Hello, ladies and gents Robert Sykes ketose a.com. Today I'm get special guest to Greg Mueller on the line. Greg is a client of mine. We are coaching him through his 2023 competition prep, he's worked with me in the past. He's earned his Pro card via a ketogenic prep protocol. He is also one of the deeper State keto coaches and he's honestly just a great friend. I had a lot of respect for Greg, he's an absolute beast in the gym, he's strong, he's been
strict keto for 8 years. Now he knows what he's doing. He's walking the walk and doing it, right? So I've got Got no doubt that would take something from this conversation. We dive into some of his prep Endeavors. We dive into what we're doing, nutritionally speaking with his cardio as well. We talked about some of the things going on right now in the heat of space we talk about things.
I just ketones a little bit. We talked about all kinds of things about the holidays, talk about all kinds of good stuff. So without further Ado, sit back, relax and do a podcast with my good friend Greg. And we are live. Greg, how are you brother and good about you? I'm good ma'am. Before we hit record, you were talking about how cold it's getting in Minnesota right now. You said what - 22 degrees? Yeah, we actually hit like 22 below zero. Today are high temp.
For today, is supposed to be below zero like five or six below zero, and then we've got several days. Stacked up here on end that are going to be all below zero. So we got kind of little Arctic snap going on. Yeah, it's pretty intense man. I was it's getting pretty cold here Arkansas but it's not near it's still above zero so nothing nothing that compares to what you got going on there. Yeah, it's pretty tough. I just, I got this cold plunge,
I got a stock tanks. What I got I got a tuna Dar stock tank from Tractor Supply Co and I've been feeling that full of water and just letting the ambient temperature here, which is pretty freaking cold right now. It's like 30s. Ali. So the water temperature is like 40 degrees right now. I've been jumping in that every single morning and that is pretty cool man. You want to get that going in Minnesota. You would not need to add ice.
Yeah. I've been, you know, a lot of people have been hopping on that and it seems to be pretty popular a pretty common. Now I'm excited to see what you think of it. Once you start going because I've heard it's it's pretty shocking until you start to acclimate to it. Yeah.
And you can control your breathing and all that there's definitely a lot of popularity around right now There's a lot of claims as to how effective, you know, there's a bunch of you know, just conjecture as to what it's supposed to do. I've seen studies, I've seen, I've seen people talk about it, supposedly increasing testosterone count. Reducing inflammation make sense. I could totally buy into that one. I've seen it proposed that it improves, neurological, function. All this stuff.
I don't know how much of that's true versus just smoke and mirrors, but one thing that I can attest to and it's 100% psychological not physiological at all, is that? When you wake up, first thing in the morning to do something, you dread doing, it just starts the day off, way better. So for that reason alone, I think it's huge win. Sure, sure, you, I suppose you're forcing yourself to adapt and overcome. Right. Mmm. And I wake up pretty early, it's cold. Like, I've got like, I sleep
with it cold. So, I wake up and I've got like a hoodie on when I roll out of him. And the last thing I want to do is take my clothes off and jump into a pool of cold water, but that's what I've been doing. Crystals been doing it with me. It's like we Like, I'll wake up a few hours early make, you know, work on my clients, work on my emails, she'll wake up, and then we'll start making our french press coffee, which takes like four to eight minutes to,
you know, steep. So we'll go and jump in this cold plunge during that time. And then we can reward ourselves with this nice hot cup of coffee which is pretty good way to start the day. Awesome. I like it rigel probably not yet, huh. Yeah, I was like, I wonder what would happen if we cold plunge with the project but that probably get child protective services called on us and probably wouldn't be good. So not To be doing that anytime soon. Don't worry. I don't do that in public,
definitely not doing that. But yeah man. It's after there's an acclamation period to it for sure. But you ought to 100% do it because you've got you got the space, you just go get like a 200 dollar stock tank stick in your backyard and just let the Minnesota cold aired, you know, do its work. Yeah, that's a great idea. We've got some like fleet Fleet Supply Fleet Farm kind of stuff stores here. That definitely you could get one of those big tubs.
Mmm, it's all, you know, him So I wanted to get you on a podcast and dive into a couple of things but you're in a prep right now. So you are preparing for a competition that we can. Certainly dive into being talked about macros because talk about your stance can go super deep down that rabbit hole, which you probably should. But honestly, we just catch up on anything and everything, man. Like you've been coaching for a
while. Have to kind of pick your brain as to how being a coach impacts things. What what are some common threads or common commonalities? You're seeing a month clients. What? With? Let's pick your brain about the New Year, pick your brain about just anything cuz I mean I consider us friends more so than working client relationship. So it's it's always good to chat, man. Yeah, great. Let's do it wherever you want to start. Let's start with the prep.
Let me pull up your spreadsheet right now. So I have a reference there and then, let's see. Here. The show date is when I'm gonna see you on the Slate here for May May 13th. I do believe is first one. Um, the list. And let's see. and I pull up your old prep spreadsheet to second, okay, with those to compare to, Yeah. The first one first one that I'm shooting for is May 13th that is in Omaha and you're doing that with bin to which I'm excited about. Yeah yep.
