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Now, into the episode.
Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to another episode of the podcast.
Today's episode is all about my diet and training approach and or philosophies in 2026.
So what I am focusing on this year.
And what I'm going to talk about is based off of my personal approach, but also guided by questions that were submitted on Instagram.
So earlier this week, as I was planning this episode and in this discussion, I posed the question on one of my Instagram stories asking what do you struggle with the most when it comes to diet, nutrition and food, as it is related to your fitness goals?
And there were a lot of questions or answers submitted.
And I'm going to use those submissions to guide some of the things I'm talking about.
Now, before we dive into those approaches, those philosophies, I want to share how you can take ownership of your diet In this next year.
And I have these four ways you can take ownership of your diet in this next year.
And I've come up with these four things because these were the most commonly submitted answers and or questions based off of that Instagram story.
Prompt.
I find that a lot of people struggle with meal prep, meal consistency.
A lot of people struggle with meal portions eating too much, eating too little, under consuming, over consuming.
I have found and heard that a lot of people struggle with snacking and not eating enough protein.
And the last thing that I heard quite frequently is that late night snacking and consuming and binging even is a problem.
So here's four things you can do.
Write these down in this next year to take ownership of your diet.
The concepts are few.
The methods are many.
Here are four methods in which you can take complete ownership of your diet, of yourself, of your life in 2026.
Number one, meal prep or food prep weekly.
Now this sounds like common knowledge and we're going to get into deeper detail in these throughout this episode.
But yeah, if you meal prep and food prep, it will make your life easier.
You will have convenient options.
You will have accessibility to food.
But what I hear from a lot of people is I don't have time to meal prep.
I don't have time to food prep.
My response is if it matters to you, you will make time.
You will find time.
If it truly matters to you, I consider myself a very active individual.
I have a full schedule.
I am busy.
I'm running a business, leading a team.
I have two young kids.
My daughter is three and a half.
My son is one and a half.
I'm married, happily married.
Our schedule every single day, from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep, is very full, but I still find time to meal prep.
And I think a lot of people believe that.
What meal prep looks like is being in your kitchen Sunday afternoon for four hours and you're making all this chicken and ground beef and rice and potatoes and vegetables and you're putting them all this bulk food, into meals individual Tupperware containers.
So you have breakfast lunch dinner, breakfast lunch dinner, breakfast lunch dinner, prepared for Monday through Friday.
That is a way to meal prep.
That's not the way that I meal prep.
So if your response is, I don't have time to do that.
Well, neither do I.
So my approach to meal prep into food prep is to just find Five to 10 minutes here and there throughout the week.
Doesn't have to be all in one day to prepare foods and meals.
So here's like the rhythm in which I take the approach.
Sometimes in the morning, after getting back from my morning run and the kids aren't awake yet, I'll fire up the Traeger and I'll throw some chicken breast on the Traeger.
And then maybe at night, once the kids go down, before I hop in the sauna, before going to sleep, I'll throw some rice on the rice cooker and I'll heat that up.
And right before I go to bed, I'll take it off the rice cooker when it's done and I'll throw it in the fridge.
And then maybe, when we're wrapping up dinner at night and we're cleaning up, I'll throw a few packs of ground beef in a pan over the stove and cook up the ground beef as we're cleaning up.
And I'll throw the ground beef on there.
I'll season it.
I'll go start cleaning dishes, throw them in the dishwasher, go back, mix it up, stir it up, clean off the table.
Go back, mix up the meat, stir it up, clean up the kids multitasking.
So I find these moments throughout the day, throughout the week to prepare foods here and there.
It's not this bulk amount of time all at once to prep.
And I make food prep and meal prep part of my daily and weekly rhythms.
But I think that's one of the best ways you can set yourself up for success and take ownership of your diet in this next year is to meal and food prep.
Have healthy reliable, accessible options available all the time.
Based off of these rhythms you're building out and incorporating throughout your day and your week.
The second thing you can do is to have appropriate meal portions.
So I have two tips here.
One, weigh your food.
I don't track my food daily.
I'm tracking intuitively.
So I have a rough estimate and guess of how much and what I'm consuming on a daily basis.
And this is really based off of me just eating the same thing pretty much day in and day out, with slight variations.
But I still weigh my food.
I weigh my food for breakfast.
I weigh my food when I'm preparing my lunches before going to the office.
I weigh out the ingredients in my overnight oats.
I weigh out my dinner.
Even though I'm not tracking, I still weigh things for portion control.
So when we're making dinner for example, earlier this week, one of the dinners we made was grilled chicken and grilled steak.
We roasted potatoes in the oven.
We had broccolini on the side.
I threw a bunch of broccoli on my plate.
I didn't weigh that, but I did weigh out the meat and the potatoes.
I added 10 ounces of potatoes and nine ounces of meat.
It was four ounces of steak and five ounces of chicken.
And I do this not so that I can then go back and add the foods and the amounts into MyFitnessPal or any of the other food tracking apps that you might be using, but I do this for portion control.
So I would encourage you if you struggle with filling your plate, if you are a person whose eyes are much larger than their stomach, then maybe use a scale and weigh out your food so you have appropriate portions.
There's some people, and I used to be this way, by the time dinner comes, I'm starving.
And I would load that plate up.
I would fill every part of that plate so you couldn't even see the plate.
And I'd pile it high.
