Tips for Plant Based Athletes | Steve Riddle, Head Coach of Team Riddlestruck

Welcome to the platform podcast where we talk to coaches, athletes, experts, and real people to learn about their approaches to training, nutrition, mindset, and much more. I'm your host, Jordan Kundeerite, founder and head coach of the Twin Cities Kettlebell Club. And I'm on a mission to help others build sustainable healthy lifestyles. This week, my guest is a return guest, Steve Riddle, the head coach of Team Riddle Struck in Canada. And I invited him on to promote his competition, the third annual Riddle Struck Kettlebell Sport Open, happening August 15th online by a Zoom or video submission with the possibility of borders opening up and being able to have an in person in Guelph, Ontario. But we still are not certain about that. So it will definitely be available online, and you should definitely register, follow the link in the episode notes. In the second half of the conversation, we actually dive into Steve's journey to becoming a plant-based athlete, as well as some of the misconceptions and mistakes that people make in converting to a plant-based diet, and his approach to nutrition coaching with his clients and athletes, and spoiler alert, he doesn't push people to be plant-based. I really hope you guys enjoy the conversation as much as I did, and if you need a competition to register for this summer, please register for the Riddle Struck Open. I am also incredibly grateful that you listened to this podcast, and the best way that you could support me would be to register for my competition, the Twin Cities Kettlebell Open, here on October 23rd in Little Canada, Minnesota. And maybe tell a friend or two, as well. Just go to our website, Twin Cities KettlebellClub.com for details. If you haven't already, be sure to leave a rating and review of the platform podcast in your app of choice, and support my work by supporting our sponsors whose affiliate links you'll find in the episode notes. And if you want to step onto the platform and compete in Kettlebell Sport, please reach out to me. I help athletes of all levels reach their goals without wasting time using my integrated online coaching approach. You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club, or email me at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club at gmail.com. Now let's step back onto the platform with Steve Riddle. I feel like this is important, so I'm going to say welcome into this week's episode of the platform podcast, and on this week's guest is a return guest. I have Steven Riddle, head coach of the team Riddle struck in Guelph, Ontario. I got it right this side. Nice, rocked it. And we've been, we've been, we've been nerd, we've been nerd, not a little bit on Star Wars, because to say that we're fans would be a mild understatement, I think. Very mild, yes. So, so my children, children who are six and five just recently started showing interest. Well, my son's been showing strong interest in Star Wars for a while, but my daughter was like not interested until she totally pulled psychological warfare the other night when it was like 830 at night, and she did not want to go to bed. And she was like, she was like, can we stay up later if we watch Star Wars? And like any good day, I would say, of course, I was like, okay, but only, but only for a little while. And so we got an hour into episode one, and then I made him stop, and I put him to bed and everything. And, you know, and now, and now today I was, I was talking with Steve, you know, offline that my kids, my kids have now they wanted to watch him in order, which, you know, spoiler alert, if you haven't watched the Star Wars movies by now, I don't care if I'm spoiling anything for now, because you've had plenty of time. But they escalate pretty quickly. They go to a dark place like very, very fast. And they wanted to watch him in order. So we watched episode one episode two is, you know, starts, it starts to be, you know, people turning to the dark side of an episode three, like there's massacres of children. People get burned, burned alive. Like it gets, it gets pretty scary towards the end. And I just, and it can go crazy. Yeah, I just realized this might not be the best. This might not be the best thing for my children to watch at this age, but they really wanted to watch it. And so I went with it. And surprisingly it went pretty well. But so you think episode two is the worst episode. Tell me why. I, so again, as Joanne says, I love Star Wars. I've loved Star Wars since I was like four years old. I was watching it as a kid myself. So I've grown up as Star Wars. Then watch it 100 to 100 times. And every single time I watch it, I still love it. So last year, I just joined the first COVID lockdown pandemic that we've talked about before. I actually watched all the Star Wars again and ranked them from one to 10. And I took, yeah, you know, it's very objective. And I wasn't going with like a preconceived motion. And during episode two, I almost fell asleep, which is like crazy to say you know Star Wars movie, but it was just really boring. Like the whole love with like Anakin and Padme and stuff. And it just was dragging. And I just find it so bad. Like I thought episode one, the whole jar jar Bing's thing that was going to like be the worst. And it was so bad. I got I got to say my son, like 30 minutes into episode one was like, I don't like that guy with the floppy ears. I was like, you're not alone kid. No, but I like that character. But I found like an episode one, like they did have some good battle scenes, like Darth Maul and like Quijon and like Obi-Wan, like it was it was cool stuff like that. Yeah. Darth Maul was the coolest bad guy and they gave us so little time. I know. And then they just ripped him away from us. I know. But thankfully, again, I know we also talked about spin off like the Clone Wars cartoon, at least like, again, spoilers and spoilers. But if you haven't watched it, you should because you get a lot more Darth Maul. And you get to see how really cool he is. So that was also cool to be able to watch. But yeah, so like I honestly like episode two was just really, really bad. It's just it's the one I don't think I could ever watch again. I'm like, and again, as a pair of myself have a seven year old seven half year old. And we started watching them now, but we watched a little differently. I wanted to enjoy it too. So we started with like the original episode four. So like started Christmas time working over. I was I was crying so hard to push him to episode four. But I'm also know like with the age. I'm like, gosh, if there's if it's not like entertaining for them early, like I'll lose them. And like episode four. It's good for us because it's nostalgic and what have you, but I didn't feel like it would hook them in right away. It's a little bit more story building and background. And I don't know. So I was just like, all right. They want to start in chronological order. We'll do it in chronological order. We'll follow the timeline. Yeah. Yeah. See, I didn't give my daughter the choice. So, but she liked it. She did four, five and six wasn't too scary with Darth Vader and all that stuff. And then we've done episode one. I was going to get back into it and get episode two gone. And yeah. So three. And then probably take a little break before I get her into like seven eight nine. Maybe get a little bit older because that gets a lit even darker and a little more intense. Yeah. It gets heavy for sure that I actually so I agree with you. I think episode two is of all of them. Like that was that was the one that was like the worst, especially as you compare it to the rest of the cannon. You're just like, this is so bad. It's so poorly written. And like, nah, we were talking like Natalie Portman's a good actress. She wouldn't forget Academy Award. Like she's not a bad actress. But she is brutal. Watch in that because she is trying so hard to bring something to a script that just doesn't have any meat to it. And then hey, and Christiansen is not a good actor. Like, he's great in the action scenes. I can understand a little bit why they cast him. They they wanted the physique and they wanted like the athleticism necessary to play like a young, you know, Anakin Skywalker and to do those battle scenes. God, is he just so bad at emotic. Well, he has anger and seething other than that. It's like, and then they probably, like, it's like a Romeo and Juliet type story that there's, it played the make and it just, it didn't come across well. It wasn't like the old school Romeo and it wasn't like new school Romeo, like Leo DiCaprio way when he did it. But it just was like somewhere in between it just, it didn't work for them. And it was just was, it was bad. Yeah. Okay. So we'll go the other direction. We'll turn it to a positive note. Best best episode of the cannon. What's the best movie of the cannon. I'll let you include Rogue One. I'll let you include any of the other ones. Like, what's the best. You've watched them all. You watch them all. What's the best one. I'm looking at my phone right now because I for my ranking Star Wars list. And I don't know, just give us the list. Then just give us the list. All right. So you got to start at the bottom. Start at the bottom. We got to do it. Build the drama. So number 10. No number 11. There's a lot because I did include Rogue One and solo story. Yes. My worst one as we want to episode two. Attack of the clones. The only like, and I put like my best part of that because there was a good part was actually finally seen Yoda in a light. Yoda was the coolest part of like that made the movie not be like throwing the garbage type. Never watch it. Like that would be the only thing good. Well, I made this window with this purple lightsaber. You get to see this. Number 10 was episode one. So again, Phantom Menace, if you're wondering, only good thing about that was like the Darth Maul Obi-Wan fight was really cool. Number nine solo story. I do like solo story. I think it gets a bad rap from a lot of people saying that was really bad. But I actually did enjoy it. I watched a lot of entertaining. I watched it a handful of times. Like I enjoyed. I didn't think it was bad. I like again. It was just so poorly done to that lead into a second one because again of the end with Darth Maul in it. Sorry from spot for these people. But whatever. It's been out for a while. They've been locked inside for 18 months. Like if you really want to be an opportunity. You could have watched it. Rise of Skywalker is number eight for me. It's okay. Episode three, Revenge of the Sith. What we were talking about is number seven. I actually like out of the first. So really, that was like by far the best one. Yeah, definitely dark, but good story. Good battle scenes. I don't want McGregor. Everyone McGregor like even even acting against Peyton Christiansen can still like he's just such a good actor like that scene. That scene where you can like feel his heartbreak when when you know and it kills him. Yeah, you can you can feel you can feel you can feel that like pain like he does a great job in that move. I love you, McGregor. But as Obi-Wan, he's awesome. Yes. And then I got return to the Jedi at number one, two top, the number five. Wow. Yeah. That's really war. That's really low for me, but okay. Return the giant. Like as I say, a lot of people don't like Return of the Jedi. Return of the Jedi either two two cheesiest, almost little soft storyline was okay. This is probably a lot of people won't like it either, but I have like Empire Strikes Back as four, which a lot of people again. I think Empire is the best of them. Well actually Rogue One