The Clinician to Coach Handoff and Building Nutrition Habits

Once you start addressing all these bigger things, all the next skills that seem so hard to strive for, like meal prepping and things of that nature, those are nearing level two type skills for people. And in most cases, it's not necessary for what people's goals are. You're listening to the Restoring Human Movement podcast, where movement experts discuss the latest evidence-based practices to help you and your clients move with mastery. And now, your host, Dr. Sebastian Gonzales. Hey guys, this is Dr. Sebastian Gonzales with the Restoring Human Movement podcast. Thanks for joining me today, and thanks for being part of the Restoring Human Movement movement.

So, this is session number 107, and we're having on a guest that we had on before. He's a good friend of mine. His name is Brendan Gassamiya. I think he was on session number, it might have been 69, 68, 71, 72, something like that. It was within the January month, I know that. And we talked a little bit about hamstring stuff. But Brendan, though, he is an amazing strength conditioning coach with a really good, he's passionate about his patients, or sorry, his clients. He's extremely empathetic, and he is great at managing and helping people. So, actually today, what we did was, he's actually coming in, he's helping me through a little bit of an issue that I've had with the past year that I've mentioned here and there.

So, we're on to more of the strength conditioning phase of a recovery from a back injury that I sustained in August that I saw Dr. Cody D-Mac for originally. And then Brendan helped me through the strength conditioning phase and helped me getting through and into playing baseball again, which was my major goal, which we actually finished our season two days ago because we lost in the playoffs. So, anyways, Brendan's going to go into some just roundabout stuff today. I pulled him in right before the training session. I said, hey, look, we've got about 45 minutes. Let's just talk. We always have good conversations.

Let's just see what we come into and see if we come to any gold nuggets that could be helpful for clinicians, trainers, coaches, PTs, chiropractors, and students out there. So, I think we did. So, I kept it. Now, we're a little bit roundabout, though, with some topics. We started a little bit about co-management and just kind of forwarding it a little bit is I realized just recently about where my personal cap was with working with patients. And I feel like I'm really good with identifying their pain sensitizing or their sensitizing movements and getting them to modify and change them and getting them to then establish a locus of control by a movement-based or posture-based correction with their condition.

And this goes for various different types of conditions, not just lumbar spine ones and so on. And then we get into movements and loading. But then past that, it's kind of like I can load them to hell, but then what's the end-all goal, you know? And if their goal is anything like mine and they want to get back to playing baseball again, they have to do a little bit more rotational training, a little bit unilateral stuff, and a little bit more change of direction, power, and so on. So, it's a little bit incomplete if I kept them. And I started realizing that I needed to be better at recognizing that and that me and Brennan discussed that a little bit today.

Also, too, he's been working on a little bit more of nutritional-based habits for people. So, not just the simple stuff that you hear typically about nutrition, the macronutrients, the numbers, the measurements, and so on. He goes over a little bit more about habits. And, of course, we discuss Taco Bell. You can't go a time without discussing Taco Bell. So, now let me reveal a little bit about me, your host, into a very personal story. We have this boating trip that we go on every single year, me and about three other guys. So, four of us total. And we have this, I don't want to say a junker boat, but it's definitely not, it's not a luxurious boat.

It's got an engine that's about 60 years old, but it goes faster than a lot of boats actually out there. So, it works well for us. We put a new bimini on it and whatnot, and we go to this lake. And so, last year, actually, we had this incident where, just real quick background, is we didn't launch the boat. We drove all the way up. We drove six hours in 105 degree heat. We went to this lake where the lake is, lake water is like bathwater, and we're about to launch. We don't launch. And the reason is, is because all the lakes around, I screwed up actually, all the lakes around me, down in Southern California, have infestation of what we call quagga mussels or zebra mussels.

And not all of them are 100% confirmed, but some are questionable lakes. It's basically like a lake STD. It just goes around, and it's hard to control unless you have these checkpoints. So, every lake now has a checkpoint, muscle checkpoint. But last year, they just barely started to integrate this app so they can run your CF numbers and see where you've been. They should probably do that with humans. So, when we rolled up onto this lake that we wanted to go to, they said, hey, have you, and they're still doing pen and paper that time. They said, hey, have you been to any other lake that has mussels?

And I said, no. And so, they wrote me off. They said, go ahead. And we took it to the campsite. We unloaded all the stuff, and we're about to launch the boat. And I was like, wait a minute. We've actually, I'm like, that one that I was at, it was like three weeks ago. I'm like, that wasn't 30 days. Because some lakes are 14 days. This one was 30. They're very strict on it. So, I said, nah. I'm like, I had questionable muscles. I feel like I'm going to go tell them. And a couple of the guys were like, no, let's just launch it. Like, they cleared us. We're good. And I said, nah. I'm like, they did do an inspection, so they didn't see anything.

