The Art of Manliness - The Psychology of Effective Weight Loss

00:00:00.000 Hey, this is Brett. The McKays are on vacation this week, so please enjoy this rebroadcast

00:00:04.140 episode. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

00:00:14.620 Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Now, when

00:00:18.260 most people think about losing weight, they think about the details of a diet plan, what

00:00:21.600 food to eat, how much of it to eat, and when to eat it. What they don't spend enough time

00:00:24.820 working on are the mental and emotional habits that can sabotage their efforts regardless

00:00:28.600 of the diet plan they adopt. That's why my guests say, despite being a biochemist, has

00:00:31.880 made mindset the foundation of his approach to losing weight. His name is Dr. Trevor

00:00:35.340 Kashi, and he's the founder of Trevor Kashi Nutrition, or TKN. We begin a conversation

00:00:39.440 with a thumbnail of Trevor's unique background, which includes earning his first university

00:00:43.080 degree in biochemistry at age 17, setting national records in powerlifting, and coaching an Olympic

00:00:47.460 fight team, as well as how he went from coaching elite athletes to helping average folks lose

00:00:51.200 weight. We then talk about why Trevor focuses on bridging the gap between knowledge and action

00:00:55.380 and the erroneous assumptions people make that keep them from following through on their

00:00:58.700 intentions. From there, we turn to the phases TKN takes its clients through, which begins

00:01:02.900 with getting what Trevor calls food clarity. We discuss how simply tracking what you eat

00:01:06.740 can get you to naturally change your diet because of something called the Hawthorne effect.

00:01:09.920 It can almost be all you need to do to start losing weight. We then get into how to deal

00:01:13.100 with your hunger when you're cutting calories and why it's crucial to be decisive about it.

00:01:16.520 We also discuss how you can eventually eat more once you work on eating less, how to manage

00:01:20.380 the expectation of consistent weight loss, and why you really need to weigh yourself every week.

00:01:24.300 After the show's over, check out our show notes at aom.is slash Kashi.

00:01:38.720 All right, Trevor Kashi, welcome to the show.

00:01:42.480 Hello.

00:01:43.280 So you are a nutrition consultant, but you have a very interesting background to how you got

00:01:48.580 to this point. And the way I discovered you is we interviewed Michael Easter for,

00:01:54.300 The Comfort Crisis, and you had a whole chapter about you. Tell us about your background.

00:01:58.080 How did you start off in the world of biochemistry, and now you help people with their nutrition.

00:02:04.180 How did that happen?

00:02:05.420 Oh, whew. Okay. I can have this 30-second life story thing and then talk a little bit

00:02:12.580 about philosophy. Does that make sense?

00:02:14.420 Sure, that sounds great.

00:02:15.060 Okay. So I can start back from as a little dude, where people talk about their first words,

00:02:22.620 typically it's like mommy, and mine was why, why, why, why. And that eventually just, I had

00:02:30.640 this sort of curious, scientific sort of ilk forever. And I noticed, or somebody noticed,

00:02:38.200 my mother noticed, when a lot of little kids, specifically little boys, they wanted to be

00:02:43.640 X-Men for Halloween. I think X-Men became a pretty popular franchise in the 90s, right?

00:02:48.640 They wanted to be X-Men, and I was like, how did they inject the metal into his bones?

00:02:54.800 And I was that weird kid. And somewhere along the line, I ended up skipping grades and doing all

00:03:02.760 sorts of crazy stuff. And one of the mentors that I had very early on in my life had a connection to

00:03:09.340 the local college. And in the local college, I got started at a very young age. And Professor

00:03:17.060 Tui, my mentor there, had some friends over at Translational Genomics. So I ended up getting

00:03:23.360 some laboratory experience at a very young age, specifically in the realm of non-smile cell lung

00:03:28.920 cancer. They also did neurogenomics, stuff like that too. And along this time, I think I was in

00:03:34.660 the 14, 15-ish range, my father got back into my life. And my father had a big interest in fitness and

00:03:41.760 bodybuilding, et cetera. And so I started combining my sort of obsessive scientific nature with the

00:03:48.220 application of things like bodybuilding and strength sports with my father, because we had very few things

00:03:52.380 to bond over. And that led to me doing like my first physique contest at age 15. And I really ended

00:04:01.080 up enjoying that process since. And I ended up continuing on with my scientific ilk into graduate

00:04:09.960 school. So I finished my first degree in biochemistry, and I started my doctoral degree in biochemistry,

00:04:16.020 studying, for the most part, things like the oxidation reduction components of vitamin K.

00:04:21.700 And during that time, I transitioned from bodybuilding over to strength sports,

00:04:26.620 and because of the different sort of demand, different sport, wanted to try new things,

00:04:30.260 et cetera. And what ended up happening, I did okay on the regional and national level for strength sports

00:04:39.540 and got involved in that community. And the background I had science-wise, as well as how I performed

00:04:49.380 on the field, so to speak, ended up generating a lot of conversations with the other athletes.

00:04:54.860 And that kind of started this whole process of, how do we combine these two things to help people

00:05:01.100 accomplish the things they want to accomplish? And it started in the athletic realm. And it ended up

00:05:06.800 getting to a point to where the demands on my time grew greater than the time that I had.

00:05:11.120 And so I regrettably ended up having to distinguish between the people who wanted some advice by like,

00:05:17.840 well, I guess this kind of became a business all on its own, I guess. And somewhere along that line,

00:05:23.080 I ended up getting recruited by the Azerbaijani government and acted as a physiologist for them,

00:05:30.360 for their fight sports, specifically for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. So I lived overseas in a cave for a

00:05:35.860 while. And I came back a little over a year later, you know, back and forth, et cetera. And ended up,

00:05:45.120 ended up, I guess, I ended up stateside, I wanted to find that word, and then operated out of a

00:05:51.500 strength and conditioning facility in Florida. And that gave me greater exposure to the quote,

00:05:55.660 general population. And here we can kind of start the story in terms of philosophy,

00:06:00.440 where how did this go from working with high level athletes to working with quote, general population?

