TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Brent: Welcome to another podcast for the firefighter.support website. Today we're here with two firefighters from Logan, Liz, and Tyler. And it wasn't that long ago that the three of us were here in this building as part-timers practicing the physical test do not look like a bunch of doofuses when we went test.

[00:00:19] Brent: And that's true. And ever since I've been trying to keep up with Liz. This just never can catch up. But you and me both. Also just to kick us off, so we're gonna be talking a lot about nutrition today and just overall, The impact nutrition and making good dietary choices has on your mental wellbeing as much as your physical wellbeing.

[00:00:42] Brent: And I'll never forget, I think it was one of the first shifts I worked with Liz at 72 I was on a trade or something. I come in with my dietary choices. I'd like gummy worms, crumble cookies, and then Liz shows up with this perfectly manicured. Tray of like cucumbers, carrots, and all these things. So ever since then, Liz has become the expert of nutrition.

[00:01:07] Brent: I don't think that, so that is right. Just tell us a little bit, Liz, let's just start off, tell us a little bit about kind of what role nutrition has played in your fitness life, as well as just kind of how you kind of make the choices you do when it comes to what you eat and drink.

[00:01:22] Liz: It has been a long process to develop something that works for me, I guess, coming from a background of my own disordered eating, I guess.

[00:01:34] Liz: Is that

[00:01:34] Brent: what you're calling my,

[00:01:35] Liz: just kidding. No, not at all. But that's what I heard. Like I, there has been a time in my life where I've just like, and hopefully, You guys have tried this once cuz it's delicious, but opened up a box of like cake batter and mixed it up and just a cake batter. I know I've been there and I'm like, something has gotta, I've gotta change something.

[00:02:00] Liz: But it wasn't so much about the nutrition part of my diet that I wanted to change. It was more how much I beat myself up about. Eating poorly, I guess, and it, social media does not help that at all. I started when I knew I wanted to make a change, I started with writing everything down that I ate, and not necessarily the calorie content or even the amount that I ate.

[00:02:28] Liz: It was just realizing the foods that I am eating. So it's like, oh. I'm eating the Snickers bar, I gotta write it down. I'm eating, you know, steak, potatoes, all that stuff. I'm eating a box of cake, I've gotta write it down, I've gotta write it down. And that way it just allowed me to step back and look at the things that I was eating or currently am eating and.

[00:02:52] Liz: Just look and see what changes I wanted to make.

[00:02:55] Brent: Yeah. No that's awesome. I've heard of other people doing that too, and it's super hard Right, to be that accountable where you're riding out every Yes. From snicker bars, everything. Was that hard to maintain? Do you still do that or did you do that at, just, at the beginning or,

[00:03:09] Liz: I do still do that.

[00:03:10] Liz: I use like my fitness p apps and there's one called Carbon that I really like. And that's more, cuz now I track my macros a lot more. My protein, fat content and carbohydrates. And I also love making lists. Like my brain just likes to do it, but not everyone likes to track that stuff. Yeah. Well and

[00:03:29] Brent: I think sometimes you just don't want to know.

[00:03:31] Brent: Right? Yeah. I don't want to know how many Crumbo pickles I had a today. Yeah. But

[00:03:33] Liz: that's, and like to sit down and plug it all in, it's just like, ugh. I got better things to do. Sure. But

[00:03:41] Brent: so how much did that impact right away some of the food choices you were making once you started seeing it in list form?

[00:03:49] Liz: It wasn't something that happened overnight for me. It was Consistent. I have been consistently working on it. And I mean, my cruise will be the first to tell you that I wake up at two in the morning just to eat some cookies still. Like it's, I'm not perfect. That's my

[00:04:06] Tyler: favorite Liz story is like, Super, super accountable.

[00:04:11] Tyler: You're eating, you're doing your stuff throughout the day, and then once 10 o'clock hits, you know, people start watching you to see what you do. You just clap back at 'em. You say, Hey, after 10 o'clock, this is my time. Get outta here. I love that. I love

[00:04:23] Liz: it. It's like, go to bed with full.

[00:04:27] Liz: Sleeves of Oreos and you wake up and they're gone.

[00:04:29] Brent: Nice. Now we're talking my language. So how does that work? And you can chime in here too, scribers, as, as far as a good nutrition plan, how important is it to have some flexibility like that to where it's okay to. Have that cheat meal or to work in just the stuff that you like, just because it tastes good, not necessarily because it's the a hundred percent best thing for your body at that moment.

[00:04:50] Brent: Yeah.

[00:04:51] Liz: Mentally, it's everything for me to be able to come to work. I mean, we have stressful jobs, we see stressful things, and we're just always going go. And to be able to eat a sleeve of Oreos, you know, have that comfort food. It's really good for me not to beat myself up about that. It's just a meal.