is actually I think the one that's the best the best story I actually have. I have wrote I have wrote one at three and people will fight me on that too. Like there are people get so mad back that they don't think it's that good. I'm like, but name another movie that like and I think I tied it. It's 40 minutes is the last like fight scene. It's that long. It's 40 minutes in length. Like it's and ends with not just end, but ends with like being blown up, right? Which yeah, and then ends with like the coolest ending ever like Darth Vader being Darth Vader, kicking some ass. Yeah. Like that went out happy. That was like amazing. Like I love I thought Rogue One's really good too. And then I got four so weekends at two. And I got the nostalgic episode one is like my favorite. And I think again, episode four episode four. Sorry. Yeah. The first one that came out episode. Yeah. And there's a group I grew up with. I've seen it again. Hundreds and a hundred times. So it's like one of those like as I said earlier, I can watch that over and over again. And I still enjoy it. I still love it. It doesn't bore me at all. Yeah. So I think I get this. I mean, here's where you're wrong. You're wrong again. This is where we need to pull media. We need to pull Matt. We need to pull Matt in for for this part of the conversation. Follow follow up follow up blurb from Matt, a rebuttalist to why Steven's list is all wrong. Oh, yeah, for sure. I think he's an empire straights back for him. I think he likes that. I can see I can see why empire. I can see why empire gets gets gets so much love because it's I mean, there's a lot of drama to it. It's a and it's great. But that one's not number one for me just because like the end scene like Mark Hamill is just a little over the top with the acting on it. So I just like, I don't know, I had a little. It's hard. Like when I acting acting opposite someone in a mask is hard, right? Like you don't get to see any facial any facial expression, you know, so I think the force awakens is actually is severely underrated. I think you I think you actually have that one. Pretty high and I actually agree with that. I think I think so too, because again, a lot of people come force awakens like, oh, force awakens is just like a remake of a like episode four. And I'm like, okay, sure, but they're telling a different story, different characters. Like you have to develop it based on whatever you have. And I think at some point to anyone is like, no matter what they did, everyone always compares it to the original three. So they suck. They're not good, or they're remaking it. But I'm like, it's Star Wars. What do you expect? Light saber goals, stormtroopers? That's it. Like you're going to get. I had a, I had a creative writing professor in college that said something like there's, there's only been six stories ever written. They're just different characters into it. I think it's true. Like there's, like there's, there's no unique. So like there are plot points and there are certain formula. Like it's just a matter of character development and how you tell the story and, you know, all of all of those things. And like I thought force awakens is actually very, very enjoyable, very well done, well acted. I think Adam drivers really, really good as an actor too. I think he does. He's a good bad guy. I like. Which people don't like either, right? People think he's two. I think like in the, like the eight nine, I think people were like, oh, he ruined the movie. It's just like his acting per se or his character. Like the character development of him wasn't what they liked. He wasn't like a true, like, Sith Lord, blah, blah, blah. So that's how little criticize. Right. But again, it's like, those people who probably don't like Star Wars ways and are like, it just sucks. It sucks. You get the Trekkies, the Trekkies versus the Star Wars people of like, you know, I've got my good friend, Mike, who's a data scientist I work with. And he is a Star Trek guy through and he hates Star Wars. Like he will go. Like he went, we went to, we went to one of the, I can't even remember which one. We went to one of the one of the new ones. And he was like, I'm done. I'm done. I'm not going anymore. But he knew not like how excited I am about Star Wars. Like he got me into Star Trek. I'm not going to lie. Like he, he, he activated that late in nerdery. And me and now I, you know, I've, I've, I've definitely watched a lot of Star Trek. And I do really enjoy Star Trek. But he's like, he's like, Star Trek is so much better, so much more intelligent. Like, I'm like, dude, but Star Wars is more entertaining. It's just more fun. I'm like, I'm sorry. Star Trek tries to be like the smart, like they try to be like a smarter sci-fi type. I don't know. So, like they just come off like that way. Like, yeah, they're having on the science and Star Wars is heavier on the fiction. Like, I like to, I like the suspension of disbelief. I do like some of the elements of Taoism and Buddhism and things that are woven throughout. But that's a whole other, that's a whole other podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I didn't, I didn't ask you on just to wax nerdy about Star Wars. Like, I mean, we could do this for hours. But we'll tell, tell the people, why did I ask you on? I think you've got a little thing happening coming up in, in August, right? Yeah. So, give you a platform to advertise. I guess, yeah, roughly eight weeks from now. So give or take the putting on the days. August 14th and the 15th is a weekend. We are going to be hosting our third annual team riddle stuck team riddle struck kettlebell sport open. Like last year, more unlikely this one is going to be online as well. Endemic, all the other stuff stuff is opening up here in Ontario, which is great. But I've already got my face, I've already got my face paint in my bush suit. And I'm, I'm just, I'm Bobby Hicks and I are sneaking over the border man. We're coming in person. Where you might get it. I don't know. I mean, we were, we're going to travel soon. But legally or illegally, we're listed in person. There you go. We're going to figure out, we're going to figure out a way to get some people across the board. Now, now the Mounties are on to me. They're, they're, no, no, borders not opening. No, sorry, sorry, sorry, you got to go back where you came from. Having towards coffee, does that work? No way, sorry. So yeah, some 10 bits and I'll go back. Like give me a couple buckets of 10 bits and some coffee, then I'll go on my way. That's it. So yeah, so we're pretty stoked. It's an IKO event as well. So similar to yours, Denis Vasilev letting us, you know, be under his blanket of kettlebellks for competitions, which is awesome. So it's going to be our second time being through his event. So obviously, it will be ranked. And then obviously, I think what Dennis does is he collects points as well from all the competitions as well. So if you are in a team or even a track up person, you will be, your results will be sent to Dennis and he will put in his own like spreadsheets. Maybe if he does spreadsheets. I don't know if he's a spreadsheet guy. Like some people here. Well, yeah, I don't know if he's the one who doesn't or not, but I know someone does a spreadsheet. Somebody somebody somebody's got a spreadsheet, Italian points for the teams that enter. To the teams and then he's at the end of the year again, overall winners teams winners are announced. So it's pretty cool. Yeah, so in my Instagram account, Riddle struck fitness. There is a link to the registration form. And there's also another link for my PayPal account. So when you want to Two-step process sign up and then pay. And then you get to lift. It's pretty fun. And again, last year we had something like 46 bucks American to register. 46 bucks American. It's a steal. Talk to Jordan. He signed up last week, along with Bobby. He's as well. So low bros entered. Now they just got to get across the board to lift live. 46 dollars is pretty cheap these days to do relatively anything. And you get a really cool. I think we're going to do stickers. I might be waiting a cat on the bag. I've been convinced by Matt and Sarah that I need to do stickers this year. We didn't do stickers last year. Okay, we get stickers. Maybe some patches. And then we're also are doing another newer t-shirt design. I saw the t-shirt design. I just folded all of my I just folded all of my t-shirts. And I realized I have two types of t-shirts in my wardrobe. I have black kettlebell team t-shirts. And then I have t-shirts. I don't wear. I have just a stack of black of black kettlebell t-shirts that are either my t-shirts, your t-shirts, other teams t-shirts. And then there's like this other stack that are also kettlebell shirts, but they're like purple and orange and red and blue. And I'm like, I never wear. I never wear. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry to people that either I paid for some of those shirts, but to people that gave them to me, I'm sorry that I don't wear the other ones. Right. I got a warhorse. I got a warhorse kettlebell club one from from raywright that is like an olive green, which I do not look in olive green. Like if you want to see me look like a big fat olive, that's the shirt that I wear. That's awesome. But the shirt is a cool design. Who designed the shirt? Was that matter? Who did that logo? No, it was Eric, like a friend. It's Matt, Matt connection, Eric, Eric Lam, I almost hate last things, Lam. They designed it for us. No, he was actually connected with them recently on messenger. But yeah, they're the ones who were behind Eric Lam, shout out to them for doing our designs really nice. They created a good hookup on swag, man, you've got some really good nice. Okay. So yeah, they've created our logo. All of them, like, probably every single teacher we've done, they've always helped it. The real struck posters, all that stuff. Like we've gone to them to help get the bandanas that we have. I don't know if you saw like swans and mountain finnis. They've also done their swag this time around for like their last competition bands or bandanas or t-shirts. So yeah. So they make some really good stuff and awesome. Yeah. So like you're saying, too, like, when I look at my clock, my drawer, I got a lot of kettlebell shirts, and they say they're all black. And then we got, and then even some, I have some other same thing, like other kettlebell shirts that are just like, you know, like, my kids gone for like a birthday present on our Christmas. And you're like, I don't want to wear them to lift it, because they're like nicer shirts. So it's funny. It's funny that you say that because like, I, I sent, I sent you guys some of the, some of the, the kettle, three, 16 shirts, and you guys order, you guys ordered some of those, some of those shirts. And I love those shirts. And even Matt was like, God, you got the, he's like, he got the super nice tri blend. Like, this is so soft and buttery. And then I, like, and I was like, yeah, this is great. Like I love these shirts to wear around. And then I went and lifted it. And I was like, the tri blend sucks. And so I actually went, I'm actually doing samples to do cotton shirts. So I'm like, I'm going to have two versions on the, on the, on the, like a tri blend, a tri blend version for if you want to wear it around. And actually like 100% cotton version because, because when it, like, I'm so picky about my shirts. Now it's, it is ridiculous. How picky you get about your shirts. But like that's a critical piece of equipment when you're like, stop in your elbows on your body for jerk or for long cycle over. And over again, like, I'm so picky about my shirts. It's