Different divisions in fabulous. Yep. That's Omaha Heartland classic. That is a natural and am BF. I don't know if that one's got a pro class or not. That was May 13th, right? Yeah I know. It's Pro. It's a Pro Qualifier so that'd be cool to snatch another Pro card or two there. What's the one on the May 27th? May 27th is the Mr. And Ms. Natural Minnesota in the Metro Minnesota area. And that's a pretty big one. That's that's a pro car or a pro
pro show, natural show. Those are different sentences there, right? Like, if you won the pro card on May 13th, you would not be able to compete as a pro on the 27th or they same Federation. I think they're same Federation. Yeah, Nan BF + IP. Those are the two amateur versus Pro nice. Federation's there, while the yam and if you can, if you can get the pro card on the 13th and they compete in the Pro class on the But that'd be freaking
awesome. Yeah, and I don't know if I ran this by you or not mr. Coach. I've there's also potential of me doing one that Saturday in between those two Saturdays on the 20th. I like you did not read that money but I'm putting in the spreadsheet. Where's that one in Colorado? It's a brand new show, it's a USB F Federation, the United States, but bodybuilding Federation, it's all natural and it's brand-new sure. I think this might actually be
the first year. But I helped out backstage at a few other USB, F shows recently and kind of brushed shoulders. With a lot of the head honchos. They're actually it was their National the main huge Show recently where they gave over like almost 70,000 dollars in prize money. So there were some other other show promoters kind of around the area. While we were there in. These guys are just starting out, a brand new USB a show in, I think, Colorado Springs, Colorado, nice.
So happens to be that exact Saturday between the two Saturday shows. I was planning on and I thought, well, what the heck? If I'm already and in dialed in, we might as well stick another one in there, right? Yeah. I'm all for stacking them as close together as possible. Like when you get a show that's like six weeks eight weeks after one that's when it gets really tricky. So if you can just convince them all into one one block, that's the way to go in my opinion.
Yeah I agree because you're kind of already there. You're really just kind of stretching out your peak week or having three Peak weeks. The backside of trying to print a cut down for a show and then what do you do in that weird? Six-week lull between shows like you do you maintain, do you grow? Do you cut? What do you do? You know, it's kind of weird. Yeah, the tricky part about having them close together.
Like that is, it's kind of hard to throw in a bunch of really heavy training days because you don't want to hold water from the heavy training before the next show.
So, like, if you were to do the show on Saturday and then you can lift heavy on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and then just kind of like, go into Peak Week protocol and then kind of repeat that, maybe cycle things through based off of what you targeted, heavy the week prior, just like, makes up a little bit for the next week on that Sunday Monday Tuesday. Sure, sure. So, that's, that would be what I would advocate for there. But, yeah, I think doing, you know, three shows in three weekends.
Back-to-back-to-back makes all the sense in the world. Yeah, I know some people that have told me they've done, you know, 10 or 12 shows in one year in one season, and that's just, that's crazy. I'm not sure how they let their body. Bounce back ends up being after that type of a deficit and that much torture.
Yeah, I mean that's a long time and I had Jen on the podcast not too long ago and she did something similar to that, not that many shows, but she had like a weird situation in which she had to put her first competitive season.
She did the virtual show because it covid and then she had a pretty good little low between that and First, you know, in person show, so it wasn't multiple shows, but it's kind of that same concept of having that much time between, you know, stepping on stage, and it definitely is tricky when you're trying to stay down then for extended period of time. Like then. Yeah, for sure. You turn to swing the pendulum that many times in a row. Yeah, definitely definitely definitely.
But I'm super excited about your prep. You are we started at 220 pounds and thirty-four hundred calories the last prep that We did in see here started the one the one prior was starting in March, 20 21. You were at 210 pounds here. 10 pounds heavier than you were then 30 or 300 calories. It's a little bit lower on the intake as well, but I feel like we've got plenty of time.
We started this on November 7th for this, this competitive season, so I feel like we got plenty of time to get you down, then, yeah, we've been rocking for about what that five or six weeks give or take. And so I feel like we've got a
nice long. When we can gradually do things without being too drastic on the front end and then just kind of come coasting down in. Yeah, and we've been pretty aggressive with your drop in calories since we started a little bit higher like right now where this is the start of the seventh week actually. Yeah. So I'm just under 29, 28 to 29 hundred is where I'm at right now 2825 or galleries and you're about 5 pounds down. Roughly Yeah, yep. So we'll stay angry.
I was go ahead. Now, what were you saying? I was just gonna say, I was actually a little bit heavier than when we first started, I probably peaked at around 225 226, kind of in the offseason. So and then, as of this morning, I'm coming in right around to 15.8. So really from the offseason, the top of the curve, I'm down about 10 pounds, so nice. Yeah, that's has your hunger right now. 2,800 calories. It's fine.
I was expecting to kind of get some, some hunger pangs here and there, but it's so far, it's been fine. So I'm going to just kind of write it out because I know that's going to change. Yeah, yeah. I feel like a lot of people when they, when they start cutting, they'll get like an initial bump in hunger as they start dipping into a deficit, then their body acclimate some 1000, Slow Down, slow down a little bit their hunger, pretty much subsides and
then it reared its ugly head. Ferociously once it starts getting really low but there's like that bounce back period there and in between it seems yeah, yeah I mean I can I can you probably do too but I can kind of feel that things are burning and churning internally but it's not quite a full blown sensation of hunger. Yeah. It's just kind of like you can almost feel and sense that your metabolism is just on fire. Yeah.
You just feel that you're not at a surplus because there's certainly a It comes with that, right? Exactly. So I'm excited man like I'm you know, I'm working with you and working with band. I'm working with several people that are prepping for a show in the spring and I'm doing a show in the fall so I haven't started my prep yet, but I think I'm going to actually start. I'm going to start prepping in January, not at a caloric
deficit. I'm just going to be incredibly rigid with my building macros for the first quarter of the year so I can get that dialed in. Before I actually start dropping calories. Sure, makes sense. Because I don't know about you, but when I'm in the offseason, I honestly don't retract my macros
at all. I did this offseason just kind of see how much of the envelope I could push as far as how high I can go with with calories just to kind of see and play around and experiment with my with my person internally.
