Joey Gast: two months go by and you've you're you've been in diet mode, quote unquote, mentally, but then like your body composition isn't any different, the weight of the scale isn't any different. And you're like, what even was the point of the past two months? all of it was a waste. All right, we should be recording now. So hope everyone's having a great, great day. So I got Katie Craig, assistant coach, on the podcast this week. So I'm super excited. I know we've Katie and I have been talking about jumping on a podcast together for months now and finally like carved off the time to do so. So I'm really excited for that. I feel like our episodes are always really good. Like we always end up just going on like rants and tangents and everything, but it's all really good stuff.
Katie Craig: Yes. It's been a while. I'm excited to be be back on.
Joey Gast: Yeah. so Katie and I, we wanted to talk about a couple of questions that we get from clients pretty frequently. And this is probably gonna relate to you, you know, if you're listening, with just your journey on how to specifically like navigate weekends and still lose weight, but feel like you're able to still live your life without feeling super restricted. and then the second topic we're gonna talk about is what it looks like after. you've lost all the weight that you want to lose and you start bringing calories back up to maintenance. Or maybe even if you haven't lost all the weight you want to lose, maybe you're just doing a temporary diet break and like expectations to have around the scale when it comes to that point. And mentally like how to get used to eating Morgan after you know having your calories restricted for so long if that's the case. So the the first thing we wanted to dive into was how to like a common question we get is I want to lose weight, but I also want to enjoy my weekends. How do I find that balance between like the weekends and like seeing results but not feeling like I'm you know always restricted on a diet? so what are like I guess Katie for you in your experience, and I guess you can even talk about like how things were before you started coaching, like Coaching with me, but then also before you, became a coach, what were the things that you struggled with, or what do you see clients struggle with the most on the weekends?
Katie Craig: Yeah, I think there is a really big like give and take almost. So I for myself I always felt like, okay, if I'm following this plan and especially, being in a fat loss phase, let's say, you feel like, okay, if I'm not hitting these numbers exactly, you know, I'm not gonna make any progress at all. And if what if somebody invites me to go out to dinner? What if we have a get together to go to, and it feels almost like this all or nothing approach? Like I have to either say, no, I'm not gonna go to the gallery to the gathering because I Have goals that I need to hit or I have to hit a certain amount of calories, or I'm just gonna go and I'm gonna say, Okay, this whole day is a wash, I'll start again tomorrow. And so I think finding that balance is something that I know a lot of my clients struggle with and something that I struggled with in the beginning. if I'm being honest, sometimes I still have you know trouble with finding that balance because you don't wanna miss out on you know miss out on things, but But you also still, don't wanna go really hard Monday through Friday and then have those two days, be a complete wash and eat, a thousand calories over and consume alcohol and all of those things. So I think that balance is something that I work really hard to help my clients find. And it took me a while, you know, to get there myself. But I think it's just something that you kind of have to decide, you know, do I wanna spend my whole week working really hard towards these goals and then, go on the weekend and blow it. I don't wanna say, you know, blow it, but essentially, you know, if you're having two days where you're eating that far over your calories and, you know, it's gonna take a a few days for the inflammation to go down and, you know, all the sodium and the water retention and then come Monday, you're messaging me spiraling because the scale went up a couple of pounds and it's like that endless and endless cycle it feels like. So So I think that's the biggest thing I see with my clients. It's just that kind of like not being able to find that balance between the two.
Joey Gast: Yeah. And and you explain that cycle perfectly where and this is probably where most people come into coaching at is they have this huge difference of what their habits and even what their mindset looks like Monday. And I would even say like the weekend, most people even count Friday. So usually like if they have off
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: weekends, it's like Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are like completely
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: off. And then Monday through Thursday, they're like really rigid and dialed in and everything. But You could easily undo four days of really good fat loss progress in three days of overeating. easily. Are you going to undo six months or three months of progress in one weekend? No. But if it's a consistent trend where every week it's like Monday through Thursday, you're hitting your calories, tracking your food super accurately, and all these things, but then the weekend comes and you're having five, six meals that are out at restaurants or fast food, and then you're not accounting for them. You're not even trying to estimate those. you can easily, r basically eat back that body fat that you worked really hard to lose, on those four days Monday through Thursday. And you know, a a lot of clients struggle or h did struggle with this before coaching is that all or nothing mindset, like you said, of just thinking, well, I'll just restart on Monday and you know, the weight in the scale is up like three pounds. And then by the time they get back down to their weight that what they were before, before the bloating and inflammation inflammation took place, now it's the weekend again. And now they're having, you know, all those meals again. so and that's a never ending cycle of one, not making progress, but two, feeling like you're working hard while not making progress, which is The worst thing that you can do. It's one thing to not make progress when you're like, I know I'm just like not doing anything right during the week and I'm just like living my life and not tracking
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: my food at all. And you're like, yeah, I know I'm not really putting in much effort, so I can expect to not see progress. But it's another thing when like two months go by and you've you're you've been in diet mode, quote unquote, mentally, but then like your body composition isn't any different, the weight of the scale isn't any different. And you're like, what even was the point of the past two months? all of it was a waste. so you have to like the weekends are so important. And I think a lot of people think like it's a small part of their week or of their journey. But I mean, three out of seven days is like 43% of the time, almost 50% of the time. So if
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: those weekends, if they aren't like pretty dialed in most of the time, you're gonna, you know, keep falling on that cycle.
Katie Craig: Yeah, and then it's like a spiral of okay, well, if I'm not making progress then why am I doing anything Monday through Thursday? instead of looking at it as, okay, I can make these changes over the weekend and I can dial things in. And one thing I think is hard is to make people understand like it's okay to be uncomfortable and do things that you're not used to doing. So you can still go to the gathering, just eat before you go. Or you can still go to the gathering but make you know, I've done this plenty of times. I'll bring a container of my own food just to hit my goals. you can still go to the gathering. if you know you're gonna have pizza there, you know, pre-log that before you go and make it so okay, I'm only gonna eat one or two slices of pizza and that fits within my goals and then I'm gonna walk away from you know the table or the kitchen and you know do whatever else. So there's ways to still be involved and you know live your normal weekend lives without you know completely blowing that
Joey Gast: Yeah, and I I have so much to say about this. but this
Katie Craig: Ha ha ha.
Joey Gast: really like hones in on on the mindset piece, right? I think there's two ways to approach it. Practically, like how can you set your weekends up for success? Like practically, what are the things that you have to do? Which I know we'll kind of dive into. But this is like the mindset piece behind it where I think we've gotten so like I don't know, used to just leaning into comfort all the time. And if something feels a little
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: bit hard and feels a little bit like, this isn't what my knee-jerk reaction wants to do, or it feels different than what everyone else is doing, it gets painted with this negative brush of, this is unsustainable, this is restrictive, I'm not gonna be able to keep this going. look at all these other people. All these other people, they're enjoying, three to four drinks on the weekends. All these other people are eating out a couple of times per week. But if you're embarking on this and you want to lose weight, are do these other people have a body composition that you want? Probably not if they're living their weekends like this all the time. so if you do like mimic your behaviors off of what they're doing, you're probably gonna get the result that they're getting. And if they are overweight and out of shape and don't look and feel the way that you wanna look and feel, don't base your habits off of what's normal for them, right? You can have different Goals than them and approach life differently on the weekends of them. And the the comfort thing too, like if you've just gotten so used to anything out of your comfort zone, like is labeled as bad and label labeled as unsustainable. But when your habits are so far off from where you want to be, you know, maybe you are overweight, like in order to actually change and lose the weight, you have to do something different than what you've done before. So if you keep just having the same repeat cycle of
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: your weekends being the same all the time, nothing's gonna change then.
Katie Craig: Well and think people are afraid of well, what will other people say if I, you know, show up and I'm not eating the food that everybody else is eating or alcohol is a big one that I have had a lot of clients, you know, struggle with because well we have these plans and I know other people are gonna be drinking and if I don't drink then that's gonna, you know, raise questions and I just don't wanna deal with that. So I would rather just, you know, have like a two or three drink limit and then cut myself off. And I think that goes along with like the people that you surround yourself with. When you really get into that mindset of I have these goals and I really, really want to achieve them, if the people around you aren't supportive of that, then you might have to reevaluate that as well, which can be uncomfortable. So it's just it there's so much that goes into that mindset and it's just, you know, deciding how how much you want to change your life and how much you want to change your surroundings to reach your goals, or if you want to sit and, you know, you could there's always an excuse, I feel. for something. We can all say it, well work had a potluck today and I had to eat it. So or so and so brought me treats. So I couldn't say no. There's always just something. So yeah, it's just such a mindset of, you know, just deciding do I want to change my life or do I want to always find a reason that could set me back?
Joey Gast: Yeah. And that's always wild to me when people are like, I didn't hit my nutrition goals today, or I'm not really sure because like somebody brought something in for work for lunch. Like, are they physically holding you down and shoving the food in your mouth where like you can't eat anything else? Probably not.
Katie Craig: Yes.