But it was like a moral dilemma. So, it was kind of like a back and forth over those. We didn't launch. I said, look, maybe we'll launch in the morning. Because it was like midday that day. Well, maybe launch in the morning. Let me sleep on it. Let me consider this. Because I don't want to be the one to infest this lake full of muscles. And so, it was like a back and forth. It was like a back and forth over that night. It was like, yeah, we're going to launch. No, we're not. Yeah, we're going to launch. No, we're not. And finally, when I woke up, I said, yeah, we're going to launch. And then, as I started to jump in the car, I said, no, we're not.

So, we went over to the place. And I told the guy. And he said, yeah, you got 30 days where you can't be on this lake. Or actually, another week or so. But anyways, we took that boat into Morro Bay, which is a harbor around. And it has sea otters and ocean life. And, I mean, it's a pretty place. But it's definitely not. You're not going to jump in the water there. And you're not going to sun. And you're not going to be having a good time water skiing and whatnot. So, but what I can honestly say is, and this is my ongoing saying. No, this is my phrase. Is I have 100% launch rate. Every single time we take that boat, we get that damn thing wet.

And we get out there, whether it be just backing it out and realizing that we have a bunch of water coming in or not. We still get it off the trailer, right? So, this time we did. So, this time, since we're going to go in a couple weeks, which by the time this airs, we're going to have already gone. I'm going to say I have 100% launch rate because we've done a lot of improvements on this boat. I have not gotten this damn thing wet. But I get a text every single day for the last 30 days from these guys saying, it's been, it's 17 days to the trip. Do not get the boat wet. It's 13 days to the trip.

Do not get the boat wet. So, it's like an ongoing thing. But I can honestly say 100% launch rate. That's my thing. And now on to the interview with Brennan Gassimiya. Oh, I just got that in the recording, too. So, this is round two, then, with Brennan Gassimiya. Oh, you got the squeaky chair. I got the squeaky chair. You want this one? You want that roller chair? No, I'm okay. I enjoy the squeak. I'm just making a beat. Come a little closer. Come a little closer, baby. Now can you hear me? Oh, you're so much better now. So, I don't have any topic planned at all. But I thought a good one would be, and I know we didn't have Cody on it yet, but there's a division.

Actually, everyone knows who you are, right? What session number are you on? 71? I think 71, yeah. So, Brennan is a strength coach who lives over by me, and we've co-managed some people. And he's co-managing me with myself and Cody. He's the most difficult client ever. So, right before we started to do our training session, that we just jumped in here and talked. But I was thinking the other day that, I think, so I was trying to explain to this one lady about why to go to you. And she's like, she comes in here, and she does deadlifting, she does single leg stuff, she does squatting, and she's like, well, I feel pretty good.

But she's a seasoned Ironman, right? Runner? And I was like, look, I'll do the pain management part, and I'll do some desensitizing part, and I'll do some movement part, and I'll do some loading part. But after that, like, I kind of like, you're kind of like into a realm where I'm not very extremely productive, like unilateral loading, or change of direction, or power and speed, and things like that. Is that our division here with strength and strength coach? Yeah, you know, I think, so when I spoke in Denver, one of the main recommendations I had for young rehab specialists, I'll call them, because I don't want to just contain it, just chiros, there was PTs and ATCs at that conference.

I always recommended, you know, get some sort of formal education exposure, or even some sort of a certification that gives you a little bit of exposure to the strength and conditioning and personal training field, because they're, you know, directly related to the people that you're seeing, and the people that you have inside your clinics, inside the teams. And so, I feel as though, as a rehab specialist, you should have that type of education. However, that doesn't mean that you have to use it. Just because you have that type of education, but you don't plan on doing it on a consistent basis, that probably means that you're not spending too much time developing that skill as well.

You're probably spending, like you said, most of your bandwidth on ways to bring people back to optimal health, uh, or up to high level performance. However, you don't spend too much time on trying to develop capacity, strength, power, change of direction as much. So, you know, you're not going to be able to give us as good of a service, right? I, when people come to me strictly for rehabilitation of an injury, I don't like to take that person in, um, because I'm not a specialist at rehab, um, you know, reconditioning, strengthening, or, you know, working with movement patterns as far as like return to, uh, return to performance.