And so I was probably creeping up to you know, 4,000 calories a day somewhere in there at the peak of things, just just kind of monitor, my weight monitor, my Hunger monitor my lifting but yeah, I think next off, Reason, I think I'm going to do what you're doing, just eat intuitively and you know when you're hungry or when you're hungry, you eat, and when you're you're not hungry, you don't have to eat.
Yeah. Like all all track my macros, you know, very strictly throughout the reverse that portion and I'll kind of go as high as I can, you know, so, I'll dip into that Surplus for sure. So I kind of see what that upper threshold is and then I'll back down from that, let my body regulate and then I pretty much stopped tracking from that point until I start gearing up for another prep. Now, during that time, I may do a couple spot checks and I'll track, you know, a random day or
2 throughout the building phase. But when I'm in the building phase, the main thing for me is to make sure that I'm training hard training, heavy eating at a caloric Surplus and consuming enough protein. And if I'm checking all those boxes I don't really obsess about what my actual exact macro intake is sure. Yep. As long as you're getting enough. Yep. Yeah. Which honestly for me is the hard part, like I have a tendency to under eat if left to my own devices.
So there's opposed to overeat. Yeah, same here. That's kind of why I started tracking little in the offseason is just because I wanted to make sure I was getting enough and not setting myself up for a slowed down metabolism. Yeah hundred percent but I've been tracking here lately and I'm steadily over 3,000 calories in my weights. Holding pretty stable at 180 181, so I feel like I'm in a good position to start the prep. Wow. Yeah, you're going to pretty strong metabolism going.
Well, you I mean you were up what Thirty to thirty five hundred several days in your weight was Holding relatively stable at that intake, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah it was and you can versatile mean body weight. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's true. I do have a, you got 40 pounds on my roughly the rats, right? Yeah. So you've been able to eat what you're eating. You got a pretty hardcore Rock and Metabolism. Yeah, it's those those key to Bricks man.
I can put that one of those a day and I call it good. And then I have I've been in the one thing I was actually just having lunch with my crew before we started recording here and that we will meal prep for the week for In like we'll all pitch in 25 bucks every week and then we'll Crystal. Now, go buy a ton of meat at a local Meat Market will cook for them and they'll just eat that every single day of the week and one of my employees Josiah. He's all about tracking macros
to and it's crazy man. Like some of these macro trackers they just there's so much variance like you will go crazy if you try to like actually get exact numbers because it's impossible. You can look up a 20 ground beef which you would think is a pretty Universal measurement. And you can get vastly different, you know,
recommendations for what. That actually consists of nutritional was so you really got to just, you know, hit an average and keep things consistent, and then just stay on par with that and let those averages work out over time. Yep, I agree with you but I feel like a lot of people that's that's oftentimes. A lot of people go ride. They try and obsess over getting everything so accurate and they don't eat Foods, consistently like people that change their
food every single day. And they're kind of flying by the flexible dieting, It Fits your Macros, or poach with foods. That would be really hard to do if you're eating real food. Like if you're eating all packaged foods that have a label on them and they're all weighed out and measured out relatively consistently. I can see that being a little bit easier but if you're consuming you know just single ingredient raw foods in which case, it kind of depends on the local butcher.
How much fat cap is on your ground beef, our steaks, it's going to be a lot harder to go by A flexible dining approach if you're changing your meals every single day. Yeah, it's, you know, especially with like a cut of steak because you could have two Ribeyes both 10 ounces apiece and those could be so far from each other just because of the fat content that it's not really, it's not a Straight Arrow. Yeah. 100%. I'm working on this course right now and I'm filming this section.
It's all about, you know, just staying consistent with foods and I feel like that's something that that I've always done with my perhaps. That's something that Do something that Jen does. And I feel like the more you just simply throw away the variables, prep your meals, stay consistent with it, like that single Factor, right? There is probably the single greatest thing you can do to solidify success with the cut as opposed to anything else.
I would imagine. Yep. For sure, in the next thing about Aikido Judo competition prep is it doesn't really change my food selection at all, is versus what I mean? In the offseason and what I'm eating on a prep protocol or a cut, the choices are the same. It's just the amount of each food. And also, it's not like you have to completely throw away what you're used to eating and go for a chicken rice and broccoli, six meals a day steamed with no seasoning.
It's, you know, I still eat bacon, eggs cheese, Dairy, heavy cream. It's all the same stuff that I enjoy eating and it's super easy to stay consistent because it's literally what works and what I enjoy. Yeah. I think that's huge, man. I feel like people they don't Take note of that, very important factor. Because mean, when you feel like you're sacrificing something or depriving yourself, it's going to amplify the likelihood of you deviating and just not finding a
sustainable. If you're literally eating the exact same Foods in the competition prep, as you are in the offseason, then you don't feel like you're missing out on anything and you're much more likely to just stick with it. That that is so huge to, because I remember just this last season or even helping out at some shows recently backstage were
all the competitors. Obviously, we're very very Arrived and very, very cut and dry and what they could eat and what they couldn't during their prep especially peak week and there was just tables filled with candy and cupcakes and cookies and just you know, really terrible Foods just jammed with sugar and they were drooling over those and going for them like crazy because, you know, it's that deprivation that you experience to where you can't have anything that you
enjoy or really satisfy satisfies you during prep. So you just deviates. Hard after the show and then you get sick and you have a all this repercussion going on internally and it's just bad. Yeah, I'm I mean that's what I did my first show, man. I put on like literally 20 pounds overnight when I did all that and you're absolutely
right. I saw so many I've seen so many just like backstage screenshots and like Instagram stories of these, these different venues and they'll have this table with all these cookies and brownies and cakes and sugary you know, Foods waiting. For the competitors after show is over and I don't want to, you know, come across pretentious or high and mighty your holier-than-thou, but I feel like that is that's that's just stupid.