Joey Gast: And like, I mean, I'm all for flexibility eating the foods that you enjoy, you know, while losing weight. But like if you're gonna go off. plan potentially, or estimate something and have a meal that's not, as controlled as what would predictably get you the fat loss that you want, save those meals for moments that are really that important to you, or for food that is really that important to you that you
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: really love. Like I've had people say I hate had this food at you know a potluck at work or something wasn't really that great. And like then like don't don't waste that opportunity
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: for progress on something that's not even that important
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: to you and goes goes with what you said about the alcohol. drinking just because you want to fit in. it's crazy to me. drinking is like the one thing like alcohol where health-wise, physiologically, there there are no bonus benefits of having any alcohol. And it's all just negative on on your body with alcohol. Now, like there's obviously I drink sometimes, like here and there. I probably
Katie Craig: Well name.
Joey Gast: have on average maybe like one to two drinks a month, depending on what kind of holidays or celebrations when I go to like an all-inclusive,
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: I'm having like if I go to like Punta Cana or something, I'm having like Yeah,
Katie Craig: Right. We're celebrating.
Joey Gast: I I mean I'm having probably like, I don't know, at least probably four drinks a day when I'm in Punta Cana, like spread out throughout the day, you know, like
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: a margarita here, pina colada, whatever. So I'm not like totally against alcohol, but If I'm going to an event and there's people there and I really don't want to drink, I'm not gonna drink just because I don't want anybody to say anything about me.
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: it's silly, That's it's you putting something that's gonna negatively impact your progress in your body, into yourself when it's not something you even really wanna do if that's what you're saying. so like Just if you're going to go off of your plan or eat something or have a meal that's estimated, make it really count, make it a special moment and really weigh out this this celebration or this get together that I'm going to, am I really gonna enjoy it that less if I eat beforehand and don't eat the food there? You know, like so-and-so might be bringing like their meatballs that they always bring, and it's like, yeah, those are like on a scale of one to ten to five. Like Why do you need to eat those then? eat beforehand, enjoy the experience with the people around you and everything that you're doing. And you don't necessarily need the food to fully enjoy it. But sometimes, if it's like Thanksgiving and you know, your your grandma or your mom is making their special cookies that they make every single year, that might be a like a hell yes, like yes, I'm gonna have those
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: cookies. You know, but you you have to be very picky and choosy and you can't sacrifice like you're like executing the game plan every chance you get because there's gonna be countless opportunities every day to just choose the most convenient thing.
Katie Craig: Right. I think that's like always my question to my clients is like where does it end then? Right? 'Cause there's always going to be an occasion or you know, I a lot of of clients, I think, and myself, I think I was guilty of this when I first started is like it was a really busy night, my kids had sports, you know, I just we went through the drive-thru for them, so I just had to get something. And I'm like, mm, you know, there's always going to be something that can be a roadblock for you. So just figuring out like, you know, how am I gonna, how am I gonna navigate this to where I'm prepared, I put my goals ahead of what's convenient. And I think that's the key is just you want to put your goals ahead of conveniency and we live in a society where everything is convenient, everything's at hand, and that's just really, really easy just to base your life and your choices off of that. But when you when you have goals that you want to hit and you have, you know, changes in your physique that you want to make, convenient is not gonna be the way to get there. It's gonna take work and it's gonna take, you know, changing changing your lifestyle. So yeah, that's something I think I have a conversation with a lot, with a lot of my clients about. Because we all, I mean, most of us are moms, most of us, you know, work. So nothing, you know, anything that's convenient is obviously going to be the easier choice, but you're obviously, you know, signing up for a reason and that's to change. So that's something that I have a lot of conversations about with my clients for sure.
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm. And and I think part of this too comes down to mentally being honest with yourself in being honest with the amount of control that you actually do have over the choices you make. Like that example you gave, you know, where, you know, I went through the drive-thru with, you know, for my daughter or something, and it was late at night at seven PM and I didn't have anything like cooked, so I just had to order like a McDonald's cheeseburger for myself. Like, well, you didn't really h have to. Like,
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: one, maybe we could have stopped at Chick-fil-A or something where there's grilled nuggets where it's easier to track and it fits your goals a little bit better. But number two, do you not have any food at home to eat at all, even if it isn't like a you know, pre home cooked like fancy meal? Like, do we have
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: some yogurt or something at home that we could throw together a quote unquote meal with some yogurt and some fruit? I do that all the time if I'm too either lazy to cook or I didn't have time to cook and I don't feel like being up until 9 p.m. cooking. But I acknowledge hey, I actually do have control to cook if I really wanted to. But hey, instead, I have these backup options, yogurt or like, you know, right now there's so many high protein, low calorie options that are really convenient, like the you know, chicken nuggets that you can buy that are high protein, low calorie that you can just heat
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: those up with a microwave, throw some fruit with it. Like You could have that while maybe your kids do have the McDonald's or whatever it is through the drive-thru. So usually there is a backup option that people have, or maybe they're on the road instead of going through fast food. you could either bring your own protein bars or protein shakes and some snacks that like you can track accurately that are overall healthy. you could bring that stuff or stop at a gas station and pick those up. Like there's usually a backup option. That is somewhere in the middle versus, I'm completely perfect with what I had planned before my life became chaos today. And then
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: it's just like I'm going completely off the rails or completely off plan. Like there's usually a middle ground where you can still execute really well. And some of it is just like as the client or as the person, acknowledging like I do have more power over my choices. and I'm not a victim of just this inconvenient circumstance.
Katie Craig: Yeah. And I think like I'm not perfect. I never, claim to be perfect when it comes to my journey. I think though I struggle with the like I'm super busy. You know, I can't do this 'cause I'm super busy. I feel like I am somebody that is a million miles an hour all day long with ten million different things on my plate and I still am able to, you know, show up for myself. And that's where I think I know this journey Is so much more mental than it is physical. Like the mental toughness is it has to be there. because like I said, you're always going to have a reason why, you know, something isn't convenient or why we can't do something. And there's I I could count so many times even this month that I've had to go through a drive-thru for my kids because it's late at night and they're losing it. And I know I don't have time to go home and cook a box of mac and cheese for one, a grilled cheese for the. Like I just I don't don't have time. So
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm.
Katie Craig: you know, if they're all like, hey, I want chicken nuggets, we're gonna go to Wendy's, we're gonna get chicken nuggets, and then I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna eat something else. So I think that's where it really just it doesn't come down to we're busy. We're all busy. Every single one of us is busy. It's just that mental toughness of deciding okay, I'm strong enough to say, like you said, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna throw together a meal that's not perfect. It's not gonna look, you know, perfect. It's not a meal prep with colorful fruits and veggies. Like you said, maybe it's just yogurt with a side of fruit and maybe even like a sausage patty. I've done that sometimes, turkey sausage, like for the protein.
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm.
Katie Craig: It's not gonna be perfect, but It's better than eating processed, fast food that I know is gonna put me over my calories, my sodium, all of that. So yeah, it's just so much mental. And if you are somebody that is very easily swayed by things being difficult or other people or convenience, then I think the mental aspect is something that has to be worked on way before the physical for sure.
Joey Gast: Yeah. And even with that, there's also even a middle ground within that too, where okay, if you are going through a drive-thru in the last last minute, at the end of the day, take the time to see, okay, if you have five hundred calories or six hundred calories left in your day, take the time to look at the menu and see what can I order that at least fits within that calorie range versus, I'm just gonna go through order like a cheeseburger and a large fry, eat it, and then plug it in later and just hope that, okay, we'll see where I land.
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: even taking that small step of five to ten minutes, just sitting in the parking lot and searching it really quick. And nowadays you could even just go to ChatGBT and even voice talk and say, Hey, I want to order something from Burger King that's six less than six hundred calories. What should I order? And it's gonna spit out a bunch of options there. You can even Google this stuff and it probably will pop up because I know They have AI connected to your Google searches now. And
Katie Craig: Yes.
Joey Gast: like, which is just a super simple step. And obviously, like logging that stuff because, you know, the person in the back cooking it is not weighing and measuring it out with the food scale. It's not entirely accurate, but it's at least like a good middle ground versus that mentality of, well, I'm just gonna eat it and plug it in after and just kind of cross my fingers and hope that I didn't go over my calories. Or
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: Sometimes, people fall into the trap of well, this wasn't my originally meal prepped meal, so I'm just not even gonna log it entirely and now you're just stacking up multiple days where half of your food isn't even logged and who knows? You could be three or four hundred calories over, your calorie goal multiple days of the week then.
Katie Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I think That is the other thing too, is just not taking the time to either log it or not taking the time to pay attention to what you're logging, like you said. Like everything is so accessible to us right now in the world that we live in. Chat GPT, like you said, is on everything. It's connected to everything. So yeah, just to be able to put in that quick search to figure out like, okay, I really don't have any other options. What is my best option here? But then also there's like that sense of guilt of okay. I did maybe splurge, I'm just not gonna log it. And so then we really don't know, how many days are we over and yeah, the list goes on.
