210 - Q&A: Grip Strength, Auto-Regulation, Tight Muscles, Dieting on a Budget, Field Prep + More

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What's going on guys? Welcome to another episode of the Terminator Training Show. I'm Kevin Smith. Today is going to be a q and A that I'm going to get done relatively quickly compared to most episodes. I have a trip up to Maine tomorrow that I have to go pack for and we also have a bunch of commotion going on in the house. We have house cleaners here, we have house painters here, and it has been a wild and crazy day. So I am not going to blow off these questions or anything like that. [00:00:30] I'm going to give you guys some good answers that I put some effort into, but I'm going to try and get to as many as I can and just upfront, it's going to be a little shorter episode, so going up to Maine to visit my family. I grew up there and I'm pretty much the only one who doesn't live there anymore.

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My youngest sister just had a baby, so we're going to go meet our new niece, which is awesome, and my middle sister, who's the closest in age to me has a couple kids. One [00:01:00] is just turning five. My other niece is just turning five, so we'll go to her birthday party this weekend as well. And Sunday is Mother's Day and I can't even remember the last time I was with my mom on Mother's Day. So should be a really awesome trip and I am partially packed, but because everyone is all over the place, the house cleaners are currently in my bedroom in the bathroom that is connected to the bedroom where most of my stuff is. I am doing this while they're in there just [00:01:30] before I get back into finishing packing for me. I don't know if you're like this, but for me, if I don't finish packing will in advance of when I leave.

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We're not leaving tomorrow till mid-morning, but anyway, I don't like sleeping on not being packed, so going to get that done, at least 95% done and go from there. But hopping into this episode beforehand, one little housekeeping note, the SFAS program is still on sale. It will be [00:02:00] throughout the weekend, so if you're listening to this soon after it comes out, you can still act on that. The code is SFAS and that'll get you 25% off right now. It is cheaper than most of my programs with that sale and it has not just a 15 week program, way new and improved from the original four and a half years of program experience and helping hundreds of people go into selection later, but it also has a 59 page ebook all together in that same purchase that you can [00:02:30] go through and get everything you possibly need to be as well-rounded and self-developed as you possibly can going into election.

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So you're not just fit, but you're also skilled at communication. You have strong character, you're mentally tough, you develop the right habits beforehand to support your training and it's all included in there. So check that out if you're interested. And with that out of the way, let's hop into today's questions. First question, thoughts on hill training for [00:03:00] selection, prep hill sprints, but also rucking up and downhills. Big fan. Is it make or break necessarily like if you live in Florida, are you screwed? Not really. If you're going to SFAS, if you're going to the Long Walk, much more mountainous and never doing any hills in that case would be probably not a great idea, definitely not a great idea. You probably would be better off at least occasionally driving to find some hills, but assuming you're talking about SFAS, you can do it and I would say it is definitely beneficial, [00:03:30] especially rucking up and down hills, but also doing some of your tempo work and some of your long runs and whatnot on hills would be a good idea just because there are, even though McCall is not super mountainous or really, really hilly, there are definitely some ups and downs and being able to move fast uphill is very important.

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But also one other underrated and often overlooked aspect to hills is getting prepared for the downhill work, especially under a ruck because most [00:04:00] people are going to ruck run downhill. That would be a good idea while you're at selection and if you never do that in training, then you're going to get just beat the hell up because going downhill is just more stressful on the joints, it's more stressful on the quads and you're going to be super sore. Your knees are probably going to be banged up. Maybe your shins, maybe your feet and your body adapts to that stuff pretty quickly. So if you get a little bit in training, a little bit of downhill running, especially with a R on as you get closer, you don't have to do this every time. I wouldn't train exactly the way that you're going to perform at selection, but [00:04:30] say you get five to six minutes, six weeks out of downhill running total in one of your long rucks and then eight to 12 minutes in another ruck maybe four weeks out and then another 12 to 15 minutes total spread out throughout the ruck, three, two to three weeks out, then you're going to make those adaptations.

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It doesn't take much, but you're going to be a lot less beat up during gate week and that's really when you're going to do most of your downhill ruck. Running and running. Running does beat you up downhill, which is why I said it would be a good idea [00:05:00] to do some of your temple work downhill, but you don't have to take it crazy seriously, you don't have to do it every week by any means. I would do most of your stuff on maybe some rolling hills if that's the terrain you have, but even if you don't, maybe you have to go drive somewhere to get more access to hills if that's the case for you. You can still do most of your training on relatively flat and be fine, but getting some exposure would be a good idea. Next question, can pool skills like underwater underwaters and not tying be trained on rest [00:05:30] days?

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I don't know what underwater apostrophe S means, but I'm assuming you mean subsurface things that you're going to be tested on at either a dive school or a water-based election, and would I consider this a good idea to train in general? Yes. Would I consider it a good thing to do on a rest day? No, because you're going to have to recover from it. It's going to be very mentally stressful. It's going to be stressful on your CNS, even though you're not lifting heavy or running hard or swimming max effort, going underwater and holding your breath is in [00:06:00] and of itself a stressor. Doing it repetitively especially, but doing things underwater, 50 meter subsurface, tying knots, other drown proofing stuff is definitely a stressor on the nervous system as well as it's just mentally stressful going into it and it's going to therefore require recovery.

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So if on your rest days you are doing things that are going to require recovery, it's not considered a rest day. Again, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Make sure you're safe, make sure you have [00:06:30] the right people on hand with the right equipment and a ED, oxygen, things like that. I know it's not easy to have all this stuff, but it's way better than dying. People do it all the time. They go and they train bare bones or they bring a buddy and the buddy's doing the same thing they are. They're both underwater, one of them shallow water blackouts and that can be a really, really bad thing. So make sure you're safe about it, but I would not consider this a rest day activity because you're absolutely going to have to recover from it. Next question, which program will allow me to run 20 to 30 miles [00:07:00] a week but really increase my strength?

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The best option for that would be Jack Zel 3.0. You will probably work up to the mid twenties, maybe high twenties, run mileage, maybe low thirties. I would've to look at it, but you will absolutely improve your strength and Jack Zel original definitely has good strength improvement in it, but it does not have as much running. So 3.0 is a better program. I wrote it several years later and I was just better programming then and B, it's got more running bias [00:07:30] in it, so that is your best bet. Next question, is it okay to turn Jack L three into an eight or nine day block runs and lifts on different days? Yes, absolutely. Especially if you either have a weird schedule or you work shift work or maybe you're in a fire department, you have two days on, four days off or something similar, or if you just have a higher stress life and you can't recover as fast from things which is totally fine and acceptable or [00:08:00] maybe you just don't have time to get the days that have the running in the lifting in all in one day, then spreading it out is totally fine.