Like that is literally like that's not sending the right message, that's not a healthy message that isn't good for the competitors, it's not good at all. So, I feel like that, I mean, I don't know that we'll ever stop by. It's just kind of like the norm right now, but I am certainly not a fan of that, that type of, you know, reward system. Yeah, same here.
I remember when I did some shows, back in 2013, Before I ever adopt a keto and so I did the traditional prep protocol and carb cycling in the water depletion and all that, same exact thing we were bonding, you know, like sugary Jam or honey and a rice cake backstage and then after the show everyone went out to eat and you just had just a bunch of garbage food and I remember I think it was probably 25 or 30 pounds.
I ended up laying that following week and I got so sick that night after the competition that I was in my hotel room throwing up. I mean I was at the toilet just because I overindulge so hard and I don't have any craving to do that with the ketogenic prep. It's crazy. Like the only thing that I crave after a show is going out and getting a nice steak with the hunk of butter on it. Yeah yeah I feel like you know I think there's certainly some benefits from a hormonal standpoint.
There's benefits from muscle retention standpoint from a
strength aspect. I think there's so many benefits that come with a strict containing protocol versus that of Additional carbohydrate-based, protocols, but if you were to take all of them, throw it out the window and just simply approach it from a psychological standpoint when it comes to the food reward system, dopamine receptors in your brain, what you find sustainable, what you feel like you're depriving yourself from that alone, makes the prep protocol worthwhile in my opinion.
Like if I can go through a prep not feel like I'm sacrificing, certain food groups and then not feel like I have to over-consume them afterwards. The likelihood of being trapped in some form of disordered eating cycle. After a prep is going to be significantly reduced and I think that is what people should strive to achieve post-show. Yep. 100%, big time. That's, that's the winning ticket right there. But I digress, talking about your strength and performance so far, man, like you've not
dropped calories. We haven't dropped calories drastically since you started, but if you noticed any different performance or strength at all, no actually I've been hitting. With almost every single workout I do. So obviously that's the goal is to just train with the intent of getting PR's or in upping the intensity or the training volume each time. You're at the gym and it's been awesome. I'm surprised that things have
been going as well as they have. I know that they want necessarily stay like that but I'm going to just assume that they are and I'm just going to strive for it. So, so far so good. I think you can certainly Expect PRS for the next. I don't know month. Probably. And then after that, if you're able to just simply maintain the the strength and that the way that you pull and push it now, that's a huge win because like a lot of people start seeing that drop off quite a bit.
So if you're able to Simply maintain the same level of intensity you are now then then you're way ahead of the game. Yep. That's the goal. Yep, one just preserving. If don't if you don't use it you lose it. So I'm just going to hit it hard. 100% what about supplementation, man? What kind of supplements you taking? Pretty boring man, just electrolytes every single day, couple scoops of that when I was in the form of their pre
workout. I use Redmond relight creatine monohydrate 5 to 8, grams a day, just plain unflavored. Micronized white powder, creatine and then the occasional dose of kinetic, but I'll probably, I'll probably start letting that. It's kind of phase out just because I don't want to be relying on kinetic as we get closer. So you feel a difference with it. Yeah, man. When I add that to my pre-workout, I can definitely tell that that helps and your. You feel pretty confident?
Not placebo. I don't think so nice. That's yeah, yeah. So I'm a huge fan of that. That's about it really. I'm drinking the Frank from Quito named Sammy. The snake water. Have you tried that yet? Oh no yeah he messaged me he was going to shoot some stuff. My direction I think so I'm not sure what he's saying but how is it? It's pretty funny man. Like he made he made it as like a like as a joke kind of but it's pretty good. It's called snake water and bring labor right now.
Ketone Esther and nootropics It's inconceivable guaranteed to actually says the world's most unbelievable brain, drink, drink snake water to run, two times faster, guaranteed tight, 50% faster, guaranteed increase IQ by 33 points, hit high scores, every time, and then it has a little asterisk and says these are all exaggerated claims are just a joke but it's pretty good
like it's Kat. Let's see here. 26 calories, it's got ISO, melts your loss, I'm assuming As the sweetening agent in there but it's got the Conrad water Ketone Beach. Be 60% Ketone Esther and the 40% dbh be Ketone free acid, but yeah it's pretty good. It's got Steve Young effort in there as well. Cool. So it tastes alright because I know some of those some of those Keystone Asters and drinks are kind of raunchy tasting.
Yeah this one is not raunch days actually I kind of like it it's a little too sweet for my liking but it's not like a this is gross like I was like he's got it in like a carbonated drink to just sip on as opposed to just taken as a shot. So whenever I get able to sip on it and not shoot it back then it's pretty palatable. Oh sure, probably probably a bigger serving than right? The can. Yeah, the cane was, it's diluted enough. I mean, that's probably why it doesn't taste so bad.