And in some cases, I probably had 20 ounces of meat and 20 ounces of potatoes and just loaded it up.
And I'd be stuffed and uncomfortable afterwards.
So get a food scale.
You can get one for...
$20 at Target or probably your local grocery store and weigh your food.
I have multiple food scales.
I have one in our pantry.
We have one here at the office, in the break room.
I have one in the main kitchen.
I have one that I travel with.
I like traveling with a food scale for portion control.
And the second tip when it comes to appropriate meal portions.
This is something that I found has been extremely beneficial.
So when I eat dinner, I'm a fast eater myself.
Maybe you guys can relate, but I sit down, I'm starving, I'm scarfing that food down.
Especially because I know my son who is in a high chair.
I got to eat as fast as possible because he's going to lose attention and he's going to be crawling out of that chair as quickly as possible.
My daughter is going to eat a little bit and then get distracted and probably be crawling on the table.
So I have to get all that food down.
So I'm blocking and tackling the kids as they come at me during dinner.
But if you eat really quickly, you finish that plate.
It sometimes takes a moment for that satiety signal, that hunger signal, to be dulled as you're still digesting the food.
So weigh out your food, make your plate, get your portion set up.
This is down the table, eat dinner.
First off, if you can, I would encourage you to eat slower.
It's going to be better for digestion.
It's going to be a more enjoyable experience.
And your satiety signaling, your hunger signaling will be better regulated.
But with that being said, sit down at the table, eat your plate of food.
You might be hungry still immediately upon finishing that plate.
I know I typically am.
Sit there for 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes.
Let the food digest.
Let your satiety signaling catch up to your stomach and your digestion.
And after 10, 15, 20 minutes, if you're still hungry, go back and get seconds.
But typically what happens to me is I finish that first plate.
I'm still hungry.
I sit for 10, 15, 20 minutes. my satiety signaling catches up to my stomach and my digestion.
And then I realized I don't need a second plate.
And if I would have went and got that second plate, I probably would have been overly full if I would have done that.
So weigh your food and wait after consuming that first plate before assessing if you really do need more.
The third thing you can do to take ownership of your diet in 2026 is is to make protein a priority.
One gram of protein per pound of body weight daily, build each meal, each plate around protein.
And my rule, take it or leave it, is no snacking.
I don't snack.
I have My first meal and my second meal and my third meal and my fourth meal.
And I have my fifth meal, which is a smaller meal before going to bed at night, which we're about to get into.
But a lot of people struggle with snacking.
Don't allow yourself to snack.
Have your meals structured and set up throughout the day.
And I consider a meal a meal. if it is built around the foundation of the protein source.
So for example, my breakfast is built around eggs being the protein source.
My second meal is built around either chicken or ground beef.
My third meal is built around the foundation of protein powder.
My fourth meal is built around the foundation of whatever we're having for dinner steak chicken fish, salmon.
And then my Last meal that I ate which, like I said, is my smaller meal, is built around the foundation of Greek yogurt being the protein source.
So I don't snack.
I build my meals around the protein source and I aim for one gram of protein per pound of body weight daily.
Make protein a priority.
And the fourth thing last thing you can do to take ownership of your diet is to be prepared for and have a plan for your late night snacking and or meals.
So I like to have my go-to after dinner, before bed meal if I need one.
And to be honest, I typically do need one.
I personally like to eat before going to bed, because if I don't, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night pretty hungry.
We eat an earlier dinner.
We eat dinner typically at 5 p.m., I'm starving by 5 p.m.
And then I'll have something around 8.30 or 9 p.m.
And for me, my go-to is Greek yogurt topped with raw cacao nibs, a little bit of maple syrup, unsweetened coconut flakes and some honey.
And then on the side, I have an avocado salad cut that avocado in half.
I eat the whole thing and I sprinkle it with everything but the bagel seasoning, which is delicious.
So I get solid protein, some superfoods in there and healthy fats and fiber from the avocado.
If I'm extra hungry, I'll add some berries, some raspberry blackberries, blueberries or strawberries to the Greek yogurt.
But I find that a lot of people struggle with late night eating because they don't have a plan.
They don't have their go-to meals and they end up binging or cheating on their diet or their plan because they're just grabbing whatever looks and sounds good at the time.
For me, what sounds really great before going to bed at night is sometimes half of a loaf of sourdough, a big old bowl of cereal, which I consumed a lot of during Ironman prep because I was burning so many calories.
But right now with my training, I'm not burning as many calories.
So the whole bowl of cereal is not preferred.
I'd rather stick to protein and fats.
But if I just consumed what I wanted to consume and what sounded good every night, it being a bowl of cereal or a bowl of ice cream, or half of a jar of peanut butter or whatever else is around?
But I know every night what I'm going to eat right now, and this will change from time to time, but right now, what my go-to is in the evening is that bowl of Greek yogurt, good source of protein, the superfoods from the cacao nibs and the unsweetened coconut flakes and the honey, some berries fiber, and then the avocado for healthy fats.
And that makes me feel really good.
It digests well.
I can sleep really well after consuming that food.
But have your go-to meals at night.
Know what you're going to be consuming if and when you get hungry.
And that you're not just grabbing whatever sounds good.
Set yourself up for success.
So those are the four things I wanted to share on how to take ownership of your diet in this next year to see huge transformational progress.