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I would also consider if you're doing this putting one rest day in, so maybe instead of a seven day week the way it's split up, maybe you split it into nine days and say you do the lift and the speed work that are supposed to be done. Each phase is a little different, but say there's lift and speed work on the first day in the phase you're in, you could do the lift one day, the speed work the next day or [00:08:30] vice versa, and then I would probably after two days like that, take a day off and then get into the rest of the training week just because it's believe it or not, a little bit less stressful to do those A on the same day on your overall system that it is to do 'em back to back days. It is kind of spreading the stress out a little bit more as opposed to getting it all done at one time and beginning the recovery process.

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But there's a lot of different ways you could split this up and I would say maybe not most people, [00:09:00] but lots of people who follow this program would get better results if they took each seven day week of training and did it over nine days or eight days or even 10 days. For some people, totally fine. The program's just going to last a little bit longer from start to finish, but you'll still get all the sessions in, they'll just be done over a longer time horizon and I think it's a great option. Next question, if you had to pick three best grip workouts for SFAS, what would they be? So grip workouts aren't really what I would [00:09:30] consider doing. I would do grip training, so progressive training over time. I've talked about the difference between training and workouts in the past, but just to reiterate, training is something that builds on itself.

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It progresses and generally it's like very similar things. You just increase volume or you increase load or you increase intensity or something like that. Workouts are you just go and do some fitness and it doesn't really have much rhyme or reason. Yes, training is [00:10:00] a series of multiple different workouts, but there is a difference. So if you're just going and doing the best grip workouts, you still may not develop the type of grip that you need, the specific grip that you need as opposed to a progressive training plan. So generally you want to keep things specific and honestly other than a couple different types of caries, there's really not much you need to do. You can do some extra grip stuff, but for the most part, as long as you're doing consistent suitcase carries one arm [00:10:30] and farmer's caries two arms, a little bit more emphasis on farmer's, sorry, suitcase carries because you're going to do those more often.

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Maybe you do three carry sessions per week, two of those are suitcase carries, one is a farmer's carry, you're going to be good and you can probably, or you should definitely add some fat grips to some of those sessions, not all of them, but say you're doing three workouts per week, one day you do normal grip suitcase carries another day, you do normal grip farmer's caries and then the last day you do fat grip with a little bit lower load [00:11:00] just because it's a bigger grip, it's harder to hold onto suitcase carries again. That would be a great way to do it. And as far as some principles to focus on, a lot of people kind of mess this up by going really, really heavy and short. They're focused more on grip strength than grip endurance. That would be like trying to get really good at doing as many pushups as possible by doing three to five sets.

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Sets of three to five bitch. Yes, that can transfer over and it's not useless and you could [00:11:30] get better as kind of a byproduct at pushups if you're also doing pushups, but it's not going to really move the needle as much as doing higher rep pushups because it's more specific. Same with grip endurance, first grip strength. I would much rather someone be able to carry 50 pounds for a really, really, really long time with periodic rest breaks than someone be able to carry 150 pounds per hand for 20 yards and do it a few times. You're going to be way better off that way and it's less fatiguing to go lighter and longer than it is to go heavier and [00:12:00] shorter. So those are some of the main principles. Higher frequency two to three days a week mostly suitcase carries a little bit of farmer's caries a little bit of fat grip work and make sure you're emphasizing strength versus endurance and over time you can either add load in small amounts, you can add duration in small amounts, you can reduce the rest periods, you can add some frequency.

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There's lots of different ways to progress it, but that is the key thing is progression, not just doing random workouts. Next question. What program do you recommend for Q course students? Lots of different [00:12:30] options For this one, you could do T eight 50 and hop on and hop off as applicable like when you're going out to Camp McCall for a while and you're not going to be able to train or you don't have access to the internet, which is going to happen periodically throughout the Q course. You can jump off that program. You won't get charged while you're not following it and then when you get back, hop back on that is an app-based hybrid program and it's very appropriate for Q course as well as soft guys as well as just anyone who's looking to improve their run. Ruck biased hybrid fitness. [00:13:00] You could also consider any of the three Jack Ls, Jack Azel two, Jack Azel three are probably a little bit more course appropriate.

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They're just better programs overall because I wrote them later in my programming career. If you are lacking in the run department, you could consider two and five mile if you're lacking in the run department and your volume is a little higher, you could consider run advanced. If you're up in the mid 20 miles per week already and you're used to doing speed work and threshold work, jumping straight into run advance is totally fine, [00:13:30] but those are definitely the best what six options. Other than that, I wouldn't really consider any of my other programs Super Q course appropriate just because they either are selection prep programs or they are more strength in muscle biased and less conditioning biased. Next question, would you say there is a progression with your programs, like start with Jack Elle, then two, then three. You could do that, but they are all kind of standalone programs.

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You could start with either one. If you start with Jack Zel two, [00:14:00] great. If you start with three, great. If you start with one, awesome. You'd probably make the best gains if you did them all three in a row because Jack L one is very barbell strength dominant. It's a little bit less conditioning jack L two is more of a joint friendly, longevity friendly hypertrophy as far as the lifting is concerned and a little bit more conditioning, a little bit more on foot and Jack is L three is kind of a combination of both of those. It starts with more hypertrophy as far as [00:14:30] the lifting's concerned in the early phases and converts into more strength dominant and it's also, I just was way more skilled when I wrote that program than I was when I wrote the first one, especially even the second one.

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Not that they're bad programs, Jack Zel OG is by far my most sold program. I've sold more copies of that than any other program that I have, but JG three is amazing. JG two is amazing, but honestly you can't really go wrong with the order that you follow them in and [00:15:00] even some of them like Jack is L two and Jack is L three, you could follow both. You could follow over again, so you could follow Jack is L two twice in a row. Jack is L three twice in a row. I wouldn't do that with JXL one. It's very, very two dimensional. Doesn't have really any power work or very joint friendly lifts. Sometimes you're just going to have to sacrifice a little bit of joint friendliness to make the gains that you want, the strength gains you want in specific barbell lifts, which is totally a fine trade off, but it's just not something I would do [00:15:30] twice in a row.

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I would switch it up with one of the other ones, but yeah, can't really go wrong. Whatever you got, whatever you're feeling, go with it. Next question. Using mountain bike riding for building my run base while gradually upping mileage, I think that's totally fine as long as you're recovering well overall and you're being relatively safe on the mountain bike. I mean if you're a super skilled biker, then by all means send it. I'm assuming you're just doing it mostly for cardio and enjoyment, in which case I would say that's a great option and it's much better [00:16:00] than trying to add a lot more running to what you're already doing because the mountain bike is going to be non-impact and way less stressful on the musculoskeletal system. So you're going to be able to do more volume and it's just going to enhance aerobic base. Is it going to make you a superstar runner?