It's got sure. What did you say what? I say, three. I think it's three grams instead. More here, three grams of BHP but over the can, which is not sure what the can is just a 12-ounce cans. So little bit more diluted so yeah, but it's palatable. It's pretty good. Awesome. Good good, what about the cardio man? I have. We been just just going to town the cardio, you'd probably doing what hour and a half, every single thing that right hour and
a half in the morning and then two hours every evening. 7 days a week? No, I'm just kidding. I Yeah, we actually Just added in cardio. Now like I think just last week just to 10-minute low-intensity could just kind of get the heart pumping a little bit to 10 minute sessions. And then this week, we up the intensity to to 10 minute sessions with little bit higher. Level on the StairMaster. Did you miss most a mesh-like? Was, it was it just like a family reunions when you get
back on? Yeah, yeah. We both we both shed a tear when I hop back on it. Yeah, yeah. But in the off season, I didn't really do any cardio besides just kind of Is that I enjoyed doing, you know, getting outside in the summer, doing some hiking biking, walking that kind of stuff. I never really did any cardio for the sole reason of
maintaining or losing weight. So it's kind of nice to get back in. Kind of get my heart moving by loss, of breath comes quicker than I remember, but that's soon to improve as we up the intensity week by week. Yeah, that's that's okey man. Like people like using you and I as an example, you know, I'm 80 your 220 at the being of the, the prep and you, and I are both consuming well over 3,000 calories zero cardio, 0 cardio, apart from just like hiking and
doing things. Like I said, just fun things outdoors. When you take somebody like us slowly chip away the calories like we are and then gradually titrate. The cardio up, your body is going to be so much more responsive to that cardio. Whereas if you're someone that's doing, you know an hour of treadmill every single day, 365 days a year. Like that. Like that's the new base on that your body just is acclimated to like, it's not going to change
anything by doing that. Like if you can do minimal cardio and then titrate it up any little incremental Improvement or increase in time, duration, or frequency is going to have a pretty profound effect on your body's composition so you can have much more Runway to scale that up as we go big time. Yeah, like you said, if you, if you're consistently doing cardio day in and day out, or every single day, or whatever you like you said, you're In yourself up to have that as your Baseline.
So if you ever deviate from that amount of cardio or you stop doing it for a week, your Baseline now just got affected and you may actually gain weight by not doing the cardio. So hundred percent so backwards. Yeah. We don't want to go backwards plus who likes being a slave to the treadmill. I mean it's just boring. Like how do they go for a hike on the weekends and call it
good. I mean, you want to maintain enough cardiovascular health that you're not getting winded after, you know, three reps of squats. That's going to negatively impact your strength training Endeavors, and your ability to put on more lean tissue. But as long as you're able to still function a high rate with your strength training, then definitely don't overthink the cardio in the offseason. Yeah, absolutely Bingo. What else you got cooking mean you get, what?
What is what is it like in Minnesota right now? Apart from the weather, you are also home inspector. Are you pretty is home inspecting season higher are busier than normal are pretty average in the winter time compared to the rest of the year. Yes it's a little bit seasonal kind of just floats with the
real estate market activity. So this time of the year kind of around the holiday season here it's slows down a little bit usually just because there's not a whole lot of activity going on. People are traveling or not buying houses, Etc. But this month is actually been pretty busy when I compare it to the last few December's. So, the market Still rocking and rolling. Real estate is still alive. That's my primary gig is doing residential recreational home. Inspections.
So we do around I don't know. Seven to ten Home Inspections a week and take it happens. I've got to schedule my own time. What's up? What's your average Step? Can't with that type of work. Um actually let me look at my watch. I did one this morning. Let's see. I got about 48 hundred steps in that my morning appointment. So usually I do one of the morning and one of the afternoon or want just one a day or and just depends on to probably around. Need is a thousand a day on
average still? Yeah, yeah, probably somewhere in there. Nice. Like man. It's pretty cool that you do that. I used to be in real estate for a short period of time and at Crystal's Family. She's got several family members that our inspectors and I feel that it's a pretty good gig like you're able to Make your own schedule. Your flexible and regards to, you know, when you do things works out, well with your training time, I mean, it just seems like a pretty solid routine. It really is.
Yeah, it's demanding like, you know, trying to own and operate your own business, but you've got several of them. I've just got this one, but, but the reward is worth it. You set your own schedule. If you need to get out of town, do something, short, notice, or get out of town, go on a vacation or spend some time with family, friends, whatever. Gives you the allows you to do that with the freedom, you know,
being your own boss. So you would about the the interest rates continually hiking up causing a downplay and people's desire to purchase home and then that having a corresponding effect on home, inspections it could I think there's always going to be people buying and selling houses and stuff though. So we will just kind of see what happens. I remember when I first got my I've got a real estate license as well. When I first got my license back in 20 2008 2009.
The old-timer agents at the office remembered that when he first got his license, 20, 30 years prior to that interest rates, were 17 18 percent. So, I don't think and people were still buying houses back then, so I don't think we're, hopefully we're not on part of hit that kind of number, but people, people still got to live somewhere, so, we'll see. Ya feel like, I mean, I've got this, I'm subscribe.
I don't read a lot of news letters, but there's one like business /, Eric /, not know, just current day of Vincent's. I do that again. I'll read that instead of
watching the news. I don't really watch the news at all, but there's all this fear mongering in it about interest rates and what's going to happen and the economy and whether or not you know, Twitter is going to go kaput because of Elon like all this just drama and I've got the point out, I just pretty much like breathe through it super quick because it's just doesn't, it doesn't, it's not conducive to a healthy
productive day. Like, if you wake up and your skin and they all this fear, and this is I'd literally do not ever. Watch the news. Like, there's just so much negativity out there. And right now everything's in a flux with the economy and interest rates and people are worried about the next recession and you just you're so much less productive in your day and what you have control over. It's just not worth it.
