Nutrition seems like it should be so easy, so why is it a struggle for so many?  The secret lies in where you’re focusing your attention. When you’re focusing on the scale and solely weight loss you’re missing out on forming the habits, behavior and thought process needed to think, behave and become the person with the fit lean physique you desire.  Adam Ross is a registered dietitian, and sports nutritionist with a unique background as a division 1 and professional hockey player.  Within his own businees as well as serving as the head dietitian at Atria Institute for Health and Longevity in New York City Adam has worked with celebrities, professional athletes, business professionals and everyday folks motivated for transformation. In this episode of The Health Fix Podcast Dr. Jannine Krause interviews Adam Ross on personalizing your nutrition to your age, adjusting macros for varied activity levels and the power of creating structured habits, routines and environments that promote success over time versus being tied to the scale to measure progress.

Traveling soon? Looking to detox or reset your gut? Try one of Dr. Krause’s Fullscript plans.

Dr. Jannine Krause's comprehensive 10 day Spring Liver Detox Bundle made possible by Fullscript
Dr. Jannine Krause's "Reset the Gut" plan - a 2 part plan that lasts 60 days made possible by Fullscript
Dr. Jannine Krause's Healthy Travel Kit will help keep your immune system strong while traveling made possible by Fullscript
Thrive Market - Organic without overpaying - 30% off your first order + a free $60 gift

What You’ll Learn In This Episode:

  • Why having carbs is necessary if you’re more active and getting your heart rate up
  • How to fill the gaps in nutrition with fats 
  • Why less activity requres you to eat more fat and less carbs
  • Thinking of calories and protein as the king and queen of macros
  • Why itโ€™s important to adjust your diet over time when you find things arenโ€™t working
  • How habits, routines and behaviors need to match the person youโ€™re working to become to yield the body composition you desire
  • Why peanut butter is NOT a solid source of protein

Resources From The Show:

Our Partners

Try Troop Functional Mushrooms Today!  USE CODE HEALTHFIX20 to receive 20% discount
CO2LIFTVยฎ is a painless effective treatment that, with no downtime, addresses vaginal issues associated with aging, childbearing and/or stress.
Try FlexBeam, recharge energy, repair muscle, relieve pain and recover faster - Red Light Therapy
Try Lumen metabolism tracker.  See if you're burning carbs or fats

Podcast Transcript

TAGS:  Alternative Medicine, Chinese Medicine, Natural Medicine, Holistic Medicine,

2:55 – Adamโ€™s story

14:53 – food noise and macros

17:16 – The importance of micronutrients

19:04 – Quality of food

25:14 – What do you do the day following a bad food day?

31:08 – Fad diets

34:30 – Body composition vs body weight

40:28 – The power of the scale

45:34 – Itโ€™s all mindset, environments, routines and habits

56:37 – โ€œMastering Macrosโ€ freebie

102:42 – Where to find Adam

[INTRO] Welcome to The Health Fix Podcast, where health junkies get their weekly

fix of tips, tools, and techniques to have limitless energy, sharp minds, and fit

physiques for life.

Hey Health Junkies, on this episode of The Health Fix Podcast, I’m interviewing

Adam Ross. He is the founder and owner of AR Nutrition. He is a registered

dietitian and a sports nutritionist, and he has a unique approach because he comes

from Division 1 hockey and a professional hockey background.

So he definitely knows his athletes, but he also works with us every day folks as well.

And here’s the thing.

In this podcast, we go into some really cool stuff when it comes to macros, when it comes

to dialing in nutrition as you get older, thinking about your specific needs, depending

on your activity levels, and also if you have any deficiencies.

And so really, we talk about a personalized approach to nutrition because right now it’s

really popular all over social media to be like, “Follow this plan, follow that plan.”

But what we forget in this “Follow that plan” society is that these are things that worked for

other people. And if anything I found with my own experience personalized nutrition really is

the way to go. So not only does Adam own his own business, AR nutrition, he also is the head

dietitian for atria health and longevity clinic or Institute, pardon me, for health in New York

City. And boy, that place is impressive if you haven’t checked out atria Institute for Health

and Longevity, it’s impressive. They’ve got everything under one roof. So nevertheless,

while the SIN is podcast, I want you to think about how your nutritional needs

change as you get older. And we know we can’t eat what we use to in our 20s as we get older.

And that’s really something that we want to think about.

What are our needs now?

Yeah, you might see your body changing.

That’s because you have different needs.

Test, don’t guess.

Figure out what you need.

Work with someone that can help you dial it in.

Adam’s one of those folks.

I can’t say enough about him.

Love talking to him.

So now that the last let’s introduce you to Adam Ross.

JANNINE: Adam Ross.

Welcome to the health fix podcast.

ADAM: Thank you.

I appreciate having me on.

I’m really excited to be here for this one.

So yeah, it’s my pleasure.

JANNINE: We had such a great conversation when I was on your podcast

that I was like, we can’t not keep talking.

Like we’re gonna be friends now.

I’m just telling you, here we are.

So of course, being a nutritionist, a lot of folks are like,

okay, usually we go into careers

because we were struggling personally with something.

And being an athlete and a former professional hockey player,

you know, a lot of people think like,

oh athletes, they have a down, like look at their bodies.

They know what the heck to do.

as we mentioned before athletes are sometimes the biggest nightmares when it comes to eating.

But give us your story. Tell us a little bit about why nutrition and what did you find as an athlete

that you were struggling with along the way. 

ADAM:  Yeah, absolutely. So no athletics is exactly what

drove me down the path of nutrition. So do you want the long version or the short version of how

how this all started.

I guess I’ll try to find a middle ground, but yeah.

So like we were talking about before we pressed record here.

It was born and raised in Western Canada

in a town called Red Deer.

And in Red Deer, you play hockey or you do drugs.

Those are your two options in most cases.

You pick one in high school and you go that route.

So I went the hockey route.

Yeah, and I was just very lucky.

Like, you know, played hockey my whole life.

I was a big athlete, big sports kid.

like doing multiple various sports all throughout my life.

So it was always just very active, right?

And I was always kind of one of those people

who I was just doing enough that, you know,

I could eat whatever I wanted

and never really had to think too much about it.

You know, fast forward, I was lucky enough to get a scholarship

to go play Division I hockey in at a school

called Merrimack College in Massachusetts,

which is in hockey.

So we play Boston College, Boston University, Northeastern,

all the big schools with, you know,

some really big time players.

So I entered my first year there, really confident.

You know, just thought I was going to show up and be the guy

and got a rude awakening, right?

Like I quickly, and so just for some like little bit of background,

like I’m 6’4″, I went in there like 220, like I thought I was going to be like,

you know, just kind of dominating and whatever.

And it wasn’t the case, right?

So I really learned really quickly that I wasn’t in good enough shape.

I wasn’t able to compete at the level that I wanted to compete at.

and it just upset me.

So if you want to know, the actual tipping point

was Boston College has a guy named Nathan Gerby

who went on to play in the NHL.

And there’s a really great picture of him

because he’s about five foot three

and he’s standing besides the Daniel Chara

who’s like six foot eight.

So if you want to look that up,

but Nathan Gerby hit me so hard one time in a game

that I basically flew like halfway across the ice

and slammed into the boards.

And like I said, this guy’s an entire foot shorter than me.

And you know, it literally like,

I think like something kind of snapped inside me in that moment.

I was like, enough, like I’m not,

I will not let this happen to me ever again, right?

Like I was really disappointed with my year.

That was near the end of my first,

my freshman year in school.

So I really just made this decision like,

hey, like if I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do this right.

And then this is, you know,

where I start getting into nutrition.

So I had always been doing the training.