Yeah, a little bit, but that's, that's not my spectrum. So, I feel like everybody has, we, we all practice on this spectrum and it's so delicate. It's not black and white. There's a little bit of gray area, but just know where you spend most of your time and really develop that and try to take most of your clients there. Have a good network that you can send them to. Like, I love being able to send people back down to you because rehab's not my thing. Yeah. Well, I didn't actually realize it much with, well, the reason I brought it up, brought it up is because there seems to be, I don't know why all over my Instagram feed, there's either people doing parkour or there's, or there's chiropractors lifting weights.

Who are you following? Well, I do follow the hashtag parkour now. Okay. That's gotta be, that's pretty entertaining. It is entertaining. And actually, did you know if you follow Alpine, it's not just like trees and woods and shit. It's actually people put cars on there. They need to stop doing that because it really screws up my feed. Um, but I was, uh, I didn't realize it till recently that like all, so all these people are trying to teach like, so squatting and corrective exercise and pain management and then into like power and then cleans and snatches. And it's like, at what point do we stop?

And I, and I realized till I think when I started to explain the reasons why this lady should go to you, not cause I'm trying to like offload her cause I love working with her, but I'm like, I'm capping off like the, either it's my attention span of being able to like give her what she needs to go forward. Cause I feel like we're doing part of the same and she's very competent with it, but she doesn't quite understand. I'm like, Hmm, how do I explain this in a good way? And, uh, I think you're right with the bandwidth. Yeah. And it, it's, it's people like you that recognize where you have that cap off period.

I, I'd like to think of myself as having a cap off period with my clients. My clients tend to last a little bit longer in tenure than, you know, somebody in rehab potentially, but I would still like my clients to be able to self train or, or train themselves very efficiently without as much help from me as I spend those years with them potentially and the commitment level that they give me. I want them to take something from it. You seem to have that cap off period where, you know, you're healthy enough and I've been associated with you and rehabbing yourself back to optimal health. Now comes another person that's a representative of regaining my strength or, you know, regaining my endurance so I can finish my 5k.

Like I had a goal to, you know, things of that nature. Well, I, I, I think I'd, I haven't done the official podcast yet on it. I was thinking about having you and Cody on it or just doing a solo one, but I've taken snips and pieces here about since that back thing I sustained in August and then Cody helped me through it. And then you helped me through this. And, um, I think I told you in the beginning, my goal is to play baseball. Um, so I did all season and we lost the playoffs just last week. So we're done, but I was round first. Well, yeah, it's really, uh, we're not that good. We're, we're one pitcher short probably of being stellar or one, or one air short of being a winning team.

That's a, that's a delicate balance. Well, yeah, it is. Especially, I think, so in those leagues though, like, cause they're people my age, they haven't played all winter or spring and then they go and they pitch like five to six innings and they just, there's just like this breakage that happens through the first couple of games and you just lose all your people. I would pull a hamstring. Uh, if I didn't run for two seasons. Yeah. If I'm playing football, I'd, I'd pull up with something. It happens, but, but through, through that, through that time that we were working together. So I want to thank you that you, you helped me through that.

So I got through it and I remember the first game back, I was thinking, it just feels good to stand here and not even have to worry about like, like just knowing that I can play again. Yeah. And then a ball came to where I was, I had to dive for it and I thought I'm not going to, and I realized we need to keep working. Well, I, you know, I, I gotta say that's just being able to recognize that type of feeling of standing there and not feeling like you're pushing yourself too hard or that you're in danger of some sort of re-injuring yourself. That's a huge step psychologically to return to play of any sort.

So first off, I've, I'm happy to be any part of any of that type of process because coming from the guy that has had his six surgeries, that type, that feeling, you know, you know what you had to do to get there. You don't get lucky and you, you're healthy again. You got to work through it at some point. Um, but yeah, I think we're going to need to get like a big mat in your clinic and just start doing diving into the floor. Well, I was thinking about all the extreme burpees, the, the anterior chain requirement or the stiffness requirement to dive for a ball. Or you just go limp. You got to go either like fully stiff like a board or like get there like a sack of potatoes and just kind of roll around.

Well, I wonder how the fat guys do it that we play with. There's some like, like this, this reverberation. Yeah, they have a cushion. There was, there was one guy running for a ball this, this weekend and he was about going towards the fence who was, he was the first baseman. So he's, he's a bigger and I was at bat and the umpire's like, watch out. Uh, wait, well, who's that cool? He's like, don't, don't go too hard. Kool-Aid man. Oh God. Yeah. Oh yeah. You know, you look, you look better at this angle. Like I can't even, like all I can see is your eyes. I know. I can just like, if I close one eye, I could just see like only eyes.