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No. But the running that you're doing is going to improve your running and then additional aerobic work, whether it's biking and it doesn't have to be biking, it could be swimming, it could be rowing, it could be elliptical, anything you please, but if you enjoy mountain biking, I would say that's [00:16:30] probably one of the more enjoyable and invigorating ways to do cardio. Then by all means send it. Just make sure you're recovering well and you're not doing an inordinate amount of biking volume and you should be fine. Next question. Best way to learn how to auto-regulate. Trying to balance listening to my body versus laziness. So this one I'm going to try and keep this concise because it's very, very nuanced and there's lots that goes into it. Autoregulation for those who are not aware is using multiple [00:17:00] different objective and subjective variables to adjust your training according to how things are going on a given day.

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So it could be something like you were going to do three sets of each lift in your training session today, but you are fatigued because maybe you didn't sleep great last night or you missed a couple meals or you're just feeling over fatigued or just really not motivated for whatever reason when you normally are motivated. That's the thing. If you're never motivated, that's one thing, but if you're usually [00:17:30] motivated but that day you're just not in it, then it's a good idea to maybe do two sets of each lift and walk away. Still having done something but not having gone quite all out like you would've in the normal training session as it's written. Or it could be something like you are going to do a time trial, supposed to do a time trial today, but you've slept poorly or you're really sore or whatever happens.

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Or maybe you had just a really stressful day and you're [00:18:00] just not mentally ready to do a time trial. Pushing that to the next day would be an example of autoregulation. There's tons and tons of different examples of it, but it's making small adjustments based on how you're feeling as well as potentially objective data. If you wear a whoop or an aura ring or something that tracks your sleep, your HRV, your resting heart rate, maybe those are a little out of whack and you're supposed to do a certain training session, but for whatever reason your body's just not ready for it that day. I personally like to use kind of a combo of objective [00:18:30] and subjective or at minimum just subjective objective like the things I just mentioned as far as HRV or resting heart rate or sleep score, things like that. That can be a little slippery slope for some people because they just get in their head and they don't listen to their body at all.

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They only listen to their metrics and that can be a problem, but at the same time it can kind of inform some of your decisions. If you don't feel great and also your numbers confirm that you shouldn't feel great, then maybe dialing [00:19:00] back your training that day would be a good idea. On the flip side, if you feel amazing but your numbers don't show it, your numbers maybe show that you're not recovered well, maybe you still can go get a good really solid training session in and get something out of it and then you recover afterwards. So it's really, really hard to definitively give a rule for autoregulation how to learn it other than repetition and trial and error and continuing to be very, very in tune with your [00:19:30] body. You don't necessarily need to use all these wearables to inform your decisions, but you can.

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I think it's a valuable thing for certain people, especially when they're starting out, just to get an idea of why they may be feeling either really good because their numbers on their whoop strap are really good or why they're feeling terrible because their numbers on their whoop strap are also terrible. You can kind of match those up, but at minimum just getting a feel for how you feel on a certain day. Putting a little bit of [00:20:00] thought into what your days leading in looked like. Did you sleep well last night? Did you eat well today? Did you eat well yesterday? Are you well hydrated? How are you feeling mentally? Do you feel like you're able to focus? How do warmups feel? Honestly, you might feel amazing and then you get into your training session and your warmups are super slow in dragging ass and maybe you decide I'm not going to push these super high numbers today, even if they're on my program, I'm going to dial things back a little bit or maybe you don't feel great and you get into the gym and all [00:20:30] of a sudden you start warming up, you do your ramp-up sets and they're moving super fast, buttery smooth, and you start feeling good and then you push it a little harder that day.

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This all just comes with being mindful and over time, learning different things about your body and different ways that you feel in different certain scenarios that some days you're not going to feel great going into the gym, you're going to get great workouts. In other days you're going to feel awesome going into the gym and you're going to get shitty workouts. Other days you're probably going to feel completely mundane and no real [00:21:00] difference and you just go kind of train according to plan. So I wish I had a better, more precise answer for you, but it's not this one size fits all tangible thing. Personality I will say does come into play if you're more type A, chances are you're not being lazy. If your body's telling you that you should dial things back or maybe not even train or do something different than what's planned, there's a pretty good chance that that's correct and [00:21:30] a lot of people will still override that, especially if you're really, really type A and you're a hard charger and other areas of life you've seen success from just grinding through things.

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Fitness is not necessarily like that and typically these types of people, which I would say is a good portion of people listening to this like to just do whatever is on the docket for the day, even if they should not objectively be doing what's on the docket for today. If you're more type B and you have a tendency to be lazy and skip workouts [00:22:00] and come up with excuses like, oh, even though you're not even close to training anywhere near enough to be overtrained, that's another thing. Autoregulation can be a little bit tough for that person because they're probably going to mentally tell themselves and come up with excuses as to why they can't train. So personality does come into play. Most people listening to this probably fall into the former, the first one I talked about, the type A to varying extents, but yeah, that's [00:22:30] my best shot at that.

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I jumped around there, but hopefully that gives you a kind of a good idea as to why it's not a simple answer, but some principles to consider as you go about it. Next question, what does SFAS look like day-to-day after each event take place during gate week? Shoot, hopefully you guys can't hear that the housekeepers are now vacuuming upstairs, so I'm going to continue, hopefully we'll see how this comes out, but what's it look like day to day after gates? It actually is a shock to most people because [00:23:00] you don't do a whole lot for the most part. You either go and do classroom stuff, land nav instruction, or you take certain tests, psychological tests, intelligence tests, things like that. You eat a couple times, but most of the time you're just kind of doing downtime. You're hanging out in your barracks. Now it's barracks.

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When we went through back when it was hard, it was tent city, but you're hanging out but you're not allowed to sleep and the cadre will come around and make sure people aren't sleeping and they might write you up if they catch [00:23:30] you sleeping. They're not going to drop you on the spot or anything like that, but it's not going to go unnoticed and you don't want to be that guy that's always falling asleep when you're not supposed to. So chat with your buddies, do some maybe writing, journaling, maybe do some reading, bring a good book, a long book, a book. Ideally in my opinion, not like a self-help book. I would bring a book that's more like entertaining. If I could bring one book to selection, it would be the Matterhorn. It is a book about Vietnam. It's a novel, [00:24:00] but the author wrote the novel based on his experience in Vietnam.