00:06:09.500 And what we come to notice or TCAN operates as if people for the most part kind of already have a

00:06:16.000 good enough understanding of how to eat and move in a constructive way. And the trouble comes with

00:06:21.040 turning that knowledge into action. So for that reason, we focus very little energy on telling people

00:06:27.700 what to do and more energy on helping people to understand the options they have so that they

00:06:32.320 can make the most constructive decisions for themselves. And so we call it bridging the intention

00:06:37.660 intervention gap. So people have an idea of what to do, they have an idea of what they want,

00:06:42.060 and we help bring those two things together. And so in a practical way, this means trivializing what

00:06:48.860 to eat and when, and instead shining the spotlights on, well, with the facts as we know them,

00:06:54.420 how do I best manage my thoughts, feelings, and emotions, or my thoughts, feelings, and actions

00:06:58.920 so I can get closer to what I want? Does that make sense?

00:07:01.860 That makes sense. Okay. So, okay. So it sounds like you're taking, okay, you're using your knowledge

00:07:08.260 about with biochemistry and you can apply that. I mean, that's what nutrition is. It's biochemistry,

00:07:12.760 but you don't, with your, with the general population, you're not focusing on, well, we got to eat this

00:07:18.500 carbs, fats. You're not thinking about that. It's more, that's, that's in there, but it's more,

00:07:23.180 you're thinking about the human body is not just a body, but there's a psychological part to it as

00:07:27.580 well that you have to understand. Yes, exactly. So the biochemistry, just like in real life,

00:07:32.400 operates in the background. And we focus more on the foreground here, which has to do with, well,

00:07:38.280 what am I thinking? How do I feel? And how do those things combine to influence the decisions I make?

00:07:43.820 And the biochemistry happening in the background, we just kind of weave into the programming as we go.

00:07:49.400 Okay. That makes sense. So let's start, let's start with this question. So why do you think,

00:07:53.180 your approach works? I guess you're calling it Trevor Cachy method or the Cachy method. And we'll

00:07:57.760 get into the details of that. Like, well, maybe I was not, why do most people when they say, okay,

00:08:02.560 I want to lose weight, right? That's why most people, when they start thinking about their food

00:08:05.640 consciously, they're thinking about, well, I need to do that so I can lose weight. So they typically

00:08:09.640 think I got to go on a diet, right? So I got to reduce calories. There's how I'm going to go,

00:08:13.840 I'm going to do paleo, high fat, but you know, we've talked about this on the podcast before

00:08:18.320 studies. And I think personal experience can show this as well. I think it's like 95% of all diets,

00:08:23.980 they fail. So what are they doing? Why do diets fail? What's going, what are the erroneous

00:08:28.680 assumptions that people have about nutrition and losing weight? Thanks to popular diets.

00:08:34.480 I get, I get chills hearing that question for a couple of reasons, a little bit out of fear and

00:08:39.080 a little bit out of excitement. Great question. I love it. And I kind of want to start it with saying

00:08:44.220 something that has the potential to sort of inflame a little bit. However, I do think it leads us to a

00:08:49.360 more constructive outcome. I find it curious that diets in the abstract do the failing. So I'll just

00:08:57.340 lay that out there. Even the language as we use it, diets fail. And I find that interesting because

00:09:03.780 diets as they stand, you know, they represent themselves as an abstract concept. So to expand

00:09:09.040 that a little bit, if 95% of diets fail, they do the failing, then does that mean the 5% of diets

00:09:16.800 do the succeeding? And that leaves very little room for us humans to do anything.

00:09:24.160 So I kind of want to start there in the context of like, what role do we play in the success and

00:09:29.740 failure, rather than describing it in the context of the diet having a success and failure. And by

00:09:35.340 focusing on the role that we play, we have the largest chance of making a difference in the long

00:09:40.640 term. So presuming the efficacy of a diet, notwithstanding like, you know, carbohydrate,

00:09:47.200 fat, protein, vegetables, timing, all that sort of stuff. So that sort of efficacy, notwithstanding,

00:09:54.380 and then moving on to your erroneous assumption language, which I like, people make three, I think,

00:10:00.200 to use your language, erroneous assumptions that increase the failure rate of most, maybe all

00:10:08.240 things we do. And so we can cherry pick and say, well, studies say 95% of diets fail, but you know

00:10:14.940 what? I'll bet a dollar that 95% or more of all projects, if you'd like, have similar or even

00:10:22.440 greater failure rates. And so we may inflate the importance of diets because of their presumed benefits

00:10:28.580 on our physiology and presumed benefits on our social status. But we really swim in examples of

00:10:34.540 people that have folders and files and garages and addicts and mental spaces filled with projects

00:10:39.220 that put on the back burner or save for later or whatever. And so these situations, I think that the

00:10:45.180 failed diet and the unfinished project, they have similar if identical constructs to them. And we just

00:10:52.240 use the word fail for one. And I think that adds different implications. Does that make sense?

00:10:56.700 That makes sense. So it's like the knowledge and tension gap that you talked about earlier.

00:11:00.460 Yes, yes. And so going back to the erroneous assumptions, I think we mainly have three,

00:11:08.540 and they base around us, ourselves. We make erroneous assumptions about ourselves. We make

00:11:15.040 erroneous assumptions about other people. And then we make erroneous assumptions about the situation at

00:11:19.700 large. And they have sort of this demanding, perfectionistic sort of air to them, where I

00:11:27.260 must be perfect and do things perfectly. Erroneous assumption one. Erroneous assumption two,

00:11:33.700 others must treat me well. And erroneous assumption three, life must be fair.

00:11:40.160 And so to answer your question of what erroneous assumptions do people make, I think, well,

00:11:44.160 people can combine language in ways to make all the erroneous assumptions an unlimited amount of

00:11:49.660 them. But when we take a step back, failure and emotional disturbance, and somewhat comically

00:11:56.640 disturbance about that disturbance where people get mad because they're mad, sad because they're sad,

00:12:01.100 et cetera, largely come from the expectations they place on themselves, other people, and the

00:12:06.100 environment. Does that make sense?