Yeah, totally agree. If you watch the news and everything on the news scares you and it just puts you into a different state of mind. It affects everything in your entire life. So, like you said, it's not worth it. It's just go about your business
to what works for you. You and what affects you and take everything else with a grain of salt plus you're going to do this next show and then you going to compete that Pro Show and then you just going to you know make enough from your pro bodybuilding career that you'll not need to do anything else. Hey you never know as you watch the Olympics. What's that? Do you watch the Olympia this past weekend? All I. Yeah, custom stuff on online. Social media. I didn't like streaming or
anything. I would love to go out to an Olympia out there. One of these years, I just sebum. He's my favorite of all time. He's the guy. Yeah, I so it's kind of weird man. Like there's not I don't watch sports that. I don't watch football. I don't watch any sports but I'll watch bodybuilding because I know these people and not, not personally, but I know of them.
I follow them. I'm I'm kind of seeing what they're doing with their training, their nutrition and I'm in the sport myself but like it's kind of wild last year. They did it. I think they streamed it on Amazon I believe and then this year they did like it was like pay-per-view so kind of like boxing tournament so I had to pay 69 bucks whatever it was to watch the Olympia and man it was they had it, they added streaming. So late it started at like 7:00 p.m.
Pacific time and they did the Olympia like the open bodybuilding, the very end. And so it was like, you know, 1:00 in the morning, I'm like, there's no way I'm gonna be able to make it so I just went to bed, but I'm watching the next day. Yeah. And it's pretty wild and like there's a, there's a bunch of upsets to it. For sure. You know, big Romney did not did not, repeat did not get that. Oh, title again this year. But yeah I think classic physique and sebum, you know, Chris Bumstead.
I think he is certainly the the more picturesque version of what I would aspire to look like in body building as opposed to what you're seeing the open. Bodybuilding classes for sure. Yeah, for sure he's like, I don't know, it's for me. Anyways, he's like the optimal package right there. Yeah, that's that's he just wins in my opinion. Yeah, I think it's been cool to see classic physique as a
division. Really pick up in popularity and just, you know, people buy into it because it was I remember when that was no longer a class or before that was a class. There was men's physique, then there was just open
bodybuilding. Then they opened up to 12 bodybuilding to kind of cater to the People that were shorter and coming in lighter and then they opened up classic physique and it's like, classic physique is more prominent in more popular now than these open bodybuilding shows, which is, I think that speaks to The Testament of, you know what the general population finds, you know, attractive or finds, you know, appealing I guess. Yeah, yep. I think the audience is growing for classic.
It's it kind of bridges. The gap between men's physique, and bodybuilding and it brings back a little bit of the old school mentality. The old-school look too because they've got some specific posing in classic that you don't have in men's physique or in men's body building. Yeah. Some natural federation's do not like the idea of incorporating a classic physique division.
Have you run into that at all? Yeah actually I think that that show that we mentioned or I was talking to you about the one and that's in between my two other shows, the new one, the u.s. BF Federation. I do believe they are maybe one of the federation's that doesn't appeal to the classic. They they will run a men's physique and immense bodybuilding but they don't want to have that Center that line down the middle and I honestly like their reasoning like that.
They at least from the people. I've talked to that at these are promoters. If you look at natural bodybuilding and you look at the open bodybuilding class like that that is a much more realistic representation of what classic bodybuilding is. It's like natural open bodybuilding is kind of classic physique. Anyways, it's just called something different. So I think I think it makes sense to go there and like you're not seeing anybody that's natural.
Bodybuilding competing at 300 pounds like you are on the Olympia stage. Yeah for sure. I mean the two classes do overlap a bit, it some would argue to say that they're essentially the same dissipating on the posing and what kind of trunks you're wearing but I can see both sides. Yeah, I don't know, man, it is crazy there. Like I do, I love Of watching the bodybuilding shows. I love the sport itself, but then you look at, like, the, like the mr.
Olympia title. You know, hottie took it this year, I think the prize-winning for first place on that division. Open bodybuilding was what? Like four hundred thousand dollars. You look at the most prestigious natural bodybuilding shows in the world and it's like a couple Grand. Yeah, right. It's kind of wild have this person. Disparity is between those two? Yeah, that'd be a good payday. Yeah, yeah. That would be a good Payday, for sure.
I just wish. It's unfortunate to me that the sport of bodybuilding as much as I love. It is not really representative of what a truly healthy individual is, if they're competing at that level, you know? Yeah, for sure. It's skewed for the competition. Yeah, people want to pay to see the freaks, which I totally get, but it's, you know, people look at that. They look at the magazines and look at the sport and they Market themselves as being the
ideal picture of health. And And you had, like, all these bodybuilders dropping dead, this past year, like we do some type of complications cardiac-related. And it's like, I don't know, it's just sad that that natural bodybuilding, which truly I do think is a much more, you know, much more representative of a truly healthy individual. That's just not getting near the exposure.
I agree. Yeah, the the totally natural folks, they're obviously not going to be of that size or of that caliber, but it's more like you said of a representative perception of what's healthy and what's ideal, and what's optimal as far as performance goes, I do think natural. Bodybuilding is certainly gaining any traction that I feel like there's more competitors in these shows. There's more in the certainly more natural shows that you have as options now than you did five ten years ago.
I mean, you've got one, you get one, Pump It Up in Colorado that you can think about doing this is the first year doing that one. Yeah, yeah. I think so. I think for whatever reason is, gaining popularity, and traction, and more people are maybe considering staying the natural route versus the unnatural route. So it's nice to see because it kind of, if you're on the same competitor level as other natural athletes, it's really exciting.