I’d always been doing the on ice work.

And I’m trying to think like, well, how can I get more fit?

How can I get more athletic, right?

One thing I had never really paid a lot of attention to

my diet. So I went back after that freshman year, went back home for the summer, you know,

got back into the gym and started just paying closer attention to my diet. And this was completely,

there was no strategy here. Like, I just figured, okay, fats probably make me fat. So I’ll eat less

fats. And you know, I like bagels and stuff. So I’ll eat more, you know, more of that and try to

eat more protein. And believe it or not, I made like a total transformation to my body. So like,

my body composition changed rapidly.

I put on a bunch of muscle, I got very lean.

I just saw this dramatic change in only three months

in the time between my freshman and sophomore year.

So this is where the light bulb went off for me.

It’s like, okay, there’s something here.

I really enjoyed just the feeling that I had.

So not only was my body composition changing,

I was feeling more athletic,

my energy levels were better, all of these things.

And from there, I just went down the rabbit hole.

So throughout the next three years of college,

I got more, you know, just more and more interested in it,

and, you know, took it even further.

And then I was lucky enough to sign a professional contract.

I played for, you know, never did make the NHL,

but I did play for farm teams of Pittsburgh Penguins

and Montreal Canadiens.

And then that’s actually where things took a downward slide,

right?

So I kind of took things so crazy

and so far with the nutrition and the training

that I completely ruined my athletic career, basically.

So I got to the point where I was just doing a lot of more like bro science.

I was reading bodybuilding.com.

You know, if you’re, if you’re an athlete, I will state this now.

Don’t follow bodybuilding nutrition advice.

There’s two very different things.

Um, you want to follow an athlete and get their advice from nutrition.

But, um, so that’s what I had done basically is I took it to these

extremes where I was training like crazy, like three hours a day in the gym.

And I was on the ice and, um, just going really hard with my training.

And then I had got into like this idea

that I should do a paleo diet,

but I was afraid to include the fats

that the paleo diet was recommending.

So I was essentially just eating protein

one sweet potato a day and a bunch of vegetables.

And it wasn’t enough from an energy standpoint, right?

So I started a breakdown.

I was getting weaker, slower.

I was very tired.

Definitely had some hormonal issues going on at one point.

And essentially just started to get a little bit,

some injuries and stuff stacking up

and kind of burnt out, right?

And after a couple of years of playing professional hockey,

I literally did kind of just burn myself out

and decided, you know, enough was enough.

And then that’s where the nutrition had kind of,

you know, at this point, it was so ingrained in me.

Like it’s the only thing I really wanted to do.

Like I just love nutrition.

I love training.

I love all of it.

And that kind of just, believe it or not, kind of took over.

Like I loved that more than I loved hockey almost at that point.

So, you know, naturally I’m like, all right,

well, I got to get into this field,

but I got a communication degree my first time through school at Merrimack.

So had to go back to school,

I enrolled here in Queens College in New York City.

They had a really good dietetics program,

so I got into their dietetics program.

I did my four years,

did my internship, became a registered dietician.

Essentially, the idea is that I made a lot of mistakes.

I’ve had to live and learn through a lot of this stuff.

I didn’t take a lot of advice,

or the advice that I was reading on the Internet

just wasn’t the right advice for the situation I was in.

And now the goal is to help just kind of make this easier

for people.

I do think now with the amount of tens of thousands

of hours I’ve put in, I feel like I do have a pretty good

grasp and a pretty good understanding of nutrition

in a way where I can make it very simple for people

so that they can get a really nice result

without having to do all the stressing.

So that’s essentially kind of where we’re at now.

JANNINE: Yeah.

That’s huge, that’s huge, that’s huge.

Because I think a lot of people,

they are following random magazines, right?

Whether it’s T Nation, whether it’s most people on here

are women, so we’re gonna be talking about shape

and women’s health and whatnot.

And we’re not thinking about the fact

that they’re just spitting off general info

and it’s not tailored to us.

And one of the things that I really wanted

to kind of bring about was the athlete component.

We look at athletes, we think they’re super fit

like what happened to you, it wasn’t necessarily a case because, you know, farm teams and,

and, and HL’s we talked about don’t have the same level of nutritional backing, like,

like I’ve seen with the Seahawks and things of that nature. Like, so we’re, you know,

obviously not, that’s a very small, perfect signage of the population that’s going to

get to that level. But what I see is a lot of women, myself included, who were athletes,

like heavy athletes, pretty much most of their life and in high school, big time. And then

When we retire, whether we’re done after high school or whether we’re done after college or we get onto a team and then we’re done after that.

It seems like we tend to have the biggest struggles with nutrition.

Every single gal that I’ve had come into my office and I’m like, so did you play sports?

Yeah.

Did you eat whatever you wanted?

Yeah.

Now I can’t, you know, it seems to be a pattern and you said, yeah, you had seen that too.

ADAM: Yeah.

Absolutely. I think that’s like the biggest misconception is that people think that athletes

just have it all figured out, right? And in most cases, you know, as my experience as a

professional athlete, I’ve worked with a lot of professional athletes. I’ve worked as a dietitian

at the Division I collegiate level. Yeah, it’s probably, you know, couldn’t be further from the

truth, right? Like, I think a lot of athletes are just lucky, right? Like, we’re active enough,

We’re moving around enough, we’re gifted enough physically and genetically that you don’t have to

worry too much about it when you’re younger, but that’s kind of the reality of it, right?

Is it for most people, it’s going to end around age, whatever, 21, 22 years old, and then you get

this dramatic eye opener where it’s like, “Okay, now I’m working in a job and just a lot less

physically active and stuff like that.” So no, my experience is that the athletes really have

Some of the worst diets I’ve ever seen, you know, is just running off simple carbohydrates and sugar and not really paying any attention.

And then at some point, like you said, it works in the moment when you’re burning through a lot of energy.

And I would actually, I would challenge that.

And I would say, because this is what I, from my own experience, what I always talked to about people is that the way you feel now, you may have an entirely different gear that you don’t know exists.

So what you feel now is your normal, and it feels normal,

but it may not be, and it probably isn’t the best you can feel.

And when you start to make these adjustments,

and when you start to pay more attention

to the types of food and the quality of food

and the amount of nourishment and nutrients

that you’re getting from your food,

you’re going to find another gear,

and it’s gonna shock you, right?

So I think this is one thing for athletes

or just generally, you know, just active people

or even somebody that just wants to feel better, right?

is like really starting to pay closer attention

to the quality of the food and the actual nutrients

and nutrition that you’re getting from your food

is hugely important.

And yeah, athletes, you know, the thing is

you look at it now, a lot of these, it’s young people, right?

It’s like, I look at the NHL, it’s 18 year old kids

that get like plucked out of their house

and they give them a million dollars

and you know, you get put in a professional setting

and you’re, you need to kind of figure it out

for yourself and it’s not easy, right?

Like even I remember when I was, you know,

professional hockey player my first year,

I literally had, I would buy chicken from the store

and my roommate had bought like us one of those

five pound bags of rice and like threw it on the floor

in the kitchen and like I would just make rice

and chicken every day.

And then there was a point where I was like,

it was like around December around Christmas time.

I was like, oh my God, I was like,

I haven’t eaten a vegetable in like three months.

Like this is a problem.

And then so like I started to kind of queue in like, you know, a little bit, but this

is the thing, right?

It’s just kind of, you know, we’re kind of left to fend for ourselves in a lot of cases.

I know the programs are getting a lot better now and the nutrition is something that’s

being focused on a lot more.

But now I mean, from that athlete perspective, it’s a lot of it is just, you know, everybody’s

just kind of winging it and hoping it works.