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm. Yeah. and and I think, I mean, this is also like kind of another thing that we didn't really touch on much yet. But I was having a conversation with a client about this like a week or two ago, and she was talking about the weekends and just how they're always tough because they always like go out to dinner. And I don't know if you have ever like dealt with clients like this or have thought about this with clients, but I think one big struggle that some people have is using food as like a way to I don't know, like do something fun with their family. Like like it's always revolved around food and like going to get ice cream or ordering pizza or going to a restaurant and that's like their splurge or almost mini vacation for their family. Like And and the the point I'm making with this is I was the specific conversation I was having with the client is I think when people maybe grow up not like from a household with a lot of money where they didn't really go on many vacations or trips or actually do things that maybe costed more money to actively do, I think a lot of people in that demographic growing up, they've leaned on the one fun thing they were able to do with their family was go to Burger King on the weekend or something. And they build this like attachment with food and attachment with going out to dinner on the weekends because of that. And now that's like how they almost like get their mini vacation instead of taking trips or doing something active. And I think it's something that a lot of people have to unlearn is
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: not using food to be the thing that. helps you to feel fulfilled after a long work week and finding other things to do that are fun with you or your family that don't make food the center of everything.
Katie Craig: Yeah. And I think this is the social worker in me is just digging into your why. And I think, one of my main questions to my clients when they first get started, I like to ask, you know, why? Why are you signing up? Why are you why are you here? What is your goal? And a lot of times you can figure out based off of that, like, okay, what what are we really, you know, trying to overcome here? And it like you said, is it there almost is like a food addiction where that's your vice. Like you're looking for happiness and you your fulfillment from experiences that r revolve around food or your fulfillment comes for food? Like is that is that where like what we're working to unpack here? and I think yeah it's just I don't even know that it's I mean, I think I didn't grow up with a ton of money and when we went out to eat it was like a big deal because it was expensive for a big family to go out to eat even back in the nineties, two thousands, you know? So Yeah, I just think, finding a way to figure out what are you trying to unpack in this journey? Obviously, if it is you have, you know, this comfort level with food or this addiction almost to food or food noise I hear, you know, a lot. what's behind that? What are you looking to, you know, uncover or a lot of people eat to because they have, you know, a lot of trauma that they're, Trying to push down. So, okay, well, when I eat, this is my comfort food, and this makes me feel better. So it's like unpacking all those layers of like, what is your why? Why are you here? And I think it it's really it is such a mental process, and I will stand by that, you know, forever. And I think this journey is so much of figuring out like who you are and who you always have been, and how do we, you know, lean into that and lean into your strengths, but also, like you said, fix. fixing that, you know, comfort level that you have to food or addiction almost that you have to food. So yeah, there's so much that goes into it.
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm. Yeah. we couldn't do an entirely different episode about just the psychological
Katie Craig: I
Joey Gast: aspects of this and why people
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: make certain food choices and using food to feel fulfilled in life in general, right? there are people who they they don't have the money to go on vacation. So the fun thing that they do is go out to eat every single weekend with their kids. And that's the thing they can do. And obviously that adds up over time and it is costly. And if they didn't go out to eat for this many weekends, maybe they could save up money for a vacation. But obviously it's harder to make that long-term investment to save up versus just spend this much every weekend. But then there's also there are people who are in relationships that aren't really supportive and like they're using food to comfort themselves or to feel fulfilled. to get that dopamine hit because they don't feel happiness in those relationships or happiness in their job or the people they're hanging out with, or they're in the same nine to five job, not to like bash on nine to fives, but they're in a nine to five job that they don't enjoy and
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: that doesn't fulfill them, and they're just doing the same routine over and over. And it's like, food's the one exciting thing I can like explore over the weekend, where like if food can be one of the least exciting things about your life and you're getting excitement in your life through you know having great relationships, great friendships, or achieving something, you know, great yourself, it helps to like, you know, you you just don't have that much focus on food. So that's like a whole different rabbit hole we could go through.
Katie Craig: I know, yeah.
Joey Gast: but so what are like what are some practical things that you do To make sure that you stay on track like you need to over the weekend, like we could start for like ways that you plan for the weekend.
Katie Craig: Yeah, and again, I'm gonna preface this by saying I'm not perfect with this. I think we've just had a conversation today actually about how, you know, I've gotten a little bit more lax with it. But I think for me, like I am very mentally tough in the sense of like I am not going to let anybody come in between me and the goal that I have for myself. And so if I know, okay, this weekend we have For example, we have two birthday parties. We have a fall festival. We have a Halloween party. Like we have three or those four things just on Saturday. So I've already sat down with myself and told myself, okay, we're gonna get up, we're gonna eat breakfast, lunch, I already have it prepped. I'm gonna eat that before I go anywhere. And then dinner, I'll be home in time to, you know, eat a meal at home. I'm not going to allow myself to use these birthday parties, the festivals and all of that to steer me off. of my goals. a lot of times I do bring my own food places. That used to be something that I felt like silly about when I first started, but I think again, like the longer I've been in this, the more I realize like I'm working my ass off Monday through Friday, and then I'm like miserable on the weekends because I'm and I don't want to say that like I didn't I think I was eating just things that I knew weren't good for me. I don't even think it was that I was overeating. It was just like okay, I'm eating junk and it's gonna take me days to feel better after eating this. I might have a couple drinks and then it's like the same cycle again. So yeah, I think I got to the point where I just realized I don't want to live like this. I don't want to, you know, always surround myself with people that are gonna make me, you know, feel like, you're not drinking, or you're not eating with us, or we're throwing in for pizza, you're not you're really not gonna eat. So I just I've had to change a lot. About my lifestyle and a lot of the things that you know were normal for me. I've had to kind of go against that and really decide: okay, I want to be the healthiest version. I want to teach my kids. You can have fun on the weekends, and you can be, you know, with other people and you can go and do things, but still, you know, stay on track and hit your goals. So for me, it's just always been a lot of planning, a lot of you know, strong mindset of yes, we have these things going on, but that doesn't mean. that I have to completely derail my whole weekend.
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm. And I think like one thing that I think is really key with it is especially for like newer clients or you know, maybe if you're not a client, is a lot of people judge their weekends based off of how they feel. So they'll say like, I feel like I did pretty good, or I made pretty good choices, or, you know, I was conscious of my food. But That's great, right? That's a great foundation, but it does only get you so far if you want to see really predictable fat loss week to week. And you have to adopt the mindset of I'm not gonna go off of how I feel. I'm gonna go off of objective numbers of what did I actually do over the weekend. And I think that starts
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: with just committing to like pre logging and planning your weekend in advance. So you can, hey, like. We're gonna have pizza on Friday with my family. I'm going to pre-log three slices or two slices of pizza, see how many calories are in those slices, map my Friday around that so I can still hit my goals on Friday. And if I end up overeating afterwards, I need to go back and plug that in so I can at least see how much over on my calories was I. Because if you see, okay, you're going over your calories 500. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, you can see like how that specifically impacts your progress week to week. If every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday you're maybe going over your calorie range by 500, but maybe you're still seeing progress. Okay, maybe that's something that like you don't have to change because you're still seeing the progress that you want. But if you're not, you at least have some kind of new ver numerical value of, okay, this is how I have to adjust next time. And next time, maybe it takes just having. two slices of pizza instead of three and it doesn't set me over and I did that or I took that approach and now I am losing one pound per week still. So when you deal with I feel like I did pretty well, I was pretty conscious, I made healthy choices, like everything is so vague and without taking the time to like plug those things in and learn how many calories are in certain types of meals, especially at restaurants, You're never gonna learn just how much you're actually undoing your progress or not.
Katie Craig: Yeah. And I think you know I have I can think of one client off the top of my head who her non negotiable was pizza on Fridays with her kids and I'm like, absolutely, I don't want you to, completely throw that tradition out the window. And so yeah, that she gets in, you know, Fri or Friday morning, even the day before, and she'll log that. She'll figure out where they're gonna order it from and she'll log that in and then base her day around that. So yeah, I'm not saying that those things can never happen and you have to live like this super strict lifestyle, but you just have to make sure that it's not a consistent thing that's happening every single weekend, we're eating out, we're eating over our calorie goal, and then that becomes your new normal.
Joey Gast: Yeah. Yeah. So pre-logging and pre-planning, helps so much because then you can adjust your day, you know, in the beginning of the day to still hit those daily targets that you have. I mean it's it's like if you have a strict budget financially and there's so many correlations between like fat loss and hitting a calorie goal and having a calorie budget and financial budget. But if you have a financial budget where like, okay, I can spend this amount of money each month, like And you have this bigger expense or something that you want to save for, you probably want to account for that ahead of time before you just go and blow thousands of dollars on this new thing you want to buy. And then you're like, shoot, now I don't have money for groceries this week or whatever it may
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: be. And it's the same thing. if you know you're going to go out to dinner on Saturday, or you likely will, and it's a toss-up of if you for sure will. If it's like a common theme every Saturday, we always go out to dinner or order pizza. Then just account for that beforehand, on Thursday, go into your food log and save, make sure you're saving, a thousand calories worth or eight hundred calories worth of pizza. And then just adjust your breakfast and lunch around it versus versus keeping your breakfast and lunch the same as you do Monday through Thursday, and you only leave 500 calories left for dinner. And now someone's like, Hey, let's order pizza. And now you're like, Well, now I can have one and a half slices of pizza and that's it. And then I feel like I'm missing
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: out. so knowing your habits. And properly planning and plugging things in ahead of time. that's the first step to make sure you don't end up just binging and going over.