00:12:08.100 That makes sense. Okay. So I can see this. Okay. The perfection aspect, I think everyone's experienced

00:12:11.920 that moment. They're like, well, I'm on a diet. I'm going to be really good. And then they go to a

00:12:15.900 restaurant, they go to Chili's and they have an awesome blossom. And they're like, well, might as

00:12:22.540 well just go ahead and have the, uh, the, what's the, the, the volcano, chocolate volcano.

00:12:29.360 I like where your head's at. Right. Okay. So there's that, that perfections. If you can't do,

00:12:34.760 or if you're, I mean, say you're doing like paleo, it's like, if I don't do like, if I,

00:12:37.680 if I eat any like thing that's like a caveman couldn't eat, then it's not worth doing. Right.

00:12:43.820 And that can just get in the way of you actually making progress. So that's like that perfection

00:12:48.180 thing. Yes. And so that sort of perfectionistic demand we place on ourselves gives us this,

00:12:54.240 this leverage point to give ourselves permission to act against our self-interests. And so from a

00:13:01.140 schematic standpoint, it ends up to work out something like I must eat perfect where perfect

00:13:06.200 might encompass, like I must eat paleo, I must, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we'll just call

00:13:11.200 it eating perfectly where we define perfect as whatever plan that person has. Right. I must eat

00:13:16.340 perfect or else. And so when you, when you put these demands on yourself or demands on your diet,

00:13:23.460 et cetera, et cetera, unless we meet our own demands perfectly or the external circumstances meet our

00:13:31.540 demands perfectly, we get to trigger this sort of, or else mechanic in our brains where we can say,

00:13:36.820 I must eat perfectly or else I may as well just give up and do nothing and hit myself forever. 1.00

00:13:42.140 And I'm a stupid dummy head. So from the perfectionistic standpoint, it lends itself 1.00

00:13:48.340 towards that sort of black and white thinking where we sabotage ourselves.

00:13:51.280 And how do other people get in the way? Like their assumptions about it? What are assumptions

00:13:57.300 about other people? Cause okay. I can see the assumptions about circumstance, like life needs

00:14:01.420 to be fair. Right. Cause I think everyone's like, well, this diet will work if these certain

00:14:06.360 circumstances are in place, but if something goes off kilter, like I have a bad day at work,

00:14:10.560 kids are up throwing up at two o'clock in the morning, you know, I couldn't maintain my diet and

00:14:17.000 like, it's just going to throw everything off. I guess I've seen that happen in my own life and

00:14:21.540 people listen again, this happened, this can happen to other projects in our life, not just

00:14:24.540 nutrition, but the social component, what's going on there. So for instance, it could be something

00:14:31.120 like they must accept me or else. And in this case, the, or else tends to raise stress levels,

00:14:39.100 cause some emotional disturbance, which some people try to deal with by doing things like eating.

00:14:44.240 Okay. That makes sense. And so that is how it ends up relating in a, in a rather direct way.

00:14:51.840 People end up using eating as a, as a consumptive behavior to distract from disturbances that they

00:15:00.060 get from placing demands on others, for instance. It's a stress reliever.

00:15:04.840 Yes. Well, it's a distractor, I think.

00:15:07.320 Distractor. And so, I mean, that's one of the, your big things you're trying to tackle is you're

00:15:12.460 trying to help people understand why they eat. Cause I think we often think, well, you eat cause

00:15:18.600 you're hungry, but you would say, well, really, are you really hungry when you ate that, you know,

00:15:25.660 bag of M&Ms?

00:15:27.220 Yes. Yeah. In a lot of instances, we, we take cues from our environment or the thoughts we have

00:15:34.680 as permission to eat for whatever reason. It could be the time of day. It could be the room

00:15:40.140 we have put ourselves in. It could be an interaction we had. And sometimes it aligns

00:15:44.660 with hunger and sometimes not.

00:15:46.800 Let's dig into your method. I think high level, I think people that kind of understand what

00:15:50.100 you're, you're probably going to do is you want people to think, develop a better relationship

00:15:55.040 with their nutrition and think about the psychological factors, not just the physiological

00:15:59.900 factors that go into it. And in this first part, you know, when you, when you take on a client,

00:16:04.620 you start working with them, you go through this, there's a phase to, there's a process. And this

00:16:08.820 first part, you call it the goal is to help your client develop food clarity. What do you mean by

00:16:13.600 that? And what goes on during this phase when you first start working with somebody?

00:16:17.660 So I use the term food clarity as sort of like a, like front end language so that when people look

00:16:23.620 us up and they read about it, it, I have some terminology that, that people can, can kind of sink

00:16:28.640 their teeth into a little bit. And in short, it really means that people make a lot of assumptions

00:16:34.540 about what they do and they make demands based off of those assumptions and can upset themselves or

00:16:41.780 sabotage themselves when the results they get deviate from the demands they make. Okay. So that's a fancy

00:16:47.580 way of saying, I'm eating so little, but I keep getting fatter. Therefore I get to be mad, et cetera.

00:16:53.820 And so when it comes to food clarity, I use that term to represent a whole manner of things.

00:16:58.560 And in this context, it has to do with, well, what foods do I eat? When do I eat them? And how,

00:17:06.300 if at all, does that impact the way that I think, how I feel and what I do? And does it have

00:17:14.040 necessarily a causal relationship? No, it more just serves to raise an awareness to what you currently do.

00:17:23.820 And when you raise a real awareness to what you currently do, then you can make more informed

00:17:29.300 decisions about what to do next. And so TKN positions themselves there to say, okay, we have

00:17:36.380 gathered all of this information. How do we make the best use of it? And we call that first part food

00:17:43.400 clarity, because one of the first things that we suggest people do, we, we suggest just keep all,

00:17:49.240 just keep track of the stuff you currently do. Because I think when, I think when a lot of people

00:17:53.400 join programs or start diets or fitness or whatever, they just kind of jump right into whatever

00:17:59.220 directions that the program gives them. They try and turn their life upside down and conform to whatever

00:18:04.520 those rules are immediately. And I just quite frankly could give a damn about that stuff.