JANNINE: Well, you know, I mean, chicken and rice sounds a lot better than my Twizzlers and Goldfish

crackers diet of college. So I’m like, hey, you were at least there were whole foods like

God, I don’t even know what’s in Twistlers. Like, can we know what’s in there? Do we know

what’s in Goldfish? Like, oh, God– 

ADAM: enough sugar to keep you going for a few hours. That’s it.

JANNINE: Oh, man. I mean, some of my and this is what happened in college, I started getting in

a running right and I started to do marathons and things of that nature. And I found that

Yeah, marathoners, ultra marathoners,

pure sugar, pure sugar diets.

And gosh, that’s where the twizzlers came from.

I’d have them stashed in my pocket eating twizzlers

because I didn’t like the goo and stuff, but twizzlers.

ADAM: Exactly.

JANNINE: So gross now.

Now, one thing you mentioned is like,

we have these extra gears, right?

Like, and we have no idea how good we can feel.

And most of my patients, you know,

when I first see people coming in,

they’ll be like, I’m tired, you know,

fatigues and number one thing I hear from so many people and gut issues are kind of second.

So I’m like, hmm, this is like two birds with one stone looking at food. And one of the things

that, you know, and guys, we have a freebie from Adam, it has to do with mastering your macros.

And we’ll get, we’ll put that in the podcast notes, but there’s so much controversy out there.

Macros, no macros, intuitive eating, do this, do that. To the point where I think, you know,

when someone coined the term food noise, I’m like, yeah, that is a perfect term for this.

But I have found that when I’ve gotten the best results, I did have to look at macros.

And we do have to think about that. So can you explain for folks, like, I think folks understand

that like fat protein carbs are your macros, but I don’t think we know like, how to utilize them

because what’ll often happen is folks will come into my practice and they’ll have this like generic

macro plan that someone gave them like or they found online. So yeah, let’s talk about how to

tweak your macros for you. Like how does that look? 

ADAM: Yeah, totally. So yeah, I will absolutely

I’ll get to that. But I think one thing I did want to just touch on that you mentioned, right,

is when people are coming from a position of exhaustion or they just don’t feel well, you know,

whatever, lethargic, all these things, the macros and the amount of calories, right? Like in some

cases, probably a lot of people have been under consuming for a large period of time because that’s

kind of the world we live in now, right, where it’s like a eat less, move more situation, and everybody’s

trying to just restrict, restrict, restrict and do more, do more, do more, and then you hit this

wall eventually, right? And then the other piece of that puzzle, and this is where I think, like you

said, with the gut health and the energy improvements and things like that, is going to be the food

quality. So beyond the macro nutrients, which we’ll talk about in a second, I am a huge believer in

And like macros are one piece of the puzzle.

They’re actually to me the easiest piece of the puzzle

because that’s just like, okay,

these are some numbers that we’re trying to hit.

And once you understand, okay,

I need to do six ounces of protein.

I need to do six ounces of some kind of a carbohydrate.

At that point, you’re pretty good there, right?

Like you can re-enact that as many times as you can.

But the food quality from an energy production standpoint

and a feeling and functioning better

is exactly where I start with people on that,

because I don’t think people understand

the level of importance that your micronutrients play.

So your vitamins, your minerals on your cellular health.

So like all of these vitamins and minerals affect the cell,

and the cell is what produces energy.

So it may sound confusing, but it’s literally just,

hey, we gotta have really high food quality.

And if we can put in more, like B vitamins and vitamin A

vitamin C in your minerals, your sodium, your potassium, your magnesium,

now your cells will produce energy at an improved rate.

And now, so all of this good stuff is happening on the inside,

which means it’s going to now start happening on the outside.

You’ll start to feel a lot better.

And the cool thing about that is that it doesn’t take, like fat loss might take

a month, right?

Energy improvements and feeling better can take two days because nutrients get

right into the system, right?

So it’s like, hey, if I eat, I don’t know, broccoli,

all of the nutrients in that broccoli,

it’s not taking a week for those to soak into your body.

It’s happening in a matter of minutes and hours

kind of thing, right?

So the coolest thing I always notice with people

is that when they start the nutrition program

and they’re all excited and we’re improving

the quality of their food,

what we’re actually doing is increasing the nutrient density,

we’re increasing the amount of vitamins,

the amount of minerals, like for gut health,

there’ll be more fiber in the diet and all of these things.

they’re gonna contribute almost immediately

to how people feel, right?

So they’ll message me within a few days and go,

“Man, I feel amazing.

Like I have more energy.

I’m not waking up tired right now.

I’m not hitting that afternoon low.”

And it’s literally just a function of putting,

you know, the nutrients that the body needs essentially

to create energy on the outside.

So that’s a big one for people, right?

I think is like macros are awesome.

Macros are great.

I think they can take you where you need to go.

But the food quality for me is the huge piece of the puzzle

that’s gonna help with the functionality of it all

and make this a lot easier.

So I’m not just an, if it fits your macros guy,

I’m like macros are important,

but so is your micronetration.

Like your food quality has to be on point.

We’ve got to hit a certain level of vitamins and minerals

and all these things to make sure that you’re feeling

your best throughout this entire process, right?

‘Cause then it just makes everything easier.

All right, so then that kind of gets me into like the macronutrients, right?

So in terms of like the macros, like I said, you know, I think for most people, it’s nothing

crazy.

So in a lot of cases, people will think like I have to completely remove carbohydrates

or I need to be on a keto diet or, you know, I need to remove all animal proteins or something

and go vegan or this will never work, right?

And I think that’s to me is like a just a major fallacy.

So what I really try to have people understand is that it’s all about a dietary structure

and essentially your goals and your lifestyle are going to determine that structure.

So from a protein standpoint, I’m always going to err on the side of more protein rather than

less.

Every single, I’ve always been a protein guy, so I’ve never really had to go through this.

But every single person I work with that’s coming off a low protein diet says that they

feel amazing when they increase it.

protein is not your number one macronutrient that you’re going to rely on for energy. So I don’t

know exactly what the function of that is, but it’s just I’ve heard it so many times now that I

believe it, right? And then so what I like to recommend for people is about a gram per pound of,

you know, their body weight or ideal, I’d say 0.7 to 1 gram per pound of their body weight or

their ideal body weight, or if you’re on the heavier side and you are eating in a calorie deficit,

I like about a 35%. That seems to work out where it’s like still, you know, an adequate amount of

protein for people, right? And then carbohydrate is really the thing that’s going to be like,

I just call it like your fast fuel, right? So like anytime your heart rate is increasing,

the faster the heart rate’s going, the faster you need energy. And that’s where carbohydrates

come into play. So if you’re a more active person, or you’re looking to just have a little bit more

energy and stuff throughout the day and you are doing more moving around or some heavy

training or anything like that, I’m going to turn a little bit more to carbohydrate in a case like

that. So in that case, again, I’ll usually do things on a percentage base, but I’ll go about 35 to 40%

of the calorie intake coming from a higher quality carbohydrate. We want things that have fiber,

we want more complex carbs. I’m thinking fruit, I’m thinking brown rice, quinoa, lentils, beans,

sweet potatoes, things like that. And then fats, I typically fill the cracks with, right? So,

you know, if we’re doing, let’s say, 35%, you know, protein and let’s just call it 35%

carbohydrate, then obviously we’re going to have like about 30% of our diet coming from fats.

And I think the big thing for that is, you know, for you being, you know, someone who focuses on

hormones, we got to make sure that we’re obviously taking care of the ability for fats to contribute

to hormonal production, that’s the big one, right? So I would never have anybody go lower than like

20% of their diet from fats. And then anywhere from, you know, 22 again, 35 depending on their

activity level. So if they’re super like low activity, probably give them more fat and less

carbohydrate, if they’re very high in activity, but we’re trying to manage body composition,

we would actually leverage more carbohydrate in that, in that like situation or scenario.