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He's kind of got fictional characters and whatnot, but it's actually based on real events and it's like 750 pages or something and it is easily the fastest 750 page book I've ever finished because it was so fucking good. So that's just one option. There's tons of other options too, but lots of downtime. So you just got to be bored and keep yourself busy as best you can [00:24:30] and not fall asleep and just rest, recover, replenish, and get prepared for the next day. Next question, which is better am workout or PM workout? Yes, the best time to workout physiologically is going to be different from what I'm going to answer. So what do I mean by that? There is an optimal time to work out as far as performance is concerned. Typically it's going to be something like eight-ish hours, give or take after you wake up, so around midday, early afternoon.

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However, [00:25:00] not everyone can do that with their schedule and that is totally fine. So what should you choose early am or pm? There's pros and cons to both. So early am the major downside to that is if you don't go to bed early enough and you therefore have to wake up early and sacrifice sleep and you do this on a repetitive basis, you're kind of stepping over dollars to pick up pennies because you're not getting the recovery that you could be had you either gone to bed earlier or worked out at a different time of day. However, oftentimes [00:25:30] people who work out first thing in the morning, this is my experience and my observation, but I would say most people would agree they're more consistent because they're training before things in their day come up and potentially make it so that they can't train. Oh, I was going to train today after work, but this, this, and this happened, or I was going to train after work, but I was just super tired from work and I didn't get it in.

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So I push it through the next day and then the next day comes and some other thing comes up. If you're an absolute fanatic and no matter what you're going to get your training in, of course within [00:26:00] reason, then training after work or later in the evening is totally fine. I'll get some potential downsides here in a second, but if you struggle with consistency, almost always, I would recommend training first thing in the morning. Is it optimal for physical performance and making maximum gains? No, but it is way more optimal to do that assuming you're getting good sleep than to be very inconsistent with your training way, way, way more optimal. So even if you're physiologically a little bit depleted [00:26:30] compared to what you would be if you trained later in the day, the fact that you got that training session in and you do it on a consistent basis is going to outweigh that tenfold PM workouts already mentioned.

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The downside of people who are less consistent, not getting to it, coming up with excuses or just being too tired or whatever it is, but if you train too late, too close to bedtime, it's most likely going to interfere with your sleep. It's almost always going to, especially if it's intense like intense lifting or intense cardio especially. You're [00:27:00] just going to be revved up. You're going to be more sympathetic later in the evening and it's going to be harder for you to fall asleep if your workout takes place closer to bedtime, too close to bedtime, and there's no perfect exact answer for everybody. Everyone's a little different. Some people can train like several hours before bed and they still feel the effects and they still can't fall asleep as well, or they don't get as good asleep as they otherwise could. So you're going to have to feel that out for yourself.

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But the pros to it is [00:27:30] if you don't have a very stressful day and you're just kind of going about your day and you get to your workout in the evening, something to look forward to. If you really enjoy training, you also have plenty of nutrition in you. You've been awake for a while, your body is going to be more primed to perform in that session than it will in an early morning session. But again, is that worth the trade-off of potential degradations and sleep? So you got to weigh that out. If you do train in the evening, what I would do is really make sure that you do a really good cool down afterwards, do some nice diaphragmatic calming [00:28:00] breathing. You could do this lying on your back with your towel over your face. You could do it walking on a treadmill. You could do it walking outside.

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If you can walk outside better option, you could do it doing some really light zone one cardio. You could do some sort of light stretching, routine, mobility routine, something to separate you from being revved up from your training to the rest of the evening to kind of calm your nervous system down. You have to be in a parasympathetic state before you go to bed in order to fall into a nice deep sleep in order to lower [00:28:30] your cortisol levels, in order to increase your melatonin production. Those things all have to be in place. You can't just force yourself to sleep. Another potential downside of PM workouts is kind of a double-edged sword because oftentimes if you work out in the evening, you're probably going to be a little bit mentally and physically fatigued from the day, and a lot of people will resort to pre-workout, especially if they do this on a regular basis and they take pre-workout, they get their training in because the pre-workout really helped them, but then they can't sleep very [00:29:00] well that night.

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Then they get up the next day and they go through the entire day and they're tired and they don't want to work out, but they take pre-workout, they get their workout in, but then they can't sleep because A, they're training close to bedtime and B, they're putting a bunch of caffeine into their system prior to bedtime, and that is not a good cycle to be in at all because just like sacrificing sleep for early morning workouts, you're now sacrificing sleep because you can't get your workout in without your caffeine because you're too tired because you take pre-workout every day [00:29:30] and you rely on. So there's pros and cons to all of this stuff. It kind of just depends on what your goals are and what you prefer, as well as what your schedule allows. If you have the schedule for it, by all means, I would highly recommend working out either late morning, midday, early afternoon, but for a lot of people that's just not feasible and finding what works best for you is the next best option, even if it's a little bit less optimal.

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Just make sure. I would say the main overarching [00:30:00] principle, whatever time you work out, make sure you still get your sleep. That is by far the most important part of this whole thing and sacrificing it on a regular basis. Once in a while, a little bit different, but on a regular basis, you are not going to get the results you want if you're always sacrificing sleep to train. Next question, training while sick. Still. Do zone two runs still lift, still do both. It depends. For the most part, when in doubt I say don't train because chances are especially [00:30:30] type A individuals, especially people who always say they're fine, they can grind it out and who actually do grind it out, usually you're just not going to make the desired adaptations from that training session because your body is trying to heal from whatever you've got going on as far as illnesses concerned.

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But breaking it down a little further, if you have below the neck symptoms, so for example, if you have increased resting heart rate or body aches or fever or chills, more systemic symptoms, something [00:31:00] like the flu or COVID or something like that, then you're absolutely better off not doing any training and focusing on getting better. If you train when you're in that state, A, you're not going to get anything out of the training session as far as physical performance is concerned or physical gains are concerned because your body's just not focused on dedicating its resources to recovering and adapting from that session. But because you're already suppressed, you're immunosuppressed, you're nervous system is probably [00:31:30] degraded a little bit, you are also potentially going to extend how long you're sick and you're going to continue having to grind through these workouts despite being sick and continue not to get anything out of them and just be sick for longer than you need to be.

(00:31:45):

So neck down, bodily symptoms, not training is the best idea. If it's neck up, if you have a cold or a runny nose or the sniffles or maybe you just have a scratchy throat or something similar minor headache [00:32:00] and no bodily symptoms, getting a light training session in is usually going to be totally fine. Would I go and try and set prs? No. Would I do a brutal time trial or a really hard repeat workout or a threshold workout or a 12 mile ruck with a ton of running in it? No, but a light zone to run, like you said in the question or go in and getting a pump bodybuilding workout usually going to be totally fine. You're usually not systemically suppressed in that training is going to be a complete wash and or [00:32:30] extend how long you're sick. It could, but it's less likely in that case.

