Ever feel lost in the sea of nutrition advice? Tired of starting and stopping diets? Ditch the diet! Learn why you need a nutrition baseline and how to build one. 

Your nutritional baseline is you secret to sustainable nutrition success. The key to sustainable progress isn't a quick fix, but a solid foundation. In this episode, we're diving into the concept of a nutrition baseline – your personal safe haven of healthy eating habits.

The Importance of Your Nutritional Baseline

This isn't about restrictive dieting; it's about establishing a consistent, enjoyable way of eating that supports your overall health and well-being. Think of it as your nutritional home base, a place you can always return to when life throws you off track. This episode will equip you with the tools to create your own personalized baseline, so you can finally achieve lasting results.

Your nutrition baseline is more than just a meal plan; it's a collection of consistent habits that make healthy eating second nature. It's the set of actions you can always fall back on, providing a sense of stability and direction.

This "safe zone" helps you maintain a healthy weight and body composition, not necessarily "shredded" but comfortable and thriving. It's the point where you feel good, energized, and in control of your food choices.

This baseline isn't about white-knuckle restriction, but rather about making consistently good choices. It minimizes processed foods, prioritizes whole, nutrient-dense options, and helps you avoid the common pitfalls that derail so many people. Think of it as your personal nutritional reset button.

Building Your Nutrition Baseline

A well-defined baseline includes a rough meal plan with similar foods for each meal. For example, you might have a go-to breakfast of 4 eggs with healthy carbs.

Lunch could be 6-8 ounces of lean meat with veggies and carbs, and dinner might be 10 ounces of lean protein with carbs, fats, and veggies. A typical day might also include snacks like Greek yogurt with blueberries.

Flexibility is key – you can add small additions like walnuts to your yogurt or swap out chicken for fish. The core principle is consistency with a foundation of whole, minimally processed foods.

The building blocks of your baseline include reliable protein sources like meat, eggs, and yogurt. Healthy carbohydrates like rice, oats, bread (whole grain when possible), and fruit are also essential.

Dialing In Your Nutrition Baseline

Don't forget plenty of fiber from veggies, legumes, chia seeds, and nuts. Start by focusing on protein intake, aiming for roughly 1 gram per pound of body weight as a general guideline.

For individuals who are older or female, a starting point of 12-15 calories per pound of body weight, with approximately 90 grams of protein (+/- 10 grams), can be a good starting point. The remaining calories can be allocated to carbohydrates.

Experiment to find whole foods you enjoy, focusing on 3-4 meals per day. A great strategy is to start with protein at each meal and build around it.

Visualize your plate: protein in the form of chicken breast, carbs from rice or sweet potatoes, and fiber/veggies from broccoli. Nuts can be added to bump up calories if needed.

This approach allows for easy mixing and matching. For example, chicken can be used in various dishes – Mexican, Asian, sandwiches, with rice or in a tortilla.

The goal isn't to follow the exact same recipes every day, but rather to have a flexible framework of nutritious foods that you enjoy and can easily adapt to your preferences and schedule.

Visualizing your macros can be helpful, but don't get too caught up in precise tracking – consistency with whole foods is the most important factor.

PS - IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN TAKING ONLINE COACHING FOR A TEST RUN, CHECK IT OUT HERE. 

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Prioritizing long-term fitness over short-term pleasures is the key to achieving your goals. Fitness can feel good, just adjust your time scale.

Feel Good Fitness: Prioritizing Long-Term Fitness over Short-Term Pleasures

Are you tired of starting over every Monday? Do you find yourself constantly battling between instant gratification and your long-term fitness goals? You're not alone! In this episode, we're diving deep into the psychology of prioritizing long-term fitness over short-term pleasures, and how to escape the gummy bear trap.

We've all been there: the siren call of the donut, the allure of skipping a workout, the "I deserve this" mentality that derails our progress. It's easy to fall into the trap of doing what we want right now, but what happens when those "right now" choices add up? Six months down the line, are you closer to or further from the body and health you truly desire?

This episode explores the crucial concept of the time domain in fitness. We often think about our goals in terms of what we want immediately, neglecting the bigger picture. We'll help you dissect your true desires, peeling back the layers of "I want a 6-pack" or "I want to weigh X" to uncover the deeper "I don't wants" – the feelings of bloat, guilt, low energy, and lack of capability that drive your long-term vision.