And then your fats would probably be a little bit lower because they’re more of just an at rest fuel

and they’re just going to be more related to your hormonal balance and nutrition at that point

too. You’ll get some fat soluble vitamins and stuff from there. So I don’t know if that answers

your help to answer your question. But– 

JANNINE: yeah. Oh, it totally does. You gave us a good idea

like to think about. But one thing too that I want to highlight that you mentioned was

shifting the macro intake based on what you’re doing,

activity.

‘Cause I think a lot of people just,

and I had just called myself out,

like I had lower protein on leg day,

and I’m like, what in the world was I thinking, right?

Like, how did that happen?

But these are things like real life,

like this happens, and sometimes we miss it,

that’s why it’s good to have a coach, right?

But at the same time, we have to be accounting

for the fact that like, say you went out

and you went on a hike for like four hours one day.

you wouldn’t want to eat the same that day

compared to the day that you were like,

just going to sit around and chill all day kind of thing.

ADAM: 100%.

Yeah, and I think that’s the big thing, right?

Like we were talking a little bit about the ratios

and I do think that they’re super important.

So, yeah, the more active person, absolutely,

I hate to use the term like earn your carbs,

but like you kind of do, right?

Like I’m never going to completely pull carbs away

from people, but more active people,

you’re going to be burning through a lot more energy and it’s going to probably come

more from carbohydrate.

So we are going to have a little bit more leeway there, right?

If you have days where you’re less active and you’re just, you know, it’s a crazy workday

and you wake up first thing in the morning, you know, you’re going to be sedentary.

You know, you probably don’t have as great of a need for carbohydrate in those situations.

So you know, on those days, maybe we don’t prioritize it as much and we can prioritize

a little bit more, you know, all like, to me, it’s calories and protein or the king and

queen or the one in one A of the situation, we always need to have our calories at the

level that we want them for whatever the particular goal is.

We always want to have that high protein intake at about 0.701 gram per pound.

And then from there, the carbs and the fats can be really variable, just depending on

what’s going on or your preferences too.

Like, I really, you know, preferences are a big piece of the puzzle as well.

So, you know, if you prefer a higher fat diet, then go for it, right?

if you prefer for a, I’m more of a carb eater,

like I like to have my carbs.

So I keep my fats more moderate and you know,

it helps me keep my calories in alignment

and I can still eat high protein

and we’re good to go, you know?

JANNINE:  Makes sense, makes sense.

Now, I wanna get your take on like myth, reality,

where do you stand on this one?

So say you had a day, maybe you had the pizza,

maybe you had the nachos,

maybe there was just a whole bunch of snacks, right?

Like a lot of carbs, I’ll call it a carb-load day

and it was just because it was a party or, you know,

the day just went to crap, you know, whatever it was.

A lot of folks have been trained to the next day,

no carbs, cut them all out and like basically starve yourself

or fast, that’s another thing that I’ve been hearing

and trained in some cases.

What’s your take on like, if you blew the day before,

what do you do the next day?

ADAM: Yeah, so I am, believe it, like I used to be that guy.

100%. I won’t lie to you, right? Like back when I had really kind of screwed myself up,

like that’s kind of how it went, right? There was a lot of highs and lows and ups and downs and

whatever with food. And a lot of guilt around. Yeah, you had a bad day. So now the next day,

it was like extra time on the treadmill and extra time in the gym and really trying to,

you know, micromanage your food intake. So I get it, right? But you know, again, like the more you

learn, knowledge of power in my opinion. So you start to realize that it’s just a game of averages.

For everybody, I always recommend it’s like, hey, it’s all about consistency over time. What you

did yesterday will make no difference if we just get back on the plan, get back on the program,

and we just get back to consistently eating an alignment with your goals and your dietary

structure that’s being recommended to you, right? So yeah, I wouldn’t recommend these drastic,

you know, kind of like peaks and valleys, highs and lows. I would say like, if you have a bad day,

you know, the day before you just over consume, I’ve got two ways of thinking about it. I like to

put a positive spin on it sometimes, where if it’s if it’s a one off and you had a party or you

just had a day where you’re just extra hungry, like some like sometimes one thing I’ve really

try to do more of now is listen to my body. Like if there’s a day where I’m just tired and I’m hungry,

like I’ll rest and I’ll sleep or I’ll rest and I’ll eat and I’ll and I’ll kick back in the next day

and feel great. Right. And I think like what happens a lot of times is we try to battle against

that range like, oh, I feel terrible. I’m low energy. I’m starving. But I got to stick to my 1500

calories. The macros say it. You know, I can’t I can’t do that. The plan today was to work out.

So you go, you have a half-assed shitty workout, and then you starve all day, and you’re kind of

teetering on the edge there of a disaster, and you never really get that recovery that your body’s

after, and then you get stuck in this cycle, right? And at some point, you’re just going to fall off

the rails, and you’re going to have that day anyway, right? Where you over-consume, or you just

lay around all day or whatever. So I do try to recommend paying more attention to the body,

and I’ll tell every person I work with. Like, if you felt like you needed the extra food, go for it,

and eat it, right? And then again, you know, we just get back on the on the tracks, we get back

on that consistent eating, and as long as you know, over the course of the week or the month or

whatever, the majority of your days, your calories are in alignment, you know, your your macronutrient

standard alignment with your goal, it’s not going to make an impact, right? So I’m more of like, yeah,

let’s play the averages, don’t beat yourself up over one day, hold yourself accountable and have

have a standards for yourself so that, you know, we can’t be having these days three

times a week or whatever because they’re going to start to stack up. So there is a point

in time where you have to start calling yourself right on your, on your, whatever your bullshit

or start to at least, hey, maybe I need to do something differently. Maybe I need to adjust

my plan because I’m feeling super low energy or I’m feeling beat up all the time. You know,

maybe you just do need more food or maybe we do need to manage your, your training load

a little bit differently or whatever, right? But yeah, so I’m more of like playing the

averages. And then from that fasting standpoint, you know, that’s one reason why I’ve actually

kind of gone away from recommending fasting to people in most cases, is that it’s really

a compensatory mechanism is what it becomes is that we don’t eat till one o’clock in the

afternoon. We have that salad with our grilled chicken or whatever and we keep it, you know,

real clean, you know, with air quotes for anybody who’s on the podcast listening, but keep it real clean, right?

Up until dinner time. And then it’s like, all right, after dinner, all bets are off. You eat a bunch of junk.

You eat a bunch of like just food that, you know, is not in alignment with your plan until 9, 10 o’clock at night.

You go to bed feeling gross, you wake up feeling gross. So you use that fasting the next day to kind of get things back on track.

and it becomes this repetitive cycle of I binge eat and over consume at night, I feel gross,

I sleep poorly, I wake up feeling gross, and then I wait till 1 p.m. again till I feel okay to eat

again, right? Like that’s not the cycle we want people to be in. So, you know, in these cases,

I’ve never really not seen it where, okay, if we can shift the food forward a little bit,

we can start to focus on the breakfast. It’s going to feel uncomfortable, obviously, at the beginning.

Nobody’s gonna want to overeat at night and then eat again the next day, but

You know if we can start to shift the the timing of those meals forward a little bit

It really helps with people’s hunger and satiety and cravings later at night

And then we kind of clear that up and people feel a lot better really quickly

JANNINE: You bring up a huge point the fasting thing and then feeling crap still like feeling like crap still next day next day because I mean a lot of the fasting

I don’t know where it’s coming from social media or where but I have a lot of people who are like I can eat whatever I want

in that timeframe and I’m like, how does that work?