true. Oh, yeah, for sure. Any shirt, like, you got like any little bit of like sliding mode, you're like, the shirt's done. Like right away, you're like, nope, sorry, I can't do it. Well, then I've got here on my people can't see, but I'm showing, I'm showing Steve on my right arm. I've got a, I've got a little cherry on my, on my, on my, on our from from where the screen printing on a windy city kettlebell club that has the W on it that I've worn that shirt. That was my favorite jerk shirt. And it's become obvious because the screen printing is now, like, basically, the consistency of 60 grit sandpaper, because it's all broken apart. So like, I was doing, I was doing a lot, I was doing a long, a long jerk set. And I'll just a lot of jerk set. And by the end of it, like, my arm was literally bleeding. And because I had just a braze, I just so much abrasion on that, on that screen print to go for it. And I felt like such a baby, because I was like, I was like, Oh, that hurts. Oh, that hurts. But it's like, you're getting sweat in an abrasion wound over and over again. And then it's getting worse and worse and worse every single time. So I'm going to have to, like, cut the sleeves off that shirt and turn it into a snatch shirt, because it's getting retired from the, from the jerk collection now. So Exactly. You're a snatcher. You don't care really about shirts. You can just, yeah, whatever, you were a tank, you were a tank top. You were a gorilla suit. It doesn't, it doesn't matter. Yeah. You can snatch, you can snatch. Yeah. So you've also announced some of the cool, you've got some cool sponsorships. So let's give your sponsors a shout out what sponsors. Yes. So far, you know, got a few sponsors so far. I'll do a third one just because I haven't announced that, but just a cool sponsor now to, yes. Exclusive platform, podcast exclusive. So, yeah, our first sponsorship was, um, kettlebell, it's a pair. Oh, obviously, you know, numerous people in kettlebell sport, hard style. Everyone knows about kettle game, kettlebell games, a pair of guys make some really sweet t-shirts. I have a bunch like I'm wearing one of his shirts right now. Obviously, no one can see it. But like, the guy is designed. The guy's a genius in times like what he, he comes up with stuff really quickly. It's really prolific. He is. I remember I've been talking to him now for easily three. Alex, right? Yes. Yeah. I've, I've connected with him, but I've never, like, I actually invited him to come on the podcast. I hope he does. We were going to just haven't, haven't made it happen yet, but wait. Yeah, I've talked to him like three years ago. I think maybe a little bit longer when he first was really starting to come out stuff. I was, we connected. I started talking to him. The guy's super cool. Like, he sent me like six shirts for myself. Plus, he sent both my kids t-shirts. That's awesome. Damn. I'm like, and my kids still haven't. They love them. I think this is the coolest shirt ever. Like, yeah, kettlebell shirt, man. Like the coolest thing. So yeah, so we have a Wonder Woman kettlebell shirts for my daughter because she's all into Wonder Woman. I should get it. The Wonder Woman kettlebell shirt. So we have a, yeah, so kettlebell games apparel is a sponsor. Um, he's giving away $250 gift cards to be used on merchandise on his website. So nice. It's really cool. He did that. And you have a, you have a discount code for his website? No, I don't, but I think he, he was like just for in general. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't have one. Yeah, I should get one. You should get one. I was going to plug it. I was going to be like, we'll put it in. So no, it's no outs. Maybe I have to get out. So they're like, give me a discount code. Give Steve Riddle a discount code. No. So he's really cool. I say, he helped out a couple of years ago. And now he's honoring and he's doing it again for me. So I know I like it. So people look, get some free swag after a lift. And then the second one we got is Arsene from laboratory champions. laboratory of champions. The guy who makes probably the coolest shoes for lifting, like you send him in, you, you send him an idea. And it could be like the crappiest like cartoon drawing idea. And then he will make it look like a, like, Mona Lisa piece of art. Like, he will just take it. He's a craftsman. Like, for sure. He's like, this is what you want him. Like, that's even cool. I want it. But yeah, I'll take that. Yeah. Really cool. Like, so I got, so the cool thing too is, again, like four, three years ago, four years ago, maybe four years ago. It was funny because it actually just came up on like a group chat, like the YouTube videos that I sort of Josh. I was like, oh, hey, like, that's me in the back corner there, lifting in that competition. One of the prizes was like 50% off or something or free, sorry, free pair of varsity, like shoes from laboratory champions. Oh, that's awesome. So I was. So I was like, oh, free, like, I had to lift it. That's why you were looking at the floor. You were just visualizing the shoes. No, that was the first competition when I had like, like, prospect your Reebok lifting shoes on these. This was like, I was a little bit better by that second video that we saw. A little, not much, a little bit. Sorry. People have no idea what we're talking about. There's a video Steven Riddle on YouTube and his first character is first competition. He was snatching and he never looked up from the floor. Regardless of whether he was an overhead fixation or in the back swing, he was looking at the floor the whole time, which is, you know, seeing his technique now versus, you know, 2014, it makes you, you go, wow, he's, he's improved about seven years. And don't forget to say that, like, I was looking the ground and my feet, my feet did not move. Yeah, there was no foot pedaling. There was no foot pedaling. I am nothing. It was as mass-bores, I was grouped on the floor. And yeah, so I say, I ended up winning the event at the, the competition. So I'm like, I'm my first pair of his and I'm a big Superman guy as well besides that. I love Superman. So I was like, I want Superman shoes. Oh, man. So I was just like, hey, I'm like, I want Superman. Like, aren't you? Can I pay the extra two? I'm like, like, you know, choose these shoes. Can I pay the load? Actually, I'm like, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, oh, Superman. He's like, and like, within like two seconds, he's like, like this. And it was like a sample, I guess, another shoe he'd done. I was like, yeah, that sounds really cool. Perfect. Do it. So we got him. He's, he's contributing again. So 40, 40% off. 40% off for any of his shoes or the belt that he makes. Plus also this time around, he's offering 15% discount off any of his timers as well that he's is. So if you're looking to like, you know, if you have a, like a studio or gym, just looking to get your nose to the competition and actor and maybe you need some timers. Or yeah, or your hosting in the competition, October, and you need really nice timers, you may want to win this and then put that 15% towards the timer. So yeah. So who's who's all entered because I got to make sure I have a shot at actually winning this? We still have to pretty sure I don't have much of a chance at winning. But we still have to figure out which awards for what lifts go to who? Because we're still obviously collecting sponsorships. So obviously the laboratory champions one is going to be one of the bigger ones, right? Obviously based on the size of the prize. But yeah, for sure. You know, what's the third one? What's the new one? The new one right now is also local, not local, Canadian-based company, Ottawa, Laval area, Quebec, strong bar's nutrition. I don't know if you've ever heard of them. I have not, but that's okay. Strong bar's nutrition, delicious. So it's a small business. He's supported many Kedabal sporting events as well. And he helped support us last time as well. He is providing two gift cards to his website for $50 off his protein bars. And he's also going to provide me with 20% discount code to every single person who does enter our competition to order a product as well from his website. They're like all natural protein bars, gluten free, there's vegan ones, or plant-based options as well for everyone to enjoy. I've ordered numerous times for them. Eric Sainange is definitely ordered a lot as well. He's put some big orders in before and I've seen. But honestly, once you try them, you'll love them. I'm a big, I'm a big, like natural baked protein bars. I can't do the big supplement brand protein bars that are basically like just really terrible candy bars. I used to really like those, but I just can't anymore. I don't really do much artificial sweetener anymore. And I just really don't like it. Please have now. He put on something else. Okay. A little little interlude there with my daughter. Ask her a snack. That was awesome. Did you write it down? You're like reading a piece of paper? Yeah, she wrote it on a note because like I'll do it when I'm on work calls. She knows she can't interrupt a work call. So she like will just hand me a note. And we'll say like can we use the TV? Can I have a snack? You're like, yes, please, please. Yeah, it's cool. Do whatever you want. Yeah, the joys of the joys of parenting during a pandemic, my children have not been trained to hand the notes rather than interrupt Zoom calls, which is amazing. It's good. It's so good. I'm not sure but whatever. So okay, cool. So Power Bar Nutrition. So yeah, so those are three so far. Obviously, we're still reaching out to a few other sponsors hoping to get a few more to make it more enticing per se for people. But obviously, again, the biggest thing is just having another spot for people to lift have fun lifting. And like, yeah, like being on Zoom is probably not the most ideal thing. But, you know, you're in a half now and we're all probably getting used to a little bit. You're lucky. You're hosting your live and not even giving the people the option of like online. You're like in person. Sorry. Maybe we'll see. I'm still I'm still has I've had a lot of inquiries about online options. And I the answer has been I think I will accept video submissions. I'm still figuring that out. But I'm probably not going to live stream it because no, I don't want to do I don't have to go logistics of running my first live competition in person, as well as as the logistics of live streaming it. And having people with like, yeah, no, like, I just don't want to add that extra headache to it. Yeah, like I talked about it before. And I talked to other people about like, say, the nice thing with this whole pandemic is that again, it's created like video submissions or online submissions. So my whole thing would be like, yeah, going forward, doing like what you're doing, like, do like a day, like, say the Saturday, whereas like, this is going to be live in personally. Yeah. And then like, if you want to, like, edit, okay, on the Sunday, if you want to do like, live, but on zoom, we will schedule them. So you're like, you're splitting it up over two days. So you're like, like, like, the issue that you're saying you're running into. You're like, because that would be my thing. I don't want to be like, okay, at 10 and 10, 30, we have live lifts here. And then at 10, 45, I've got to switch my zoom to make sure I got Steve Virgil lifting his 20, and I'm like, no, it would be chaotic. Yeah, it'd be too much chaos. And then I'm trying to keep Sunday open. So in the event that that it is a larger number of lifters than than what I can handle in a day, that I have the option of making it byathlon on on Saturday and long cycle on Sunday. And we've split it into two days that that's still a, I was trying to keep that option on the table. So I'm thinking like, I'll accept video submissions up to like the Friday. And then I can have all of those, you know, or maybe the Thursday, because then I can have all of those watched and ranked. And then then we do the in-person competition. But video submissions can be part of the prize pool, because they've already submitted their, their, their, their, their competition sets. So. But anyways, this isn't about my competition. This is about your competition. This is about your competition. So my competition. What are you, what are you lifting for, for that? I'm probably going to do at 24 kilogram long cycle again. Nice. Go back down to like 24. So did 28 swansons, like a month or so ago. And now I'm going to drop it out with 24s. Just because like in the case of end, I do go to like the worlds, potentially in Budapest, Hungary in October as well. Yeah. So for team Canada and all that stuff representing them, I, I, I qualified to lifting 24 kilo like kilograms. So I'm going to drop back down just using that as like another training set. I'm contemplating as well, probably leading towards I'm going to lift probably at the one with the week before the one Dennis is promoting right now. Jot, the orange kettlebell one. Oh, yeah, John, John, John, John, John, John, John Buckley's place. Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah. I didn't know there was one that week the week before. Yeah, August. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. No, the Cali. Yeah. Yeah. The Cali open. Cali open. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I'm going to lift to that one as well. Just Dennis is helping me out. That's a lot of stuff. I was like, one extra week. You know, a lot of these people are lifting like, like, you know, some of the better lifters are lifting like every week almost it seems right. So I don't know how you guys do it. I really don't like I do triathlon. So it's a little different. But it's, you know, but, but even so, like, even before I was doing triathlon, like, I don't know how people can do like a 10 minute set one Saturday take and then, and then they take like two days off and then they're right back into the gym training again. And then they compete again on the next Saturday. Like I, like, I don't think I've ever done it. I don't have that recovery capacity. I don't know how the fuck you guys do it. I don't know either. I've never done it. Like I've like done a, like I've used it like, and again, just with like years gone past, like, you never like, again, like the last we talked about many times, like having the capabilities of doing online events is a good thing. But it's also nothing because it ruins. It can ruin your training. If you don't strategically look and say, okay, I want to do a B and C and let's leave it at that. Yeah. You look and go, I want you this one, I'm going to do this one. I want to do this one. I want to do this one. And then you're like, which we all ran into and you're like, man, it's like, I've done six, like six months in a row. It's lifted a competition. 10 minutes. And you're like, I'm great. And just you can't out. You can't peak your CNS, can't peak that many times. And I've had that conversation with a lot, with a lot of people, like, I don't have any problem with competing that regularly. Like that's actually part of the, uh, Sergey Merkelin, uh, you know, school, the St. Petersburg School from Merkelins, Merkelins camp is like, they have competition sets as part of their monthly training. Right. They, they, they compete every month because they want to train that muscle and they want it. But, but you're not going like, it's like somebody, I think in our group chat, actually, was talking about how Dennis, Dennis stepped on and did, uh, a jerk set and stopped at seven minutes and put them. But he went full on regular, you know, balls to the wall, full on jerk pace, seven minutes and just set them down. And people are like, I was like, well, he could, he could have finished the 10, but he just treats it as another training set, but it's a competition style training set, you know, and like that, that I get. But like, the people that can, like, just compete, like, five, six, seven, eight times a year and go just, and just produce, produce, produce, produce. I'm like, well, I am like, I want, like amazing, amazingly impressed at their capability. But two, like, the coach in me is like, what are they leaving on the table? Like, what would the results be if they, if they, limited it to like one competition of quarter and designed their macro cycle so that only one of those four competitions in the year was the one that they're peaking for, right? Where it's, you know, worlds or whatever, right? Like, if they, if they really did it and focused, like, man, I wonder, I wonder what people that do that could, could, could, could output because I just think you're, it's too much pressure to put on your CNS. It's, it's, it's hard to recover from that level of loading. And yeah, so expect best performance, I guess. As you say, like, for me, because like, for my, own, like, my competition, like, I could use the John Buckley one, the week for it. That's my 10 minutes set and like, go hard for that one. And then next week, just do like a five or six minute, kind of like what Dennis did, do five, six minutes at pace, maybe a little bit higher above pace to see how I feel to like, then go into like the next training, which won't be until I got to over. So like, it'll give me, and that's probably how we like, it'll be like competition competition back to back. And then it'll be nothing until October. So like, I'll give myself that time that I need to recover because yeah, like, like the first six months for me, I've done like, I think I've done four or five competitions, some five minutes, like, I was smart. I was going to go smart to myself. I only gave like, myself five minutes, says for a few of them, just because like, I don't want to like, say crush yourself. Yeah, you know, let's do a five it yourself. You can definitely get shiny object syndrome where you're like, oh, there's a competition next week. Oh, there's a competition next week. Oh, there's another competition and do we end like, because of like, say, the price is a really good price here. This is what, what's the big deal? Just throw my name into the hat type of thing. See how it goes and just lift, but yeah, I'm, I'm really excited that you guys, like, the timing works out really, really well for, at least for me and my team and for my competition because like, we were actually looking for like, okay, what's a like mid-summer competition that we want to, that we want to compete for? And I was like, looking at, I think Moses has one out in Vegas, like, that's at the end, at the end of August. You know, but I was like, I really want something either like late July or mid, like early, early to mid-August so that we can then have another 10 to 12 week cycle, right? So we can compete, go full out, set our baseline, know where our output is, and then have a full like three month mezzo cycle to then build off of that capacity. We've got a couple of weeks to recover. And then a 10, a 10 to eight week cycle to, to really hone in for what's coming in the, what's coming in the fall. So that's, that's my plan. I'm using, I'm using your comp to see, okay, where am I at? And then that, that's what sets realistic expectation for what can, what can be achieved, what can be achieved in October and we build the training cycle from there. So there you go. That's it. So it's a comp to about that. So Matt's made in heaven right there. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. So thanks for tuning into this episode of the platform podcast. We interrupt this interview to share some exciting updates about the prizes and sponsors for the first annual Twin Cities kettlebell open happening October 23rd, which we'll be hosting at the athlete lab here in Little Canada, Minnesota, in the heart of the Twin Cities. 27 degrees apparel is designing our event t-shirt and has given us a discount code TCKB10 for 10% off all of his apparel. She'd definitely check out especially the limited edition big Tim shirts, which are coming out to support my man Tim Boyer, who's lost almost a hundred pounds now. Those are only available for pre-order until May 20th. So again, I'm why you can. And as with all of the orders, $4 for every shirt that you purchase goes to support one of several mental health charities, which you can choose when you check out, which is really, really awesome. There's a list of charities that you can choose from to support with with your donation, which is fantastic. Also, Barefoot Athletics has gift certificates for six pairs of Ursus Barefoot training shoes, my personal favorite for snatch as well as deadlift and GPP. And as I've mentioned before, bellowed or by Dennis Vasilov has given us two belts to give away. Our friend Nikolai Puchlov from the Seattle kettlebell club is providing his new Made in the USA Pro kettlebells for competitors to try out and use on the platform if they choose, as well as support from Kasparin Nutrition and others. So if you have other ideas or connections to interested sponsors, please reach out to me. And please don't forget to register for the event on our website, Twinsidyskettlebellclub.com. And now let's get back into the interview. I did want to ask you because this is one of the things I told you this before we got on that we didn't get into before. And I got to applaud you, like most people that are vegan in my experience are like, let's you know within the first, you know, five minutes that they're vegan. So you get the like a cross fitter of vegan and whatever walk into a bar who tells you first or a Bitcoin trader who tells you first. So we didn't even get into nutrition on the first on the first podcast with you. And you are vegan. And plant bases how I like to call myself. Yes. Okay. I don't like. And again, I'll explain to you. I'm bad. Yeah, I'm bad with the verbs and the I'm bad with the with the appropriate labels. So you tell me you're you're plant based. What what does that mean? First of all, like I would say vegan people is more like I think there's some people like who can turn it up vegan. Those are like the people like know that they're shoes like yeah, it's more for ethical reasons, right? Exactly. Ethical purposes plus like they maybe help the more physical like they don't want anything to do with like any animal product. So like if you're really like hardcore vegan, like a whatever, even like wife, your kids, like your kids or like husband, they've been in like, you know, if you're a woman or a male, like you will not really let animal products come into your house. Plant based people more have generally is like more health reasons, right? Or they say it's healthier reasons. Like they yeah, maybe for the planet as well for say or like whatever they're not mutually exclusive, there can be ethical reasons to eat a plant. Exactly, right? So I just like to go by the name of plant based as well. So I use it because you're excited about your leather. You're excited about your leather or your new. Yeah, because I really like my shoes. Although he makes me can choose though. Like he makes me can choose. So shout out to our city. There you go. He has also probably he's a good businessman. He knows he's smart. So yeah, so I'm plant based. I keep like in my head before I end to where I'm gonna talk about. When was it that I stopped eating meat? And I was like, and then it's it was 2015. So it's