00:18:10.340 I care more about what you do right now, because if we have an operational understanding of what you

00:18:16.120 do right now, well, then we can take what you currently do, stabilize that day to day. And now

00:18:23.000 we have a baseline in which we can make some legitimate changes.

00:18:26.920 Gotcha. So this, this basically is like, you're going to start measuring, measuring what you actually

00:18:31.000 eat. Cause a lot of people don't even know. They just sort of like when they take a serving of

00:18:34.480 something, they don't know like how much is in that. Like they have no clue.

00:18:39.640 Yeah. So I, I really, under most circumstances could care less of that. You have to eat three

00:18:44.320 ounces of spinach or 42 grams of peanut butter or whatever. I more care that you have an idea of

00:18:50.640 what you currently do at this very moment day to day, because then you could go, Oh, that makes sense.

00:18:58.120 Where do we go from here? Or I already know where to go from here because now I have this

00:19:03.020 information I can use to my advantage versus operating off of these assumptions.

00:19:08.540 No. Yeah. Like measuring your food. I, I, I do that. And when I started doing it a couple of years

00:19:14.340 ago, one thing you learn right away is like, you're surprised that your, your assumptions of what is,

00:19:19.580 what counts as a serving is completely off. So I've seen this happen with people. They're like,

00:19:23.780 you know, I don't eat that much. Like I had some toast with a serving of peanut butter,

00:19:27.580 but it's like, have you actually seen, seen what a serving of peanut butter is? Like,

00:19:32.940 what you think is a serving of peanut butter is not a serving of peanut butter. It's actually

00:19:37.940 really, it's really depressing to see what a serving of peanut butter is.

00:19:42.900 Yeah. Yep. I agree. And once you have an understanding of what this means in real life,

00:19:49.840 well, then it helps you to inform your decisions in real life versus here are the assumptions I make

00:19:55.620 in my brain. And because of the assumptions I make in my brain, here are the demands I expect of the

00:20:00.320 results. And when those things deviate from each other, people tend to say things like, screw it,

00:20:05.500 right? Right. I bother. I can't stand it anymore. This diet doesn't work, et cetera, et cetera.

00:20:13.500 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:20:17.460 And now back to the show. And what's interesting to you, so in this point, you're not, you're not

00:20:21.500 telling people to make any changes in their, their nutrition. You're just saying, just measure

00:20:24.900 what you're actually eating, but there's a principle from psychology. I think it's called

00:20:29.060 the Hawthorne effect, right? Yes. Yes. So what's, tell us about the Hawthorne effect and how

00:20:33.260 just measuring stuff can actually change behavior and just by just nature, by not just naturally.

00:20:39.000 Okay. So if you could see me, you could see my steeple fingers like Mr. Burns.

00:20:44.080 So I think how this happens matters less than it does happen. So I will just go out there and say

00:20:52.880 that I care about the utility more than the mechanism at this point. Although we can use

00:20:56.680 a somewhat rational theory to guess about what's going on. So strictly speaking, I think the addition

00:21:01.920 of tracking to what you normally do changes, strictly speaking, again, nothing about other

00:21:06.320 behaviors. However, asterisk, asterisk, monitoring yourself presents a unique change of behavior

00:21:13.420 all on its own because it creates awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in general.

00:21:19.580 And so people can use the information they get from monitoring their behavior to influence the way

00:21:24.020 they make decisions. I like to explain it this way. How many people see a police officer and then slow

00:21:29.620 down? Even if they go, even if they, they drive within the speed limit. I do it all the time.

00:21:35.840 I think practically everybody does that. Yes. And so does seeing the police officer make you slow down?

00:21:40.620 No. No. No. And here I think drives the biggest point home between how TKN operates versus other

00:21:49.500 things, I guess. So what happens with the way, with the theory that we use or have or model we use,

00:21:55.960 et cetera, you see the police officer, okay, formulate an inference based off of what you see

00:22:01.600 and then use that inference to inform your immediate behavior of slowing down. And so a lot of people,

00:22:07.480 they skip that middle step. They think, I see the cop, the cop makes me slow down. In reality,

00:22:12.700 I see the cop, I interpret that information as X, Y, and Z, and then I use that information to inform

00:22:18.540 my decision to slow down. And we try and intervene as best we can in that middle step because we can do

00:22:25.040 relatively little about the things you experience, okay? However, if we can become aware of that step where

00:22:33.680 we make inferences, where we form beliefs, well, then we can have a real impact on how you use the

00:22:38.480 information you do have to make better decisions. That's the long answer about the Hawthorne effect

00:22:42.960 and at least how we use it. In reality, it's like, if you think you're being watched, then you change

00:22:47.440 what you do. It's probably the quick and dirty explanation. However, watch yourself, then you can

00:22:52.060 be constructive with that.

00:22:53.080 Yeah. And you see this same sort of thing happen with like personal finances. I think there's like

00:22:56.980 a lot of core, like the similarities between nutrition and personal finances. A lot of people

00:23:01.480 think in personal finance world, it's all like, you got to know about stocks and ratios and blah,

00:23:06.460 blah, blah, you know, but really it's just like, it comes down to psychology. And they've, one of the

00:23:10.100 things you do in personal finance is like, just track what you spend. Don't change anything,

00:23:14.100 just track. And then from there you can start and like the Hawthorne effect comes in and then you

00:23:17.920 also learn information about why am I spending my money? Do I, did I really need to spend money on that?

00:23:23.080 Then you start making decisions based off that data.

00:23:26.140 Correct. And so you bring up a good point about that. In so far as also a lot of people kind of

00:23:32.140 wonder like, where did all of my bad spending habits come from? Where did all of my bad eating

00:23:37.180 habits come from? And so forth. And you realize that just by monitor, like just with self-monitoring,

00:23:42.140 you can find all of the, you can make all those things moot because what causes a problem matters

00:23:46.840 way less than what maintains it. Gotcha. All right. So you're in this food clarity phase.