With that being said, now we're going to get into my diet and training approach and philosophies for this next year.
Okay, the first one is to be in a caloric surplus over a caloric deficit.
Let's first define what is a surplus and what is a deficit.
So you have your maintenance calories.
Your maintenance.
Calories are the amount of calories you need to consume on a daily basis to maintain your current weight.
Let's say, for example, my maintenance calories are 3500, meaning that if I consume 3500 calories a day, I will maintain my current weight.
A surplus is anything over 3,500 and a deficit is technically anything under 3,500.
Now, I'm not saying your maintenance calories are 3,500.
That's something you have to establish on your own.
But a surplus is more and a deficit is less.
Why am I pursuing a caloric surplus down this next year?
Well, to be honest, I want to gain size and strength.
During my Ironman prep in the back half of 2025, I lost a lot of weight.
I lost a lot of muscle.
I lost a lot of size.
I was consuming a lot of calories, but I was training a lot.
I was training anywhere from 18 hours at the minimum to 22 hours per week between the run, the bike and swimming.
And I wasn't strength training much at all.
So I lost a lot of weight, lost a lot of size, a lot of strength.
I'm rebuilding right now.
But throughout 2026, what I want to do I want to pack on size again.
I want to pack on strength.
I want to get stronger.
I'm spending more time in the gym.
I'm still running, but I'm running less.
And I want to be in a caloric surplus to assist in that gaining phase and goal of getting stronger and putting on more muscle, getting bigger, building.
I'm in a building phase in this next year.
And to be honest, I'm really enjoying it.
After the Ironman right now, at the time of the recording.
Like I've said, I finished the Ironman about eight weeks ago.
That first month after the Ironman, weight came back on pretty quickly, right?
I was still consuming a lot of calories because I was recovering from the prep and the race itself.
My training volume decreased significantly, literally overnight, the day after the race was over.
So weight started to come back on pretty quickly.
And then my weight plateaued and I'm in a slight surplus.
So I'm gaining very slowly.
I mean, I might be gaining at this rate, maybe half a pound a week, half a pound every two weeks.
If that, it's a slight surplus.
And, to be honest, I don't know exactly how much of a slight surplus because I'm not tracking my calories.
So maybe asking yourself, Nick, how do you know you're in a slight surplus then?
My surplus might be a few hundred calories, if that.
And it ranges from day to day.
My goal is to be on a weekly basis in a caloric surplus.
But from day to day, I might not be.
You know, one day I might have run more and lifted more and expended more calories not consumed enough.
And I might have actually been in a deficit.
But I'm not looking at this caloric surplus on a day-to-day, but more so from a week-to-week.
And I'm judging that surplus based off of a few things, subjectively and objectively.
Because the question is going to be, how do I know I'm in a caloric surplus if I'm not tracking?
Well, I assess...
How do my workouts feel?
Do I feel strong?
Am I performing?
How's my recovery?
Am I able to recover from these workouts?
How am I sleeping?
How is my energy?
How's my appetite?
And what is the scale doing?
So I'm looking at all these things.
I'm assessing how I subjectively feel.
And then objectively, what do the numbers say?
What does the scale say?
What does my sleep say?
What do my workouts say, for example?
So I'm not too married to controlling this caloric surplus, but intuitively I'm just maintaining awareness around how I'm feeling, how I'm performing, and then I'm modifying or refining my diet based off of that.
Now I've been doing this for a long time.
I'm very in tune and aware of my body in terms of how I recover, how I perform, what I need to eat, what I need to change on a regular basis.
If you don't have this type of experience or intuitive knowledge of you, might have to track more accurately.
You might have to track your food and your calories, your macronutrients, to ensure that you're in a caloric surplus or deficit if you're through an app or I don't track a lot of numbers because I'm just aware and mindful of how I'm feeling and how I'm performing.
Now, one of the responses I heard a lot from people was that they struggle to eat enough.
People want to gain weight.
They want to gain size.
They want to get bigger.
They're going to the gym.
They're training hard. but they struggled to eat enough.
So I have a few solutions to that.
If you want to be at a caloric surplus, you want to put on some size, especially during the winter months.
Me personally, if I'm going to put on size and a little bit of weight and a little bit of fluff, but get stronger with that intent and purpose, I want to do it in the winter and then maybe shred down a little bit come spring and summer.
I'm sure many of you have that same approach and philosophy.
But if you struggle with eating enough, here are my solutions.
One, have a plan.
So know what you're going to eat, when you're going to eat, how you're going to eat, to ensure that you can eat enough food throughout the day.
Consume that first meal early.
Now, my first meal every day is at 6 am, But if you wait until 11 am, 12 pm to have that first meal and you're struggling to get your calories in on a daily basis, it might help to eat that first meal earlier.
And if you don't have a large appetite in the morning well, maybe make a shake or choose more calorically dense foods.
This is something that I've found is extremely beneficial when you're trying to gain weight or be in a caloric surplus.
If your appetite isn't highly stimulated, choose foods that are more calorically dense.
This can be protein sources that have a higher fat content 80-20 ground beef as opposed to 93-7 ground beef.
Chicken thighs instead of chicken breasts.
You can choose a fattier fish like salmon, which has great omega-3 fatty acid content.
Consume more nuts and seeds.
Nut butters avocados, are calorically dense.