been like it was it may first, I know it was May the first, but it's been it was 2015. So it's just over six years and like six years now that I literally went like say cold turkey. Like I just you didn't do it on May the fourth so we could just bring. No, I did not. I was like smart. I would have done it. But when I first like stop eating meat, it wasn't like, okay, this was going to be like my new life venture. It was like, I'll try it for a month. Yeah, see how see how I feel, right? Because I felt like a month would be like a good enough time frame for me to see how my body would adjust. Like if I fell strong, if like hungry, like whatever, right? Like my body would be the other adjust and I could tell if it was working or it wasn't working. I should change something. But like prior to it, like I'd actually done a lot of like research per se into switching from like meat eater to not eating meat anymore. Because I ate a lot of meat. Like chickens, turkeys, fish, eggs, cheese, like you name it. Like I ate it. So it wasn't like I was like slowly cutting myself off. It was like, all right, April 30th, I'm even like chicken for dinner. May the first comes like, okay, I'm not eating cold turkeys. Cold turkey. So at the time I was working at a studio in the like the couple the owners at the time, like they were dating. They were both plant-based as well. So I was like perfect. So I taught him. So like, you know, I was looking for a change in my nutrition. Like, you know, you know, you get a little bit tired of you and check in six days a week or fish or whatever, whatever. And I was like, oh, I was thinking about like that. I went to like trying like plant-based because like obviously you do it. He was in fit shape. He was strong. So I was like, okay, I can see that I was like, you're not having like like less muscle on your body because like you're not eating animal protein per se. So he gave me some really good advice and tips of like what to do and also like a lot of like the biggest mistakes that I say like people make when they stop eating meat. All right. Let's let's hear him. What are what are those? What are those? He's at the big and the state that people do is they don't at least they don't eat enough calories now because like they everyone always eats vegetables like say salads and potatoes and rice and whatever. But then like when they eliminate the meat part like the chicken breast mistakes, the beef, the ribs, whatever fish, they don't replace that portion with like enough calories enough protein. You go from a 600 calorie dinner to a 300 calorie dinner because you just don't know to eat 600 calories worth of just vegetables. Exactly right. So like you might incorporate some like tofu or beans of some sort, but you might not add enough. So all of a sudden you're always eating every single meal like you said four to 600 calorie meal is like 200 to 400. So you slowly start to like break your bite down. So you're not getting enough good quality nutrients in your body that all of a sudden like you're trying to work out. You're trying to do anything and your body just doesn't have the energy needed. So I took like that was it. I would just really randomly ask him a lot of questions like what was his main source of like protein? What did he like to use? So he liked a lot of beans. So like chickpeas, red kidney beans, black beans. So I was like okay. So I'll start lowering that. Like he did eat tofu too. I get to know a lot of people like I don't think any more people think that some people still do, but like tofu was bad for people because of soy. So I'm gonna riff on that for just a second. So there's one of the one of the prevalent food science scare tactics is that soy is estrogenic and you know and that and that it can cause if you eat too much soy, it's really bad for you and it causes your body to to produce estrogen. The problem with that is that it's an extrapolation of rat studies where they like hyperfed rats like a crazy amount of soy and if you extrapolated that out to the amount of soy that a human would need to consume. It's like an ungodly amount of of of soy and there's been a ton of research on it and it's basically been found to be a safe effective protein source for most people unless you have specific conditions like Hashimoto syndrome or other things where soy can be bad for autoimmune disorders or things like that. So like with anything with nutrition context is very important. It depends. We are not saying soy is good or bad. We're saying it may be good or bad for you but it is not universally bad that that much can be pretty roundly that can be pretty roundly rejected and you know don't believe don't believe the random person on Instagram telling you that soy is going to make you grow boobs or whatever you know. Yeah exactly so yeah so like again I started it. It went the first month. First month went really well. It felt good and energy was like as almost can be. Again now looking back six years ago I'm like I feel like oh dude you like how did you feel. I'm like I probably felt pretty good because I'm still doing it today so I don't think it was bad. I didn't wake up every morning being like oh my god I need to like to basically inject like coffee into my veins and get me moving or whatever. Did you have cravings though? Surprisingly no. I am surprised to hear that. Especially because if you knew me when I was like an 80s or like I'd be the guy it's like it's June right? It's June today. June that's a level of 12 to one. Yeah June 12. It's like 30 degrees here. Like I think I'll see him. Not fair it's pleasing. It's too below freezing here. It's about 90 degrees out there. It's like 80 degrees or so Fahrenheit right now here but like I would cook a turkey in the middle of summer. So like it's 80 85 degrees outside, sweltering heat and I'll have like my stove cranked for like four or five hours cooking a turkey. I'm smoking a six-bone beef short rib tomorrow and it's very good. There you go. I'm gonna be keeping a smoker at 285 degrees for six to eight hours tomorrow. In your house? Just outside. Yeah just outside. Yeah I'm still gonna be sitting next to a monitor in temperature when it's 80 degrees and it's gonna be you know so just be deaf. So I would cook a turkey. I would cook a turkey whenever. I used that like you open my freezer. There would be like two or three turkeys at all times. There was like half a dozen or so packs of chicken breasts, fish, turkey. Like you name it I had it. Like I used to consume it all the time and then so yeah the first month went by and I was like okay that felt good and then so I was like in the May now and then I was like okay summertime whatever. I was like maybe I'll try to get to like Thanksgiving. So Canadian Thanksgiving for the American folks listening is not October. It's like early October. So I'm like okay let's see if I can get to October because for Thanksgiving is like my wife's side like we have a really like they go all out like big family get together 15 people plug 15 20 people full to do. Right man doing it right. Doing it right. So I'm like if I can get to Thanksgiving and I can get past even Thanksgiving without eating I'm I'll be sat. I thought eating meat without eating meat without eating food. I'm eating food the whole time. I'm like I'll be good and I just kept going day by day by week and just going and momentum and then I got through it and I was like it was cool and like okay did you get any looks at family Thanksgiving when you're like no turkey for me thank you. I will take an extra an extra scoop of mashed potatoes and extra roll a couple extra pieces of corn. But that doesn't have butter in it or no butter. So the cool thing is like my wife my wife's side they're very they're cool like my parents are cool too like my I say everyone who probably gives me the most green for questions me about not eating meat is still my dad like he'll still be like why don't you just have a piece of chicken today Steve. I'm like because I don't want to daddy's like the why just have a piece of chicken I'm like that it's like six years like go on I'm like if I want to have chicken I'll have it but I don't feel like it today but like my wife's side like so we are we're on their her hand and uncles my like her cousin my wife's cousin like him and his partner they were vegan like full on vegan for like 11 years my wife's sister was vegan for like three or four years or so maybe longer so they they've experienced what it's like to not eat meat so when I told them I was doing it they're like okay that's cool they're like oh just make sure we cook it some like extra potatoes or extra vegetables and like extra like hey do you want me to give a portable mushroom like perfect that sounds great like I'll take two right no problem we'll have it for you so they they cater to me and they didn't care and like it's really not that hard I mean it's not and that's the other thing too is like when people are all like man I couldn't be vegan I can't I couldn't eat meat and I was like you're talking to a guy again I just told the story like I had all this food in my freezer all the time like I just went on an individual meal level it's not that hard to cater to somebody that is vegan but for me personally like I don't I don't know I first even going vegan then plant-based I was either than I love meat so to die again I don't know when I told you sorry but other before I stopped so Easter was early in 2050 and it was like Easter like early April I think was and I bought myself a 30 pound turkey that I full on cooked up and I knew I was I've already decided I was gonna stop eating meat on me the first so I was like man I cooked this thing up and it's like I have like a couple weeks to finish this turkey so literally for like 30 pounds of turkey into it pretty much like my my wife was like oh my gosh she's like another fucking turkey thief I'm like yeah she's like get it away from me I can't even look at it and my my my oldest was like two at the time so she wasn't even she wasn't eating much like she had a little bit of turkey but she was just like she wasn't eating like three pounds or two even putting in her share now that she was not pulling her way she was not pulling her way so I was like I just was like probably and people say that's probably what made you stop eating me it was like eating that 30 pound turkey for like 10 days in a row I'm like yeah probably I consumed so much turkey in that last time I was just like oh my god I'm like just get it away forever forever so yeah so it's it's been six years and I feel great I don't feel like I'm weaker I always get people sometimes even my brother and I was like man it's like you're strong now like what if you hate some like how much stronger could you be like I think people misunderstand what protein is used for and that like they're so protein health spilled muscle but one of the one of the biggest problems that people run into in in our sport or I will also say in CrossFit because it is a very very common in a lot of CrossFit boxes that especially 10 years ago it's less prevalent now but they were very strong on the paleo which is a lot of plant a lot of a lot of animal proteins and then very and then very little carbohydrates well yeah I thought kettlebell sport and CrossFit are very similar in the energy systems required to do them which it's a highly glycolytic sport which means you're over your anaerobic threshold usually for extended periods of time and you burn through a lot of glycogen you burn through a lot of blood sugar the only thing that replaces that is carbohydrates so a lot of people in this sport are actually carbohydrate deficient and if you're carbohydrate