Like, maybe it works for like a couple of months,

but I would figure it’s got a backfire at some point.

ADAM: Yeah, yeah.

And I can’t remember if we were talking about this

on my podcast as well,

but I think it’s like that with a lot of these,

like call it just fad diets, right?

Like a lot of people make changes

and feel really great at the beginning.

But it’s really important to always stay very mindful of what’s going on.

And like, like that’s the thing.

And it was like, okay, you felt great for a couple of months, but now

you’re extra hungry, you’re tired, your training is suffering because you’re

not eating for half of the day.

Maybe you’re training in the morning or something like that and then not eating.

You’re not getting any stronger or you’re not feeling great in the gym.

But we’re like stuck in this pattern of like, Oh, I, I do fasting, right?

But it’s not working anymore.

And a lot of times this will happen with like vegan, right?

It’s like people pull out the animal proteins and they feel amazing for the first little

while, but then some nutrient deficiency start to creep up and maybe you’re not as excited

about eating vegetables every meal and stuff anymore.

So your food becomes a little more processed and whatever.

And then again, we’re not feeling our best, but we’re now we’re kind of tied to that lifestyle.

So I think it’s really important to understand when something is no longer working for us

and be willing to make that adjustment, right?

I think there’s a lot of power and yeah, just just stay in mindful and staying kind of inquisitive and being very

Aware of like how your body’s feeling and functioning at all times and being being willing to try different things

I think that’s the the biggest thing I’ve learned over my court time here in the nutrition space is like

You’re probably not just gonna get it figured out and just run on autopilot for your entire life

Like you’re gonna there’s gonna be times where you have to try new things or you know

You have to be willing to think outside the box or do things a little bit differently and do some tests and see it’s like, okay,

this made me feel great. This didn’t, you know, I’ll do more of this and less of that.

And, you know, keep having an open mind and trying things along the way.

And that way you can create something that feels really comfortable and really good and gets you the result you want at the same time.

JANNINE: That makes, that makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of people are tied to the scale, unfortunately.

And, you know, kind of what you’re saying, trying new things, I think of it like when a plateau happens.

And someone’s not seen the scale moving.

That’s when we’ll try things.

But at the same time, thinking about, you know,

you can’t eat the same thing at 40 as you do at 60.

Like things shift, right?

And I think a lot of people aren’t realizing

that we’re in constant shift with our body.

So knowing more about it is important.

So I’m guessing you’ve probably seen some plateaus

along the way and people being very focused on weight.

ADAM: Yeah.

JANNINE: What’s your, what’s your go to?

What’s your like spiel?

So what’s, how do you work with those kinds of things?

[ADVERTISMENT] Hey, health junkies.

Struggling with sleep as a former insomniac, I can relate.

Devin Burke is a pal of mine.

He has the Sleep Science Academy.

He’s been on my podcast twice and we’ve talked a lot about how to work on sleep naturally,

without supplements, without medications.

Devin’s program really does work with you to help you understand what is going on in

your brain and body when it comes to sleep. And as a listener of the HealthFix podcast,

he’s given us a code for 10% off of his program, DRJ10. So if you’re interested, use that. I

highly recommend his program. So let’s get back to the podcast.

ADAM: Yeah, yeah, totally. No, I try to get people away from the scale as often as possible or

as quickly as possible, right? Like I totally understand, you know, if you’re one of those

people and you’re on the heavier side or whatever, like the weight is the easy thing

to focus on, right? Because it’s like, yeah, I mean, everybody’s telling you, your doctor’s telling

you it’s clear, like we get it, you need to lose 30 pounds or whatever, right? Like it’s, it’s clear.

But I think what people don’t understand is the relationship between weight and body composition

and how different that can be, right? So the thing that I’m always trying to get people to understand

is that body composition is what we want. Like when you look at whoever your favorite

Instagram influencer is, or like you mentioned, Shape Magazine, that lady on the front of Shape

Magazine, you look at her and every person says, “Man, if I just weighed 10 less pounds, I’d look

like that.” And the reality of it is that you wouldn’t. You could lose 10 pounds, you could lose 20

pounds and you wouldn’t look like that person because you would have to change your body composition

by a 10 to 20 pound swing. And that means increasing your amount of muscle mass or lean

mass and decreasing your amount of fat mass. So when you see the person that has that athletic,

muscular, lean, toned, you know, whatever, use whatever words you want, type of build,

it’s not that they weigh 120 pounds, right? It’s that they have a large amount of lean mass,

a large amount of muscle mass, and they have a low amount of body fat mass, right? So that’s

what the scale is not telling you. The scale will tell you if you have lost or gained weight,

it doesn’t tell you if that is losing or gaining muscle, it doesn’t tell you if that is losing or

gaining fat. And in a lot of cases, I’ve worked with, I’ve had a lot of experiences with this too,

where people will, you know, shift their body composition, right? So like one good story I have

is working with this lady, she was getting ready for a movie that she was going to be in. And she

She dropped a couple of pant sizes.

And so she was about to go to the store and buy new pants.

And she was texting me, she’s like,

“Oh, this is amazing.

“I’m going to buy new pants.

“I’m down two sizes that everything’s working so well.

“This is great.”

So she got all excited and then she hopped on the scale.

And then she was the same weight

as she had been when we started.

And she had a meltdown, right?

And she’s like, “I don’t understand this.

“Like I have to go buy new pants,

“but I’m not any lighter, what’s going on?”

I’m like, “Well, you’re eating more protein.

You’re training on a regular basis.

You’re building muscle, you’re dropping fat mass,

your body composition is changing.

And that’s what people can see, right?

I always say like, I’m like, you’re not walking out of the bathroom

in the morning with your scale number stamped on your forehead.

Nobody knows.

Like, but what you are walking out of your house is with a physical presence.

People can see what you look like.

And that is your composition.

That has nothing to do with your weight, right?

So that’s the, I think the big thing that I would love for everybody to focus more on.

And like I said, we’ve all been through these cycles.

Like I used to do it.

I used to go to the gym.

I used to hop on the scale before I did my workout.

And if it was at a number, I like to keep it around like 2/12.

If it was anywhere over 2/12, I was literally

doing extra time on that treadmill.

Like that was the first place I headed.

Now, I might be lucky if I get on a scale once or twice a year.

Like I look in the mirror.

That’s what I do.

I do the–

I check how I look.

I think about how I feel.

I think about how my clothes feel.

Am I able to wear the same pants every day for however many years I’ve had them?

Then great, right?

Am I happy with what I’m seeing in the mirror?

Then great.

I’m no longer concerned about the scale because it is not a great representation of the body

composition, right?

And how your muscle to fat mass ratio, right?

And then I think for people that are do need to lose weight, again, we get it.

you need to lose 30 pounds, you can get on that scale and stare at it as many times as you want.

You can get on it every day. And sometimes for people they like it as a way to manage progress

and keep themselves in check a little bit. But I think if we look less at those outcome-oriented

things like the scale, and we think more about the action-oriented goals of like, “Okay, I want

that scale to be down 30 pounds by the end of this year.” What the hell do I have to do? Because it’s

not getting on the scale and standing on it every morning, that’s not going to drop the weight,

right? What’s going to drop the weight? I need to eat healthier, I need to sleep better, I need to

exercise more or differently, I need to walk more, I need to manage my stress better, like all of

those things, those are the action oriented goals that you can actually rely on. And I can guarantee

you if you just put that scale aside for, you know, three months, got your sleep on point, got your

nutrition on point, got your training on point, got your stress management on point, you pull that

that scale back out, you’re probably going to like the result, right?