[00:05:13] Liz: So,

[00:05:14] Brent: yeah. I love that. You know, I was talking with one of our clinicians and they talked about how our, as first responders and constantly being in that survival mode, that primitive brain, they said one of the symptoms of that I guess is we're always, you know, being. In survival. One of the things we do to survive is we eat right And that's why people have certain foods or whatever.

[00:05:39] Brent: But giving your body something to digest in survival mode is just kind of like a natural instinct. Yeah. I think we have sometimes, but,

[00:05:48] Liz: and I don't know, I know subscriber has sort of an neat. What does that stand

[00:05:52] Brent: for again? Oh, you're

[00:05:53] Tyler: giving me way too much credit. You're gonna have to

[00:05:56] Brent: throw it out there.

[00:05:56] Liz: I can't, I don't remember exactly.

[00:05:59] Tyler: I don't remember it

[00:06:00] Liz: either. But it's like you're non involuntary movement. Yeah. That's what it is. So just like, you know, Twiddling your thumbs or like, I'm a huge, like shaking your foot tapper or like in the rocking chairs, I'm always rocking back and forth just like I, I feel like at work, my neat definitely goes up a lot more of which, and maybe that's due to more calories that I'm eating at work.

[00:06:22] Liz: Or maybe it's that survival instinct. I don't know.

[00:06:25] Tyler: Yeah, totally restless. I mean, I think I can't constantly bounce my knee constantly. And when I'm at home, it might be like when I'm stressed or I'm trying to think about something. But yeah, when I'm on shift, it's happening all the time.

[00:06:39] Brent: So tell us, describe it kind of what are your, some of your things, I know you're kind of the nutrition nut as well.

[00:06:47] Brent: So balancing all the things that Liz said from the. Comfort stuff as well as lists and kind of what's your go-to method to, to kind of tackle your nutrition?

[00:06:59] Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. So to prepare for this podcast on nutrition, I didn't eat a box of cake batter, but what I did do is I ate a whole tube of cinnamon rolls.

[00:07:08] Tyler: And if you don't know that cinnamon rolls do come in a roll, you can just bake 'em, you can air fry, you can do all that kind of stuff. But I did throw in some Turkey bacon too. Welcome. I raft it in it, so it was just a, you know, a tasty treat. But Yeah. Starting out for me, I've always for, what if people didn't know this?

[00:07:29] Tyler: I used to be really small. I mean, when I graduated high school, I was probably like 120 pounds max, like soaking wet. And at that time I thought like, If I ran a lot, I was going to get really muscular, and if I ate super, super clean, you know, I was gonna feel really good. And so I was kind of on that opposite end of that spectrum.

[00:07:55] Tyler: I ran cross country and you know, you learn like, oh, you can't drink soda and you can't do this because it's going to have all these problems with you when you run. And It was kind of interest super, super unhappy with how I looked and how I felt. And then I started hanging out with a buddy and he was like let's start lifting.

[00:08:14] Tyler: And it was interesting because as soon as I started lifting, I had zero want, needer desire to eat clean anymore. I mean, I remember. Waking up at two o'clock in the morning. It wasn't Oreos, but like I was just throwing down fruit snacks, like they were going out of style. I mean, and it was just something that I craved that I needed.

[00:08:33] Tyler: And it wasn't until he, he turned me onto my fitness ball and he was like, Hey, you should probably keep track of what you're eating. And I was thought, oh man, I eat so much. Like you don't even have to worry about that. Like, that's not the problem. And I ignored what he was saying for probably. Oh man, almost a year.

[00:08:49] Tyler: And then I finally started keeping track of what I was eating. And granted when I would sit down and I would eat a lot, I would eat a whole little Caesar's pizza, but then that would be the only thing I would eat all day. And that was probably like 1200, 1300 calories. Right now I eat about 3,200 calories and it's.

[00:09:09] Tyler: I get my fair share of Oreo calories in there as well, and tubes of cinnamon rolls. But I didn't know how little I was eating and. Like how little, you know, speaking of macros and stuff like that, how little, like the nutritional value of what I was doing. So I tracked it for a while and I figured out that, man, I need to eat more.

[00:09:30] Tyler: Started eating more and tried to do that. Super clean and it was hard and. It I wasn't seeing what I wanted to, and so I relaxed a little bit. I started focusing more on my macro my macro counts. And then after that, things just started to happen. You know, if you feed your body, it's going to respond appropriately to the stresses that you put on it.

[00:09:55] Tyler: So. Now I don't, I mean, my brain doesn't love lists like Liz's do does. But what what I do is when I want to gain weight or I wanna lose weight, I track what I eat for a couple weeks, and then I just use that my, my average per day as like a as a guide says, Hey, I'm probably eating a little bit too much, or I'm eating, I'm not eating enough.