Katie Craig: Yeah. And I think too like if you're somebody that you know is gonna go out to restaurants a lot too, just accounting for the extras is a big one I see a lot. Like I'm never gonna tell you, you know, I want you to plan your meals at home, absolutely. But if you're somebody that you're gonna go out to eat three to four times a week, then plan for at least a thousand calories per meal, right? Because the oils, the you know, the extras that you don't think about. The menu might say this meal is like 800 calories. calories, but did you account for the butter, the oil, you know, all of those things too. So that's just where it gets kind of hard when you can plan for it, but you really can't plan for all of, you know, the extras that are gonna be thrown in there as well.
Joey Gast: Yeah, I think there was this research study that I read about where they looked at the calorie content of certain restaurant foods versus how much was estimated based off of like their website. And and the calorie differences were just so crazy. I think they were up to like a hundred percent off, which means that they were like potentially
Katie Craig: That's good.
Joey Gast: double. if it's at a thousand calories on their website, it could be up to two thousand calories for some items, depending on like Who is cooking it in the back? How much butter or oil they used.
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: So, and this is another tip I like have s told clients before is if if you're like in a pinch and you're having to like order something and like we we talked, you know, endlessly about like, hey, there's backup options. You should probably have some yogurt or some chicken nuggets, you know, on hand
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: at home or food at home that you could easily heat up and log accurately. But in the circumstance where like you do Either go through fast food or you do go to a restaurant. Fast foods, their portion sizes are a little bit more typical and uniform than like a restaurant, and the way they're preparing food is a little bit more uniform. So if a fast food
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: place says, okay, this order is 600 calories, there's a better chance it's actually pretty close, closer to that at least, than a restaurant. Even though a restaurant might cook with like more fresh ingredients, quote unquote, like You might be getting 1500 calories worth of fresh ingredients versus like 900 of what it says on on their website. So it can be
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: a huge difference. And like a good rule of thumb that we tell clients all the time or that I do is people always ask, like, okay, how often can I eat out? Like, what's a good amount? And if you're in an active fat loss phase, I always say like one, maybe two meals like out per week. or estimated is where we want to be because we want to really dial in that food tracking accuracy more. And if we're in like a more of a maintenance phase, you could probably get away with eating out maybe three to four times per week and estimating those things three to four times per week. But that's three to four times per week of estimating, still being conscious of what kind of meals you're choosing, still roughly accounting for those calories. That's not three to four times a week of just like, hey, I'm going to a Mexican restaurant, getting this like
Katie Craig: Splurging.
Joey Gast: 40 ounce margarita that's maybe 600 calories in itself, getting a eating a bunch of chips that are unaccounted for, getting like this huge burrito, and then dessert. Like if you're doing that three to four times a week, like you're just digging yourself you know a bigger hole all the time. And this is where like your choices when you do go out to dinner, they probably do need to change over time. Like every time you go out to dinner. If you want to actually embark on this healthy lifestyle and lose body fat over time, every time you go out, you probably can't order the biggest burger on the menu with a bunch of fries and get deep fried mozzarella sticks for an appetizer. You probably have to learn to at least 50% of the time, if not 75% of the time, order the lean steak with veggies on the side and a plain baked potato. And then maybe once a month you do get the burger. But Choosing those options are gonna set you up to be more full, not deal with as much inflammation afterwards. And calorie wise, like usually like a steak dinner meal at a restaurant, depending on what kind of side you get, you know, if you get like more of like a baked potato or rice, might be like eight to nine hundred calories. Whereas like you go to some of these like bar food restaurants and get it the burger that's like as big as your head, and a plate of fries
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: that's big enough for like five people, like that's You're looking at maybe fourteen, fifteen hundred calories there.
Katie Craig: Right. Yeah, and that's yeah. That's your entire day if you're in a fat loss too. So yeah, just making those better choices. And I think a lot of people too, like with the eating out, they'll get, you know, a mixed drink or some kind of alcohol. And then they're like, well, it's just alcohol, so I'm not logging that either. But like you said with the margaritas, like those are so many calories. So yeah, just like being mindful and knowing, okay, like I if I'm gonna eat this or drink this, then I'm probably gonna, you know, be over on my calories. calories as well. So I think yeah, there's a way to navigate it where you can, you know, eat out once, twice, maybe a week and still see, you know, progress. But it's just definitely making those better choices.
Joey Gast: Yeah, and I'm really big on awareness and education and those two things allowing you to just make the most educated and best decision that you can in the moment. like if a client is like, hey, I sat down in this restaurant, I roughly estimated how much a margarita would be in calories, how much this order would be, and there were two thousand calories in this whole meal, but I just really wanted it and I ate it and I ordered it anyway. And they made an actual educated decision out of awareness of what it would do to them and their progress. yes, if you want to lose body fat, we probably shouldn't do that. that's gonna set us up to
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: have a hard time. But you're at least making a decision out of knowing the consequences and knowing just how big of an impact it might make on your progress. Versus like if you don't look up these things of how many calories are in them. At all, and you're just like, I'm off my plan. I know I'm probably gonna be off. This feels too hard to estimate or look up. So I'm just not gonna look it up at all. And then you eat it and move on, and then you're up three or four pounds on the scale, and you're like, what's going on? I'm like, well, if you would have maybe plugged things, these things in, maybe the mindless amounts of chips you ate just sitting there, maybe you would have decided, huh, chips aren't really worth it. And maybe you could have actually still hit your calorie range just by passing on the chips and had a great time. But because you didn't take the
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: time to look it up, you didn't know that, all it took was sacrificing chips and I could have enjoyed all this and still stayed within my calorie range. You just ate the chips anyway, because you're like, screw it. So, when you look that stuff up, it gives you that opportunity to like see what trade-offs you actually are willing to make. And then don't feel like a big sacrifice to you. But if you're just in the dark. with that information because you're too maybe lazy or you have that all all that nothing mindset to actually look that stuff up, you don't end up being able to like at least give the op give yourself the opportun opportunity to make that better decision.
Katie Craig: Yeah. Yeah, the impulse control is is a big one for sure. I think that's hard too, like just going based off of what you want and what you've always done b and sitting and like stopping yourself and thinking, like, okay, is this gonna be worth it? Is it gonna get me, you know, closer towards my goals or is it gonna get me further away? Is it gonna satisfy me long term? Probably not. It's gonna satisfy me short term and then I'm gonna be left feeling, you know, guilty or not feeling the greatest because my stomach hurts or whatever. So those are all the things that go through my brain. I love a good burger and fries, but is it gonna absolutely destroy, you know, my stomach for a couple of days? Probably. Is that worth it to me? Not really. And there are days where
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm.
Katie Craig: that the answer is yes, but it's just like
Joey Gast: Yeah.
Katie Craig: yeah, really working through that mental process before you impulsively make that decision.
Joey Gast: Yeah. I don't know if it's getting older, but I feel like my stomach is way more sensitive to that kind of stuff. Like
Katie Craig: yes.
Joey Gast: if if I'm really thinking about getting a burger, I'm really weighing out the pros and cons of especially if it's late in the evening. I'm like, man, I know I'm gonna be like burping this up like all evening and I might lay down in bed and
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: feel uncomfortable. Like, is this really worth it? but
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: I ask myself that too, like Not only how is this meal gonna impact my calories and my body fat level, but how is this meal gonna impact me two hours later when I'm trying to just feel comfortable?
Katie Craig: Right. Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: and if you know that meal it's gonna make you feel super bloated and you're gonna feel uncomfortable, the more you can train yourself to choose the lighter option in those scenarios, the steak or the white fish with some veggies and you're enjoying a really tasty. good meal that you don't have to cook, you don't have to do dishes for. that's a great experience,
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: but you're walking away from it feeling like, Wow, I feel like pretty good, you're not feeling so bloated and weighed down afterwards too.
Katie Craig: Yeah, no definitely. The regret is not there.
Joey Gast: Yeah, the f the physical regret and uncomfortableness too, which is huge.
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: So so I feel like we really like bounced around a lot and we didn't even go to the second topic, which is fine. So we'll just save that for another another day. But yeah, j like at the end of the day, just to kind of wrap up, like you have to realize you have to make decisions. for yourself and not just based off what other people are doing. Right. That's, that goes back to elementary school. you can't just jump
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm. Bus.
Joey Gast: off a bridge because everyone else is. that's not gonna be fun.
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: and number two, you have to pr like have the foresight to pre-log and pre-plan whether it's something you actively have planned for the weekend or you just kind of know yourself and know when Saturday evening rolls around you're gonna want to order pizza, like plug that in ahead of time and plan for that, you know, and already account for that. And then number three is like get very Objective with your habits. Don't just go off a feel. look up this stuff, see how many calories are in these things, and you might find there's this meal that I always order. It's like 1500 calories. You're like, wow, that does not feel worth it to me. And you might find a meal that's pretty close. That's maybe 800 calories that you can order instead by just looking up that
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: information. you know, if there's like some super expensive. T V, but it's like two inches bigger than one that's half the price. I might buy the one that's half the price that's two inches smaller, ev because it's so close, but it's not
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: costing me so much there. So, anything else you want to add just as we wrap up because I know you have a cutoff time.
Katie Craig: No, I don't think so. I think I think we hit on everything that we wanted to talk about and I think I'm excited for the next one. I know the next topic was a good one too, so excited to dive into that.