Um, or maybe at that point, there’s no need for the scale and you just,

you love the way you look, feel and function and you just keep rolling with it.

So that’s kind of the way I look at it, you know, or try to help have people

understand it.

JANNINE: Absolutely.

I kind of think the scale was created to keep women occupied.

I really do.

I really do.

Um, I hate the dang thing myself, you know, and, and, you know, as someone who

has struggled with their weight for probably most of their life, you know, it’s it is something

that and I’ve never been very overweight, but just let’s say composition change changes fast for me.

And it’s one of those things where it’s like, what the heck, you know, and I think for a lot of

women, it’s it is something that we see as we’re starting to to get older. And for a lot of people,

I think we get to a point where if we’ve been eating healthy and eating clean most of our life,

and then we start to see body composition changes, I think it really does throw

a lot of people for a very big loop or tail spin. Like, and I’m sure you’ve seen it too.

ADAM: Yeah, 100%. And I think that’s the thing, right? Where like, for whatever reason,

the scale really does have just like that power over your mind. And I don’t think it,

Like it’s not, it doesn’t matter who you are, right?

Like I have a funny story about that where one day, like I said,

I keep my weight pretty steady at like 212, right?

So one day I got on our bathroom scale and it said like 192.

And I was like, oh wow.

And I was like looking and mind you, like I wouldn’t even want to be 192.

I’d be like a stick figure if I, you know, I’d be way too skinny.

I was like looking in the mirror and I knew the scale was like broken or something, right?

But then I see the number and I see 192 and then I’m looking in the mirror at myself and like,

oh wow, like am I like, almost am I leaner? Like what’s going on? But meanwhile,

I know the scale is broken. So I’m like, yell to my wife, hey, can you grab like some new batteries

for the scale? I think this thing’s broken. So she grabs the new batteries, I put them in,

I step back on the scale on 212 again, and I’m like, ah, like I go back to like my plain old self,

right? But like, it’s, it’s the number. Like, I don’t know what it is, but it just does that to

to you. So even though like I knew the scale was broken and I knew I didn’t lose 20 pounds,

like meanwhile, like that would be a bad thing if I did. I think it still had that effect

on my, on my brain where like I was looking in the mirror with a different image of myself

as opposed to what I, how I saw myself at 212 as opposed to 192. So yeah, it’s, it’s tough,

right? And I think that’s why like I try to keep this whole experience as positive as

possible for myself being in it and for my clients being in it. Like I don’t love things that are

volatile like that. Like I like to just be like, all right, what can I do every day to do well?

Like let me focus on that, right? If I’m, if I’m, you know, I just want to put my, I don’t want

to put myself in the position to be like mentally in a bad place. Like I don’t want to feel bad

about my process, right? So I do think like that’s something where, you know, the less times we,

we focus on the outcomes and the more times we focus on the actions. The actions are exciting.

The actions promote more positives. The more of the actions I do, the more it gets me excited,

I’m doing a great job. I should do more of this as opposed to if I’m just getting on that scale

every day and it’s just counterproductive to my process, I don’t love it. And then with my role

that I’m working at this concierge health service, we have a lot of women in midlife going through

you know, whatever, menopause and things like that. And I think even now, like with the push for

like more training, more muscle mass, more protein, which is like big and just like the world of

longevity and health and that type of thing, like it’s hard to go from the world of like the 80s and

90s where everything was B as like tiny as you can possibly be. And you didn’t want to weigh

anything. You didn’t want to have muscle. You didn’t want to have like a, you know, a muscle

But now everything’s about having a big, whatever,

past, but it’s hard, right?

Like for, I had a discussion the other day

with a woman just leading into menopause

and she’s saying the same thing.

She’s like, I’ve been trying to be tiny my whole life

and now I’m eating more protein

and I’m focusing on weight training

and she’s doing all these incredible things

for her health, her bone mineral density, her longevity,

her strength, her ability to stay active

and with her kids, she has teenage kids

and they like to get out and do cool stuff.

So there’s all these improvements that it’s making,

but she’s having a really hard time

with like, well, my clothes fit a little bit differently.

I’m a little more muscular, right?

And it’s, so it is, it’s one of these things

that I think it’s a constant battle

and in the fitness and nutrition world,

I think like the whatever, call it dysmorphia

or whatever you wanna call it.

It’s just, I hate to say it’s kind of par for the course.

It’s kind of part of the game.

you know, and I think so many people deal with it.

And it’s one of those things where you, you know,

I think if you can understand, it’s like, yeah,

probably not gonna feel my best every day,

probably gonna feel fat some days,

probably gonna feel too skinny some days,

probably gonna whatever, you know,

go through the highs and lows,

you can kind of expect that.

And you can, again, you know,

kind of rationally try to fight back against it

where it’s like, yeah, okay, I don’t feel my best today,

but you know, what are all the positive things

that I’ve done for myself?

And you know, we, again, hang on those things

and hope to fight another day.

JANNINE: It’s true, it’s such a lake.

That’s why I don’t do weight loss per se.

In my office, I can’t.

It’s too much.

It’s too emotionally charged

and definitely with myself,

like having struggled for years on it.

I’m like, I’m not the person.

However, I do have the recommendations, right,

for the basics when it comes to hormones,

but other than that, like, yeah, not going there.

Now, we’ve kind of talked about the folks who are disciplined, you know,

and the folks who are really, you know, kind of dialed in things.

What do you think for, for folks who just can’t seem to get their

nutritional stuff on point?

What do you think the biggest barrier is?

Do you, do you, I don’t, I don’t think it’s knowledge.

I feel like it’s like consistency.

It’s prep.

There’s something there.

What do you think?

ADAM: Yeah.

Yeah.

To me, it’s all mindset.

And it’s all mindset,

and then it’s environments, routines, and habits.

Those are, I wouldn’t even touch food

until you got that stuff figured out.

And I see this, you know, even with people that I work with,

I get very frustrated sometimes.

I’m like, just stop going to Starbucks

and getting the 400 calorie latte

with like 60 grams of sugar and 60 grams of fat, like just stop it.

Like what is the, there’s no, there’s no hard thing here.

It is don’t go, right?

Like it kills me, right?

Um, but again, you, then you got to take that step back and you got to look at it

from the perspective of the person.

It’s like, okay, like they’ve been asked to stop.

They’ve told me they want to stop.

They know they need to stop, but they still keep going and they still keep

driving through that drive through or whatever it is.

So like what is it?

Right. And I think that’s when it comes down to the mindset. Like, do you believe that you have

what it takes to make the change? And unfortunately, in, you know, I mean, hey, like, let’s be realistic,

like the large majority of human beings in the United States are overweight or metabolically unhealthy,

right? They’ve tried, right? A lot of people like, you know, those stats are out there where it’s like,

hey, weight loss is not our problem. Weight loss maintenance is the problem, right? A lot of people

do diets, they lose the 10 pounds, they lose the 15 pounds or whatever. And then immediately

they gain it all back and maybe even more, right? So the weight loss is not specifically

the issue in a lot of cases for people. It’s the ability to maintain the weight loss that

they’ve created. And to me, that’s going to come down to, I do think like having the proper

plan and something that’s not just like a crash diet or whatever for a month or two,

obviously is a big piece of the puzzle, learning to create a lifestyle for yourself, right? That

that you actually feel like you can stick to long term is going to be a huge piece of it rather

than detox teas and you know whatever. But so that’s part of it. But I think the big thing for people

is like they’ve tried a lot, they’ve failed a lot. You know, and it get I’m sure it gets in

people’s heads, hey, can I actually do this, you know, am I actually worth it? And you know, do I

have what it takes? Like, there’s so much evidence on the flip side of like, yeah, no, like you’re

you’re just that person, you drive through the drive-through,

it’s whatever.