But if you're trying to gain weight and just eat a lot of chicken breast, steamed broccoli and white rice, it does become challenging, because those foods are higher volume and less calorically dense.
So if you're struggling to eat enough, eat earlier and eat calorically dense foods and try to front load your calories earlier on in the day so you're not force feeding at night.
I have some friends who are trying to gain weight and be in a caloric surplus and they might eat a small breakfast and a small lunch And they'll text me and be like I got to eat 1800 calories before I go to bed tonight.
And it's 7 p.m.
I'm like, brother, you're just setting yourself up for failure.
You're going to force feed.
You're going to be really full and uncomfortable.
You're probably not going to sleep really well.
And you're setting yourself up for failure.
So front load those calories earlier on in the day.
Choose, like I said, calorically dense options.
So you can have a plan and ensure you're hitting your goals consistently day in and day out.
But right now, like I've said, my focus, my goal is to put on size strength, build muscle, especially coming off of Ironman prep.
And for me to do that, I know I need to be in a caloric surplus.
It's going to help me build.
It's going to help me recover.
It's going to help my sleep.
It's going to make me feel better, give me the energy.
So a caloric surplus, a slight caloric surplus is the focus going into 2026.
The second approach in philosophy is to train hard.
Yeah, I just got done, before recording this episode, training legs.
And I trained legs really hard.
So my workout today, lower body.
I hit lower body twice a week right now.
So I'm training lower body twice a week.
I train chest and triceps. once a week, back and biceps once a week, shoulders and arms once a week.
And I'm running about 20 to 25 miles a week.
That's my current training split.
Today's workout, my second lower body workout of the week.
I did five sets of leg extensions, hitting leg extensions really hard.
Five sets of leg curls, Three sets of sissy squats for as many reps as possible.
At this point, my legs were pumped out of control.
Then I went into barbell squats.
I did seven sets of barbell squats.
The main sets were four sets, 315 pounds, anywhere from five to six reps.
Then I did three sets of walking barbell lunges.
24 reps per set, which was 12 reps per leg.
And then I went into this reverse lunge Bulgarian split squat hybrid on the Smith machine movement that I've been doing recently.
Three sets, each leg, eight to 10 reps, killer workout.
It taxed the muscular system as well as my central nervous system.
It feels really good to be back in the gym again, especially coming off of Ironman prep.
Those first couple weeks of training, after not having done really any resistance training for 18 to 20 weeks, were brutal.
I was sore.
Everything hurt.
Triceps, biceps, back, shoulders, chest, legs, glutes, all of it hurt.
But now my body is acclimated to the training once again, and it feels good.
I'm making some progress.
But one thing that I think many people who walk into the gym maybe 95, maybe more percent of people could train harder than they're actually training.
You know, if we compare resistance training to running, when it comes to running, 80 of your runs roughly are easy runs, aerobic-based runs.
And then maybe 15% to 20% of your running is speed work.
It's more intense.
It's uncomfortable.
You're doing tempo workouts, critical velocity.
You're on the track shorter distances, faster paces.
You're breathing heavy, your heart rate increases.
It's tough.
Those workouts are hard.
They're hard to hold pace.
Intensity is jacked up.
It's a big effort.
They're hard, right?
But 80% of your training when it comes to endurance work is this easy stuff.
You know, you're kind of just going through the motions because the volume of creates the adaptation that you're trying to achieve.
That same philosophy doesn't necessarily correlate to strength training.
I believe that when you're going into the gym and you're strength training, you should be training really hard.
You should be pushing it.
If you want to get bigger, you want to get stronger, you want to grow, you want to stimulate adaptation within the muscle, you got to train hard.
Now, it's not training uncontrollably hard that puts you at risk of injury, but it is controlled discomfort and effort.
Today, when I trained lower body, I pushed those sets, many of those sets, to failure, even leg extensions and leg curls extremely uncomfortable and painful.
Like the lactic acid that was building up in the muscle hurt so bad.
But it's really easy to go into the gym and apply the easy run philosophy and mindset to the gym.
Hop on a machine, do a movement, rest for a minute during that rest period, get your phone out.
Scroll text, email Slack.
Do another set same thing.
Phone out.
Scroll text email, Slack.
Another set.
Move through the moments or the movements and the motions and, just before you know it, after an hour, workout's done.
Didn't really put out much of an effort, didn't sweat at all easy.
That is not going to stimulate the growth that you want.
When we go into the gym, when I go into the gym and I train, I want to put out a big effort.
Every workout has the ability to propel me forward, to grow, to stimulate adaptation.
I love strength training, but not strength training just to go through the motions and just to get it done, but to really work.
So my mindset, my philosophy, my approach in the gym this year is every workout matters.
Every workout I'm going to train with intention and effort and intensity and hard.
I'm going to train hard.
That's actually why I'm taking longer rest periods in between sets.
You know, right now I'm taking longer rest periods in between sets than I've probably ever taken before because I'm hitting the sets really hard.
I need the rest to be ready to go into that next set to be prepared.
And one of the most common responses I hear to this is, yeah, but Nick, I don't want to get too big.
I don't think Many of us have to worry about getting too big by training too hard.
It just, it doesn't work that way.
You're not going to look like Jay Cutler and Ronnie Coleman stepping on a bodybuilding stage by training too hard.
I can promise you that.
If you train really hard, you're going to stimulate the adaptation.
You're going to get stronger.
You're going to build muscle.