No, this is, this is a good angle. I'm sure you got sick of seeing me for a little bit there. I haven't seen this guy in like a week and a half. Well, I'm, I'm elusive. Yeah. You're always here. I'm always here. I'm always, I'm always here, but I'm, I'm not, I'm not always available. No. Yeah. This guy works too much. I'm, I'm actually, I'm, I, I would love to not work as much. You're working. How many hours a week you work? It's, it's a lot. It's up there, but you know, I think I've actually done a lot better getting home more and, you know, taking a little time off. Do you ever just, do you ever just shut your phone off and, or just go no screen time?

Like what's a, what's a Brennan recovery? You know, it's funny. I, I've had this for about a year now. I have 8, 8, 8 PM. My, uh, I have an alarm that says like finish text and set your alarm. Like set the fucking phone down. Sorry if I cut. I, am I allowed to cuss on this? Oh no, we can do a cussing show. Now I, Sally, you said that once. I either have to edit that one or I have to put explicit on iTunes. So we can, we can blow some F-bombs in here. I'm now on explicit podcast. You, you, you are apparently iTunes. If someone reports you, it's a big deal. So you have to put explicit. Where, where, where, oh, oh, the alarm.

Damn, it's hot in here, by the way. Oh yeah. The door's closed now. I know. But, uh, yeah, at like 8 PM, I try to shut it off. To be honest with you, I suck at that a little bit more than I'd like to. But, at least every day, I have that guilt of having to like, clear that reminder if I'm going to open up my phone. So, I think I do pretty decently at screen, lack of screen time. Peru was awesome. Because I, I shut my phone off for like 10 days. Like, didn't turn it on once. Well, what was the biggest, uh, observation when you shut down screen time for that long? So, eventually you stop having these like, self-justifications that you need it for some reason.

You know, I, I feel like most of us try to self-justify why we should bring our phone if we're going to go on a walk. Well, we might want to play music or might this, this. Sometimes you just like, when you shut it off and you leave it in your bag and you go off for, you know, seven days, it was just like, I stopped self-justifying it. I was like, I don't really need to talk to anybody. Somebody wants to reach out to me. I'll, I'll, I'll talk to him like a week. Did you have reception actually where you're at? I, I don't know. My, my phone died and I was just like, I'm just going to leave it off.

That's a good idea. Take the risk. There, there was a trip I went on recently where, um, we, and we were in the middle of nowhere, but we definitely had a very sketched cell, cell phone reception. And it was enough where if you try to send a picture to show what a beautiful place it was, it would take forever to send it. It would put that little exclamation point next to it. So you just kind of stopped looking at it, but it was nice to get up to no alarm and just realize that you're looking more than just one foot in front of your face. Yeah. It's a good feeling. It's nice when you, you're not wondering what people outside of your area is doing, you know, um, and it's a lot of default habits that we go into when we're standing in line, when we're riding on a bus, maybe since we're in a foreign city, um, you know, if you have cell phone service, you're just on your phone, but especially when you're traveling, I'd always suggest like when you're traveling, shut your phone off as much as you're allowed to.

If you're a parent and you got to keep your phone on, but you know, if you have no kids and things, then, you know, shut it off and really just enjoy that. Enjoy seeing everything that is new and fresh to you. So I would love, I would love to see just where you randomly get lost in a big city. Um, no, I actually, that happened a couple of times, but you know, I eventually found my way. Yeah. It's even harder when you don't speak, you know, you don't speak Spanish as well as you would like to. So when you're like asking for directions and things, yeah. Got lost a couple of times, but eventually now our delay.

And that's cool. I, um, I think actually having your phone out and looking at it and looking around and then looking down and looking up and looking down actually identifies you very much as a target for people to, uh, choosing tourists to harass or, um, I got taken on a joy ride one time by, uh, um, I called it, I called it the homeless tour, uh, homeless, uh, city tour. He, he, he recognized I was looking for something. So he's like, what are you looking for? I'm like, Oh, the, I'm looking for the, the, the Metro. And he's like, Oh, I'm going that way. I'll take you. And so he took me about 30 minutes out of the way into a, into an alleyway with an ATM.

And he said, Hey, I've spent 30 minutes telling you about the city and all this kind of stuff. And I helped you out. Why don't you help me out? And I'm like, Hmm, yeah, I shouldn't have been looking for that Metro like that. Oh no. He took you to an ATM. Well, he took me to like the, the main union station. It was in Chicago. And there's that area, I think it's the Roosevelt library. It's where like all the trains do connect. So he wasn't wrong, but he took me to an area where like, it was like the gateway to get in there, but there was an ATM there. And I didn't like, I don't, I don't really have any money.