And I think, so the mindset really gets people.

So I really would kind of challenge people to like start,

like really you’ve got to mentally prepare yourself, right?

Like this is one thing I did when I started my business,

my coaching business is like,

I told myself my whole life, I hate money.

I want nothing to do with it.

I just want to like go about my business

and like I was uncomfortable asking people for money,

which is not good if you’re trying to start your own business.

you know, I wasn’t confident I never took a business class.

I don’t know what I’m doing.

I had all these reasons why I couldn’t succeed, right?

So like, and then I listened to enough self help stuff.

And I love, I actually love Jen Sincero.

She’s great.

So I listened to some of her books.

And I literally started to pep talk myself in my car

every morning.

Like you are, like you do deserve money

for what you’re doing.

You are good at what you do.

You like, you can figure this out.

You’re not an idiot.

Like you, you know, like whatever it is

I had to tell myself, but started to get my mind in the right place where I felt comfortable

acting in alignment with like who I’m trying to be.

Right?

So I think that’s big for people to start is like start creating a more positive process,

start telling yourself that you can do it, stop doubting yourself, stop going back on

your word.

Right?

And then so that’s the mindset piece.

And then it’s to me like environments habits routines.

Right?

So like it’s so routine for people just to drive through that Starbucks every morning.

So it’s literally not even a thought in people’s heads.

And it amazes me like when I,

’cause I interview a ton of people

about their nutrition all the time.

And I say like, well, what did you eat yesterday?

And they’re like, and they don’t know.

They’re like, I don’t really know.

I just state some stuff.

And it’s like, you’re just going through the day

and you’re just letting it kind of take you

like a bag in the wind, right?

And you’re just eating whatever comes in front of you

or hey, you know, I’m driving home,

I’m hungry, I see that sign for that, I don’t know,

whatever, McDonald’s over there.

It’s the closest thing to me, I’m hungry right now,

let me just stop, right?

So I do think like habits, routines and environments

are gonna be the biggest thing

that people can start to adjust, right?

So just start to be very aware of the habits that you have

or that you have created that aren’t in alignment

with who you’re trying to be or your health, your wellness,

your nutrition goals, whatever it is, right?

Those habits will be huge.

And then obviously like everything’s just routine and habits.

So like, is there a way we can adjust your routine

so that we create some new habits

that are gonna be more beneficial for you?

And then the environment comes into play, right?

So it’s like, hey, if I’m trying to lose 20 pounds,

but I go to Applebee’s every Friday night

and drink margaritas and have nachos with my friends,

like is that the best environment for me

to be putting myself in?

If I am, if I have a candy drawer full of chocolate

and Starburst and Twizzlers, like you said,

and Cheez-Its or whatever it was, or Goldfish,

is that an environment I wanna be in

that’s gonna promote my ability to eat healthier

and potentially lose weight?

Probably not, right?

Like we wanna adjust that environment somehow, right?

So those are the kind of the main things

I try to work on with people, where it’s like, yeah,

you need to have some faith in yourself,

you need to have the belief

that you can make these changes.

‘Cause once you believe it,

it’s a lot easier to act in alignment with it.

And then obviously then we start to get to work

on the routines and the habits that are affecting it

and then start thinking about,

okay, how can we create an environment

that’s more conducive to your success?

JANNINE: Absolutely agree.

I think so many people are on autopilot with food,

with driving through drive-thurs.

I mean, it’s just like their brains like,

just goes there, right?

don’t even have to think about it. They just drive right there. I mean, I know in the past,

like I’ve talked with patients like, yeah, I have no idea how I ended up in the drive-through.

I was just there. It’s like– 

ADAM:  it’s mindless, right? Yeah. And that’s the thing, right? Like,

kind of going back to like athletics. Like, there was not, and I’m sure you can think of this as well,

and anybody who’s ever played a sport, and this isn’t just for sports, but there was always a game

plan, right? Like I never, you never showed up to a game, not knowing who your opponent was and how

you were going to have some kind of a way to, you know, to win that game, right? So I think of,

you know, nutrition and just life in general as, you know, the same thing, like you’re not,

you’re not showing up to work most in most cases, which is zero idea of what you’re going to do.

And then just hoping that it kind of figures itself out, like you’re going to make some kind of a

a plan for the day, right?

Or, you know, people with kids,

they probably have to plan the hell out of their day, right?

Like, I’m sure I don’t have kids,

but like you probably got to have everything ducks in a row,

right?

But they don’t do that with food.

So to me, having a game plan,

it just gives you the opportunity to succeed.

If you don’t have a game plan,

then that’s when you literally just find yourself like,

oh my God, I don’t know, I was just in the drive-through

or like I was just, it was eight o’clock and I was starving.

And the only thing that was close by was this pizza place

or whatever, right?

Where like I’m big on the fact that like,

take some time, plan your day,

have a plan like in order, right?

Whether that’s you have meals prepped

or you know how you’re going to get meals.

You know that you’re gonna be out running around

with the kids all night,

but you know that there is a restaurant

down the street from the field

where you can order some kind of a decent meal

and bring that home after that long day or whatever, right?

Like that to me is enough to get it,

like to start creating positive changes, right?

So that’s my big thing is like,

and it doesn’t even have to be that you have,

you know, you spend every Sunday cooking

for the entire week and you have this fancy prepped meals

all sit stacked nicely in your fridge.

All you need to do is be one step ahead of yourself, right?

So like, you know, for me, I go into New York City

a few days a week for my job.

So it’s like, on the days I go to the city,

I either have a meal with me that I’m bringing.

And if I don’t, I know that there’s two places

on either end of the block where I can go get food.

So I’ll at least have thought that through.

And then I’m not just finding myself in the break room,

eating kind bars and nuts basically, right?

Or whatever, right?

So I think that’s the thing where people

don’t put enough attention and emphasis on

is the game plan, or they think that everything

has to be so planned to down to the last detail

that it sounds or it feels like too much

they don’t want to do it, right?

So my big thing is just, just stay a step ahead of yourself.

Just be a little bit proactive.

Just know that when you wake up in the morning,

you know what you’re going to do.

Know that when it comes to lunchtime,

you know what you’re going to have for lunch.

Know that you have a snack planned for 4 p.m.

and know that you have a thought process for dinner.

If you have those things in place, more often than not,

you’ll default to those things.

When you don’t have that plan in place,

you’re going to default to convenience.

and convenience is never typically the best thing.

So.

JANNINE: No, it never ends well.

I can tell how dialed in your nutrition is,

like, ’cause when your snacks are kind bars or nuts,

and you can’t think of anything,

like I’m like, yeah, you and I have dialed into that point.

‘Cause yeah, like I’m like nuts.

(laughs)

ADAM: Yeah, that’s it, you know, but yeah.

It’s a long process, but.

JANNINE: It comes to that, it’s okay if you’re part squirrel.

I’m looking for part squirrel friends.

But no, all joking aside, I mean, sometimes, you know,

we do dial ourselves into the point where, yeah,

when you start to get desperate,

it’s like your only thought is like nuts or something.

And especially when you eat clean enough,

but you guys, I don’t wanna turn it into all that.

‘Cause I do want people to think about

like making choices from where they’re at versus long, long term stuff.

So yeah, let’s, let’s talk about your freebie.

Let’s talk about that kind of stuff where folks can find you all of those things.

But like mastering your macros, we kind of talked about a lot of this today.

Is it kind of an extension that the freebie kind of extension of that?

Give us, give us a scoop.

ADAM: Yeah.