You're going to feel better.
You're going to sleep better.
You're going to look better.
It's going to give you everything you want and need out of your training.
But very few of us need to worry about getting too big in the gym by training too hard.
I can promise you that.
Now, strength training has so many benefits.
And the benefits are very different from endurance training.
Strength training is much more than building muscle and improving strength.
It has many downstream effects positive downstream effects on the body that are massively beneficial.
But you got to train hard and you got to put out a big effort and you're going to get the best stimulation from these multi-joint compound movements using barbells and dumbbells and kettlebells most of the time, as opposed to cables or machines.
Now I'm going to talk about some of these downstream positive effects that strength training creates, but I want to note that all these benefits can be thrown out of the window and if overtraining or under-recovering exists.
So you can either overtrain by training too much too often, too hard, too frequently, or you can under-recover.
And they can be one and the same, But under-recover could be that you're not giving yourself enough time in between workouts.
You're not consuming enough calories.
You're not in a surplus.
You're not sleeping well or enough.
You're not hydrating.
So one of the best ways that we can minimize overtraining is by prioritizing recovery.
So strength training optimizes recovery many parts of the human body.
But specifically what I want to talk about is the endocrine system, hormone system.
Our hormones can be optimized by strength training because of these downstream effects in the body.
When it comes to males testosterone, there is an acute increase in testosterone after training that supports healthy baseline levels over time.
In females there is a supported balance of estrogen, and strength training improves progesterone.
Excuse me sensitivity, but it does not cause or create masculine features in females.
So, as a female, if you strength train very heavily, it's not going to make you look like a male, unless you take exogenous testosterone or steroids.
That's the truth.
In terms of growth hormone.
There is an increase post-exercise in growth hormone, which stimulates muscle repair, fat breakdown and improves recovery and sleep quality.
And insulin.
So there is an increase in insulin sensitivity and And over time, chronic insulin levels decrease from strength training.
Muscles become more efficient at pulling glucose from the blood and less insulin is needed to manage the intake of carbohydrates.
And when it comes to thyroid hormones like T3 and T4, strength training supports healthy thyroid signaling.
So there are many positive effects on the body.
When it comes to strength training, but this is just one category of benefits being how it impacts and improves areas of the endocrine or hormone system in both men and women.
The benefits of training hard.
Multi-joint compound movements, strength training, are numerous, but you got to train hard.
I train really hard, intense, intentional, deliberate.
I'm training really hard in 2026.
Every workout, every training session, it is one training session that's going to move me closer towards my goals to get bigger, to get stronger, to get faster, to improve body composition, to feel better.
But it's not just going through the motions.
Okay, the next approach in philosophy is food quality over food quantity.
I was thinking about this this morning as I was giving our son Nico a bottle at 3.30 a.m.
Nico did not have the best night of sleep last night.
He must be going through a growth spurt.
Because we had to give him three bottles throughout the night last night.
He was starving.
His first bottle, he woke up around midnight.
We gave him a bottle.
Then he woke up an hour and a half, two hours later, we gave him another bottle.
And then at 3.30, he woke up and he wanted another bottle.
He was starving.
He drank so much milk throughout the night last night.
And as I was sitting on the chair in his bedroom at 330 am, I just ended up staying awake after that and went for a run after giving him that bottle.
But I was thinking about how my diet has changed over the years.
And it has evolved and improved and I've put more focus on quality nutrition as opposed to quantity of nutrition over the years.
And one of the reasons is that, as life has become more complex and complicated and my responsibilities have grown, there's a lot of things in my life that I can't control.
I can't control when my son wakes up and how much he sleeps and when he wants a bottle and the growth spurts that he's experiencing.
Now, last night, me and Steph, my wife, we didn't get much sleep.
And that's just part of being a parent, especially with younger kids.
Some nights we get six and a half, seven, seven and a half hours of sleep.
Some nights we get three to four hours of sleep.
Really depends on what the kids are feeling and how they're sleeping and what leap they're going through and all of those things.
But one of the things I was thinking about as I was giving Nico a bottle is At this phase of my life, there's lots that I can't control.
Sometimes I can't control how much sleep I get.
Sometimes I can't control if I can go train certain times throughout the day based off of work responsibilities and family responsibilities and being a dad and having children and those responsibilities.
But if there's one thing I can control, It is the food that I put in my body.
I can control prepping food and what food I buy and the quality of it and what I end up putting in my mouth and consuming and digesting.
As I was sitting in Nico's chair giving him a bottle this morning, thinking about this episode I was going to record a few hours later, that's something I wanted to really hammer in.
That's how my approach and philosophy around nutrition has evolved over the years.
Where before having kids, there was a focus from both Steph and I on high quality nutrition.
But I'll be honest there's more things that we could have gotten away with not eating as clean or as of high quality as we do now, because there was less stress.
There was less life responsibilities.
We were always sleeping really good, could train when we wanted, could control more variables in our life.
But, as I've thought about it, life has become more complex and responsibilities have increased, and There are certain things, certain variables I can't control, but the one thing I can is my diet.
And I've improved my diet over the years in terms of quality nutrition and sourcing, and making more better decisions more frequently on a consistent basis, because I know those things make me feel better.
We go out to eat less now than we ever have before.
One of those reasons is because we have two young kids and going to dinner with two young kids can be challenging.
But two.