How to Prioritize Long-Term Fitness over Short-Term Pleasures

• The Gummy Bear Trap: What it is and how it sabotages your fitness goals. We'll explain how focusing on short-term pleasures can lead to long-term dissatisfaction.

• Identifying Your True "I Wants": It's more than just aesthetics. We'll guide you through a process of discovering the deeper motivations behind your fitness goals – the feelings of health, strength, confidence, and well-being you're truly seeking.

• Mastering the Time Domain: Learn how to shift your mindset from immediate gratification to long-term vision. We'll explore practical strategies for aligning your actions with your goals.

• The Power of "Peeling Back": Discover how to analyze your goals and understand the underlying "I don't wants" that are driving them.

• The MED (Minimum Effective Dose) for Long-Term Success: We'll discuss how you don't need to go to extremes to see results. Identify the key changes that will have the biggest impact on your fitness journey.

• Honing Your "Feel Good" Skills: Learn to recognize and appreciate the positive feelings associated with healthy behaviors. It's not just about white-knuckle discipline; it's about enjoying the process.

• The Importance of Self-Awareness: Pay attention to how your body feels after certain actions. Develop a deeper understanding of how your choices impact your well-being.

• Playing with the Time Domain: Experiment with different approaches and find what works best for you. Fitness is a journey, not a race.

Key Takeaways:

• Prioritizing long-term fitness over short-term pleasures requires a shift in mindset and a deep understanding of your true goals.

• It's not about deprivation; it's about making conscious choices that align with your vision.

• Small, consistent changes can lead to significant results over time.

• Self-awareness and the ability to recognize how you feel are crucial for long-term success.

PS - IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN TAKING ONLINE COACHING FOR A TEST RUN, CHECK IT OUT HERE. 

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Gain physical freedom through nutrition. Sustainable nutrition builds a foundation for health and physical freedom.

What is Physical Freedom?

Let's first consider financial freedom, a term often discussed. We define financial freedom as the ability to do what you want with your time. You achieve this because you have earned enough time (in the form of money) to be able to do what you want with your time.

Physical freedom is the ability to be able to do what you want with your body. You earn this through the discipline of healthy training and nutrition habits over time.

You can gain physical freedom through nutrition and exercise habits.

You build habits that support your goals. These habits become joyful. You have agency and the ability to influence your life. Things do not just happen to you. Sometimes things are outside your control (injuries and illnesses). Either way, you roll with the punches and control what you can.

Physical Freedom Through Nutrition: Body Image & Bad Goals

Many of us spend all or most of our lives walking around comparing ourselves to some image or celebrity. For many, that is Bradd Pitt in Fight Club.

Andrew actually experience 6-pack abs and extreme leanness in an environment he would never want to recreate, where he was training like crazy, had little freedom and was undereating.

Later, Andrew learned how to build sustainable habits that did not require extreme diets. He actually was able to enjoy the process and sustain that level of leanness. He had built habits that supported his goals. The Brad Pitt goal was a false idol.

Physical Freedom Through Nutrition: Love the Process

Learning to love the process really matters. Both Andrew and Niki have found themselves able to enjoy periods such as the holidays, where they kick back a bit, enjoy more alcohol, more desserts, but do not eat to physical discomfort.

Ironically, when Andrew had less healthy habits, he was more anxious about holiday periods, felt he could not enjoy them, but regularly ate until he was physically sick.

Approaching these periods with the long-term in mind, no anxiety, and knowing you can enjoy them but that includes enjoying yourself after the meal (not feeling sick) is sustainable and healthy.

Achieve physical freedom through nutrition.

PS - IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN TAKING ONLINE COACHING FOR A TEST RUN, CHECK IT OUT HERE. 

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The Beast over Burden podcast is beginning to come out in series as opposed to weekly. The first series will cover attaining physical freedom through nutrition. Frustrated with extreme diets, yo-yo-dieting, or nothing seeming to work? We'll help you find practical, sustainable nutrition strategies that help you reach your fitness & health goals. Stay tuned!

PS - IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN TAKING ONLINE COACHING FOR A TEST RUN, CHECK IT OUT HERE. 

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Do a diet reboot if you've slipped up and need to get back on track. These tips & tricks help you stop diet derails and help you stay on track.

Diet Reboot to Get Back on Track

It’s January 2nd (or maybe later). You pull the belt across you on the plane, you get into your pants, you look in the mirror…what the fluff!?