The, the mastering macros freebie is literally just kind of a, like a, I don’t

know, excellent.

I think the biggest thing people, like I think us in the nutrition space, macros is just a term that gets thrown around so much like we just feel like everybody should know.

Most people when they come to me have no idea what macronutrients are or they know that their proteins, carbs and fats, but they don’t know what proteins, carbs and fats are.

Like I’ll say, well, okay, well, what are your carbs and I’ll be like bread.

Okay, that’s one of them. But like what about the rest? I don’t really know. Right. What are your proteins peanut butter? No peanut butter is not a protein.

So we need to get that figured out, right?

So I think, again, to me knowledge is power.

So basically in that document,

all it is is just kind of a walk through on,

you know, what are the three macronutrients,

what are the foods that provide those three macronutrients

and how can you start to think about structuring a day,

you know, again, if we’re trying to be high protein

and we’re eating nuts all day long,

unfortunately, we’re gonna be getting

a very small amount of protein.

We’re getting a lot of fat

and even more carbohydrate than protein, right?

So protein is the last thing you’re actually getting

from your nuts and your peanut butter and stuff.

So that’s the big thing I want people to understand

is just kind of how to structure those macros.

And I also do have a, like, you know,

how I talk about the percentages and the ratios

and all that stuff that’s in there as well

for people just to grab and try to utilize.

So that’s a cool freebie.

And then also too, if people go into my Instagram,

like the link in the bio or whatever,

I have like a video where I literally walk people

through like what I think is the thing that’s kind of getting in their way in terms of like

people who are really trying to eat healthy, but feeling like they’re healthy eating still

isn’t, you know, doing what they’re, what it’s supposed to do. I kind of have like, again,

like X’s nose videos where I kind of walk through like, okay, here’s how we can structure a day

a little bit more accurately or a little bit more aligned with goals, right? So between those two

things, I think that’s a great place for people to start. 

JANNINE: Awesome. Yeah, I think it’s awesome to

hear that you walk people through it in the video to I think some, you know, freebies,

I think it’s great. I like the video too. So having the backup. So they’ve got the freebie on one

side and they can watch the video and have it all all there to put it right, right together. So

a freebie with a backup. 

ADAM: With a backup. Yeah. You know, the knowledge is a power. I want people

to have the knowledge. And then the coaching side of things is the support, the accountability,

the, the idea, you know, having that outsider’s perspective, bouncing things off. Hey, I’m,

I’m hungry today. I’m tired today. I don’t feel great. I’m whatever. I’m like, you know, like,

that’s where to me, the coach comes into play. So yeah, I’m really working on just like giving

away all the Xs and all the stuff for free. And then, you know, people can reach out like if

they desire basically. 

a Yeah. Well, I mean, I find it like this day and age where we’re looking at

children and teens and young adults having some serious struggles with their health and their weight,

Like if we can help mom and dad and the whole family with information and kind of get everybody

So huge. It’s so huge. I’m sure you found that like even with with coaching mom or dad

You’re probably seeing the family benefits too

ADAM: 100% yeah, it’s the coolest thing right like everything just works through osmosis, you know

And even with like family, I was I see this a lot too where there’s a lot of pushback at the beginning

“Oh, while you’re doing that, you’re not going to do this, you’re not going to whatever.”

And it’s like, I always say, like, Misery loves company, right? So you making those healthier

choices and doing the things that some of those family members know they should be doing,

but again, don’t have the structure in place to be able to do them. It makes them uncomfortable,

right? And then they’re going to try to drag you back into their situation just so that you guys

guys are on a level playing field, right?

So yeah, my, there’s a guy, one of my roommates and he used to always say, like,

man, come, come get pizza with me.

And I’d be like, no, I’m good.

Like I’ll just eat a rig of me.

He was like, man, come on.

Misery loves company.

I need someone to come with me to eat the pizza.

So I stole his line.

But so that’s where it’ll start.

They’ll, they’ll kind of get on your case.

They’ll try to bring you back into their world.

They’ll try to drag it back down.

But when you show that you’re committed and you stick to it and you’re making

great changes and they see the progress that you’re making, now they’re going to start asking

about it, right? And they’ll, wow, why are you doing that? Why are you eating this way? Like,

or the kids, right? Like at the beginning, oh, this is gross, this sucks. I don’t want to do this,

whatever. And then you stick with it, you show them that you’re, you know, you’re all in on it.

And then through osmosis, they start to kind of, you know, okay, why are we doing this? Why are we

doing that? Oh, I want to try that. I want to try this, right? And I think that’s one big thing is

like, again, this is not changes, not easy, right? There’s a million different reasons why it’s

it’s hard, whether it’s personal, it’s family, it’s relationships, it’s whatever. But I do think

in it’s always worth it, right? Like it’s never going to not be worth it to just whatever have

that mental clarity, that peace of mind, more energy, more vitality, look better, feel better,

whatever, right? So yeah, it’s tough. But I do think if people can kind of make that decision,

put the foot down and go all in on it. The benefits definitely outweigh any of the sacrifices

that you kind of got to make or the adjustments that you got to make.

JANNINE: I wholeheartedly agree. And I do think it is important for folks to have a coach at

least some time in their life to really master and have someone to be accountable to. Like

you were saying, you know, and just like I hadn’t mentioned even earlier, you know,

I was like, “Ah, man, I dropped my calories on my, like, you know, just dumb stuff that

like you know, but you need someone else to call you out on it.

Cause sometimes you just, you’re on autopilot and you didn’t catch it.”

So no, I, I think it’s absolutely valuable to have a coach and definitely just get

some insights because yeah, you can look at all of Adam’s freebies, but no one’s

going to catch you on like the glitches in the system.

So Adam, tell us where folks can find you.

on Instagram and your website and your podcast, because we got to definitely shout out for

all of those things.

ADAM: Amazing.

Yeah, thank you.

So the website is ARnutrition.net.

So just, yeah, ARnutrition all one word .net.

Instagram is where I really do the large majority of like any social media.

So that’s @nutritioncoach_Adam.

So nutrition coach all one word underscore Adam.

And those are basically the two best places to find me.

So the podcast, again, is the Achieve Results Nutrition and Wellness Podcast.

So that can be searched on any, I think, on all those major platforms.

So whether it’s Apple or Spotify or Google or whatever, it’s on all of it.

And yeah, if you go to the website, there’s also links to get to the podcast and stuff

there.

So ARnutrition.net or Nutrition Coach_Adam on Instagram, those are probably the two best

starting points to start getting some access to some of the stuff that I’ve got.

JANNINE: Good stuff here. Adam. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing all your insights. I sincerely appreciate it

ADAM: No, I appreciate your time. Dr. Krause. It’s a pleasure to be here and I really appreciate you having me on this is an awesome conversation

JANNINE: Good stuff

[Outro] Hey fellow health junkie. Thanks for listening to the health fix podcast if you enjoy tuning in

Please help support me to get the word out about the podcast

Subscribe, rate and review and just get that word out.

Thanks again for listening.

Jannine Krause

Get back to your wild, active, vibrant self

Let’s figure out what’s accelerating your aging process…

Related Episodes

Ep 506:Strengths Based Coaching to Boost Self Confidence and Resilience – With Lindsay Guest

Ep 505: The Epidemic of Building-Related Illness: Understanding the Impact of Our Environments on Health with Seth Jones

Ep 504: Why Inflammation and Oxidative Stress Are Better Measures of Cardiovascular Health Than Cholesterol – With Dr. Jack Wolfson

Ep 503: End Your Frustration With Incontinence, Prolapse, Bladder & Vaginal Issues With Shannon Keenan, Arnp & Kara Scanlan, Arnp