And he's like, well, there's an ATM there. And I'm like, that's, that's good business. Yeah, it is. So I was calculating what I'm like, what should I give this guy? Because he spent 30 minutes. I'm like, if I gave him 10 bucks, you'd be making 20 bucks an hour. That's a lot. Yeah. That's above, that's like, that's like minimum wage or it's above minimum wage. Well, he was running his own business. Yeah, he was, he's a sole proprietor. Got a lot of taxes to pay. Yeah. You know, cash only business. He might have one of those, what is it? Like the swipe reader. Yeah. A chip reader on his phone. That would be.

He got advanced or he has Venmo. No. Yeah. You're right. I could have just, I could have forwarded it to him. I had no excuse. I, that happened to me with buying Girl Scout cookies one time. I tried to use the excuse like, oh, I don't have any money on me. And, uh, I forgot my card and obviously I was leaving a grocery store, so I was lying. But she immediately said, oh, we take Venmo. I was like, oh, oh, okay. Did you say I'm off the grid? I just came back from Peru. She saw my phone, my shorts. Yeah. So, I, I could have just said no on the Girl Scout cookies, but I bought like four boxes. I feel you.

I've done that same thing with Boy Scouts, except for not cookies. They'll sell these little crummy cards that have discounts like Taco Bell on them. Oh, yeah. The, isn't it like a book? Uh, this one was like a community card and, uh, nothing was on it was good, but I'm like, I feel bad that no one buys anything from you guys because everyone expenses money all year for these cookies. So, I'm going to give you 20 bucks, but keep the card. It's, oh, man, that, uh, I'm trying to think, well, what kind of discounts would they have? What was the best one? Oh, um, I think there was like maybe an oil change if you're into like Jiffy Lubes and stuff.

Uh, you know, Jiffy Lube, a Jiffy Lube oil change coupon, what was it, like 1995? Uh, I don't know. It was small print. There was probably like 30 discounts on it, but it was like, um, it was like Dunkin' Donuts. Get a free coffee when you buy a donut or Taco Bell, buy two tacos, get one free or McDonald's before 10 a.m. Get $10 off your entire order or whatever. They had like a lot of parameters to it. Yeah. They, they, it was, it was one of those ones where I think if you buy one sub, let's say a subway, you, and a drink, you get another sub free, but you got to buy that drink, but you never want the drink.

They stipulate like, and the drink. Well, that's, that's like an extra, that's that extra dollar. They, they, uh, there's gotta be, the math has to work. Yeah. They, they have to win in this, in this type of discount. They're not just going to like, yeah, free money. Take this. I bet like Taco Bell is like, you have to order extra sour cream on the hard tacos too. Cause we charge you like, do they charge for sour cream? I'm sure they do. It's not on the order. That's a trick question. I want to see if you went to Taco Bell or not. When's the last time I've been to Taco Bell? You didn't grow up in fast food, right?

No, not too much. My mom actually used to be a manager at Taco Bell when I was like a baby. Oh really? Yeah. So she owes, I, um, funny story. My dad, when he gave his speech at my wedding, um, he told me, or he told everybody, this is speech to everybody, uh, that I used to sing this song when I was like a baby. Uh, and I don't know why I did this, but it was Taco Bell here, Taco Bell there, Taco Bell, Taco Bell everywhere. Were they everywhere at the time? I mean, he, he's telling this in front of like a hundred and 150, 170 people. I forgot how many people were at my wedding, but I just remembered everybody started singing it.

Oh really? So he had everybody sing it in unison. Did he say left side, right side? Everybody all in unison. It wasn't just one side. They all got into it and it was actually kind of a funny moment. Yeah. I didn't know it. I didn't know I sang that. But, uh, yeah, that is. Taco Bell was deep ingrained in me. That is something that if, if friends were to bother you for a very long time, they would, they would want to know that fact. Like, thank you for coming to the wedding. We have a song about Taco Bell stuck in our head all night. Can you, can you, can you, please pick up your goodie bag with a Taco Bell discount on the way out of here?

My wedding was sponsored by Taco Bell. Yeah. I think this podcast will be sponsored by Taco Bell by any time we said it. Nutrition coach sponsored by Taco Bell. So good. Oh, we used to talk about that then since you're, you're doing your new thing is the nutritional thing. Tell me about this. Oh yeah. So, um, I've actually just decided to, uh, be able to online coach for nutrition using the platform of, uh, precision nutrition. And that's the company that, uh, I'm both level one and level two certified with. And, you know, they work very closely with Equinox and we do a lot of work with some of their ambassadors and their own, uh, precision nutrition coaches.