Joey Gast: Yeah, that that'll be a good one. All about the all about the scale and just
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: what it looks like you know, with eating more, which would be fun. So
Katie Craig: Yes.
Joey Gast: cool. We'll wrap this up and yeah, we'll see you guys in the next one.
Katie Craig: Yes. It's been a while. I'm excited to be be back on.
Joey Gast: Yeah. so Katie and I, we wanted to talk about a couple of questions that we get from clients pretty frequently. And this is probably gonna relate to you, you know, if you're listening, with just your journey on how to specifically like navigate weekends and still lose weight, but feel like you're able to still live your life without feeling super restricted. and then the second topic we're gonna talk about is what it looks like after. you've lost all the weight that you want to lose and you start bringing calories back up to maintenance. Or maybe even if you haven't lost all the weight you want to lose, maybe you're just doing a temporary diet break and like expectations to have around the scale when it comes to that point. And mentally like how to get used to eating Morgan after you know having your calories restricted for so long if that's the case. So the the first thing we wanted to dive into was how to like a common question we get is I want to lose weight, but I also want to enjoy my weekends. How do I find that balance between like the weekends and like seeing results but not feeling like I'm you know always restricted on a diet? so what are like I guess Katie for you in your experience, and I guess you can even talk about like how things were before you started coaching, like Coaching with me, but then also before you, became a coach, what were the things that you struggled with, or what do you see clients struggle with the most on the weekends?
Katie Craig: Yeah, I think there is a really big like give and take almost. So I for myself I always felt like, okay, if I'm following this plan and especially, being in a fat loss phase, let's say, you feel like, okay, if I'm not hitting these numbers exactly, you know, I'm not gonna make any progress at all. And if what if somebody invites me to go out to dinner? What if we have a get together to go to, and it feels almost like this all or nothing approach? Like I have to either say, no, I'm not gonna go to the gallery to the gathering because I Have goals that I need to hit or I have to hit a certain amount of calories, or I'm just gonna go and I'm gonna say, Okay, this whole day is a wash, I'll start again tomorrow. And so I think finding that balance is something that I know a lot of my clients struggle with and something that I struggled with in the beginning. if I'm being honest, sometimes I still have you know trouble with finding that balance because you don't wanna miss out on you know miss out on things, but But you also still, don't wanna go really hard Monday through Friday and then have those two days, be a complete wash and eat, a thousand calories over and consume alcohol and all of those things. So I think that balance is something that I work really hard to help my clients find. And it took me a while, you know, to get there myself. But I think it's just something that you kind of have to decide, you know, do I wanna spend my whole week working really hard towards these goals and then, go on the weekend and blow it. I don't wanna say, you know, blow it, but essentially, you know, if you're having two days where you're eating that far over your calories and, you know, it's gonna take a a few days for the inflammation to go down and, you know, all the sodium and the water retention and then come Monday, you're messaging me spiraling because the scale went up a couple of pounds and it's like that endless and endless cycle it feels like. So So I think that's the biggest thing I see with my clients. It's just that kind of like not being able to find that balance between the two.
Joey Gast: Yeah. And and you explain that cycle perfectly where and this is probably where most people come into coaching at is they have this huge difference of what their habits and even what their mindset looks like Monday. And I would even say like the weekend, most people even count Friday. So usually like if they have off
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: weekends, it's like Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are like completely
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: off. And then Monday through Thursday, they're like really rigid and dialed in and everything. But You could easily undo four days of really good fat loss progress in three days of overeating. easily. Are you going to undo six months or three months of progress in one weekend? No. But if it's a consistent trend where every week it's like Monday through Thursday, you're hitting your calories, tracking your food super accurately, and all these things, but then the weekend comes and you're having five, six meals that are out at restaurants or fast food, and then you're not accounting for them. You're not even trying to estimate those. you can easily, r basically eat back that body fat that you worked really hard to lose, on those four days Monday through Thursday. And you know, a a lot of clients struggle or h did struggle with this before coaching is that all or nothing mindset, like you said, of just thinking, well, I'll just restart on Monday and you know, the weight in the scale is up like three pounds. And then by the time they get back down to their weight that what they were before, before the bloating and inflammation inflammation took place, now it's the weekend again. And now they're having, you know, all those meals again. so and that's a never ending cycle of one, not making progress, but two, feeling like you're working hard while not making progress, which is The worst thing that you can do. It's one thing to not make progress when you're like, I know I'm just like not doing anything right during the week and I'm just like living my life and not tracking
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: my food at all. And you're like, yeah, I know I'm not really putting in much effort, so I can expect to not see progress. But it's another thing when like two months go by and you've you're you've been in diet mode, quote unquote, mentally, but then like your body composition isn't any different, the weight of the scale isn't any different. And you're like, what even was the point of the past two months? all of it was a waste. so you have to like the weekends are so important. And I think a lot of people think like it's a small part of their week or of their journey. But I mean, three out of seven days is like 43% of the time, almost 50% of the time. So if
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: those weekends, if they aren't like pretty dialed in most of the time, you're gonna, you know, keep falling on that cycle.
Katie Craig: Yeah, and then it's like a spiral of okay, well, if I'm not making progress then why am I doing anything Monday through Thursday? instead of looking at it as, okay, I can make these changes over the weekend and I can dial things in. And one thing I think is hard is to make people understand like it's okay to be uncomfortable and do things that you're not used to doing. So you can still go to the gathering, just eat before you go. Or you can still go to the gathering but make you know, I've done this plenty of times. I'll bring a container of my own food just to hit my goals. you can still go to the gathering. if you know you're gonna have pizza there, you know, pre-log that before you go and make it so okay, I'm only gonna eat one or two slices of pizza and that fits within my goals and then I'm gonna walk away from you know the table or the kitchen and you know do whatever else. So there's ways to still be involved and you know live your normal weekend lives without you know completely blowing that
Joey Gast: Yeah, and I I have so much to say about this. but this
Katie Craig: Ha ha ha.
Joey Gast: really like hones in on on the mindset piece, right? I think there's two ways to approach it. Practically, like how can you set your weekends up for success? Like practically, what are the things that you have to do? Which I know we'll kind of dive into. But this is like the mindset piece behind it where I think we've gotten so like I don't know, used to just leaning into comfort all the time. And if something feels a little
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: bit hard and feels a little bit like, this isn't what my knee-jerk reaction wants to do, or it feels different than what everyone else is doing, it gets painted with this negative brush of, this is unsustainable, this is restrictive, I'm not gonna be able to keep this going. look at all these other people. All these other people, they're enjoying, three to four drinks on the weekends. All these other people are eating out a couple of times per week. But if you're embarking on this and you want to lose weight, are do these other people have a body composition that you want? Probably not if they're living their weekends like this all the time. so if you do like mimic your behaviors off of what they're doing, you're probably gonna get the result that they're getting. And if they are overweight and out of shape and don't look and feel the way that you wanna look and feel, don't base your habits off of what's normal for them, right? You can have different Goals than them and approach life differently on the weekends of them. And the the comfort thing too, like if you've just gotten so used to anything out of your comfort zone, like is labeled as bad and label labeled as unsustainable. But when your habits are so far off from where you want to be, you know, maybe you are overweight, like in order to actually change and lose the weight, you have to do something different than what you've done before. So if you keep just having the same repeat cycle of
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: your weekends being the same all the time, nothing's gonna change then.
Katie Craig: Well and think people are afraid of well, what will other people say if I, you know, show up and I'm not eating the food that everybody else is eating or alcohol is a big one that I have had a lot of clients, you know, struggle with because well we have these plans and I know other people are gonna be drinking and if I don't drink then that's gonna, you know, raise questions and I just don't wanna deal with that. So I would rather just, you know, have like a two or three drink limit and then cut myself off. And I think that goes along with like the people that you surround yourself with. When you really get into that mindset of I have these goals and I really, really want to achieve them, if the people around you aren't supportive of that, then you might have to reevaluate that as well, which can be uncomfortable. So it's just it there's so much that goes into that mindset and it's just, you know, deciding how how much you want to change your life and how much you want to change your surroundings to reach your goals, or if you want to sit and, you know, you could there's always an excuse, I feel. for something. We can all say it, well work had a potluck today and I had to eat it. So or so and so brought me treats. So I couldn't say no. There's always just something. So yeah, it's just such a mindset of, you know, just deciding do I want to change my life or do I want to always find a reason that could set me back?
Joey Gast: Yeah. And that's always wild to me when people are like, I didn't hit my nutrition goals today, or I'm not really sure because like somebody brought something in for work for lunch. Like, are they physically holding you down and shoving the food in your mouth where like you can't eat anything else? Probably not.
Katie Craig: Yes.
Joey Gast: And like, I mean, I'm all for flexibility eating the foods that you enjoy, you know, while losing weight. But like if you're gonna go off. plan potentially, or estimate something and have a meal that's not, as controlled as what would predictably get you the fat loss that you want, save those meals for moments that are really that important to you, or for food that is really that important to you that you
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: really love. Like I've had people say I hate had this food at you know a potluck at work or something wasn't really that great. And like then like don't don't waste that opportunity
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: for progress on something that's not even that important
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: to you and goes goes with what you said about the alcohol. drinking just because you want to fit in. it's crazy to me. drinking is like the one thing like alcohol where health-wise, physiologically, there there are no bonus benefits of having any alcohol. And it's all just negative on on your body with alcohol. Now, like there's obviously I drink sometimes, like here and there. I probably
Katie Craig: Well name.