00:23:52.620 People are measuring what they're eating, like, so they can actually see. So they can't be like,

00:23:57.060 I just eat a serving of peanut butter. They actually know what a serving of peanut butter

00:24:00.720 is. But then you're also tracking, okay, well, why, why, why did you eat? Like, were you feeling

00:24:04.560 upset? Were you stressed? You're also tracking that. After you've gone through this phase,

00:24:08.960 again, when there's no, you're not, there's nothing prescriptive going on here. You start doing,

00:24:14.760 you start making some changes, making some suggestions. So what, what happens after establishing food

00:24:19.480 clarity? In a lot of instances, the Hawthorne effect ends up taking hold and people end up

00:24:24.760 correcting or changing their, their eating patterns over the course of the food clarity phase.

00:24:29.920 And so practically speaking, that means, well, we can just continue on what you have been doing.

00:24:35.200 We can make, we could effectively make zero changes based off of the data that you provided

00:24:39.240 because you already put yourself on the right track of your own accord. Does that make sense?

00:24:43.560 That makes sense. But again, you're not, you're not like giving like a, you're probably not giving

00:24:47.100 like a very specific meal plan. You're just saying, okay, let's look at what you're doing

00:24:51.140 already. Maybe you make a nudge here and see if that does something. Yeah. It's a nudge. And I

00:24:57.240 think, I mean, the Hawthorne effect can take, it can help out a lot with that. So for example,

00:25:01.820 like there's been times where I've like, I need to lose weight, but I do, I track macros and

00:25:06.720 sometimes I'll have a morning, like a Saturday morning. One of my favorite treats is to go over to

00:25:09.960 quick trip and get a sausage, egg, cheese biscuit. It's really good, but it is like, it is fortified

00:25:18.520 with fat. So I eat it. Enriched. It's enriched with fat. And the thing is like, I, I know I'm

00:25:27.320 going to be like hungry, like in just like 30 minutes after I finish this thing. Cause it's,

00:25:32.500 there's not, doesn't really take up a lot of space. And so I realized, man, I'm, I'm not gonna

00:25:36.540 be able to eat that much. I'm gonna have to like, there's going to be changes. I'm gonna have to

00:25:39.080 make somewhere else. Or might they be more satiating food, more like broccoli or, you know,

00:25:44.640 potatoes or something that's not laden with butter. So you start doing it naturally. Like

00:25:49.240 you sort of figure it out on your own. You, you take your finances and you translate them to things

00:25:54.220 like calories, the same sort of premise with taking stock of what you have and allocating resources

00:25:59.020 accordingly. Same exact principles. Gotcha. How do you deal with people who like, let's say they're

00:26:03.660 trying to lose weight. So they have to reduce calories. And sometimes you start feeling hungry.

00:26:07.740 What do you do? Like, do you help, how do you help people with that? Where they're like, man,

00:26:11.320 I'm just really hungry. It's like 10 o'clock at night. I'm just starving. I've had that happen

00:26:15.800 to me. Like I just want, I want to eat, go to the, I want to go to the cupboard and just like get a

00:26:19.360 scoop of peanut butter. So my stomach just shuts up. So you, you present a great question that has

00:26:27.020 idiosyncratic resolutions, a fancy way of saying each person kind of gets a different approach.

00:26:34.280 However, I can try and give you a good understanding of how we could approach something

00:26:38.300 like this. So if something like this comes up, I like to lean on irreverence, which is a fancy way

00:26:45.580 of saying, well, like, let's try and make a joke of this situation as a way to provide us perspective

00:26:50.960 in terms of making a better situation, in terms of making better decisions. So we can either make

00:26:54.740 a joke of it, or we can just show it very little respect as a way to help calibrate our decision

00:26:59.060 making apparatus. So when somebody says, let's all throw you under the bus, when you say I'm tired

00:27:03.960 and stressed and want to eat a bunch of stuff and I have all these cravings. Okay. So then we can have

00:27:08.660 a conversation where I might ask the question, how do you deal with the tendency to want to smash

00:27:14.820 somebody's face in and still manage to act polite? How do you deal with the tendency to want to rip a

00:27:19.740 loud fart during somebody's big speech and manage to hold it in? Or how do you manage to deal with the

00:27:24.600 tendency to want to skip where it can show up anyway? It's like willpower, self-control.

00:27:29.120 Essentially, yes. So to some degree, we incorporate tolerance. And so two factors dictate the

00:27:40.360 maintenance of a plan under situations like this. And the first most important factor I consider

00:27:47.520 tolerance, which operates exactly how it sounds. The way the ability or capacity to maintain

00:27:54.500 composure when you feel stressed, okay, which has trainability, which becomes a different

00:28:01.460 conversation. However, so the most important thing in the moment becomes exhibiting tolerance to the

00:28:07.340 situation, dealing with it for a short period of time so that you can make a rational decision,

00:28:12.700 which means the second most important thing to consider in the grand scheme has to do with

00:28:18.520 overcoming ambivalence. And so a lot of, in other words, if you can manage your behavior in those

00:28:25.620 other situations we just mentioned, in other contexts, which you do, then we already have

00:28:30.460 sufficient evidence to suggest that you can continue to manage your behavior now in this situation.

00:28:36.900 And so what happens is when people manage their behavior in those other situations, like keeping

00:28:42.020 yourself from punching somebody in the mouth, right? You create this sort of compound argument in your head,

00:28:47.360 which I then try and, I try and work with a person to get them to form out loud where they state their

00:28:55.160 preference and then compare that preference to the desired outcome. And then we use that to drive

00:29:00.360 sensical decisions. So the, I would really like to rip a loud fart and, and I know that would distract

00:29:07.180 from the, from the speech and potentially embarrass me and the other person. So I'll keep it in.

00:29:12.280 And so you state your preference, recognize and tolerate your preference, and then compare that to the desired

00:29:19.320 outcome. So in this case, the preference to sabotage yourself in some way, and you compare that to the

00:29:24.640 desired outcome, and then you can make an informed decision. Do I want to continue on with this or not?

