3 Thoughts

1. What Makes Us Screw Up On Our Diet?For many of us, not following through on our fitness goal isn’t a result of being starving, or being so depressed we eat a donut over the sink at midnight.It’s more subtle than that.

   We either fail to plan, and shrug when the only options are mac ‘n cheese & ice cream, OR, we find ourselves having the internal debate of “you did good, you deserve this. You already lost X lbs, you can have one little treat”

   This one is more subversive because it acts on our reward system and takes all the pride and enjoyment we’ve gotten from our hard work and dedication and turns that into a weapon of why we SHOULD cheat.

   My client Bryan noticed this once when he was at a party with friends. He had just gotten complimented on his new look (dopamine hit) and talked about where he saw himself with the current trajectory (talking about goals gives us similar feelings to accomplishing them)

   He then went on to eat like 4 hot dogs and a bunch of dessert.

   Don’t fall for this manipulation technique that your brain will play on you, especially if you’re going to parties where you’ll see a lot of people for the first time in a while.

2. How Much Protein do you Need On Keto?The Keto diet is a high fat, low carb diet that forces the body to run using ketones instead of glucose.You basically need to get your body to burn off the glycogen stores and start producing ketones by eating less than 30-50g of carbs per day.

   Most people on keto will eat roughly 25% protein, but I read some research showing that even less could be better for getting into ketosis.

   I checked my ketones every day for 30 days and the strips never registered that I was higher that “small” (scale was: trace, small, medium large, largest). I think this is because I was eating 25-30% protein.

   The reason for this is that some amino acids are glucogenic amino acids, which mean they are easier to convert to glucose in the body, which keeps you from fully transitioning.

   In case you were wondering, those amino acids are alanine or glutamine.
   

3. What’s the Best Leg Exercise?Many people claim that squats or deadlifts are “king” of lower body exercises, or of workouts in general.I disagree.

   Most people don’t have the ability to build up to a heavy squat AS WELL AS the ability to recover from it on a regular basis.

   Which means you’re either not doing them, or you’re constantly in recovery mode and not getting better.

   <Enter the Bulgarians>

   A Bulgarian Split Squat (rear foot elevated on a bench) is superior.

   You get:
   – A deep quad stretch of the back leg
   -a deep glute stretch of the front leg
   – ankle and knee stability
   -a focus on the lowest quad muscle, the VMO (which you can see if your shorts are short enough)
   -A move that mimics running and sprinting mechanics to a certain degree.
   -less shearing force on the low back
   -the ability to say you do exercises from off the eastern bloc

2 Resources

1. Should You Try the Carnivore Diet?This week on the Low Carb Hustle Podcast I get a chance to interview Danny Vega to hear his take on going Carnivore, including an interesting take on plants. Check it out!
2. 2 Secret Techniques to Get More Done in Less Time in the Gym.Try these out instead of skipping your workout.

1 Question

What’s the right attitude to have when trying new diets and programs around? What are the questions we should ask?

I’ve gotten a bunch of questions about my last month of keto.

Most people have been supportive, but some people have said something to the extent of: “ugh, why are you doing a fad diet, you look fine”.

But I have always had a fun relationship with my diet because I don’t NEED it to bring me instant spectacular results.

Instead I am curious about what will happen if I follow it all the way.

This allows me to do hard things without cheating (although I wanted cereal pretty bad at night the last month).

I don’t want to tell you that this is the right move for you, but what I do know is that I’ve been able to maintain a healthy body for a long time because I bring curiosity to the table and ask things like:

• How is my energy?
• How do I wake up every morning?
• How do I feel after eating?
• What are my cravings like?
• Am I seeing movement in my weight, measurements, both?
• How is my performance in the gym compare to last time I did this exercise?

It’s so helpful for me to think of the answers as DATA rather than being GOOD vs BAD.

I’m curious what you think of this idea.

Well that’s it for me today hustle homie… I’m off to see if I can negotiate a toddler back into bed (she is seriously skilled…or relentless…) and then I have a few in person clients that I’m working with this morning!

I hope you have a really great day!

Nate

Keto Korner – finished with keto on Sunday. Can’t wait to record the new show about it. I’ll be reintroducing carbs in the form of fruit this week, then adding back in some starches in the PM while doing some carb backloading.

Have you ever transitioned from keto to a different diet? If so, how did you do it? 

One of my friends said she went from keto to pizza and ice cream and spent 24 hours on the toilet LOL