Joey Gast: have on average maybe like one to two drinks a month, depending on what kind of holidays or celebrations when I go to like an all-inclusive,
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: I'm having like if I go to like Punta Cana or something, I'm having like Yeah,
Katie Craig: Right. We're celebrating.
Joey Gast: I I mean I'm having probably like, I don't know, at least probably four drinks a day when I'm in Punta Cana, like spread out throughout the day, you know, like
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: a margarita here, pina colada, whatever. So I'm not like totally against alcohol, but If I'm going to an event and there's people there and I really don't want to drink, I'm not gonna drink just because I don't want anybody to say anything about me.
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: it's silly, That's it's you putting something that's gonna negatively impact your progress in your body, into yourself when it's not something you even really wanna do if that's what you're saying. so like Just if you're going to go off of your plan or eat something or have a meal that's estimated, make it really count, make it a special moment and really weigh out this this celebration or this get together that I'm going to, am I really gonna enjoy it that less if I eat beforehand and don't eat the food there? You know, like so-and-so might be bringing like their meatballs that they always bring, and it's like, yeah, those are like on a scale of one to ten to five. Like Why do you need to eat those then? eat beforehand, enjoy the experience with the people around you and everything that you're doing. And you don't necessarily need the food to fully enjoy it. But sometimes, if it's like Thanksgiving and you know, your your grandma or your mom is making their special cookies that they make every single year, that might be a like a hell yes, like yes, I'm gonna have those
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: cookies. You know, but you you have to be very picky and choosy and you can't sacrifice like you're like executing the game plan every chance you get because there's gonna be countless opportunities every day to just choose the most convenient thing.
Katie Craig: Right. I think that's like always my question to my clients is like where does it end then? Right? 'Cause there's always going to be an occasion or you know, I a lot of of clients, I think, and myself, I think I was guilty of this when I first started is like it was a really busy night, my kids had sports, you know, I just we went through the drive-thru for them, so I just had to get something. And I'm like, mm, you know, there's always going to be something that can be a roadblock for you. So just figuring out like, you know, how am I gonna, how am I gonna navigate this to where I'm prepared, I put my goals ahead of what's convenient. And I think that's the key is just you want to put your goals ahead of conveniency and we live in a society where everything is convenient, everything's at hand, and that's just really, really easy just to base your life and your choices off of that. But when you when you have goals that you want to hit and you have, you know, changes in your physique that you want to make, convenient is not gonna be the way to get there. It's gonna take work and it's gonna take, you know, changing changing your lifestyle. So yeah, that's something I think I have a conversation with a lot, with a lot of my clients about. Because we all, I mean, most of us are moms, most of us, you know, work. So nothing, you know, anything that's convenient is obviously going to be the easier choice, but you're obviously, you know, signing up for a reason and that's to change. So that's something that I have a lot of conversations about with my clients for sure.
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm. And and I think part of this too comes down to mentally being honest with yourself in being honest with the amount of control that you actually do have over the choices you make. Like that example you gave, you know, where, you know, I went through the drive-thru with, you know, for my daughter or something, and it was late at night at seven PM and I didn't have anything like cooked, so I just had to order like a McDonald's cheeseburger for myself. Like, well, you didn't really h have to. Like,
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: one, maybe we could have stopped at Chick-fil-A or something where there's grilled nuggets where it's easier to track and it fits your goals a little bit better. But number two, do you not have any food at home to eat at all, even if it isn't like a you know, pre home cooked like fancy meal? Like, do we have
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: some yogurt or something at home that we could throw together a quote unquote meal with some yogurt and some fruit? I do that all the time if I'm too either lazy to cook or I didn't have time to cook and I don't feel like being up until 9 p.m. cooking. But I acknowledge hey, I actually do have control to cook if I really wanted to. But hey, instead, I have these backup options, yogurt or like, you know, right now there's so many high protein, low calorie options that are really convenient, like the you know, chicken nuggets that you can buy that are high protein, low calorie that you can just heat
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: those up with a microwave, throw some fruit with it. Like You could have that while maybe your kids do have the McDonald's or whatever it is through the drive-thru. So usually there is a backup option that people have, or maybe they're on the road instead of going through fast food. you could either bring your own protein bars or protein shakes and some snacks that like you can track accurately that are overall healthy. you could bring that stuff or stop at a gas station and pick those up. Like there's usually a backup option. That is somewhere in the middle versus, I'm completely perfect with what I had planned before my life became chaos today. And then
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: it's just like I'm going completely off the rails or completely off plan. Like there's usually a middle ground where you can still execute really well. And some of it is just like as the client or as the person, acknowledging like I do have more power over my choices. and I'm not a victim of just this inconvenient circumstance.
Katie Craig: Yeah. And I think like I'm not perfect. I never, claim to be perfect when it comes to my journey. I think though I struggle with the like I'm super busy. You know, I can't do this 'cause I'm super busy. I feel like I am somebody that is a million miles an hour all day long with ten million different things on my plate and I still am able to, you know, show up for myself. And that's where I think I know this journey Is so much more mental than it is physical. Like the mental toughness is it has to be there. because like I said, you're always going to have a reason why, you know, something isn't convenient or why we can't do something. And there's I I could count so many times even this month that I've had to go through a drive-thru for my kids because it's late at night and they're losing it. And I know I don't have time to go home and cook a box of mac and cheese for one, a grilled cheese for the. Like I just I don't don't have time. So
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm.
Katie Craig: you know, if they're all like, hey, I want chicken nuggets, we're gonna go to Wendy's, we're gonna get chicken nuggets, and then I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna eat something else. So I think that's where it really just it doesn't come down to we're busy. We're all busy. Every single one of us is busy. It's just that mental toughness of deciding okay, I'm strong enough to say, like you said, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna throw together a meal that's not perfect. It's not gonna look, you know, perfect. It's not a meal prep with colorful fruits and veggies. Like you said, maybe it's just yogurt with a side of fruit and maybe even like a sausage patty. I've done that sometimes, turkey sausage, like for the protein.
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm.
Katie Craig: It's not gonna be perfect, but It's better than eating processed, fast food that I know is gonna put me over my calories, my sodium, all of that. So yeah, it's just so much mental. And if you are somebody that is very easily swayed by things being difficult or other people or convenience, then I think the mental aspect is something that has to be worked on way before the physical for sure.
Joey Gast: Yeah. And even with that, there's also even a middle ground within that too, where okay, if you are going through a drive-thru in the last last minute, at the end of the day, take the time to see, okay, if you have five hundred calories or six hundred calories left in your day, take the time to look at the menu and see what can I order that at least fits within that calorie range versus, I'm just gonna go through order like a cheeseburger and a large fry, eat it, and then plug it in later and just hope that, okay, we'll see where I land.
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: even taking that small step of five to ten minutes, just sitting in the parking lot and searching it really quick. And nowadays you could even just go to ChatGBT and even voice talk and say, Hey, I want to order something from Burger King that's six less than six hundred calories. What should I order? And it's gonna spit out a bunch of options there. You can even Google this stuff and it probably will pop up because I know They have AI connected to your Google searches now. And
Katie Craig: Yes.
Joey Gast: like, which is just a super simple step. And obviously, like logging that stuff because, you know, the person in the back cooking it is not weighing and measuring it out with the food scale. It's not entirely accurate, but it's at least like a good middle ground versus that mentality of, well, I'm just gonna eat it and plug it in after and just kind of cross my fingers and hope that I didn't go over my calories. Or
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: Sometimes, people fall into the trap of well, this wasn't my originally meal prepped meal, so I'm just not even gonna log it entirely and now you're just stacking up multiple days where half of your food isn't even logged and who knows? You could be three or four hundred calories over, your calorie goal multiple days of the week then.
Katie Craig: Yeah. Yeah. I think That is the other thing too, is just not taking the time to either log it or not taking the time to pay attention to what you're logging, like you said. Like everything is so accessible to us right now in the world that we live in. Chat GPT, like you said, is on everything. It's connected to everything. So yeah, just to be able to put in that quick search to figure out like, okay, I really don't have any other options. What is my best option here? But then also there's like that sense of guilt of okay. I did maybe splurge, I'm just not gonna log it. And so then we really don't know, how many days are we over and yeah, the list goes on.
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm. Yeah. and and I think, I mean, this is also like kind of another thing that we didn't really touch on much yet. But I was having a conversation with a client about this like a week or two ago, and she was talking about the weekends and just how they're always tough because they always like go out to dinner. And I don't know if you have ever like dealt with clients like this or have thought about this with clients, but I think one big struggle that some people have is using food as like a way to I don't know, like do something fun with their family. Like like it's always revolved around food and like going to get ice cream or ordering pizza or going to a restaurant and that's like their splurge or almost mini vacation for their family. Like And and the the point I'm making with this is I was the specific conversation I was having with the client is I think when people maybe grow up not like from a household with a lot of money where they didn't really go on many vacations or trips or actually do things that maybe costed more money to actively do, I think a lot of people in that demographic growing up, they've leaned on the one fun thing they were able to do with their family was go to Burger King on the weekend or something. And they build this like attachment with food and attachment with going out to dinner on the weekends because of that. And now that's like how they almost like get their mini vacation instead of taking trips or doing something active. And I think it's something that a lot of people have to unlearn is
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: not using food to be the thing that. helps you to feel fulfilled after a long work week and finding other things to do that are fun with you or your family that don't make food the center of everything.