00:29:29.980 Okay. Do I want to rip a loud fart and cause a scene? I, I, I would like to rip a loud fart and I know I'd cause a

00:29:37.840 scene. Do I want to continue to do this? No. And so for food, for instance, we can throw demandingness

00:29:43.580 in here, which becomes easy when it comes to food, where someone might say, I must eat to live.

00:29:48.060 Sure. Okay. Therefore I must eat whenever I feel like it or else. And here's where things start to

00:29:55.640 get interesting. So a lot of people have cravings that get worse over time, or they intensify over time,

00:30:01.120 especially as they continue on with diets. Okay. Basically a lot of times cravings coexist with

00:30:07.500 ambivalence and that ambivalence intensifies and protracts the craving. Essentially wanting to eat

00:30:14.140 a thing, just wanting to eat a thing presents a minor hassle anyone can deal with. If you want something

00:30:19.340 and you realize it might hurt you, if you do it, then you move on with your life. However, if you start

00:30:24.840 deliberating with yourself about whether you should do it or not, that ends up causing the

00:30:30.920 problems. And so when people tend to label their issue as like an intense craving, I really think

00:30:37.200 it presents itself more as a person prolonging their own misery by deliberating over what to do

00:30:42.160 about the cravings. And so practically this means making a decision. And so decisions end up kind of

00:30:49.240 obviating a lot of the problems people have associated with craving because the cravings exist and get worse

00:30:54.980 because people wonder and argue with themselves, do I give in or not? When you could just say,

00:31:00.820 no, and move on. Does that make sense? That makes sense. All right. So like, let's say some people

00:31:05.080 eat because they're just tired. They want to, that's their go-to. Say, well, no, I'm not going

00:31:10.420 to do that. Don't debate it. And the same thing, if you're feeling hunger, I mean, I guess you have to

00:31:13.840 kind of be tolerated. Like, well, I'm going to be a little hungry. Like I'm going to feel some hunger

00:31:17.420 pains at 10 o'clock at night. I can deal with that. Yeah. A great way of putting it. I have gathered

00:31:23.860 enough evidence to know that I can deal with this mild hassle right now.

00:31:28.840 All right. So you have to get comfortable with discomfort.

00:31:32.440 Yeah. A little bit. Essentially, yes.

00:31:34.360 Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this is what's happening in this phase. And like, this is what's happening

00:31:38.060 in this phase two part. You're working with a client and you're helping them manage these issues

00:31:42.740 that pop up, right? And figuring out like ways that they can deal with it and consulting them and

00:31:48.980 coaching them. Like, well, what, do you really have to eat peanut butter when you're feeling

00:31:52.720 really, really hungry? Well, maybe not. Maybe the hunger will, like, that's another thing you talk

00:31:56.380 about too in a lot of your podcasts about the feelings. Like don't, like feelings can be like

00:32:00.940 not very trustworthy. And that's why sometimes like there's like a nutrition idea out there,

00:32:05.500 intuitive eating. Like just eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full. Sometimes like

00:32:09.360 you're, that's messed up. Like you're, the feeling connection to your body is all out of whack.

00:32:15.560 And so you might feel like you need to eat, but your body, you really don't.

00:32:20.700 Yes. Eating intuitively and finding success with that presupposes a balanced psycho emotive state

00:32:28.080 all the time. Because if at least the way that I interpret the term intuition, you can pretty much

00:32:36.240 use synonymously with impulse. And so if somebody says impulsive eating, they know exactly what you

00:32:43.860 mean. Right? Right. However, if somebody says intuitive eating, that sounds fancier and different.

00:32:50.300 However, intuition and impulse mean essentially the same thing. And so in a lot of instances,

00:32:56.800 a lot of the clients that we have, I would consider recovering intuitive eaters, so to speak,

00:33:04.280 because their intuitions effectively led them to me. And so we just, we can make rational decisions

00:33:12.000 with good information. Right. And I mean, a lot of what you're doing is you're, you're kind of,

00:33:17.420 I mean, in a way you're, you're trying to retrain people like, like the intuition. So the intuition,

00:33:22.320 because like, it'd be nice to like, if you can just go on intuition, life's a lot easier.

00:33:26.420 Right. If you could just be, well, I feel like that. And it sounds like, you correct me if I'm wrong,

00:33:30.520 like all the, you know, this food clarity and then this, you know, working with them on the second

00:33:34.880 phase where you're trying to help them figure out, okay, what can you do when you have these issues?

00:33:39.140 Like you're kind of retraining like an, like an intuition. So it's actually based in reason.

00:33:45.200 Exactly. Correct. My friend. Yes.

00:33:47.480 Another interesting part. So you go through phase one, phase two, but there's an, there's a third

00:33:52.020 part that I've heard you talk about where there's a part where you actually start increasing calories.

00:33:58.140 But let's say someone's trying to lose weight and they've lost weight. Then you're like, well,

00:34:00.740 no, actually we're going to, well, you're going to eat more food and you're going to actually going to,

00:34:05.760 you might lose more body fat. And that people might hear like, what, how does that work?

00:34:10.880 What's going on there?

00:34:12.680 Okay. So we can, we can describe this in a few ways. However, a lot of it has to do with,

00:34:21.480 a lot of it does have to do with food choice. So like you said earlier, like I, I really want to

00:34:27.640 have this. I love quick trip by the way. You did reference quick trip, right?

00:34:31.260 I did. Yes. Quick trip. I got one.

00:34:32.460 Just making sure that we have alignment on quick trip here that all in all, from a food volume

00:34:38.960 standpoint, that sandwich represents a morsel and that you can take that five, six, 700 calories and

00:34:45.800 turn it into a relative feast. And so over time you make better decisions about food choices to

00:34:52.180 stay, to get and stay satisfied with the food choices that you do make, which then ends up

00:34:57.780 helping with things like cravings on the backend. Additionally, when you start to keep track of

00:35:04.520 the amount of calories you consume, when we start adjusting a person down so that they may lose fat,

00:35:13.940 we understand that essentially we all suck at measuring when we start. We understand that.