deficient doing a highly glycolytic sport for a long period of time what ends up happening is your body consumes a lot of your hormones and your hormones get really really wrecked and that's where you'll start seeing a menorrhea from women you'll start seeing hypothyroidism you'll start seeing like you know you put yourself in a you're in a severe caloric deficit for an extended period of time or if you're just not fueling your body properly for the type of training that you're doing for an extended period of time putting yourself under high load high levels of stress highly glycolytic sport where you're producing a lot of lactic acid a lot of lactate right and you're not replenishing that like bad things happen metabolic so like honestly like I can see where we're being plant-based you're probably going to get a lot more carbohydrates into your diet like what does your macros split look like now do you know I guess it's probably the first I don't really honestly like I say like when it comes to like I don't really I wouldn't say I know but I would say roughly probably it could be like 78 percent of my diet that's the number I had in my head was like between 16 80 percent probably depending on the day on how much yeah you get in exactly like they're obviously there are some days where you know you you have like again I'll say the like a beyond a good burger like a beyond meat burger or another like plant-based like like process burger it's going to be higher and fat or you have like plant-based sausages like you just make it taste good like the fat comes in and that's what gives it you just have something that's like processed and it's going to be a little bit higher and fat it'll have and that's how you're going to get more fat in the day but generally when I'm eating really healthy and like like which is like probably like most of the time for myself like during the week days I don't have like cheat days or cheat meals I just have food when I want to eat like that's my thing too is like I don't risk I don't ever restrict food from myself per se like besides like obviously not meat but yeah but within but within the framework you've chosen to eat you don't restrict your calories you listen to your body you eat what you want you eat what sounds good you eat as much as makes you feel full and then you stop and then you stop and then you that sounds like a really fucked up relationship with food Matt and like you're not you're not tracking everything to your body you're not you're not feeling dirty and shameful for having that that loaf of bread that Eric same on lovingly baked for you and dropped off oh bread which is so funny too I don't know people like so many people I'm like right tell my guy don't eat stuff they're like man I don't think I do because I just love bread so much I'm like you can eat bread most bread you're like hold on let me pull out this bag out I just have like you can have bread and they're like what I'm like yeah I go realistically 99% of the time the only bread that actually has like animal prod in it is gluten free bread and they use like egg whites because they need a binding because they don't need a binder to use the egg whites is that so that's the only bread I can have and half the time gluten free bread is really shit too it tastes like crap well gluten gluten is what gluten is the protein in wheat that gives bread it's elasticity and so like when you anytime you eat like a really crunchy or like pillowy bread or dough or whatever and you're like oh my god this is so like that's the gluten yes the it is the gluten is so good I just I just love bread so yeah like maybe if like all breads were like like plant-based I might not be plant-based because I just couldn't get about bread just kidding I just I do love bread I don't eat I yeah I have bread every now and take take us take us through what a typical day it looks like for you like because I don't think for for people that aren't that aren't plant-based like I can't I can't imagine what a normal like what's just a normal day of eating for you so I also I generally do a lot of intermittent fasting as well that's also part of my just it didn't start I was intermittent fasting I probably was doing intermittent fasting before it was cool just because like I would like from being a trainer and getting up like if I was driving like my first time at 6 a.m. getting up to like 435 o'clock I'm not hungry at 435 o'clock in the morning so I would get to work and then I'll send like your train like two or three clients in a row you got back to backs and before you know like you have an eaten and it's 11 o'clock and you've been up since yeah exactly and and you went to bed at like 10 and you ate something maybe 839 so you're 12 or 13 hours in a 12 hour intermittent fast before exactly right so before it was cool I was intermittent fasting a lot so then it's just always gone to me and I just kind of always done like when I get in the mornings because sometimes I get in the morning I'll train myself and then it's like I got my kids to get ready for school daycare my wife for for work so I'm just busy too so like even then I'm like oh my gosh I don't have time to eat so like I was I mean the car maybe but again at that time it could be like 9.9.30 I'd be enough I've worked out and I haven't eaten since like 9 o'clock so again it's like 12 hours so I generally have like and then during the days I especially in the summertime I'll pay this warmer I eat a lot of fruit like basically like bananas you know bananas making fat right yes the really high on the glycemic index they've been it if bananas are really fattening if you haven't seen Steven Riddle he is just a really fat pillowy person so if he saw Steve Riddle when he was like 20 you were correct I think I think you're you're probably walking around it you know 10 to 12 percent body fat like all the time now so clearly bananas don't make you fat no bananas we're being delicious so bananas sorry you eat a lot of fruit in the summertime and even in the like again in the winter time like I still eat fruit but because it's cold they're like I generally like it's not it's not it's not as fun to eat but like cold bananas or apples or grapes and they're more expensive and though like grapes especially bananas are good because their quality is lower and yeah exactly so usually have of a large smoothie of some sort one of two bananas and a smoothie plus like two or three cups of frozen fruit water crushed that down and then a few hours later more fruit workout if it's been after my workout depending what time it could be like now like in that afternoon I get another smoothie maybe a couple bananas together couple bananas watermelon apples berries whatever I can find I'll have that and then at dinner time I'll have like a just like my go to is like a stir fry some sort so it'll be like they're all always like potatoes broccoli carrots peppers and then whatever vegetables I have in the house and then usually I'll throw on at least a cup maybe a cup and have a certain type of beat I'm having so chickpeas red kidney beans that's a that's like I'm going the wrong way too but like dinner generally is my larger meal but again based on how I eat during the day I eat very like I eat calories but it's like low in fat like they're low calorie foods so like my body and because they're sugar and like fruits it's simple sugar so my body digest really fast yeah it goes through you pretty quickly it goes through me pretty quickly and then even still a dinner time but you're on a highly active job too like you're on your seat training people moving around like so your body needs that it's not okay I'm I'm walking like I walk like 10,000 steps by like new and every day type of thing right so it's not like I'm like oh my gosh I got to be careful because whatever so my last thing it depends context is important it is and it is diet is not for everyone no no be careful like I told that people always ask me what I eat and I'm like I'm gonna tell you when this works for me it may not work for you and it just has and that's why I tell people to it's like this just works for me really well and I feel good and another reason I tell you was depending on when I train I don't know how you I just don't like to feel full when I train if it's if it's within two hours of training it can't train nothing nothing nothing in my stomach like I'm such I'm such a baby about having food in my stomach like I've thrown up lifting me jerk before long cycle right and it's not not because it was like over like not because of lactate production but just because of like I have too much volume in my food or in my stomach and I've just been dropping weights on my belly over and over again and bending in half and all and then all of a sudden you're just like hmm yeah so because you're gonna throw up like you like that for myself on my training days depending on like I always try to stick the night before or the day of I always try to map out my day I'm like okay I look at like say because I'm holding my kid for school I'm like a map up okay your schedule is this okay I'm gonna try and I'm gonna lift it not I do a lot of like fasted lifts per se too or workouts just because again I can't I my body I have trained my body for years to lift or run or do whatever early in morning when I don't have any food in me I'll take like a pre-workout something just again get my give me some sort of caffeine boost like yeah all the yeah whatever to create but you intentionally eat a big meal the night before exactly so and which helps that's that's the fuel that your body is using especially when we're talking about carbohydrates fun fact carbohydrates take 24 to 36 hours to shuttle to glycogen stores in your body so the whole carboloding the day of a competition is not helping you but carboloding the day or two prior is helping you right or just continuously like you're doing because you because you you eat a lot more carbohydrates than the average person is because carbs are the devil and they make you fat or you know or they just or they just provide energy for people that are very very active and work very very hard right that's that's the thing and again so my it's really has helped me and so that's how we do it so then like there can be days like where I'm like okay I'm gonna train a like nine and then I'm like I don't want to eating and then all of a sudden like something happens don't get a train and then you're like oh okay once my next window and then you're okay oh now it's like this one or two then I'm like I have to eat something so like around 11-ish I'll have like maybe like like wanted to bananas something very light again that's easily digested that I know that I've done numerous times where like my body gets messed up because I mean like to bananas it's like a day like today like I've just been busy having stuff and then I'll say that's gonna train then we're like friends come over to the backyard and then I was like okay well now I'm not gonna have time to train but like even if like I do that and like I eat like say I have like slice of bread or oatmeal or peanut butter it's just like like I just know my body I'm like okay once I eat this food I'm like there is no train back you're not gonna train today and that's cool you have just train them off yeah that's it and then and that's how I just really that's why like my day in food eating like I never ever have a structured day of eating you don't have a really you don't have a standard day no and there's some days I can say like when I wake up or when I train I'm like I'm gonna eat this and then I get down stairs and I'm like oh no I'm actually really hungry I want to have like this