(00:32:35):

So again, when in doubt though, just don't train, you're going to be totally fine. You're not going to lose all these gains. If anything, you're just going to get better, faster and able to train full speed sooner. So if you're on the fence, especially if you're type A, so 90% of the people listening to this when in doubt don't train. Next question, muscles are very tight in the mornings. I'm halfway through two and five mile. Am I [00:33:00] just old? Well, without knowing how old you are, because you did not include that in the question, I can't tell you if you're just old or not, but a lot of things people attribute to age are not necessarily a completely unavoidable thing when you get older, and again, I don't know how old you are, but a lot of people say once you hit 35 or once you hit 40 or once you hit 45, this, this, this, and this happens.

(00:33:24):

And just because that happens to a lot of people does not mean it's a rule. Generally when people get older, [00:33:30] they get more lazy and more sedentary and they don't take care of themselves the way they used to. And because they're older, they can't get away with that stuff as easily. It's not because they're old. It's because as they get older, they need to make certain adjustments to their lifestyle, their training, their mentality in order to not feel these effects that most people feel when they're old. Hopefully that makes sense. So just because you're tight in the morning, it doesn't have to do with us being a certain age on the calendar per se. It could [00:34:00] be a multitude of different things. This could be you are just not recovering well, you're not sleeping well. You could be eating high inflammatory foods. Maybe you just genetically have less mobility than a lot of people.

(00:34:12):

You're just genetically tighter. I'm kind of like this too. If I train a little too hard one day, I'm very, very tight the next morning and stiff and that's just kind of how it is. That's mostly my genetics. But there are ways to not be as stiff. One, make sure you're eating a low inflammatory diet. So mostly [00:34:30] single ingredient, whole foods, animal protein plants, white rice sourdough, rice-based cereal, maybe some oats if you handle oats well, but if you're eating a bunch of processed stuff, you're almost always going to be systemically inflamed and that is not great. You could train such that you become more systemically inflamed and that can present itself as being tight, maybe stiff, maybe a little bit sore in certain joints, two and five mile. The volume in that is [00:35:00] not such that you should feel that for most people unless you're just all over the map with your recovery.

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So that is one consideration. I wouldn't say that's probably applying to you right now because you're on that program that I made and I made sure that it's not excessively ridiculous volume. But other than making sure your lifestyle is dialed in, your sleep, your stress management, your overall relationships, the way you go about day to day, like make sure you're not crazy stressed out about everything there possibly is, which again is a type [00:35:30] A thing and make sure you're sleeping really well, high quality and enough quantity. The best way to improve your sleep quality is to go to bed and wake up at the same time, which almost nobody does because it's hard, but it is hands down the best intervention you could possibly make for sleep and ensuring that you're eating low inflammatory foods. Aside from that, you can do some stretching. I would say you would be a great candidate to do a little bit of morning stretching, a little bit of evening stretching.

(00:35:56):

You'd probably feel a little bit less tight when you wake up and even if you [00:36:00] do feel a little tight in the morning, getting a nice calming stretch in, you don't have to go crazy with it. Do this ridiculous stretching routine, David Goggin style, but five, 10 minutes of light stretching in the areas that are tight, assuming they're tight and not really, really sore would be a pretty good idea. And being consistent with all that and continuing to do the right things outside and inside the gym is my best advice for you, but I really want to emphasize not to let a certain age get into your head as if everyone who hits [00:36:30] this age is just completely doomed or tight for the rest of their life. That's just not how it works. You can combat age. You just got to make the right decisions.

(00:36:38):

You got to do the right interventions. You can't live like you're 21 anymore and oh, another one I would consider is alcohol. If you're consuming alcohol at nighttime, A, that's going to degrade your sleep quality, but B, it's also going to increase your inflammation and that is also going to potentially make you feel tight subjectively or make you actually tight objectively. And [00:37:00] that could be another thing that a lot of people kind of overlook. They think that when they drink at night, it's helping them sleep. It's not actually helping you sleep. It may be sedating you, but it is worsening your sleep and that is objective, not my opinion. The next question, how would you slash did you route plan a 10 K movement at Hoffman? How many checkpoints? Yes, it really depends on a lot of different factors. Hoffman for those not aware is where they do the Land F course at SFAS, and you could have two different 10 [00:37:30] K movements on that course and one of them could have seven to eight checkpoints.

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Another one could have 18 to 19 checkpoints. It also depends on your land nav skill, but it mostly depends on the terrain between you and your finish point. So usually a good heuristic for checkpoints is 300 to a thousand meters from where you're at right now to your next checkpoint. Generally nighttime, you're going to have more checkpoints if you have a lot of terrain between you and where you're [00:38:00] going, it makes sense to have more checkpoints. If you have less terrain, it makes sense to have less checkpoints. You're just not going to have as many options. If you are low skill at land nav, you're just not very comfortable with it, you're going to want checkpoints more frequently because really the key to land nav, honestly, what it comes down to is only focusing on getting to your next checkpoint. When you're planning your route, yes, you're going to have to plan multiple checkpoints, but your focus when you're actually moving is get to my next checkpoint.

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[00:38:30] It's not get to my next one, then my next one, then my next one. It's not start from my start point, get to my end point. It's not how will I ever get this 10 K movement in? It's get to your next checkpoint that's 300, 400, 700 meters away. If you can break things down like that mentally and just focus on that land nav becomes way, way easier and way less stressful. You're thinking about way fewer things. Your cognitive load is a lot lower and you're going to be golden. So it's impossible for me to say how many checkpoints would [00:39:00] be in this hypothetical 10 K movement because there's so many different hypothetical 10 K movements out there, and each one would probably have a different number of checkpoints and there could be a wide gap in different checkpoints, but that is the main principle that I want you to go walk away with.

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Just get to your next checkpoint, whether that's 300 meters away or 800 meters away, that's all you have to think about at any given time. Then when you get there, you focus on nothing other than getting to your next checkpoint. Then you get there and repeat, and that's really all land N [00:39:30] is. Eventually you're going to be at your last checkpoint, which is also your attack point, and your next checkpoint unquote is going to be your finish point, and then you plot your next point, plan your route and do the same thing again, and ideally you do that eight times and you do it really well in the two days and you go eight for eight on the star course and you move on to team week. Next question. Does cadence matter for zone two running? Absolutely it does. A lot of people feel more banged up after their zone two runs than their speed work or their threshold work, and oftentimes it's because they completely [00:40:00] reinvent the wheel as far as running a totally different way than they would normally run because they're trying to go extra slow or they're just trying to shuffle or whatever.