It's because we want to be able to control what we're consuming and eating on a regular basis.
One of the ways that we do this, and we will continue to do throughout this next year and for the foreseeable future, is is you have readily accessible and available foods at our fingertips at all times.
This goes back to, like I was talking about earlier, the convenience of food and meal prep and making food and meal prep work around our lives, as opposed to carving out four five, six hours once a week to prepare all these meals and foods.
It's having potatoes and rice and chicken and ground beef readily accessible.
It's making sure that when we go to the grocery store, we have a plan, we have a list and we're filling our carts first with protein, and then produce fruits and vegetables, and then quality carbohydrate sources and then everything else.
But I see a lot of people going to the grocery store with no plan, with no list and just buying whatever looks good.
And It's also really dangerous if you're going to the grocery store already hungry.
You never know what you're going to come home with.
But we like to go to the grocery store with a plan, with a list.
And like I said, we fill our carts.
We go through the grocery store, first filling it with our protein sources, then our produce fruits and vegetables, then carbohydrates, then everything else.
And for my diet, It is very consistent in terms of the same meals pretty much day in and day out.
My first meal, my breakfast is typically the same.
My second meal is typically the same.
My third meal is typically the same.
Dinner is where there is the most variation in terms of protein sources, carbohydrate sources fruits vegetables nuts seeds oils, all of the things.
And then my last meal before going to bed is pretty much the same.
But I'm adding in variation with the dinner.
But the way that I've set up my first three meals and my last meal and that fourth meal that has the most variation is focused on quality.
I want good, healthy carbohydrate sources, most of them being oats, rice potatoes, sourdough bread fruits vegetables, grass-fed grass-finished beef, pasture-raised chickens, pasture-raised eggs, wild-caught fish, high quality Greek yogurts.
I'm choosing sources now that are higher quality.
They're going to provide me not just the macronutrients I need, but also the micronutrients.
Fiber is a big priority for me now.
I get most of my variety in terms of different sources of foods from fruits, vegetables and micronutrient-dense sources.
So the carbohydrates and the proteins that I consume on a regular basis are pretty consistent.
Like I've said, it's chicken, beef, eggs, Greek yogurt.
It's oats, sourdough, fruits, vegetables, rice, potatoes. for the carbohydrate sources.
And then the way and the place that I add in most variety is from different nuts and seeds, different fruits and vegetables that are in season versus out of season.
I'm looking for ways that I can get more micronutrient diversity in my diet through those things, as opposed to the proteins or the bulk carbohydrate sources.
And the last thing I wanted to really touch on, in terms of food quality versus food quantity, is how I eat while traveling, and as well as cost.
I know cost, it was a big concern for people when I prompted the question on Instagram.
When it comes to traveling, it becomes harder to stay on track with your diet.
There's no doubt about that, but it is definitely achievable.
It requires a little bit more intention, a little bit more research, a little bit more planning.
But one of the things I've noticed while traveling with people is whether that's personal relationships or for work is that sometimes travel or going to dinner is instantly viewed as a vacation or a luxury or an opportunity to fall off track.
And I used to be like this back in the day.
You know, random Wednesday night and We're going to dinner with friends.
And there's a time and place to eat whatever you want.
Get the burger, get the fries, get the pizza, get the chicken wings, whatever that place is known for.
But if you travel a lot or you have to go out to dinner a lot for work there's a lot of people who travel weekly for work.
Going to a restaurant doesn't always have to be a reason or an opportunity to just eat whatever you want.
I have found that most restaurants are very accommodating and willing to modify anything on the menu that you ask for.
So sometimes if I'm traveling and I want to stay on track, I'm going to a restaurant, for example, I will ask for things on their item a la carte.
You know the easy thing to do, the decision you can make that will steer you away from progress and your goals, and staying on track would be just ordering whatever's on the menu.
I'll take a burger and french fries.
I'll take a pizza.
I'll take a basket of chicken wings and fries on the side.
You don't have to. make those decisions.
Just because you're traveling, just because you're going out to dinner whether it's for a business meeting, or you're going to dinner with friends, or whatever is the case you can still stay on track.
An example, Steph and I, we were traveling to Pittsburgh last weekend for a BPN event.
And we got into our hotel late at night and we went to the hotel restaurant.
It was the Fairmont in Pittsburgh.
And looking at the menu, and the menu was great.
It looked amazing.
And it had like the entrees and it had salads and it had starters and soups and all of these things.
And there was this one dish.
It was a half chicken dish, which I love.
Any restaurant that has a half chicken like that's my go-to.
So you have half rotisserie chicken, but it came with like mashed potatoes and this sauce on top and all these extra things that we didn't really need or want.
So Steph and I both ordered the half chicken.
We asked for nothing on it and then a side salad.
And that's what we ate.
It ended up coming out.
It was a half chicken.
We each had a half chicken.
No sauces, no mashed potatoes, none of the extra stuff on it.
And we had our side salad.
It's with chicken and salad.
Great sources of protein, lots of protein.
We had some vegetables in there.
We were able to modify those meals to stay on track.
You can do that.
That's an option.
Just because you're going to dinner doesn't mean you have to order the burger and fries.
Just because this restaurant is known for their chicken wings and their pizza doesn't mean you have to order the chicken wings and the pizza.
Just because you're going to a restaurant or you're traveling doesn't mean it's a free-for-all to eat whatever whenever, wherever.