Katie Craig: Yeah. And I think this is the social worker in me is just digging into your why. And I think, one of my main questions to my clients when they first get started, I like to ask, you know, why? Why are you signing up? Why are you why are you here? What is your goal? And a lot of times you can figure out based off of that, like, okay, what what are we really, you know, trying to overcome here? And it like you said, is it there almost is like a food addiction where that's your vice. Like you're looking for happiness and you your fulfillment from experiences that r revolve around food or your fulfillment comes for food? Like is that is that where like what we're working to unpack here? and I think yeah it's just I don't even know that it's I mean, I think I didn't grow up with a ton of money and when we went out to eat it was like a big deal because it was expensive for a big family to go out to eat even back in the nineties, two thousands, you know? So Yeah, I just think, finding a way to figure out what are you trying to unpack in this journey? Obviously, if it is you have, you know, this comfort level with food or this addiction almost to food or food noise I hear, you know, a lot. what's behind that? What are you looking to, you know, uncover or a lot of people eat to because they have, you know, a lot of trauma that they're, Trying to push down. So, okay, well, when I eat, this is my comfort food, and this makes me feel better. So it's like unpacking all those layers of like, what is your why? Why are you here? And I think it it's really it is such a mental process, and I will stand by that, you know, forever. And I think this journey is so much of figuring out like who you are and who you always have been, and how do we, you know, lean into that and lean into your strengths, but also, like you said, fix. fixing that, you know, comfort level that you have to food or addiction almost that you have to food. So yeah, there's so much that goes into it.
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm. Yeah. we couldn't do an entirely different episode about just the psychological
Katie Craig: I
Joey Gast: aspects of this and why people
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: make certain food choices and using food to feel fulfilled in life in general, right? there are people who they they don't have the money to go on vacation. So the fun thing that they do is go out to eat every single weekend with their kids. And that's the thing they can do. And obviously that adds up over time and it is costly. And if they didn't go out to eat for this many weekends, maybe they could save up money for a vacation. But obviously it's harder to make that long-term investment to save up versus just spend this much every weekend. But then there's also there are people who are in relationships that aren't really supportive and like they're using food to comfort themselves or to feel fulfilled. to get that dopamine hit because they don't feel happiness in those relationships or happiness in their job or the people they're hanging out with, or they're in the same nine to five job, not to like bash on nine to fives, but they're in a nine to five job that they don't enjoy and
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: that doesn't fulfill them, and they're just doing the same routine over and over. And it's like, food's the one exciting thing I can like explore over the weekend, where like if food can be one of the least exciting things about your life and you're getting excitement in your life through you know having great relationships, great friendships, or achieving something, you know, great yourself, it helps to like, you know, you you just don't have that much focus on food. So that's like a whole different rabbit hole we could go through.
Katie Craig: I know, yeah.
Joey Gast: but so what are like what are some practical things that you do To make sure that you stay on track like you need to over the weekend, like we could start for like ways that you plan for the weekend.
Katie Craig: Yeah, and again, I'm gonna preface this by saying I'm not perfect with this. I think we've just had a conversation today actually about how, you know, I've gotten a little bit more lax with it. But I think for me, like I am very mentally tough in the sense of like I am not going to let anybody come in between me and the goal that I have for myself. And so if I know, okay, this weekend we have For example, we have two birthday parties. We have a fall festival. We have a Halloween party. Like we have three or those four things just on Saturday. So I've already sat down with myself and told myself, okay, we're gonna get up, we're gonna eat breakfast, lunch, I already have it prepped. I'm gonna eat that before I go anywhere. And then dinner, I'll be home in time to, you know, eat a meal at home. I'm not going to allow myself to use these birthday parties, the festivals and all of that to steer me off. of my goals. a lot of times I do bring my own food places. That used to be something that I felt like silly about when I first started, but I think again, like the longer I've been in this, the more I realize like I'm working my ass off Monday through Friday, and then I'm like miserable on the weekends because I'm and I don't want to say that like I didn't I think I was eating just things that I knew weren't good for me. I don't even think it was that I was overeating. It was just like okay, I'm eating junk and it's gonna take me days to feel better after eating this. I might have a couple drinks and then it's like the same cycle again. So yeah, I think I got to the point where I just realized I don't want to live like this. I don't want to, you know, always surround myself with people that are gonna make me, you know, feel like, you're not drinking, or you're not eating with us, or we're throwing in for pizza, you're not you're really not gonna eat. So I just I've had to change a lot. About my lifestyle and a lot of the things that you know were normal for me. I've had to kind of go against that and really decide: okay, I want to be the healthiest version. I want to teach my kids. You can have fun on the weekends, and you can be, you know, with other people and you can go and do things, but still, you know, stay on track and hit your goals. So for me, it's just always been a lot of planning, a lot of you know, strong mindset of yes, we have these things going on, but that doesn't mean. that I have to completely derail my whole weekend.
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm. And I think like one thing that I think is really key with it is especially for like newer clients or you know, maybe if you're not a client, is a lot of people judge their weekends based off of how they feel. So they'll say like, I feel like I did pretty good, or I made pretty good choices, or, you know, I was conscious of my food. But That's great, right? That's a great foundation, but it does only get you so far if you want to see really predictable fat loss week to week. And you have to adopt the mindset of I'm not gonna go off of how I feel. I'm gonna go off of objective numbers of what did I actually do over the weekend. And I think that starts
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: with just committing to like pre logging and planning your weekend in advance. So you can, hey, like. We're gonna have pizza on Friday with my family. I'm going to pre-log three slices or two slices of pizza, see how many calories are in those slices, map my Friday around that so I can still hit my goals on Friday. And if I end up overeating afterwards, I need to go back and plug that in so I can at least see how much over on my calories was I. Because if you see, okay, you're going over your calories 500. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, you can see like how that specifically impacts your progress week to week. If every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday you're maybe going over your calorie range by 500, but maybe you're still seeing progress. Okay, maybe that's something that like you don't have to change because you're still seeing the progress that you want. But if you're not, you at least have some kind of new ver numerical value of, okay, this is how I have to adjust next time. And next time, maybe it takes just having. two slices of pizza instead of three and it doesn't set me over and I did that or I took that approach and now I am losing one pound per week still. So when you deal with I feel like I did pretty well, I was pretty conscious, I made healthy choices, like everything is so vague and without taking the time to like plug those things in and learn how many calories are in certain types of meals, especially at restaurants, You're never gonna learn just how much you're actually undoing your progress or not.
Katie Craig: Yeah. And I think you know I have I can think of one client off the top of my head who her non negotiable was pizza on Fridays with her kids and I'm like, absolutely, I don't want you to, completely throw that tradition out the window. And so yeah, that she gets in, you know, Fri or Friday morning, even the day before, and she'll log that. She'll figure out where they're gonna order it from and she'll log that in and then base her day around that. So yeah, I'm not saying that those things can never happen and you have to live like this super strict lifestyle, but you just have to make sure that it's not a consistent thing that's happening every single weekend, we're eating out, we're eating over our calorie goal, and then that becomes your new normal.
Joey Gast: Yeah. Yeah. So pre-logging and pre-planning, helps so much because then you can adjust your day, you know, in the beginning of the day to still hit those daily targets that you have. I mean it's it's like if you have a strict budget financially and there's so many correlations between like fat loss and hitting a calorie goal and having a calorie budget and financial budget. But if you have a financial budget where like, okay, I can spend this amount of money each month, like And you have this bigger expense or something that you want to save for, you probably want to account for that ahead of time before you just go and blow thousands of dollars on this new thing you want to buy. And then you're like, shoot, now I don't have money for groceries this week or whatever it may
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: be. And it's the same thing. if you know you're going to go out to dinner on Saturday, or you likely will, and it's a toss-up of if you for sure will. If it's like a common theme every Saturday, we always go out to dinner or order pizza. Then just account for that beforehand, on Thursday, go into your food log and save, make sure you're saving, a thousand calories worth or eight hundred calories worth of pizza. And then just adjust your breakfast and lunch around it versus versus keeping your breakfast and lunch the same as you do Monday through Thursday, and you only leave 500 calories left for dinner. And now someone's like, Hey, let's order pizza. And now you're like, Well, now I can have one and a half slices of pizza and that's it. And then I feel like I'm missing
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: out. so knowing your habits. And properly planning and plugging things in ahead of time. that's the first step to make sure you don't end up just binging and going over.
Katie Craig: Yeah. And I think too like if you're somebody that you know is gonna go out to restaurants a lot too, just accounting for the extras is a big one I see a lot. Like I'm never gonna tell you, you know, I want you to plan your meals at home, absolutely. But if you're somebody that you're gonna go out to eat three to four times a week, then plan for at least a thousand calories per meal, right? Because the oils, the you know, the extras that you don't think about. The menu might say this meal is like 800 calories. calories, but did you account for the butter, the oil, you know, all of those things too. So that's just where it gets kind of hard when you can plan for it, but you really can't plan for all of, you know, the extras that are gonna be thrown in there as well.