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Yes, when you first start out, you might have to go really, really slow. You might have to walk periodically. You may have to change your running form up. Your running mechanics aren't going to look exactly the same if you're doing a one mile time trial as they will if you're doing a 10 mile zone, two run, but they're both running and your cadence always matters because [00:40:30] it is a really good proxy for where your foot is landing in a given stride in comparison to your body. So if your cadence is really low, chances are you are stepping way out in front of midline and your foot is coming down way out in front of midline. What that does is basically put a braking force on your forward motion and it slows you down. It increases the energy cost and in this case, very, very applicable.

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It increases the impact [00:41:00] of it, and you do that over a 10 mile zone to run or a hundred minute zone to run, 120 minute zone to run, and that is absolutely going to add up and it's going to be a big mechanical stress, which you don't want. So should your cadence be exactly the same when you're running fast versus when you're running slow? No, but it should not be a big gap and in almost every case, at least cases I've experienced, guys who get really banged up on zone two runs have a huge gap between their easy running cadence and their faster running cadence, like [00:41:30] 20, 25, 30 steps per minute minute, and that's not what you want. Something like 12, 10, 8 step per minute gap is pretty acceptable. Even smaller than that, it's totally fine too, but you really want to focus on still running the way you normally do.

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The main difference is going to be the stride length. Your stride length is going to be shorter when you're going slower and easier than it will be if you're going harder, but the cadence shouldn't be very different, and if it is, being [00:42:00] mindful of it and just trying to increase it by a couple steps per minute per run or per week is my preferred technique. It's not really even a technique. You just got to be mindful of it. A lot of people will put their headphones on, they'll blast music or they'll blast a podcast or something like that, which is in general fine, but if you're struggling with run skill and your cadence is low and or you're just getting beat up from your running, distracting yourself is not a very good idea. Being more mindful is your best approach, at least for now until it becomes [00:42:30] natural, eventually you're going to get to where you don't have to think about it as much.

(00:42:33):

You don't have to be mindful because your body's just going to do it. It's going to sort itself out, but early on, it's not, especially if you have this big gap between your faster run cadence and your easy run cadence, you definitely want to close that gap up. Not identical, but closer than what it is right now. I'm guessing you probably have lower cadence and that's why you're asking this question, so trying to bring it up over time would be a good idea. Next question, how much do you think someone's upbringing affects their ability to do perform? [00:43:00] How much do you think someone's upbringing affects their ability to do perform in soft, to perform in soft? I'm guessing he was going to say, do well in soft and then forgot to delete the do, but anyway, perform well in soft. It has a measurable effect for sure, but it is not a death sentence.

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If you had a really cush easy upbringing, generally guys who had harder, more adversity filled upbringings will do better in selection as well as thereafter and [00:43:30] soft because they're just more able to handle adversity because it was just built into their upbringing, into their life. So guys who have criminal histories, guys who have histories of abusive parents or parents that just weren't there or they've just had a lot more negative things happen in their life that they've had to overcome, and because they've overcome it to such an extent where they're successful enough to go and pursue soft and then ideally make it and be in soft, they're just going to be way more mentally tough. [00:44:00] They're going to have more mental fortitude, they're going to have more grit, they're going to have more tenacity. Oftentimes, they might have more of a chip on their shoulder, more of something to prove, like maybe they got bullied growing up or a bunch of people told them they sucked and they would never amount to nothing.

(00:44:15):

That's pretty significant fuel going through soft selection. You're going to need some sort of deep down why and your why doesn't have to be that I didn't get bullied growing up. I had a pretty good upbringing, didn't have a lot of adversity, but here's the deal. You [00:44:30] can fabricate adversity. You can do hard things on a day-to-day basis that make you more prepared. Say you had a really good upbringing, you don't have to get mad at your parents for giving you love and care and attention and privileges. That is awesome. I love that. But oftentimes people with upbringings like that don't do very well later in life when they're faced with challenges because they don't have the skills or the wherewithal to overcome these challenges, and they've kind of gotten the easy way [00:45:00] out throughout most of their life. So if that's you finding ways to make your life more difficult, ideally it's something that's beneficial and not something that's going to be a bad thing.

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I'm not saying go get addicted to drugs or go try and get put in jail or anything like that. That would not be smart. But something like forcing yourself to take cold showers or forcing yourself to wake up early, go to bed early too. Make sure you're getting enough sleep or sticking to things, just simply sticking to all [00:45:30] the commitments that you make to yourself is, believe it or not, a very mental fortitude building endeavor. Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations like maybe you are not comfortable with public speaking and you go join Toastmasters or you go join an improv class or you sign up to go speak somewhere or maybe even start a podcast. Maybe you don't release it, but you get better at it. You do these hard things that challenge you and you have to overcome these difficulties and these potential failures. By the way, if you're choosing things and you never fail at them, even if they are a little bit [00:46:00] difficult, you're kind of choosing something a little bit too easy.

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You're giving yourself the easy way out. You want to choose things that maybe potentially the first few times you do, you fail and you have to overcome it. You have to bounce back. You have to show some tenacity, some resilience, some mental fortitude, some grit, and over time these things become easier for you. You just become more comfortable with it. And so when you face these difficulties at selection, which by the way is going to be a lot, you're going to face a lot of adversity at selection as well as beyond, you're more equipped to overcome them, and [00:46:30] my new SVS program has a lot of examples of this in it and a lot of practical exercises that you can actually implement. So check that out. It's on sale, 25% off code SAS, but in absence of that, ensure that you are, if you just feel like you don't really have the fortitude or the grit to overcome difficult challenges and you typically quit or let up when things get difficult then and you want to go SF and you want to go crush, then I would probably consider making [00:47:00] your life a little bit more difficult again, in a good way, not in a criminal way or getting addicted to drugs or becoming an alcoholic or beating your wife or things like that.

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Make sure it doesn't harm other people. Just make sure it challenges you can overcome them and get better and more equipped to handle adversity. Next question. Favorite workout attire from top down to the shoes? Hell yeah. I am a big fan of Vori. Vori for those Not Aware is kind of a Lululemon for men. They do make women's [00:47:30] clothes, but originally it came out and I think it was mostly to all men's clothes, and now they've extended their line to fit more women, but very, very high quality, a little more expensive. But for example, I have probably 12 pair of their shorts, and even my older ones are pretty much as good as new. They don't degrade over time like other shorts do. They have a bunch of different styles of shorts. They look pretty good, even though they call it athleisure wear, even [00:48:00] though it's kind of built towards people training and being active.