So, yeah, so far I've, um, I've enrolled some clients and a lot of my family members and, um, you know, I've, I really enjoy the curriculum that they've always put us through during the learning process and it's a online based program where I get to communicate with you directly. We could see, track your habits and, um, all the goals that you want to strive for. So, well, you said, so you said it was, there was a, I know we talked about it a little bit, um, a couple of weeks ago with the, so educational platform in regards to not just like macros and numbers. And it's like, is it kind of like, here's what a sugar is, or here's why an apple is okay versus table salt or cube sugar.

Yeah. It, you know, so nutrition is deeply ingrained in our own behavior and habits. It's a part of everybody's lifestyle. Everybody eats, right? So we all have certain behavior that relates to our nutritional choices, um, whether we overeat at certain times or things that we may struggle with and things that may be our superpowers that involve nutrition in some ways. So where we approach it with precision nutrition, we love to see where our awareness is and how we can link our own, you know, emotional state or physical state. And there are energy levels throughout the day, things of that nature, like certain patterns and related to actions that maybe it's a positive or maybe it's something that we can start to change.

And this, you know, begins as a very big picture, very large lens. And we start to zoom in and we start to build skills with our clients. And these skills have practices and actions that involve nutrition, but not in the way of, you know, we need to weigh your food. We need to count your calories very tightly and things of that nature. You don't want to, you know, we don't want to create rules around nutrition. We want to create behaviors and we want to create positive change that is sustainable and builds awareness for the client and builds action and ownership. You know, there's only so much meal planning that somebody can write before, you know, you got to look at where's, you know, where's your relationship with food at right now?

If, if food was your girlfriend or your boyfriend, where is it at? You know, you're in a good state or you need to work on some things. I thought you were going to say, was it at, is it at Taco Bell or not? Is it, is it Taco Bell or is it my dad giving that speech? Or if you're, or if you're, or if you have multiple, uh, spouses of food, is Taco Bell here or is Taco Bell there or is Taco Bell everywhere? Well, so, so what are some, what are some behaviors then other than say like meal prepping that, um, cause I don't, you know, behaviors are really broad and I think when people think nutrition, they think counting and elimination.

So what are some behaviors that you're kind of talking about certain? I mean, the first behavior that you always want to look at is, you know, your hunger and appetite awareness, you know, that's a skill that you need to build and, um, it involves a certain, you know, separate flow chart of how you break that down. So, you know, thinking about how, how are you eating, you know, are you consistently in front of a TV or some sort of distraction like work and you don't know what you're eating? Um, you don't know how fast you're eating and, um, your attention's on something different. You're not even tasting your food.

You don't know what your, um, satiety cues are. And that's just saying, you know, how full are you? So that's actually the first thing that you look at is what is your environment like and how do you eat on a daily basis? It's interesting. I never thought about the mindless or the environment being mindless. You know, our meals used to be a, a priority, you know, breakfast you had at the table, lunch you had, you know, if you worked, you had that break and dinner you had at the table, you know, traditionally speaking at least, uh, but meals are priorities and now in our society and things, meals are on the go.

Meals are just a means to fuel for the next errand that we have to run. We have a lot of shit to do. And so, um, really if we draw back and just see if we can start paying attention to what we're eating anyways, not even trying to make any sort of drastic changes, but if we just start to pay attention and be more mindful and, you know, start to notice how fast am I eating? What's my environment like while I'm eating this meal? And, um, um, how do I feel at the end of the meal? Um, how long is it taking me until I can say I feel full? Um, and starting to measure that with how much you're eating and what that food looks like on the plate.

Like, you know, where's your protein, where your veggies, your carbs and your fats coming from, then you start to look at those like finer details. But usually once you start addressing all these bigger things, all the next skills that seem so hard to strive for, like meal prepping and things of that nature, like those are, you know, nearing level two type skills for people. And in most cases, it's not necessary for what people's goals are. If you have more lofty goals as far as getting to an optimal lean mass or improving athletic performance at a higher level, then, you know, you start to think about those advanced skills.

But I think people think that there's way too much to change where they feel they're at nutritionally and where they want to be. When, once you zoom out and once you look at just these simpler skills first, that's when you start to see real change that's more sustainable and you may be satisfied exactly where you're at, and you know, guess what? You can still have some beer. You can still have chocolate at the end of the day and things aren't as stressful. You're describing my night tonight. Yeah. I think I had beer and chocolate last night. I don't typically drink beer on a weekday, but I had beer and chocolate last night.