Joey Gast: Yeah, I think there was this research study that I read about where they looked at the calorie content of certain restaurant foods versus how much was estimated based off of like their website. And and the calorie differences were just so crazy. I think they were up to like a hundred percent off, which means that they were like potentially
Katie Craig: That's good.
Joey Gast: double. if it's at a thousand calories on their website, it could be up to two thousand calories for some items, depending on like Who is cooking it in the back? How much butter or oil they used.
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: So, and this is another tip I like have s told clients before is if if you're like in a pinch and you're having to like order something and like we we talked, you know, endlessly about like, hey, there's backup options. You should probably have some yogurt or some chicken nuggets, you know, on hand
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: at home or food at home that you could easily heat up and log accurately. But in the circumstance where like you do Either go through fast food or you do go to a restaurant. Fast foods, their portion sizes are a little bit more typical and uniform than like a restaurant, and the way they're preparing food is a little bit more uniform. So if a fast food
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: place says, okay, this order is 600 calories, there's a better chance it's actually pretty close, closer to that at least, than a restaurant. Even though a restaurant might cook with like more fresh ingredients, quote unquote, like You might be getting 1500 calories worth of fresh ingredients versus like 900 of what it says on on their website. So it can be
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: a huge difference. And like a good rule of thumb that we tell clients all the time or that I do is people always ask, like, okay, how often can I eat out? Like, what's a good amount? And if you're in an active fat loss phase, I always say like one, maybe two meals like out per week. or estimated is where we want to be because we want to really dial in that food tracking accuracy more. And if we're in like a more of a maintenance phase, you could probably get away with eating out maybe three to four times per week and estimating those things three to four times per week. But that's three to four times per week of estimating, still being conscious of what kind of meals you're choosing, still roughly accounting for those calories. That's not three to four times a week of just like, hey, I'm going to a Mexican restaurant, getting this like
Katie Craig: Splurging.
Joey Gast: 40 ounce margarita that's maybe 600 calories in itself, getting a eating a bunch of chips that are unaccounted for, getting like this huge burrito, and then dessert. Like if you're doing that three to four times a week, like you're just digging yourself you know a bigger hole all the time. And this is where like your choices when you do go out to dinner, they probably do need to change over time. Like every time you go out to dinner. If you want to actually embark on this healthy lifestyle and lose body fat over time, every time you go out, you probably can't order the biggest burger on the menu with a bunch of fries and get deep fried mozzarella sticks for an appetizer. You probably have to learn to at least 50% of the time, if not 75% of the time, order the lean steak with veggies on the side and a plain baked potato. And then maybe once a month you do get the burger. But Choosing those options are gonna set you up to be more full, not deal with as much inflammation afterwards. And calorie wise, like usually like a steak dinner meal at a restaurant, depending on what kind of side you get, you know, if you get like more of like a baked potato or rice, might be like eight to nine hundred calories. Whereas like you go to some of these like bar food restaurants and get it the burger that's like as big as your head, and a plate of fries
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: that's big enough for like five people, like that's You're looking at maybe fourteen, fifteen hundred calories there.
Katie Craig: Right. Yeah, and that's yeah. That's your entire day if you're in a fat loss too. So yeah, just making those better choices. And I think a lot of people too, like with the eating out, they'll get, you know, a mixed drink or some kind of alcohol. And then they're like, well, it's just alcohol, so I'm not logging that either. But like you said with the margaritas, like those are so many calories. So yeah, just like being mindful and knowing, okay, like I if I'm gonna eat this or drink this, then I'm probably gonna, you know, be over on my calories. calories as well. So I think yeah, there's a way to navigate it where you can, you know, eat out once, twice, maybe a week and still see, you know, progress. But it's just definitely making those better choices.
Joey Gast: Yeah, and I'm really big on awareness and education and those two things allowing you to just make the most educated and best decision that you can in the moment. like if a client is like, hey, I sat down in this restaurant, I roughly estimated how much a margarita would be in calories, how much this order would be, and there were two thousand calories in this whole meal, but I just really wanted it and I ate it and I ordered it anyway. And they made an actual educated decision out of awareness of what it would do to them and their progress. yes, if you want to lose body fat, we probably shouldn't do that. that's gonna set us up to
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: have a hard time. But you're at least making a decision out of knowing the consequences and knowing just how big of an impact it might make on your progress. Versus like if you don't look up these things of how many calories are in them. At all, and you're just like, I'm off my plan. I know I'm probably gonna be off. This feels too hard to estimate or look up. So I'm just not gonna look it up at all. And then you eat it and move on, and then you're up three or four pounds on the scale, and you're like, what's going on? I'm like, well, if you would have maybe plugged things, these things in, maybe the mindless amounts of chips you ate just sitting there, maybe you would have decided, huh, chips aren't really worth it. And maybe you could have actually still hit your calorie range just by passing on the chips and had a great time. But because you didn't take the
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: time to look it up, you didn't know that, all it took was sacrificing chips and I could have enjoyed all this and still stayed within my calorie range. You just ate the chips anyway, because you're like, screw it. So, when you look that stuff up, it gives you that opportunity to like see what trade-offs you actually are willing to make. And then don't feel like a big sacrifice to you. But if you're just in the dark. with that information because you're too maybe lazy or you have that all all that nothing mindset to actually look that stuff up, you don't end up being able to like at least give the op give yourself the opportun opportunity to make that better decision.
Katie Craig: Yeah. Yeah, the impulse control is is a big one for sure. I think that's hard too, like just going based off of what you want and what you've always done b and sitting and like stopping yourself and thinking, like, okay, is this gonna be worth it? Is it gonna get me, you know, closer towards my goals or is it gonna get me further away? Is it gonna satisfy me long term? Probably not. It's gonna satisfy me short term and then I'm gonna be left feeling, you know, guilty or not feeling the greatest because my stomach hurts or whatever. So those are all the things that go through my brain. I love a good burger and fries, but is it gonna absolutely destroy, you know, my stomach for a couple of days? Probably. Is that worth it to me? Not really. And there are days where
Joey Gast: Mm-hmm.
Katie Craig: that the answer is yes, but it's just like
Joey Gast: Yeah.
Katie Craig: yeah, really working through that mental process before you impulsively make that decision.
Joey Gast: Yeah. I don't know if it's getting older, but I feel like my stomach is way more sensitive to that kind of stuff. Like
Katie Craig: yes.
Joey Gast: if if I'm really thinking about getting a burger, I'm really weighing out the pros and cons of especially if it's late in the evening. I'm like, man, I know I'm gonna be like burping this up like all evening and I might lay down in bed and
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: feel uncomfortable. Like, is this really worth it? but
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: I ask myself that too, like Not only how is this meal gonna impact my calories and my body fat level, but how is this meal gonna impact me two hours later when I'm trying to just feel comfortable?
Katie Craig: Right. Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: and if you know that meal it's gonna make you feel super bloated and you're gonna feel uncomfortable, the more you can train yourself to choose the lighter option in those scenarios, the steak or the white fish with some veggies and you're enjoying a really tasty. good meal that you don't have to cook, you don't have to do dishes for. that's a great experience,
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: but you're walking away from it feeling like, Wow, I feel like pretty good, you're not feeling so bloated and weighed down afterwards too.
Katie Craig: Yeah, no definitely. The regret is not there.
Joey Gast: Yeah, the f the physical regret and uncomfortableness too, which is huge.
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: So so I feel like we really like bounced around a lot and we didn't even go to the second topic, which is fine. So we'll just save that for another another day. But yeah, j like at the end of the day, just to kind of wrap up, like you have to realize you have to make decisions. for yourself and not just based off what other people are doing. Right. That's, that goes back to elementary school. you can't just jump
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm. Bus.
Joey Gast: off a bridge because everyone else is. that's not gonna be fun.
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: and number two, you have to pr like have the foresight to pre-log and pre-plan whether it's something you actively have planned for the weekend or you just kind of know yourself and know when Saturday evening rolls around you're gonna want to order pizza, like plug that in ahead of time and plan for that, you know, and already account for that. And then number three is like get very Objective with your habits. Don't just go off a feel. look up this stuff, see how many calories are in these things, and you might find there's this meal that I always order. It's like 1500 calories. You're like, wow, that does not feel worth it to me. And you might find a meal that's pretty close. That's maybe 800 calories that you can order instead by just looking up that
Katie Craig: Mm-hmm.
Joey Gast: information. you know, if there's like some super expensive. T V, but it's like two inches bigger than one that's half the price. I might buy the one that's half the price that's two inches smaller, ev because it's so close, but it's not
Katie Craig: Right.
Joey Gast: costing me so much there. So, anything else you want to add just as we wrap up because I know you have a cutoff time.
Katie Craig: No, I don't think so. I think I think we hit on everything that we wanted to talk about and I think I'm excited for the next one. I know the next topic was a good one too, so excited to dive into that.
Joey Gast: Yeah, that that'll be a good one. All about the all about the scale and just
Katie Craig: Yeah.
Joey Gast: what it looks like you know, with eating more, which would be fun. So
Katie Craig: Yes.
Joey Gast: cool. We'll wrap this up and yeah, we'll see you guys in the next one.