You may have eaten normally for most of the holiday period. For many people who find themselves gaining weight, it doesn’t come from the decisions they’re making for lunch on Wednesday, it’s the “abnormal” days.

Many who fail to lose fat do well on the week days but then overeat far too much on the weekends, negating any caloric deficit they may have created during the week.

During the holiday periods or similar times like vacations, “abnormal” days increase, further increasing the caloric surplus.

What can you do? Snap back to health by resetting your baseline.

Diet Reboot: Snap Back to Health

Before you begin addressing the problem, consider your approach. Don’t catastrophize.

This may be a long habit of unhealthy decisions that you’ve decided to stop, or you may generally feel pretty good about your nutrition habits and just need a quick course correction. Either way, don’t expect to fix this in a couple days.

For big changes, you need to think about 6 to 12 months.

When it comes to metrics, know yourself. For some, recording your weight each day will drive you crazy. For others, it’s useful information that helps inform their decisions without causing overreactions.

In terms of approaches, starving yourself is not a good approach. It may be useful, however, to have a short period where you’re strict with no alcohol, no added sugar, and focus on having as many single-ingredient foods as possible.

This resets your baseline and will, actually, have you feeling better after a couple days. You’ll find that the bloat is gone and you come to begin appreciating healthier foods.

Weighing and measuring for a period of time may also help. Why? Because it helps prevent a slide into hidden calories (“that’s close enough”). It also, if you have not done it, helps inform you of just how many calories peanut butter, whiskey, and cooking oils have.

Filling your plate with more veggies really helps too.

If your diet has derailed, don’t freak out, snap back to health with these strategies. Do a diet reboot!

PS - IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN TAKING ONLINE COACHING FOR A TEST RUN, CHECK IT OUT HERE. 

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If you travel regularly, you will have to continue to strength train as you travel. Learn fitness travel hacks in this ultimate guide to strength training while traveling.

Strength Training While Traveling: Why It Matters

Why train while traveling?

While, in part, it depends on how often you travel, your goals, the length of travel, and how consistent you are outside of travel. For those who are extremely consistent and rarely travel, it might make sense to take the week off.

If you travel for business, you need to train.

You will feel better if you train. The workout might not feel good, especially to start, but you will feel better afterwards. You might even feel better during the workout (e.g. initial warm ups feel terrible, then the heavier warm ups and work sets move well and feel good).

It also helps provide structure to your days, which on vacation can often lack structure. Additionally, it gives you some short amount of you time, and, importantly, healthy you time.

Strength Training While Traveling: Fitness Travel Hacks

Incorporate your gym seeking into your travel planning. Checkout the hotel gym and nearby gyms. You can often find a serviceable gym that has a guest policy. You might need to call the gym to check the visitor policy.

Pack and prioritize some equipment. Belts and other bulky items are not needed. Having a pair of shoes that you can both lift and do cardio with makes sense. You might pack some small things like liquid chalk, straps, or knee sleeves.

Plan your workout ahead of time. Intend to do at least something hard – get into that “worth it” zone.

Depending on the number of times you will train and decide whether you will do full body and a split. Fewer times means full body makes more sense.

Besides that, Niki and Andrew have some general tips and approaches they take:

• Mentally let go of the weight on the bar
• AMRAPs
• supersets (antagonistic or similar)
• burn out sets
• drop sets
• hard exercises that don’t require tons of weight (e.g. bulgarian split squats)
• bend these joints: knees, shoulders, elbows, hips

Try out these tips for training while traveling.

A couple links for helping you train while traveling can be found here & here.

PS - IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN TAKING ONLINE COACHING FOR A TEST RUN, CHECK IT OUT HERE. 

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Learn about helpful home gym equipment. This gear solves common problems or makes your lifting more fun, varied, or effective. 

Helpful Strength Equipment for Your Home Gym

You need a few items to begin strength training properly, though you can also start exercising today.

As you progress and build the habit of strength training (and simultaneously get older) some equipment can help solve common problems you will likely encounter.

Some of these items help add variety and make training more fun.

Other gear helps deal with common injuries or pain points.

Regardless, this list of items can help you build compliance and improve your training. If you use it, it is ultimately an investment in yourself and your health.

Accessories for Accessory Work

Accessory work can get repetitive if all you have is a barbell. A few pieces of equipment can multiply the potential hypertrophy and accessory work you can program.