You can still stay on track and you can still choose quality over quantity.
And even though I'm focused on a surplus a slight surplus throughout this next year, it does not mean a free-for-all just eat anything whenever I want.
This is not a dirty bulk.
This is a caloric surplus, an intentional caloric surplus.
Now, I know that When people hear quality over quantity, the first thing they think of is price.
And when I prompted the question on Instagram, one of the most responded responses was that cost and price holds a lot of people back.
Now I'll be honest that the foods that I purchased now today, based off my ability, are much more expensive than I was consuming three years ago and 10 years ago and when I was in college.
But even when I was in college, even 10 years ago, even three years ago, I didn't have the ability to purchase very high quality foods very frequently, but I could still consume great quality nutrition.
Cost does not have to be a deterring factor.
You can consume high quality nutrition, good food on a regular consistent basis and on a budget.
I promise you that.
I was doing it in college.
I had no money to my name in college.
And I would go to the grocery store and I'd find deals and sales and I'd stock up in bulk with chicken and ground beef and eating a lot of tilapia and tuna and rice and potatoes and bananas and oatmeal.
You can still consume high quality nutrition.
It doesn't have to be grass fed, grass finished, organic, pasture raised.
It doesn't have to be.
It can be if you prefer that, but it doesn't have to be to consume high quality nutrition.
I remember in college I can't remember what grocery store I would shop at but on Tuesdays Chicken at this grocery store was half off per pound.
It was a steal.
And I would get to this grocery store as soon as they would open to ensure that I could stock up.
And I'd stock up for the whole week.
I'd freeze it if I had to.
Because I was saving a lot of money on this chicken because it was half off per pound.
And I would look for deals and sales wherever I could and I'd buy in bulk.
I remember when I first got down to Texas me, Preston and Joe we found this restaurant that was selling in bulk 20 pounds at a time chicken breast.
And we went and bought 20 pounds of chicken breast at a time and we would cut it up and we would freeze it.
And it was pennies on the dollar per pound.
And we would just stock up.
We were on a budget.
So cost does not have to be a deterring factor from consuming high quality nutrition and hold you back from reaching your fitness, your nutrition, your performance, your body composition goals.
The next philosophy and approach is to run with purpose, not for numbers.
Numbers meaning mileage and pace.
I think it's really easy in the world we live in today, especially in a world of social media, comparison and Strava which I'm personally not a big Strava person but I know people live for the Strava numbers that you constantly have to level up and surpass others.
This person ran 60 miles this week, so I got to run 61.
This person was running 730 minute per mile paces.
I got to run a 728 minute per mile pace to be considered worthy or good.
And this next year, I'm not necessarily running for any numbers.
I don't have any races or competitions yet, or events that I plan to prep for, which I'll get into in my last bullet, which is train for the love of the lifestyle, not for the finish line.
So I've reduced my running volume because I am prioritizing strength, size, muscle building.
I've reduced it to about 20 to 25 miles per week. to prioritize the goal.
Now running, cardiovascular fitness and conditioning is and always will be important to me, but it's not the main goal right now.
I have found that with less running, my mental and physical energy is better.
But you can't rebuke the benefits, the mental benefits of running and endurance training.
And that's why I'm still running 20 to 25 miles a week.
One for the health, performance and physical benefits.
But the mental clarity, the mental just feel good high that I get from running four days a week, I don't ever want to lose that.
I love running for the mental clarity, for the mental release and relaxation and peace and joy that I get from it.
So I run for a purpose and that purpose is that clarity.
It's that high.
It's that dopamine rush and hit that I desire.
But I'm not running for numbers.
I'm not running for a race or a competition this year.
I'm running because I love running and it's a big part of my life.
But I'm running with a purpose in this next year.
Not to compare or to compete.
On the heels of running with purpose.
My next philosophy and approach is to eat with purpose, not to idolize food.
I think a question we all have to ask ourselves is what does our relationship with food look like and why?
You know, I had a severe eating disorder when I was in my mid-teens.
I've shared the story many times before.
I was 14 years old, starved myself, put myself in the hospital because of it.
Since then, I have had varying degrees of healthy and unhealthy relationships with food over time.
And in the past, when I've shared my previous eating disorder in this concept around a relationship with food, I've experienced pushback.
I've heard people say, you don't have a relationship with food, you have a relationship with people.
But I don't agree with that.
And anyone who has had an unhealthy relationship with food probably wouldn't agree with that either.
We actually all have personal relationships with food.
And it's kind of weird when you think about it, But I'm a very observational person, especially with people and their food, because of my previous eating disorder.
And it's interesting when you take the time to just watch, learn and experience how people have different relationships with food.
Some healthy, some some unhealthy, some extremely unhealthy.
But I think we all should ask ourselves and seriously consider what does our relationship with food look like and why?
Are there parts that are healthy?
Are there parts that are unhealthy?
And what can we do to improve those relationships?
I used to idolize food.
I didn't even know it.
I would think about food more than I would have liked.
And I justified it by calling myself a foodie.
I would think about what I was going to eat next while still eating my current meal.
I was thinking about going out to dinner Friday night and what I was going to order when it was Tuesday afternoon.
I was thinking about Sunday dinner and how much food I was going to eat and consume and gorge myself with when it was Thursday morning.
And I never thought it was a problem until I realized I was idolizing food.