00:35:21.360 And so we start the values relatively low, understanding that 99% of the time people end up

00:35:29.660 eating more than they report because their measurement skills could use some, could use some

00:35:35.400 mastering. And so what ends up happening is that over time, even though we, we set, we set the presumed

00:35:44.100 calorie intake relatively low, knowing that a person will most likely overeat because of measurement error.

00:35:49.660 However, we account for that overeating to still be beneath a person's maintenance level. Does that

00:35:55.300 make sense? That makes sense. Yes. So that means that as a person continues to improve their measurement

00:36:01.220 skills, they actually, even though they might report the same amount of calories they consume,

00:36:06.340 they start consuming fewer calories over time because their measurement error declines. Does that

00:36:11.260 make sense? That makes sense. Yes. Okay. Now accounting for that, we can start actually increasing a

00:36:18.120 person's calories over time. And this ends up happening functionally for a few reasons. One,

00:36:25.120 that we can increase the calories over time within the confines of the person's maintenance,

00:36:31.380 which effectively means that you can eat one calorie under maintenance and still continue to lose fat

00:36:36.760 in theory. Okay. Okay. And so if a person gets better at measuring over time and we increase the

00:36:42.840 amount of calories they consume over time, then that means in terms of what they report,

00:36:47.840 they report way more and what they do eat ends up matching much closer to what they report.

00:36:56.200 And that accounts for a lot of the mathematical discrepancy. However, in terms of physiological

00:37:00.880 discrepancies, we can account for things like thermogenesis, like your metabolic rate can go up a

00:37:08.000 little bit for a variety of reasons. Food choices can also make a difference in terms of how efficient

00:37:12.860 your digestion, how efficient you digest the food. And one thing that people end up kind of neglecting

00:37:21.100 in terms of these differences in food intake has to do with the fact that a person now has a much

00:37:27.920 more balanced, healthy, active lifestyle. And so we also keep track of activity. And as activity starts

00:37:34.680 to incline, so then does your maintenance, which means that we can continue to increase the calories

00:37:40.100 that you take in, understanding that your maintenance ends up going up for a variety of reasons, which

00:37:45.740 allows us to kind of end a fat loss phase at a relatively high caloric load, when under most

00:37:52.700 circumstances, people's calories decline over time as their progress stalls. Does that make sense?

00:37:58.580 Yes, that makes sense.

00:37:59.440 Yes. Okay. So we try and start relatively low and end high where we end at what would presumably be

00:38:08.400 your new maintenance. And that gives us a lot of options.

00:38:12.120 It seems like it'd be a lot more enjoyable, like knowing that.

00:38:15.040 Yes. You can eat more every week.

00:38:17.300 Right. Yeah. Like that's more motivating to stick with something. Ah, I get to eat more.

00:38:22.540 Yes. Because in a lot of other situations, you kind of get scared to check in like,

00:38:26.080 oh, are they going to chop it all away? What do I do? Do I, do I fudge my information next? You know,

00:38:31.180 it ends up becoming a really strange sort of like countdown to doomsday sort of situation.

00:38:36.220 When, when we really present it as, well, we can start lower and it does kind of suck for a minute

00:38:41.760 and that's okay.

00:38:43.640 Right. You can deal with that.

00:38:44.960 Because as we, right, we can deal with it. We have the, we have the evidence we can deal with it.

00:38:48.760 And over time, we just, we just add a little bit more and a little bit more until eventually

00:38:53.260 like your calorie to body weight ratio ends up changing dramatically.

00:38:59.200 That's cool.

00:38:59.980 Yeah.

00:39:00.720 So I'm curious, how do you measure or track results with clients without making them

00:39:05.500 obsessed too much about it? It seems like you're not, your, your goal is to not make

00:39:08.100 people obsess about this stuff too much.

00:39:10.100 Yeah.

00:39:10.680 So how do you track results? Are you, is like a weekly weigh-in?

00:39:13.820 And so I, I have people check in once per week and then they can check in more often if they

00:39:21.020 please. The, any sort of preoccupations a person has with any measurements they, they take, we deal

00:39:29.160 with on a, on a person to person basis. However, when we, when we kind of go over the function of

00:39:34.460 measuring, an easy way to say this, a lot of people have preoccupation with measuring for various

00:39:40.040 reasons. Okay. And for that reason, they end up opting, opting for, for other possible programs,

00:39:47.580 consultants, coaches, et cetera, that kind of offer a no tracking approach. Have you heard of something

00:39:52.080 like this?

00:39:52.680 Never.

00:39:53.160 I guess intuitive eating, intuitive eating might be one.

00:39:55.280 Yeah, that'd be one. Sure.

00:39:56.580 Okay. Or maybe, maybe measuring and like the people, people get scared of a scale. Okay. I'll just

00:40:02.940 use that as an example. So I, I kind of come at it from a rational perspective of under any

00:40:08.620 circumstance, whether you, whether you gain, whether you lose, whether you do a program,

00:40:14.360 whether you do in your own thing, you always measure and track, you always measure and track

00:40:19.020 no matter what. And so if you, if you intend to measure and track, or rather, if you measure and

00:40:25.180 track anyway, it makes the most sense to measure and track with the most accurate information possible.

00:40:29.560 So how do I explain this in a way that makes sense? People measured before they started,

00:40:33.760 they just measured in a different way. They measured using their eyeballs. They measured

00:40:38.420 using their gut. They measured using their, their clothes. They measured with how they looked

00:40:43.260 in the mirror. They measured with a cup. They measured with a spoon. They measured with their

00:40:47.380 thumb. They measured with how good and how bad they felt. And under any circumstances before,

00:40:53.020 during, or after a program, you use some measurement system to help inform your decisions.

00:40:57.980 Does that make sense? That makes sense. Yes.