Adjustable dumbbells allow you to add dumbbell variations and accessory lifts without taking up a ton of space (and saving money compared to a full set of dumbbells).

Not only can you perform dumbbell variations of the main lifts, you can also perform more accessory work that you simply cannot perform with barbells (e.g. dumbbell flies or lateral raises).

A similar example of helpful strength equipment is a pulley system. This enables lat pull downs as well as using the pulley system for hypertrophy work (triceps, biceps, etc.).

The last helpful items that focuses primarily on the upper body is getting a dip attachment to your power rack or an adjustable bench. They allow variation for pressing movements, and you can also perform accessory lifts on the bench.

Enabling lower body accessory work comes in handy as you become more advanced, as deadlifts and squats don’t only get repetitive but if you face a big injury, you might not be able to perform one or both of these lifts for awhile.

Some helpful strength equipment for this area are a reverse hyper, glute ham raise, or leg extension/leg curl attachment. Some of these take up a lot of space, but getting just one of them can provide additional leg stress and make a big difference in your lower body training.

Supplying Supplemental Lifts

This might be the widest area, as we’re talking about different types of barbells and other items that can modify the main lifts.

A deadlift bar can really help your deadlift 1RM, as it has a smaller diameter and more whip (which reduces the range of motion). An axle bar for the press or bench press reduces your ability to grip the bar but enables good pressing variants. It is also necessary if you’re considering Strong Man training.

Getting a slingshot or board attachment can help overload the bench and work on the top portion of your bench. The slingshot can also help if you have shoulder pain.

Bands and chains are helpful strength equipment that enables accommodating resistance.

The safety squat bar and football bar (and variations of both) not only add supplemental variations to the lifts but can also prevent pain for the shoulders and wrists specifically.

Convenience & Climate

The last area of helpful strength equipment includes items that add convenience to your lifting or improve the atmosphere of the gym.

The monolift attachment allows you to not have to take a step bar or move the bar from the pins to the shoulders on the bench. It provides the most benefit to the most people for the bench press, as many find it reduces or eliminates shoulder pain. Niki also uses it for the RDL.

A deadlift jack makes loading and unloading plates easier for any lift that has the barbell on the ground, especially the deadlift.

A 1-arm deadlift jack is smaller and more mobile – you can put it in your gym bag. A 2-arm deadlift jack makes more sense if you have a decent amount of space in your home gym or for public gyms.

Wrist wraps & lifting straps help with wrist support or grip support for compression or tension grips.

Ammonia or smelling salts help bring focus and intensity to big attempts.

Clothes help you feel and perform better. Clothes really are helpful strength equipment.

A timer or watch can ensure that you don’t waste time in the gym between sets and make the rest time consistent. This is especially important at a public gym or if you’re a coach, because the lifter isn’t paying you to tell them stories.

Last but probably not least for most people is something to help with climate control, specifically heating or cooling your gym.

PS - IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN TAKING ONLINE COACHING FOR A TEST RUN, CHECK IT OUT HERE. 

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The holiday season is coming up, and for many of us this is a time where we gain weight: whether we justify an unexpectedly large bulk or simply seem unable to avoid our weight inching up despite our best intentions. Learn some practical methods to achieving your goals and preventing or limiting holiday weight gain (or even enabling holiday weight loss).

The holidays present unique challenges: huge meals, home-baked desserts, calorically-dense food items, peer & family pressure, fond memories. We can enjoy the holidays while still moving toward our goals.

First, leave room in your food & training journal to assess why you deviated from your plan. This isn’t to judge yourself, but to build awareness. Were you hungry? Did you eat because you always eat at a certain time? Did you not want to disappoint someone? Did you mindlessly eat? Or, did you just really want that food item?

Approaching holiday meals and time periods with realistic plans. Fasting prior to a meal is likely unrealistic. Eating a protein-rich meal the day of a big meal that will have plenty of fat and carbohydrates, however, makes sense.

For the big meals themselves, have a plan to help you prevent or at least limit overeating. For example, fill your first plate with a normal amount of food. This may mean limiting the items you put on your plate. This may mean putting sample-size amounts on your plate. Then, when you’re done, wait 15 minutes before getting seconds.

For dessert, assess whether you’re hungry or not. Take a dessert home if you really want it--you don’t have to try every type of pie that meal or that day!