And my goal was, for 2026.
My approach, my philosophy is to eat with purpose, not to idolize food.
And I do feel, I can confidently say this, I have a healthy relationship with food right now.
Typically when I'm in a prep, like when I was in my Ironman prep, that's when my tendencies for my previous eating disorder start to come back a little bit.
My relationship with food becomes more unhealthy when I'm in a prep towards a big fitness goal.
But then when I'm out of prep, I experience more healthy relationships with food.
But I share this so that we.
My hope is that you become more mindful and aware that we have relationships with food.
We do, and they're all unique and different.
But that we should eat with purpose.
And that purpose should drive performance.
It should drive health.
It should drive energy. should drive recovery in the way that we feel.
As I prompted the question on Instagram, there were a lot of responses around people experiencing common problems with, like I said snacking, binge eating, cheating on their diet and getting bored of eating the same meals.
And I think a lot of these responses are driven by the problem that people idolize food.
They're not eating for purpose, but they end up worshiping the food and the meal and the ingredients.
Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't enjoy our foods and celebrate food and feasting with people and in relationship and the experience.
But There's a fine line between celebrating and feasting and enjoying and idolizing and worshiping the food and the meals and living for the food itself.
I hear the question all the time.
I get so bored of eating the same thing day in and day out.
And I can't necessarily relate to this, because I don't get bored of the same meals, because we do add in a lot of variety into our dinner, which is my fourth meal of the day, typically.
But one of the things I would say and encourage you to do is find ways to spice it up.
And an example of that for me is like my second meal of the day.
The base is always 300 grams of rice.
It might be jasmine rice or, like today, I had sushi rice.
It's a cup and a half of rice.
And then it's typically ground beef or chicken.
Or today I had ground beef and chicken.
I had four ounces of ground beef and four ounces of chicken thighs, because that's what we had left over at the house from some dinners and some foods that were prepped.
And ways that you can spice it up and have a brand new meal every day is by different condiments and spices, and pickled vegetables or toppings.
Like right now, my go-to lunch that I look forward to every day 300 grams of rice, eight ounces of ground beef, which is sometimes a combination of ground elk, bison and ground beef.
I do a little bit of Primal Kitchen's buffalo sauce in there.
And I add pickled onion.
And I get these pickles at the farmer's market.
They're spicy and sweet pickles.
They are delicious.
I add some of the pickles in there.
I add some of the pickled juice.
So I love pickled vegetables.
There's some great prebiotic fibers, fermented food fibers in there.
And you can change the sauces, the condiments, the toppings.
You can have a brand new meal every day, but the base stays the same.
That's how I avoid getting bored of meals.
Take a bowl, add your carbs, add your meat, spice it up in any way you want, preferably in a way that doesn't add a bunch of calories and oils and extra unhealthy ingredients.
But you can spice up a meal with relatively low caloric options and it can taste completely different from day one to day two to day three to day four.
And my last and final approach and philosophy going to this next year, as I've alluded to before, is to train for the love of the lifestyle and not for the finish line.
As I've shared, I don't have any races, competitions or preps that I'm planning to do in this next year.
Fitness, for me needs to fit into my life and not the other way around.
I have young kids.
I have a wife.
I have a family.
I have my faith.
I have my business, the team.
I'm a leader here.
I have responsibilities and my life at this point no longer revolves around fitness.
It's not finding ways for my family to fit into my fitness and my business to fit into my fitness and my leadership abilities and responsibilities to fit into my fitness.
It is building my fitness around my other responsibilities in rhythms of life.
And I love training.
I do.
I love the lifestyle.
I love prepping the food.
I love eating healthy nutrition that fuels my body and performance.
I love running.
I love strength training really hard.
I love the pre-workout ritual and the post-workout shake.
I love it all.
I enjoy every part of it.
But not for the prep, not for the competition, not for the finish line.
Because of what it adds to my life and the experience and the energy that it stimulates and creates.
There have been many moments and periods of my life, the last couple of years, where I've been deep into a fitness prep and I've been living in zombie mode.
And maybe you can relate and I see this all the time with athletes where you put majority of your energy on a daily basis into the training, into the prep.
You wear yourself down to a point where the best part of your day, where you have the most physical and mental energy, is spent and dedicated to the training.
And every other part of your life gets the table scraps, gets zombie mode.
I've done this in the past.
I've been that person.
I'm not proud of that.
But there have been moments in my life where I have prioritized the prep and the race, the competition, the finish line over other life responsibilities.
And that's a sacrifice that I'm not willing to make anymore.
I don't want to live in zombie mode.
I don't want to dedicate all of my mental and physical energy to the fitness and the training so that everyone and everything else gets those table scraps.
I'm training this year for the love of the lifestyle because I do truly love it.
I enjoy it, every part of it.
It is commitment.
And the truth about commitment is that commitment has no finish lines.
It is a forever evolving journey and process for continuous improvement and betterment and pursuit.
So that's my approach.
Those are my philosophies for this next year around training, around diet nutrition, life commitment.
So I hope you guys enjoyed this one.
I hope you can relate to it.
I hope that, going into this next year, you lay out some approaches and philosophies that you are committed to.
And that honor your responsibilities.
So you can show up.
Not just for yourself.
But for the people in your lives as well.
Thanks for tuning in.
I appreciate you guys.
And as always.
Go one more.