00:41:00.640 And so if a person makes themselves crazy, if a person claims to make themselves crazy by virtue

00:41:06.680 of measuring, it becomes a pretty straightforward conversation of, well, you measured before,

00:41:11.260 you just measured in a different way, in a way that led you down the path that, that you had a problem

00:41:15.900 with. And so if you measure regardless, because that, because humans make decisions based off of the

00:41:21.880 measurements they make, now the difference becomes, well, may as well use something more accurate and

00:41:28.020 more precise relative to the other way I measured before. That makes sense. And I mean, how do you

00:41:34.360 also deal with it? I mean, when you're working with a client and they're, I think a lot of people,

00:41:38.360 when they go to this expectation with any project, they think like success is going to be linear.

00:41:42.840 Like it'll just like every week. But as we've talked about, the body is a complex, there's a,

00:41:48.260 there's psychological components, there's physiological components going on. They're

00:41:51.840 all working together. Your circumstances are constantly changing. So weight loss typically

00:41:56.220 isn't linear. How do you, how do you help a client go work through that? If they think they have this

00:42:02.540 mindset, it's got to, if I'm not losing a pound a week, then something's, something's wrong.

00:42:08.900 Right. So the, the first aspect of that has to do with the person's demanding this. I must lose weight

00:42:14.320 or else. And that, or else allows a person to justify all sorts of wacky self-sabotaging

00:42:19.360 behaviors that ultimately led them to us. And so having a, having continuous, really continuous

00:42:26.640 check-ins with what sort of demands are we making of ourselves? We can help attenuate to that sort of

00:42:33.660 mindset of I must lose weight or else. So that I think accomplishes a big bulk of it because what you,

00:42:42.020 you reference essentially what I consider textbook form of demandingness and that demandingness

00:42:47.060 leads to all sorts of wacky behaviors and emotional upset. So we can address the demandingness from a

00:42:52.100 philosophical side and from a practical side, in terms of consulting, it means reinforcing and,

00:42:58.820 and giving credit to actions instead of outcomes. And so it has less to do with, did I lose weight this

00:43:06.800 week and more to do with, did all the decisions I make this, I made this week make sense for what I

00:43:12.620 wanted? And if that ends up checking out, then the, the weight loss or whatever ends up kind of

00:43:19.120 happening as a side effect. And so we have this sort of mantra a little bit on the front end, but mostly

00:43:24.280 on the back end that having what we want comes as a side effect of becoming the sort of person it takes

00:43:29.180 to get it. And so we focus way more on the thoughts we have and the decisions we make rather than our

00:43:35.300 outcomes because we have influence over the thoughts we have and the decisions that we make.

00:43:40.480 And with an operational understanding that outcomes will come over time or that they are

00:43:47.760 nonlinear or stochastic, whatever fancy word you want to use, it makes the most sense to, to perform

00:43:53.080 the gut check every week and ask ourselves of all the decisions I made, did I make decisions in a way

00:43:59.320 that helped me become the person it takes? Does that make sense?

00:44:02.540 No, that makes sense. And I've seen that not only in my nutrition, but like my, my, um, my weight

00:44:07.300 training. There'll be some weeks where you're just like, man, 545 pounds just feels really light.

00:44:15.440 It's like, wow. And then you go into the next week and you can't even pull 405 off the floor

00:44:21.080 during your warmup. And you're like, what happened? But, but I mean, but then, you know, I have a coach.

00:44:26.020 He's like, just try, just do the, do the training, do what you can. It'll be okay in the longterm.

00:44:30.420 And it, it, he's always right. Like just, if you do it, it'll be fine in the longterm.

00:44:35.480 Yeah. Yep. And so it, and in a lot of cases it ends up again, assessing a demand, like I must lift

00:44:42.460 545 or else I give myself permission to act poopy. Well, the reality is that why, why you failed your

00:44:50.340 lift, why you missed the lift means very little in, in the real world relative to how I keep upsetting

00:44:57.620 myself about missing a lift right now. Because if I keep doing this, I may cause way more issues

00:45:03.340 in the future. No, it's true. All right. So this is kind of recap here. So first part of this is

00:45:10.560 again, food clarity, like measuring what you actually, and you make a good point. Like we're

00:45:14.700 already measuring, even if you're not using a tablespoon or a scale, you're probably already

00:45:19.420 measuring your food, eyeballing it. So instead of doing that, like get an actual idea, like use,

00:45:25.140 know what you're actually going in your body. By doing that, you can start making changes naturally

00:45:29.640 just in that part. But then eventually you'll want to make adjustments. So you want to lose weight,

00:45:34.600 but you don't want to make drastic things where you're heavily, you know, limiting yourself what

00:45:39.160 you can eat. And then eventually you want to get to the point where you can actually start increasing

00:45:42.740 calories because there's been changes in your activity level and your metabolism that you can

00:45:47.300 actually consume more food, feel satiated and still, still lose weight. And then, but then along the

00:45:54.040 way, it's managing the, like the psychological component of nutrition. And I think the big

00:45:58.560 takeaway there, um, from listening to you is like, you're going to have to be okay with being hungry.

00:46:03.720 You can do it. It's going to stink for a little bit, but that's okay. You have resources to overcome

00:46:08.200 that. And that's okay. Yeah. And that's okay. Exactly. Well, Trevor, this has been a great

00:46:14.420 conversation. Where can people go to learn more about your work? The best thing you could do is go to

00:46:19.340 trevorcashynutrition.com and you can follow me on the Instagrams and the Facebooks. And I have a

00:46:27.740 public Facebook group called the best nutrition group ever that I will send you a link to.

00:46:31.980 The best nutrition group ever. I like it. All right, Dr. Cash, thanks for your time. It's been a

00:46:35.860 pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. My guest here is Dr. Trevor Cashy. He's the owner of

00:46:40.840 Trevor Cashy Nutrition. You can find out more information about his work at his website,

00:46:44.020 trevorcashynutrition.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash cashy,

00:46:48.180 where you find links to resources and we delve deeper into this topic.

00:46:57.980 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at

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The Art of Manliness - July 07, 2021

The Psychology of Effective Weight Loss

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