what works for you and changing with your cycles. Yeah, 100%, man. How's your son doing? Great. Yeah. He's a freaking tank though. 18 months now. Yeah, running like crazy.
Is Rigel running yet? Not running yet, but he's like standing up and not holding on to anything. So he hasn't walked yet, but I think it's literally gonna happen within the next day or two. Yeah. I saw him trying to open the doors in the pantry the other day. Yeah, yeah, he's. And I was just like, oh boy, that's that's fun. He fell out of his crib this morning. Like, we needed to lower it down. We, I know. I pointed that yesterday. Like, man, we need to lower that
down. He's getting too big for it. And then literally today he rolls over the top of his crib, hits the ground. So that's been lowered now. But but yeah, he's getting into all kinds of missions for sure. Yep, Yep, It's fun. It's fun. But you know I'm excited to get them back together here and October when you guys come out to this side of the country, yeah, I'm looking forward to it man. It's gonna be awesome to see you again in person.
It's gonna be awesome to to get a work at in with you at that legit gym you've got building out now and just it's just good to know you man. I appreciate all that you've done. I appreciate all the support, appreciate working with you as a client, coach, and I just appreciate what you're doing, man, so keep doing it. Where do people go to find out more about you, brother? So we got a couple of ways. So the guile strengthco.com, that's GEIL strengthco.com is for our coaching stuff.
If you're looking at us, though, go with Robert, He's a better coach. Full disclosure, you can find us on Instagram. DG under Score Keto is me and then we also have at Guile Strength Co. On Instagram, if you want to see pictures of our border collie, one of our puppies, you can always go to revin the border collie and that's linked and on my page too. And my wife's linked their mind too.
Beautiful. Well, I will definitely post all those those in the show notes being easy for people to find you. And we will be in touch on Slack. I got your macros updated for this week, so definitely hit those. And if you have anything from, yeah. I know. Can we please have some more fat? Well, I'm trying to. I'm the. Proteins killing me. I'm getting tired of chicken. Don't your bricks. And chicken has been my saving grace for the last three weeks.
I'm gonna bump up your fat really soon. I just want to get you up to 200 grams of protein first. We're getting, We're getting gotta. Give you a hard time about that, though, before you know it, man. All right, Dakota. We'll keep killing it, brother. We'll be in touch and we'll talk soon, man. Sounds great. Have a good one. You too, brother. Bye. Bye.