It's really fun because, you know, how just how hard everybody backstage is working when you're all natural are all putting in the time, Yeah, and I feel like there's just a lot more camaraderie to, like, everybody since everybody is not that the people in the open divisions or not, you know, not
working as hard. You know, the people that are putting the ifbb, they're certainly putting in the work, but when you look at the natural federation's, they're just, there seems to be a lot more camaraderie backstage at least in the ones I've competed with and say, like, an NPC show because I don't know, everybody just there to be the best that they can be. Yep, absolutely. But I don't know man. I love a sport. I'm excited to be prepping here soon.
I'm excited for your prep. I'm excited that you and Ben are doing the same show. I'm going to try and make it a point to get out there in person, if at all possible. Do they allow dream tan? That show are they super strict on what the tanning is. I'm not sure. I actually haven't even looked up into the info for that one for registration yet. I'm not sure it's been announced until maybe first of the year, so we'll see.
Otherwise a lot of times those shows have got a an event tan That's on site that really everyone just kind of just sets up with them and they tan the whole works. Probably at The Host Hotel or wherever they The Event Center is so we'll just kind of see what the information comes out. Nice nephew, do those two shows right? After that one, that means you can't get to, to Wild on that steak dinner afterwards which is kind of 11 down solid one downside. That's right.
Yeah. But nope, I won't be having any sugary candy. Yeah. Definitely. No sugarcane D and honestly, shoot me in. Like when Crystal did her show way back in the day, we went to an all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse afterwards. And she went to town man, like, she ate all kinds of meat but she did not have near the adverse effects. Like I would not be surprised if
she ate an equal caloric intake. As to what, you know, these competitors that are consuming a bunch of carbs or having post-show, but like the adverse effects were so minuscule, by comparison. Sure. Yeah, blood sugar. Probably just didn't even barely. Budge. Mmm. Yeah blood sugar flux was minimum. I don't remember I think we did a glucometer test them but it was too far back for me to remember but yeah not near the adverse effects.
Not near the crazy. High, the Crazy Drop the GI distress, it's just not any of them. Not any of that. Well man, talk to me about. Let's see here, I want to, I want to be respectful of your time. But what else you got cooking? As far as 2023 codes. We got this last couple weeks of 2022. You get the prep obviously, but what else you have on the horizon sketchy excited, I'm
excited to continue to coach. So, I've got some fresh people that have recently signed up. So we'll get them through the holiday season and into the first year on the right foot. So we've got some ketogenic nutritional coaching Watching going with that. And just probably the other thing that's going to take the most of my time and the most of my attention is going to be prep.
So I really, really enjoy being in a prep because it gives you something to focus on, give you some some value of importance. Every single day, hit your numbers, hit the gym, and every week, you just kind of gauge the results and tweak stuff along. So I love it. I love it. Has the has the working with clients during this time of year. Do you get a lot of pushback from them wanting to indulge in holiday festivities?
It's not too bad. My main my main I guess Point to stress with them or just make them aware of is just be open and honest. So like if you end up going to a holiday party or a family event or something, in the end up kind of getting off track or having some things that you normally wouldn't eat or you fall victim to peer pressure or something. Just tell me about it. You know, it's not that big a
deal where human the goal. Long term is to set yourself up with something that can be sustainable, and healthy, and comes as second nature. So, if that takes a little bit of learning along the way, Way, so be it. But, you know, maybe take that opportunity to learn why you deviated, why you ate, what you ate, why you felt like you had to and then what did you learn from it? And you know, how did you feel after?
Because that's what kind of sets yourself up for, if you come to that same decision making spot again, you can think back and try to remember, you know, did you get sick? Did you not enjoy the results? Did it throw you off for a few days? Whatever? Yeah, feel like simply being honest with it. Honest with the Challenge with yourself is key.
I mean if like people are going to deviate nobody benefits by hiding that deviation like you just have to own it and if you yep own it then you can also own the repercussions of that and if you owned repercussions of that then you can ideally have enough self awareness and discipline the next time to have enough know, with all as to whether or not those repercussions were worth that deviation to begin with.
Yep. And I actually for many, many years suffered with, like a Order to eating, where? If I had an intense feeling of anxiety. I don't know why. And I know a lot of people do this but it just would go find something to eat. It wasn't hungry and it didn't crave anything. I would just for some reason that was what would satisfy my anxiety. But then, I always look back on it. I think. What the heck that that did nothing.
And now I just over eight, but I was supposed to be eating and now I have to, you know, just look forward and try not to let it happen again and try to figure out how to stop that trigger point or what that trigger point. Was work through it. The next time. Yeah. Feel like anything that can, I don't know. Like human Nature's is a funny thing man. Like you get stretchers you get
anxieties people. Often times turn to food to fill that void and I don't know what the primary drivers for that. I used to do that as well. I don't know why that becomes a thing to I think because it's easier to justify like it's easier to justify going for more food than it is to justify, you know, taking a hit of cocaine like it's smaller bird. Judge to Gap are smaller Gap bridge. I suppose, so to speak with just reaching for more food because just socially acceptable. Yep.
And it's readily available. You do you have food in your cupboard, food in your fridge, food in the drawer food everywhere. So, you did something to bridge that opening, our fill that void that you feel are satisfy that sweet tooth or whatever gives you that little brain stimulation. And so you just got to kind of own up to it. Learn about why it's happening and figure out how to work through it the next time. Yeah. But a percent. I think time. Heels, all sort of speak.