Finally, Niki & Gillian discuss the idea of “volume eaters” and “intensity eaters.” Though people may be some combination thereof, volume eaters tend to overeat through large quantities of food, whereas intensity eaters tend to overeat through calorically dense items (eggnog, anyone?).

Arm yourselves with the knowledge and tips to better battle the holidays!

PS - IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN TAKING ONLINE COACHING FOR A TEST RUN, CHECK IT OUT HERE. 

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Unleash your physical freedom. Reclaim your body and mind from bad habits, restrictive and narrow goals, and unrealistic expectations.

Thank You, Listeners (aka Beasts & Future Beasts)

Andrew and Niki are thankful for all that has happened in 2024.

Thank you to Stephan, the editor and podcast producer, who is a true expert and professional. You have no idea how much work he does!

Thank you to Dan, Paige, Daisy, Nick, Noah, and the whole team at Barbell Logic. We thank Ryan Matt Reynolds as well.

But most especially, thank you, listeners. You are beasts (or future beasts) and we could not do this without you. We've got exciting podcasts coming in 2025.

PS - IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN TAKING ONLINE COACHING FOR A TEST RUN, CHECK IT OUT HERE. 

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Unleash your physical freedom. Reclaim your body and mind from bad habits, restrictive and narrow goals, and unrealistic expectations.

Physical Freedom: Financial Freedom as an Analogy

The concept of financial freedom - no longer stressing about finances and not having to trade your time for things you do not wish to do - helps derive useful lessons for health and fitness.

Attaining financial freedom requires discipline. One must define and follow through with hard decisions over a long period of time.

This, though, is the path to freedom. Don't look for shortcuts. And, even if you somehow find yourself with a sudden pile of money, you will only use that money well if you have developed the habits ahead of time.

Physical Freedom: Bash Bad Habits

The first and most obvious steps you must take is to remove bad habits. You have trouble saying no to highly processed sugary foods. You overeat.

Do you feel free when you make these decisions that do not align with your stated goals? Of course not!

Freedom requires some discipline to build virtues (e.g. the virtue of temperance so you can willingly say no to the donuts).

Physical Freedom: Remove Restrictive Goals

Many of our coaches and clients have followed overly restrictive goals that they bought into. For example, you follow the dictum that physical strength is the most important thing in life.

When you follow this, you will sacrifice your health and get fat to pursue this goal. You will avoid activities you enjoy, such as skiing, swimming, hiking, because this will remove weight on the bar in your next session.

Unless you have a hyper-specific goal or truly believe such a restrictive goal is true, ditch this counterproductive dogma.

Physical Freedom: Own Your Choices

Here is another example. You are so concerned with leanness, that your plan (even if you have not said this explicitly) requires you to never eat your grandma's pie again.

Is this really sustainable? Can you avoid every holiday food for every meal forever? Are you really going to eat chicken breast and broccoli every meal.

When you have physical freedom, you can choose in indulge when appropriate, knowing you will not go off the rails and that you can make another choice to get leaner after a vacation or holiday period.

PS - IF YOU'RE INTERESTED IN TAKING ONLINE COACHING FOR A TEST RUN, CHECK IT OUT HERE. 

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Don't delay your fitness goals - do it now! Complete that rep or set, go for a walk, take your first step. Become the person you want to be.

Don't Delay Your Fitness Goals: Start Now!

Taking your first steps and the subsequent steps moves you closer to your goal. Too many people will "start tomorrow" or, once they begin, quit when it gets hard or when the initial motivation wears off.

This is not about a 4, 6, or 12-week diet or workout routine, it is about taking steps that become habits. Lean, strong people do certain things (and avoid certain things) regularly.

You will experience pain and anguish, but if you do not make the change you will still be stuck without your goals (and likely having slid further away from them) and experience pain. Think about people who seek comfort and avoid pain all their lives - does pain not creep up to them eventually?

Don't Delay Your Fitness Goals: Every Workout & Meal Matters!

Andrew shares a story of a workout he did not want to do and almost quit. He ended up turning on the camera, getting over his negative feelings, and the workout actually went pretty well.

Visualize the person you want to be and what that person would do. Alternatively, you may envision what your future looks like if you fail to make the changes you desire.

Don't delay your fitness goals! Start (or continue) today.

PS - If you're interested in taking online coaching with Barbell Logic for a test run, check it out here.

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