so I'll have like maybe a bigger meal like after my workout which would be an afternoon and then my dinner will be lighter it'll just be like a salad with some vegetables and like some beans thrown on it and then I usually you like this I finished my night off like midnight mid and stack with volicereal yeah cereal first then the milk cereal first that's right cereal first Josh none of us are none of us are sake of path cereal killers that put their milk in first weird puts in their milk first who does the milk first so that makes sense so weird but yeah so like that's it like it's funny too is like you were like oh like isn't like eating like like plant-based boring and I'm like no because like I'm like isn't eating like chicken five days a week boring for you too right you have you're having like broccoli I have broccoli you're having potatoes I have potatoes the only thing I'm different is you're having like I'm having chickpeas and you're having chicken so it's like the only thing really different between our two meals is our protein source like your animal I'm not eating animals so it's like then people say they're like oh okay but like chicken is so delicious I'm like is it really because I've had again from like doing fitness competitions having really dry chickens with no socks nothing is not good yeah that's I think that's I think that's probably where I differ I'm like I'm like I'm like like just chicken who does that I'm like chicken steak lamb different kinds of fish they're like I'll venison elk who like I'll go go the whole gamut but you know I have but I did actually fun fact I did actually go I did actually uh go go vegetarian for a month in college my freshman year of college simply because somebody told me I couldn't they're like you couldn't you couldn't all the vegetarian for like that right let's go the problem for me uh or at least you know 18 year old me uh it was like I I quickly figured out like Doritos are vegetarian like you know like like oh it was dirty it was the it was like oh Twinkies are vegetarian too like oh this is easy like oh cheese piece it wasn't vegan it was but just vegetarian vegetarian right yeah yeah and I was like I was like oh cheese pizza is vegetarian like cheesy eggs are vegetarian cheese grits are cheese with everything it was not it was like cheese makes everything really good too so it's like I don't know if my my vegetable uh consumption went up at all but I made it the month and I was like now this sucks I don't like I was it was not I didn't I didn't feel any better because because I was eating I was eating cereal like tons of cereal oh yeah and you know like 20 pounds of cheese of your all the shit like just just terrible it was awful like I was I was the worst I was the worst least healthy vegetarian you've ever seen it was just you know but it's that but it fits the label so there you go I think I tried as well like way back in the day too when I was like 17 or 18 maybe 60 in a camera but I was like I'm gonna be vegetarian like this so when I still love the home my parents is that my toy mom she's like okay it like lasted a meal it's just like what am I gonna eat it she's like I don't know what are you gonna eat it like yeah okay then maybe not I'm gonna change my mind like no I'll take the the chicken like Chris and dad are having give me that too so it's like it was a short-lived adventure that way back obviously this time around I give you I gave you a shout out on Instagram today because because because like I you turned my head on the on the dry oats like I've never really thought about doing dry oats just like I do cereal like other cereal and like now that it's literally become my favorite breakfast where I just take like dry gluten-free rolled oats put them in with chia seeds frozen blueberries some some nuts some honey and like some high protein milk and I just stir that together let it sit for like five minutes just so the oats take on some a little bit of the moisture and soften just a little bit and then I just crush that and it's like become one of my favorite it's become one of my favorite breakfast now because it's like it's that two-minute breakfast right it's just like poured on a bowl and just right like super super easy so soon you'll just be using like spoons of like dry oats it like that's like the next level that's when did you decide to just do dry oats like a thoroughbred I think the dry oats start this was even like when I was like a mediator this would be I was doing so I've done like fitness competitions and shows like body building like you know walk around in a speedo whatever like super super tan tiny super tan I'm trying to look for photos of shows you guys I can't find any of them unfortunately I know I don't either my wife threw them out without me knowing or I threw them out because they're like whatever but like as you are well aware I when you're doing like a finish of the last like few days like you watered up to yourself and you up the carbs right so I was doing a show I'm like okay well like I can't drink water but I need to up my carbs like what's the easiest way that I can also track how many like cups or calories each thing was right so I was like okay well just like you know let's have like dry oats and I was like people like what's wrong with you I'm like this is the way I know I'm gonna get X amount of calories X amount of carbs there's no fat and I can't add water so like it was horrific to do especially when you're watered up at that time especially yeah because your body wants the water so bad those oats those oats are just go it into your stomach and like soaking up what little water you have if any and then so it's terrible it's starting then and then I don't know if I was doing it for a while before that maybe I think I did I think I started training myself to eat it without water so when I did finally do it I was used to it and it wouldn't be such a phenomenon like my body would be like so messed up those like psychological too yeah again and down the last like few days of a finished competition like it's all psychological because like you are carbiflated like water pleated and then your cartilage and like your body is just it doesn't know what the hell's going on but it looks so great and you yeah you look great for like a day or two you feel great and then you go on this big bed or you eat like everything you can and then you wake up the next morning going oh my goodness what did I just take god oh my god so I'd been doing it for a while before that and then it just got to a point where I was like I'm so used to eating dry oats I was like I'm not even going to like put the water and stick it in the microwave so he thought I'm just going to eat like this because it's faster I'm saving myself four or five minutes because I'm not cooking it which again there's a life of a trainer life of a dad or person yeah you're busy time is the of the essence time is money time is money and I just kept doing it and people are like logical watering I'm like that's cool I'm fine I don't mind it and they're like that's gross I'm like you know it's it's food and again it's like you're almost looking at point two where you looking like food is real it's just good food is fuel that's all my whole life is based around food is food it's not for purpose it's not to like because I enjoy eating this it's like I just need it to get me to do this tomorrow or two days for now like that's exactly how I look at it and it just continue from that and I've been doing it now for a while like every now and again like oh you know shocked the world and I'll put water in I'll cook a bowl of oil and like have a regular bowl of oil and let's cook that in my life like what's wrong so you're like what do you mean she's like you're cooking your old meal today I'm like yes I like a change just felt like I had the extra four minutes today it's okay I'm yeah I don't need to worry about time it's a casual day today it's a relaxing day it's a cook oatmeal kind of day today that's fantastic yeah so what are your big what are your big tips for somebody for somebody for somebody that you're that you're working with right if you're going to work with a client on nutrition right we've been really clear on like that's what works for you and you're very clear about giving guidance that this is what works for me when you're working with somebody how do you go about assessing what will work better for them like what are what what's kind of your framework that you work with when you consult people on on how to improve their nutrition and especially if they're like competing in kettlebell sport like what what do you what kind of tips do you give to people well I always want to ask them first like what foods they like obviously like trying to avoid like the higher fatty like processed foods like the you take out food or whatever so I find out what foods they enjoy because I always tell people like it's going to be easy to eat healthy when you're eating stuff that you actually have eaten before and you actually like because if I going to come to you and say oh I'm like you can't eat like this you have to eat like there's random like say jackfruit and if you don't like jackfruit you'll be like oh my god like I can't standing jackfruit like this sucks you're never going to do it you're not going to sustain the purpose of the diet or like the nutrition but because I don't like how it diets like nutrition but so like you have to find a balance in like things that you will enjoy that you like to eat that you can readily get and available and also try to make it simple like for people because let's not get like the crazy you know keto like the dice you find on the online that are like you have to do like you know you're a guy so you're going to eat 1500 calories for the next six to eight weeks and you're going to have one day a week or not you're going to drink as water or like these three super smoothies that I'm going to sell you and I'm going to give you like a bucket full of like pills and crap because like that doesn't work that's not going to last long term so it's probably going to short term either but not short term or long term like you're going to stagger yourself you're going to hate yourself and then you're going to binge you one day a week or two this week and you're going to like totally well for separating you from some harder money and that's exactly exactly which I've seen so many people do and they're like what are you doing like it's this person's not helping you they're just stealing from you so I always like to keep a simple find out what they like to eat so I usually get them to make like a list of foods that they enjoy like for like breakfast lunch dinner snacks and then I'll just give them a lot of ideas and it's mostly it's ideas it's okay like you know or I'll take track your food for a few days for me let me see how you're eat it because that's also a really good way of finding out what they like to eat when they eat how they eat and then I can use you based around that and be like and it's also it also makes them have to write down what they are actually eating and a lot of times you get a lot of awareness around like oh that that four ounce chicken breast is actually a 12 ounce chicken breast or whatever like exactly like people learn a lot that when they actually have to measure and weigh their food for a few days they're like oh man I'm eating a lot more than I thought or I'm eating or I'm eating a lot less or exactly or vice-versa right it's like they think they think they're eating a lot or they think they're eating good and then it's like no you're like 200 calories short here you're 400 calories above here like