Like when you go long enough without leaning on food to fill that void, you realize that food is not necessary to fill that void. Right on. Yep, I've learned now that if I feel that weird feeling of, you know, kind of like one of binge or something is wanting me to walk to the refrigerator. What I don't really need to walk the refrigerator, I just stopped think about it, have a huge glass of water and if it's nice outside of just go for a 10 minute walk and that feeling completely.
Appears. Yeah, one thing that I do in a prep when my calories are really low and it's honestly more, so just hunger not on me than than psychological aspect of it.
But I'll just simply go for a walk outside for like 20 minutes before I'm supposed to eat and then that just allows me to be present so that when I do eat I don't rush through it and actually enjoy it and then I don't know, I'm satisfied at the end of it. Yeah, yeah for sure you have a good few can actually slow down the process of eating to wear your satisfying yourself. That is huge because sometimes we're in a rush and we eat too quick and then we're done eating
and everything. I'll dang, I didn't even really enjoy that it did. We want them doing? Oh, mad at your last breath. Like that. We get low enough to where it made sense to do. Man, I think less prep the lowest ever got was right around. Was at 1600, calories or so. So I don't think I ever really did all mad. I've done all about in the past but we didn't really capitalize
that during a prep. I think I did that on the last month or so of my prep and I feel Like as counterintuitive as it may sound, that was actually beneficial to because I didn't have to, I didn't I when you're that low and you're hungry, you eat a meal. And you start thinking about when the next Millie has. Whereas if you just simply have one meal, you don't have to think about anymore.
It's like it's done that. That's that's it for the day and then you get a weight and have it the next day, but like you don't obsess about it as much when you're only having one meal, it seems. Yeah, that's true, for sure.
If you're doing all mad because you know, if you have a designated time where you're going to plan on eating your Of the day and maybe that's in the afternoon early evening or something it really kind of lets you hone in and stay attentive to everything else throughout the rest of the day without having to worry about, when you're going to get that meal in. What's coming up?
You know, worrying, if you need to plan ahead, we're going to be to get that meal in, but you already have it already already chalked up in your mind Bingo. Well, I'm gonna end up with one parting thought here man, let you have a parting. Thought here, what have you noticed? As far as like you're in the keto space your online, your own social, what have You noticed as one of the Hot Topics as of
late, like for a while. There is the protein, which is still kind of a Hot Topic. But what are you seeing right now? Is being like a hot snot, actually, controversial may be, controversial topic that a lot people talking about right now Mom. Gosh, there's just so many. It's kind of just a it's a muddy space. A little bit right now.
I guess for it for a lot of people that are kind of getting into it fresh or just thinking about keto or just kind of getting delved into the information, it's kind of a muddy space but if you can just simplify it and get back to the basics, you know, ketogenic way of eating is essentially the absence of carbs that mean simply put there's a lot of people who I think want to lean on all the keto labeled marketed Foods. Think that's one of the biggest
growing Industries with of big food is they're coming up with all these products, you know, loaves of bread and cookies and all this sugary snacks and things that are really usually a junk food item. Yeah. But they're flipping them flipping the ingredients around, flipping, the macros around just to make them look like they have low net carbs and they can slap keto on the packaging. And it's really I think it's really distracting everybody and pulling them in the wrong direction.
It's kind of well man. Like you've been, you've been you've been cute enough for how long it's probably was over eight years now. Yeah. Yeah. So you and I have both been news for a freaking long time and when we first got into the space, like yeah, we've learned a ton from since then we've changed things a little bit since then. But then the day, there hasn't been a massive need to deviate too far from what just the traditional Killed rennick died.
That was, like, people try to overcomplicate things. Yeah, I think it's because big food wants to get their piece of the pie. You know, they see a market there where they can use the buzzword keto or low carb low net carbs, sugar free or whatever, just to try to make a few extra bucks but in the all reality of things Quito is there's nothing that has to be labeled keto at the grocery store to live. Keto, you simply just stay on the outside of the grocery store.
Meaning you hit all the refrigerated sections in the store, you know, meat cheese, eggs, dairy, that's you there's keto right there and none of that stuff has to have keto on it. So like you said, we've been in it for a while. Back before there was kilo bread and keto cookies, and kilo bars and, you know, all that keto stuff. But think that's it's, it's kind
of disappointing. Because the people that are looking for something, that's a solution are being pulled in so many directions that don't have to be there. Yeah, I agree. I think I think it's important for, you know, people like you just to be simply showcasing what's possible without all that stuff.
I mean, shoot, I own food product with key tobruk and I'm still the first person tell people, hey look, don't feel like you have to make anything a packaged food order to make this diet work and be sustainable for. Like that's just all in addition to not because of so that that scheme and I mean I feel like when we got into it like you said there was none of these products available in the first place and it was just less distraction as a result.
Yeah, for sure, I'm right there with you, man. We'll shoot brother. I'm super excited about the prep. I'm excited about what 2023 holds for you, and I'm excited to be working with you again, as always. And I'm excited for what you bring to the table as a coach, so where can people go to find out more about you, man. Instagram is where I am the most Lively probably Quito Greg, 80 kg 80 on there.
We got a Facebook page as well. That's that's probably the easiest way to reach out to me. Nice, I'll link. Get to that and you are a deeper State could have coached. So anybody that wants to work with, you can do so and your coaching is available where we can go down the deeper State keto, Instagram or website a persecutor.com I'm on there, with Coach Jen. We've both got some different options as far as coaching goes, even consultations.
And if you've got questions about either of those options, you can always shoot me a message in advance. Awesome, awesome. Well Greg, it's always a pleasure, ma'am. Appreciate what you do, and I'll be messaging you. You in slack with the macros this week. So I'll be in touch awesome. I appreciate a man, as always take care, brother, you too.