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They have really nice stuff that I wouldn't use for workouts, but they also have clothes that I would wear to work out, but I'd also wear it out to a casual dinner or just out and about in town. Their stuff is very, very high quality. Again, it's a little bit more premium priced, but highly worth it. And I wear ri shirts. I also wear RI shorts. I also wear, if I'm doing upper body and I want to show off the guns, I'll wear my needless [00:48:30] sleeveless shirts. I think they look awesome. They're super cheap. You can get three of 'em for like 24 bucks on Amazon and they look good, and they're a lot of sleeveless shirts just don't have the best set up. They're just not cut in a way that I like them, and these are not the case. They're awesome and cheap shorts, Fiori shoes.

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I am a big vivo barefoot guy. I like vivos a lot. I own way too many vivos, and I restock [00:49:00] my vivos probably a little bit too often, but unless I'm running and basically that's it. Or wearing Crocs around my house outside, if I'm walking in the yard or whatnot, I'm almost always wearing vivo, barefoot shoes, and they look good. Again, they're a little more premium priced, but they're high quality. They look great, and they are awesome for allowing your feet to be very close to the ground to splay out. They have wide toe boxes. There's not a bunch of cushion between the ground and your foot. [00:49:30] My feet are way, way tougher than they used to be. My entire chain, my kinetic chain, my feet, ankles, knees, hips are less banged up than they used to be when I used to wear running shoes for pretty much everything.

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And vivos get the job done for sure. I don't run in them just because I don't really see a big benefit in going and running in barefoot shoes. I'd rather just wear running shoes and not have to really, really work up to wearing barefoot shoes for running. Not to say that you can't do that, but [00:50:00] for best performance, especially for running and also injury prevention, probably a better idea to wear running shoes. If it wasn't, then not a hundred percent of every high level runner would wear running shoes, but they do. So consider that, but I think Vivos or some other minimal issue are a good thing to wear on a semi-regular basis, especially doing lifts and walking around and just living daily life. But that would be my top choice. I would say High Elite makes some pretty solid shirts. I think [00:50:30] I'm wearing a high elite shirt right now.

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I don't even know if they're still making stuff, but I bought a bunch of high Elite stuff way back in the day and I really like their shirts. They fit really good. And aside from that, I can't even think of any other brands that I wear that aren't just shirts that I from. Something like I got a shirt from a certain school I went to or a certain unit I served in or someone gave me this shirt to market their brand or whatever it is. But yeah, vori, you can't really go wrong. And they also [00:51:00] have awesome, this isn't not really workout wise, but they have great joggers, they have great sweats and like I said, they also have some nice casual, more casual but a little higher end clothes, like stuff you'd wear to a nicer restaurant or church or something like that. Not suits, but higher end casual.

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That looks really good and feels really good and just last really long. It's just high quality. Alright, let's do a couple more questions. Next question. Does being able to speak multiple language improve the odds of being selected? [00:51:30] No, not in the slightest. Will it give you a little bit more of a potential advantage in the Q course as far as getting the group you want? If you are already speaking a language of the group you want to go to and you're already fluent enough to pass the test, then there's a chance you might get sent there. For example, if you're a fluent Spanish speaker and it just so happens that they need people at seventh group and you want to go to seventh group, you might be able to bypass language and therefore finish the Q course faster. That isn't always the case, [00:52:00] so don't get your hopes up too much, but that is one example or 10th group if you're already a Russian speaker or a French speaker or something like that.

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Although I think they're sending French guys to third group now. I could be wrong, but they used to send French guys to 10th group because 10th group used to have Europe, but no one really speaks other than in France. No one really in Belgium I guess, but we don't really go to Belgium. No one really speaks French there, but a lot of African countries do speak French and that's where third group goes. But anyway, I'm kind of rambling [00:52:30] at selection. It does not matter one bit. The only thing that matters really anything you do prior to selection is not going to increase your chances. It can indirectly, it can just make you a more like if you're a ranger qualified or if you've done hard things in your past or if you're just a freak of nature, it can improve your performance potential and therefore that will increase your chances of getting selected.

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But all that matters at selection is how you perform from day one to the end. It is not what you did before. Even if [00:53:00] you won the medal of honor before, that is no guarantee that you're going to make it. So that all being said, knowing languages or going out of your way to learn language is a trait that not a lot of people have. It suggests that you are highly driven and you want to improve as a person and become more well-rounded. So that can kind of indirectly affect your starting point, your general position as you get into selection, [00:53:30] but the fact that you can speak other languages literally means absolutely nothing as far as whether you get selected or not. You got to perform and that is the only thing. Next question. Should we track our intra carb calories glyco supplement during jackel 3.0?

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Yeah, I don't see why you wouldn't. I mean if you don't do it for whatever reason, just do that every time. Don't sometimes track it, sometimes don't because that'll skew the numbers. But in my opinion, tracking everything you consume, whether you're consuming [00:54:00] it during training or away from training, is usually a good idea and it'll give you the most true sense of what you're eating and potential things to change based on how you're performing, recovering, and so on and so forth. Next question. How do I optimize SFAS prep while going to the field every month? This is really brutal and tough, but people have done it in the past. It is totally possible. A few things you want to consider. There's no perfect answer for this because everyone's experience is a little different. Depends on how long you're going in the field for, [00:54:30] depends on what you're doing in the field, depends on if it's actually every single month and a few different variables, but one you want to really dial in when you're not in the field.

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Crush your training, crush your sleep, crush your nutrition, just be as perfect as you possibly can when you're not in the field. Even if you go to the field one week every month and you're out of the field three weeks every month, give or take three weeks of really, really dialed in training one week where you're just kind of not in the best state [00:55:00] to train or you're not getting any training in or you're barely getting any training. I'll talk about what to do when you're in the field here in a second is still way better than just saying ask, screw it, I'll just half-ass my training when I'm not in the field and then when I'm in the field, whatever, or just trying to overdo it. When you're in the field and just being really inconsistent across the board, you're still going to make enough gains.

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There have been studies in the past where they've had two groups. One group trains every week, another group trains three weeks and then takes one week off completely off from [00:55:30] training and the gains are very, very similar. This is over a short period of time, maybe a little different, longer time horizon, but that should show you that you're not going to lose everything by having to go in the field for five days, seven days, 10 days every month, even though it's not ideal, it's still not a death sentence when you're in the field. You want to do your best to maintain the qualities that you have access to. So generally you probably can run a little bit, you probably can ruck a little bit, even if it's not every day, even if it's not exactly according to plan. [00:56:00] Getting something in, assuming you're getting at least a little bit of sleep, getting at least some nutrition and not just starving and dehydrated and things like that is usually a good idea.