that's just work with this and hey your macros perfectly I don't see a single fruit or vegetable on here what are you doing what are you doing I don't really eat those yeah probably probably should work on that so so I just I really try to keep things simple for them like that's the biggest thing is because I say again I was over four so again if they enjoy it and they like the foods they eat they will do it and they will continue to do it and I just I guess that's interesting because your perspective is food is fuel and like you're like you're like that's what works for me food is fuel I don't even really care about whether I enjoy it or not it's just fuel to get me to the purpose but when you're working with the client your perspective is I have to make sure they enjoy it I have to know what they like right because because they need a lot they need long-term sustainability which is just great like I applied like that's awesome because like you and like me we're different animals when it comes to this right Clydesdale the thoroughbred the client we work with generally they just want to be they want to be healthy they want to have they want to live longer they want to be more active with their kids they want to work flexibility mold strength they they're trying to just get better shape for themselves to make stuff they do outside the gym better most times people come to gym they hate being on the gym they don't like working out they just know it's good for them that's where they go they know eating healthy is good they just don't choose to do it because you think healthy it's amazing exactly right eating bad foods delicious so you're just slowly trying to like fix things and again my biggest thing is a lot of times too I tell off it like try to focus on one thing at a time right like when it comes to like eating like try eliminating like say the sugary snacks at night versus let's try eliminate sugary snacks at breakfast like like five different things and you're telling like because I see a lot of times you train like oh you can't eat X Y X or ABC to EFG yeah you give him a list that's this long yeah here's all the things that you can't eat and I like and here's the things you can okay and then we're like oh my god like I'm like people still have to enjoy life because well that fucks up the relationship with food too though like that's the thing like you start when you start demonizing food like or or it's just like hey Steven you can't have bread anymore what are you gonna think about bread bread all the freaking time right it's like you can't have the cookie what do people think about the cookie don't think about a pink elephant what did everybody just think about a pink elephant right like we're programmed when we're told we can't have a thing to want that thing it's like exactly it's super important to like making not not make any food off limits right like I will say like don't do meth that like that's where I'm like like anything from this podcast today yeah don't do meth don't do meth like yeah there of course there are there are some hard fast things that you should just avoid 100% of the time but in general I'm like nothing is off limits there's just like and and that's everything to again like when it comes to being maybe in plant-based I will give people neat options like I don't care like I tell you like you're like man you're telling me chicken I'm like yeah they're like but you don't I'm like that's me though yeah I'm like that's I chose I chose to be a plant-based eater or nutty meat you didn't might believe you don't try and impose your eating values on other people eat this and this and this I'm like I just want you to and like instead of like having like the deep fried like french fries with your chicken have like a baked potato that's a simple solution you're gonna save yourself a lot of calories and fat and you still get and you still get and you still get both do you want exactly instead of having maybe all the match with you yet like less half the butter or you know quarter the butter because you'll still get those nice match with you want but you're cutting back on some things yeah so that's my production exactly because again it's my clients will not do success or the people I work with will not see you success if they're not enjoying what they're doing and they feel that I chose I basically tell me you're restricted this is I'm gonna give you your diet you have to eat this and if you don't like you know you're not gonna be a client of my tips anymore I think you're gonna die like it's like it's almost like and again I see so many trainers like who have done this before and I'm kind of like man I can't believe like you're telling your person like to do that like you're not their mom or dad it's like it's a pet peeve of mine like it is such a pet peeve of mine for people to to make it so extreme that they're like I don't like and it's amazing to me how that like rigidity seems to attract people because there are people that feel like and it's because of the it's a mindset thing it's like oh I'm I'm so bad I need somebody that's gonna hold me accountable and there's gonna be the disciplinary and they're gonna tell me what I can and I just need somebody to tell me what I need to do so I can so I'm like I need the list I need you to tell me what I can't eat and they want it and then they're surprised when it doesn't work because like I could give you the perfect plan but if you hate it and you can't do it it's not the perfect plan yeah right that's the thing that's but everybody has this in their head but like there's a there is a perfect plan there's the right way to eat there's the best workout there's the best diet for the magic pill that right pill yeah let me tell you about our new sponsor there was a friend he sent me this like video like this thing on Instagram a couple days ago and it was this student lived off like apple cider vinegar and this oh my god he's like is this a scam I'm like oh it's a hundred percent of scam like apple cider vinegar and Keith was it keto that keto advanced 1500 apple cider vinegar helped this person lose like 50 pounds I'm like no it didn't well maybe maybe it did but what happened after after the 50 pounds or what were they doing beyond just like taking this supplement and apple cider vinegar like you know what happened to people stranded in the mountains in Chile they lost 50 pounds too because they weren't eating anything right like shocking you know it's odd when you when you remove calories from the body what what happens like exactly losing weight amputees lose lose an average of 10 pounds per amputation right like it's just that's not a good weight loss solution it does help you lose weight exactly and again like as you know and I've had numerous conversations with like mad about this to map forest like we type but he is always like the number one mistake people make when they're one loose weight is like okay I want to lose like 20 pounds so it's like that means I should eat like what 500 calories a day or a thousand calories a day and you're like no whoa like what are you doing it's like they have this mindset they're like I need to lose weight that's it mean that it quits like I can't eat food and you're like just no food it's just no food like just like if I only eat like 500 calories and I burn 25 like I'm I'm gonna lose a lot of weight and you're like yeah sure in the first few days but then all of a sudden like you're gonna your body's gonna like shock and like starve itself to death and you're gonna have like metabolic sound reading relations gonna happen and especially again like as you first mentioned like in ketobospoor if you underneath an extent like you're next set or your competition side like you're gonna suck like you're gonna have you're gonna go in there feeling so fatigued and so drained you're you're like I can't like you look at a kilogram ketobon you'd be like oh my god like I this feels like as a hundred kilograms and that's the other biggest like it biggest mistake people make is just not eating to sustain what they're doing under fueling on their life yeah under fueling is huge a caloric deficit is a stress on your body exercise intense exercise is a stress on your body right not sleeping is a stress on your body right are we noticing I think all of these things that people tend to do are all stresses you know it's not a stress on your body a caloric surplus or at least at least maintenance calories right so and if you are having those stresses of sustained high level output sustained high levels of stress in your life you actually probably need more calories than what your baseline is because you are in a period of stress you need to send safety signals to your body it's one of the it's it's it's it shouldn't be counterintuitive but it is counterintuitive in the current culture because the current understanding is the like just don't need to eat like if I need to lose weight it just eat less eat less move more that's that's what it takes right it's simple it's like yeah sure that will work for losing weight to a point but do you want to keep the muscle and lose body fat exactly and then do you care what that weight looks like and that's what they don't see right they don't hear about that they just hear like I just want to lose 25 pounds I just want to lose 20 pounds and I'll do whatever I can to lose those 20 to 25 pounds and then it's like well you're going to have to eat like this and they're like oh no no no no I can't do that I can't do that I feel heavy I feel full I feel I feel bloated and you're like relax take the time take time it's going to work it will happen well Steve thank you so much we could we could riff and riff probably for for another couple hours but I want to be respectful of your time so I will just say thank you very much for coming on and nerding out with me on Star Wars I'm very excited for the for the Rural Struck Open and we will make sure that the link is in the episode notes thank you thank you how many how many of your lifters are competing all of them right all of them are going to be lifting yes if they're not they're off the team I'm just left for for on no all my team is going to be lifting it should be an amazing event we wish we hope we can do something in person maybe a little hopefully fingers crossed the time is almost done don't worry the time is almost done we're going under the wall really amazing online event if not everyone's gonna have a great time let's say great prizes yeah we'll just have really cool awards and certificates as well for everyone to get in the mail because who doesn't like getting mail really sweet certificates exactly stickers and stickers and stickers and stickers we will bring the stickers too all right awesome thank you Steve I really appreciate you coming on as always man it's great it's great chatting with you and I look forward to to competing and I look forward to I look forward to actually being able to give you a hug in person some some time soon I can't wait to give you a hug too Jordan all right man all right buddy we'll talk soon see you brother take it easy thanks for listening to this episode of the platform podcast I'm Jordan going to be right we'll be back with a new episode for you next week please don't forget to register for the Twin Cities Kettlebell open on our website Twin Cities Kettlebell Club.com and if you have a question or a suggestion please email me at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club at gmail.com and don't forget to follow us on social media at Twin Cities Kettlebell Club and if you want to step under the platform and competing Kettlebell Sport please reach out to me until next time