I'm sorry, listeners. I'm a hypocrite. You do seem very sluggish and you're slugging down water right now. I know, I know, it was such a late night watching a movie until 10 p.m. That's way late for me. I think that is a late night for the people who get up early. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I had to wake up at four, no, five this morning. Mm-hmm. You beat me. That's not too early. If I woke up at five and then rolled over and thought I should go back to sleep and I did, does that still mean waking up at five? What time did you wake up after? Uh, 6.30. No, no, you didn't get up at five. If you got up at like 5.20, then yeah, yeah, you got up at five.

Your intentions were to get up at five. Oh, got it. Okay. But you're in bed for another hour and a half. That's like a whole nother sleep wave. The snooze, the snooze effect. You're right. Um, there was something I was going to ask you earlier that I had forgotten. It was, uh, damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it. We're going to talk about a training session. You're going to remember. You're going to be like, oh, let's get back on it. I'm going to say no. I know. I think it was, it was in regards to, oh, I know what it was. You said fuel. I feel like there's a lot of people who talk about food as fuel versus just loving the food that they eat or tasting it.

Or like, if you don't like something, don't shovel it down your throat type of thing. Is there a, is there, is there, is there a thing here with, with fuel that is, uh, I don't talk to much people about food. So what's your input on that one? I mean, yeah, it, it's fuel, um, you know, by definition, it's the fuel that our bodies run off of. If we don't have enough of it, then we're going to run at a lower level or at some, in some cases, in extreme cases, you're going to die. But, you know, when people refer to it as fuel, it does kind of devalue what food is and all those sensory feelings that you get with food, like to me, I consider food having a deep connection with my family and, um, you know, daily type of, uh, priority and a privilege to have food.

So I'd like to appreciate food a little bit more than calling it fuel. However, you know, if somebody is referring to it as fuels and I, I'm sure they're using it as like good intentions, like trying to convince somebody that they should eat some food because they're not going to gain 10 pounds as they, you know, breakfast or things of that nature. Yeah. Okay. I was just curious cause I know that with, uh, I mean, I think about the things that I don't need to finish the bowl of or the plate of, but I do. So there's like, I'm not considering it like fuel, like I need more calories today, but it's just like, it's there.

And like just the, the finishing versus enjoying, is there a correlation between and fuel to me sounds like it's a, it needs to go in, but is it enjoyed? And I think if there's no enjoyment in it and then they're not going to stick to it. I'd say, so enjoying comes first. And if you don't finish, but you enjoyed it, then that probably means that you took your time and you put too much on your plate. You know, I feel like one of our issues is that we just put too much on our plate and yeah, I like to, I want to eat everything that's on my plate. I'm not going to leave food and yeah, I feel like I'm wasting food.

So if I enjoy it and I finish it, then that's, I did good. I put it, I put just enough on my plate to where I'm satisfied, but I feel like you should do both. Don't waste food. Okay. Yeah. I don't want to, I do, I do enjoy leftovers. You can't waste food. So, so actually there's a quick story because I know we're going to get to our train session. Yeah. So we're Mexican or at least right now today I'm Mexican because I'm half, I can jump to either. But so we're in the holidays, we do tamales, make our own tamales. Oh yeah. And so I had a bag of tamales with my name on it since December at my parents' house.

So I grabbed it the other day and I cooked them up. They do not feel good in my stomach, but I realized how hard it was to make those tamales and I want to eat them. So there's enjoyment, there's enjoyment there. Yeah. Just my personal food story. I cannot believe that you were able to stay away from a bag of tamales that you knew were there. I know. I didn't know that. I forgot. I forgot they were there. How? I would, I remember every tamale I ate in the month of December. By name. Yeah. I named them. I'm sorry that that might be wrong to name tamales. I don't know. People name cows Betsy and stuff.

Like when you get those, like they appreciate the animal as the animal had a good life and then the animal gives back. I appreciate you, tamales. Thank you for what you're doing to my belly and my body fat percentage in the month of December. Right, right. Thank you for all that Crisco inside you. I gotta say, you know, tamales are probably the best part of Christmas. I love them. They are. As far as food wise, I, you know, the cookies and the sweets and all that, those are great. But, you know, nothing beats, you know, homemade tamales by the dozens. Yeah. Like literally made by hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds.

Yeah. It's awesome. There, there are, um, there are a lot of work. I know that. And if you don't have a friend who makes tamales during the, during the winter time, you really should. You got to find a friend and what you have to do is you have to help. You have to offer to help. Right. So, you know, take the easy job, you know, don't wrap them so you don't mess them up, but, you know, put the mace on them or, you know, fill them with something. So they give you the good bag, you know, and if you're filling them and you can fill them a little extra and know that's your bag, kind of set those aside.