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You can do some body weight stuff. You could probably, depending on what you guys bring out to the field, what kind of unit you're in, you could probably do some carries. Maybe you carry a 50 cal suitcase carries or water cans or you can do some Uck carries like a sandbag and other stuff. Work capacity wise with your ruck and maybe some kit stuff, just [00:56:30] doing your very best to at least get a little bit in enough to maintain is your best bet. Are you going to be able to set up a gym or anything like that? Probably not, but you can get something in and something is usually better than nothing, even if it's just bare minimum enough to maintain. And in most cases going into the field is a higher stress, lower sleep, lower food endeavor. So trying to get everything in and train like a savage when you're in the field is not a very good idea because you're just not going to make the same recovery and [00:57:00] adaptations that you possibly could when you're out of the field and you're probably going to be more fatigued and more sore and more depleted when you get out of the field and you're then able to go and train the way I talked about earlier, like hard and very intense and very focused.

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So do your best to maintain when you're in the field and really dial it in when you're outside the field and try not to let it get into your head too much. Just know that lots of people have been in this situation before and the ones who don't let it get too in their head and they [00:57:30] do their very best with what they have and they show up not using that in the back of their mind as, oh, if I don't make it, I can just blame it on the fact that I had to go in the field so much. I'll just blame it on something else. Take responsibility for it, show up, put your best foot forward, do everything you possibly can and show up and crush. That is my best advice if you're in this unfortunate situation. Next question. The two and five mile program ends two weeks before a three mile race.

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What should I do in [00:58:00] between? I would do something like maybe rerun the final week of the program for the first week and then do the deloads or taper week in the next week leading it. If you are really, really, really gung-ho about this race and you want to do a full on taper, two week taper is not out of the question. So you could do a couple of back-to-back taper weeks slash deload weeks and go into the race very, very fresh, but it also wouldn't hurt you to get another full week of training in. I would probably skip the long run. You could do the [00:58:30] speed work and the tempo work from that final week and then maybe chill out during the weekend and then just do some easy runs with pickups leading into it. That would be a totally fine option, but either of those are fine.

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I would not do two weeks of training. I wouldn't train really hard going into that three mile run, but you could get another hard week of training in and probably be totally fine, but it's kind of up to you. Alright, this is going to be the last question of the day. Next question, diet on a budget slash cons of eating the same thing every day. Vitamins, rice, chicken, [00:59:00] good to go. So dieting on a budget, diet on a budget, we'll talk nutrition. I'm not going to, I'm assuming you don't mean you're on a diet like trying to lose weight, you're just trying to sort out your nutrition. So that's what we're going to keep it as. There are lots of really high quality, healthy, performance friendly foods that you can buy pretty cheap. One, I would ensure that you try and buy in bulk. So eggs, ground beef, ideally lean ground beef, chicken breasts, like you said in your [00:59:30] question, you can eat a lot of that stuff and if you go to BJ's or Costco or something similar, you can get those for, you can get a lot of it for lower price as opposed to going to the grocery store and buying onesies and twosies.

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So those would be staple protein sources. You can also do things like cottage cheese. You can do things like Greek yogurt. Not super cheap, cheap but cheap enough. Especially like cottage cheese. You can get for pretty damn cheap and those will cover all your bases to be honest with you. For protein, [01:00:00] for carbs, carbs are definitely the cheapest macro per gram. So potatoes, sweet potatoes are a little more expensive than potatoes, but not by much white rice. Those are going to be your staples and you can eat a lot of those. You can buy a lot of those for very, very cheap per gram. And that should be, if you're interested in performance or body composition or daily vigor or a combination of those things, your carbs should be very high. And that's a good thing because you can buy a lot of carbs if you get those things and it [01:00:30] won't break the bank oatmeal, maybe a little more expensive, but you can buy some pretty cheap oatmeal too.

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Those should be your staple carbs for fats, most people get enough fats automatically, but things like olive oil, you can get olive oil and add that to certain foods. If you need more fat, you could do avocados are a little bit more expensive. But another option, you can do nuts, nut butters, those are all great solid sources of fat. Again, most people don't need to go out of their way to add a bunch of [01:01:00] fat to their diet, but if you happen to need more, then those are fine options. If you're buying in bulk and you're sticking to mostly those foods, you're going to be golden should you eat the exact same. Oh, and fruit, you want to go with fruit too. Bananas are very cheap. Frozen fruit is going to be cheaper than fresh fruit and it's going to last longer and it is just as healthy if not even healthier.

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It doesn't taste as good and it's not as versatile. No one wants to eat just plain frozen fruit. You're going to usually have to mix it with something, but you can mix it in your oatmeal or your [01:01:30] rice and grinds. Or if you want to go the cheaper version of rice and grinds, you can get cream of rice and that will melt or thaw out the fruit and it'll also help cool down the actual food that you're eating so you can eat it faster. So that is another option. Bananas are cheap. Certain other fruits are cheap too. If you're getting fresh berries, that's going to be more expensive, but we're talking budget here, so I would ignore those. As far as eating the same thing every day, you can [01:02:00] eat very similar every day. I would not eat exactly the same thing every day for too long because you're going to end up, even if it's really healthy food, but it's the same thing.

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You're going to end up being short on certain micronutrients. What I would do is have a few staples things I would just mentioned for your protein sources and your carb sources. You can eat those every day. So for example, you could have eggs and oatmeal every single morning or eggs and cream of rice every single morning. You could have ground beef, lean ground beef and rice every single day for [01:02:30] lunch. You could have chicken breast and potatoes every single night for dinner. But as long as you rotate in different vegetables and fruits, you're going to be good for the most part for long periods of time. Now you can go a few weeks at a time kind of eating the same thing and then you make a small adjustment. Maybe you slightly adjust the protein source or maybe you slightly adjust the vegetables and fruits that you're adding, or you eat a little bit more potatoes to get some more micronutrients versus rice for certain periods of time.

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So [01:03:00] you can be very similar. And in fact, for most people, keeping things very similar is going to be by far the most convenient and the easiest to track and the easiest to stay on track as opposed to switching things up all the time and trying to eat all these fun different new exciting foods. That's okay to do if you have the time for it and the money for it and the bandwidth for it. But it's not required. And typically people do a lot better when they are eating very similar things and they're going more boring with their food selection. So that should give you a good idea of [01:03:30] where to look for food, what things to prioritize, and the little bit of nuance involved in eating exactly the same thing every day versus mostly the same thing with small adjustments to make sure you're covering all your micronutrient needs. So that is it guys. Thank you very much for tuning in. I will be back soon with another episode. Till then, Terminator out.