But I'm just thinking about a fried egg on top of, uh, you know, tamale now. Yeah. So craving that. Funny, funny, actually. So this, this last, uh, this, this last winter, um, Allie was not there to make any tamales. And so we made some tamales and we made, we steamed them all and everything. She got there. And so we gave her one and then she started eating it. She's like, what the hell's in here? And since you grew up vegan, we gave her a vegan tamale. There's no meat in it. We just took a bunch of kale and shit and put it in there. Oh, really? It's very disappointing. How did it, how did it taste?

Uh, well, they really made one. A kale, a kale stuffed tamale. I feel like the, I feel like if you go on like Pinterest or something, you'll find, you know, I wonder if you go on Instagram, honestly, you'll find a pretty good vegan tamale recipe. I wouldn't suggest it by what happened. Just wasn't, wasn't appreciating the flavor of it. No, no. Um, Hey, as we wrap up on this, tell me, tell everyone how to reach your precision nutrition thing. Cause, uh, I think they need to change the behavior. Yeah. Uh, so reach out to me via email and that's how I'll be able to send out all introductory types of communication.

And, um, would you be able to post this on here or do you want to spell it out? Uh, I can put a link. Are you going to spell your last name? Yeah. Uh, G H A S S E M I E H. And that's at gmail.com. Uh, Brennan, Brennan, that Brennan, one, two N's, three N's. Brennan, one N. Wait, one N at the end. One N at the end and one N in the middle. Okay. That's the weirdest way to spell somebody's name, B R E N A N dot gosamia at gmail. Your parents must have loved Taco Bell when you were growing up. They do that to you. I know they, they probably brainwashed me with that song. They probably screwed. You probably screwed them by like making them not forget this song for, I don't know how many years that you created.

And they're like, well, screw you. We're going to change your name. Oh man. We're right on. Thanks for being on. And then I will, uh, anything you want to, anything you want to say before we get out here? We can actually continue this another day if you want. We're doing this barefoot. Accelerate. My favorite part about being at Seb's is that I can be barefoot immediately. Immediately. Yes. That's what I'd like to close with. It's endorsed. Oh, thanks. Okay, everyone. That was Brennan Gassamia again. Thank you so much, Brennan. I am again, extremely thankful for having you in my life and you've really helped get me back to where I want to be.

I've learned a lot from you. And I've definitely, um, I'm like, I say I played well this season cause I don't think I did, but just the appreciation of getting back on the field and just smelling the grass and just liking and enjoying your warmup. And even though we're losing, cause we do lose a lot, um, I appreciate the, the, the times just that I was able to spend on the field. So it's, it's a really good feeling. It's kind of like, it's kind of like, uh, I guess you get your, you get your eyes or vision back after losing them for a period of time, you start to appreciate a little bit more. So much of my conditioning over the next year and my rehab and my movements will be based upon playing the next season better.

If you're looking to contact Brennan, I don't even, I will not even pretend to spell his name. So I will put a link in the show notes as well as you can find him on the site. If you go through p2sportscare.com, go to the search function and search Brennan or search number, just a straight number. You don't have to put pound or anything, not hashtag, but pound. You don't have to put any of that. Just put 107 and you're going to find this podcast and the notes and ways to contact Brennan cause he, um, he can definitely help you and he's nice enough where he'll probably, he's probably going to respond.

So if you're looking for any of the links and stuff that we mentioned in this, including his Precision Nutrition course, go through there and they'll be on there. If you're looking for the show notes, they're on there as well. Lastly, thank you so much for being part of this show and thank you so much for sharing it. If you have a friend or family member or patient or clinician or colleague that you think will benefit from hearing this information and hearing the show weekly, please share it with them. It helps me a ton. It'll help them a ton, hopefully. But as you know, a lot of us that create podcasts and content, the creation part is really what I love.

I love doing it. I get up every morning, I write bits and pieces of articles, or if you've seen Instagram, you'll see that I'm drawing things. And I think I post them on Facebook as well, just to see if I can get constructive criticism and so on. But I like creating anatomical pieces for drawings. I like creating articles surrounding concepts like syndromes and so on. Just cleaning up our knowledge, hopefully, or at least challenging your thinking. So if you like this, please share. Because I love creating the content, but promoting it, I'm crap at it. I acknowledge that I'm crap at it because I don't want to spend time looking at a phone.

I just don't do it. And I should be liking it, doing it, because it's probably going to be the easiest way to get my message out. But if you guys want to be a little army with it and share it with one friend right now, right now, one friend, one friend, share it right now, then you've already helped me out and I will sleep so much better tonight. Okay, leave people better than how you found them and date an Eagle Scout. I'll talk to you later.