[00:10:20] Tyler: And then I make these small little changes when I. Have new clients who want to start training you know, every single one of 'em want me to just make this nutrition plan for 'em, and it breaks down all their meals and they're gonna eat super clean and they're gonna have that cheat meal like once a month or whatnot.

[00:10:37] Tyler: And I just say, Hey, this is all I want you to do. Reduce the amount of refined sugar that you have, and then have Trav try to eat more protein, have a protein shake after you work out and before you go to bed. Those are the only guidelines I give them for even like the first 90 days because during that process, I want them, I don't want to just.

[00:11:01] Tyler: Have them focus on lifestyle changes, you know, a ton of them that they can't maintain. I wanna make it as super, super simple as pro as possible and get them started in the right direction. So that's kind of the advice I give people when they start with me and how I got to this point.

[00:11:19] Brent: Yeah.

[00:11:20] Brent: Well, and I think a lot of people want to tackle it and have somebody else take all the thought out of it for 'em. Right. And I think that kind of goes back to what Liz was saying with if you're gonna get the mental benefits, like you have to own it and it has to be your thing that you're doing versus somebody that's handed you this.

[00:11:37] Brent: Thing. And it's one more thing you're not doing well at, right? Because they made this plan and it's not working or you're not following it, versus if you have a plan that you're doing. And and then that's just something to feel productive and good about. I wanna focus on the mental benefits for a little bit.

[00:11:52] Brent: And where, how, I guess, what impact have you seen on your mental health when you're eating well or you feel like you're. I've kind of got that part dialed in to your, like, you've dialed into your nutrition and then where are you at mentally versus when you're not dialed in nutrition wise. And so, you know, what's it like for you?

[00:12:14] Liz: I mean, the first thing I probably see is just kind of, I have succeeded in something, so it's like, oh yes, I've stuck to what I wanted to do. And automatically that's like a good feeling, right? Like, Awesome. Secondly, My performance in the gym. Like I love going to the gym. I love being there. I love exercising.

[00:12:33] Liz: And I definitely see a difference when I'm feeding myself nutritious foods. I can compete with the guys, I can compete with the strong girls. It's just fun. You just have a way better time. And then when it comes to like anxiety and depression, I definitely see those things start to take care of themselves with a, with.

[00:12:54] Liz: Nutrient dense food and like on social media you'll hear clean foods versus you know, dirty food or bad food, that sort of thing. And one of the things that's helped me look at food differently, more is fuel, is to notice them for their nutrients. Like this has protein, fiber whatever I need versus.

[00:13:17] Liz: This is super clean. It's gonna make me grow or whatever, and then something super dirty. It's kind of getting rid of that demonizing factor of food that helps me.

[00:13:29] Tyler: Yeah, totally. Totally. I was just gonna say, you know, Again, like when I'm doing what I'm supposed to, you get that like, man, I am succeeding.

[00:13:38] Tyler: You know, like as, as silly as it is, like I'm eating when I'm supposed to. Excellent. Also, when I don't eat what I'm supposed to it, that, that guilt it goes away. You know, it's like, people call it a cheat meal. I just call it like, Dinner. I don't know. I call it, yeah, I just eat it cuz I like it.

[00:13:58] Tyler: Or cuz it's easy and I didn't wanna, you know, argue with my four year old that we can't eat pizza for the seventh day in a row or something like that. But looking at it more of like, instead of it being This depressing thing or the, that it's gonna give me anxiety or whatnot.

[00:14:14] Tyler: It's a tool and junk food can be tools. Probably not the best tools, but they serve their purpose. And when overall I'm eating on average, I'm meeting my goals and I'm doing that stuff, it doesn't bother me when I have tho those times when I eat like a four year old. So,

[00:14:35] Brent: Yeah. I think, you know, as first responders, we live in this world of control, right?

[00:14:41] Brent: And especially in out of control situations. Like, it seems like that's where we thrive. That's where our mindset is. We show up to a chaotic scene regardless of the severity of the scene. Most of them are chaotic cause people don't understand this isn't a non-life threatening injury. They think it is, but either way, we show up and we are that kind of sense of control and I feel like.

[00:15:05] Brent: When our nutrition, when we feel like, man, we've got control of our nutrition, then that just feels good. Right? It feels natural for a first responder and whether it is junk food or whatever, when you feel the sense of control, I'm choosing to do this and it's intentional versus. I'm just being lazy and grabbing the first thing, or, you know, or, you know, in some cases maybe it is out of control.

[00:15:28] Brent: Like people are addicted to, you know, a poor, nutrition, poor nutrition choices. Because gummy hamburgers, it's possible. I don't know. Some

[00:15:38] Liz: might power straw. Hey, listen,

[00:15:40] Brent: the drink is so, I feel like there's a lot of finger pointing happening here. This is hypothetical. Yeah. But anyway, it's just, I think yeah, having that sense of control even if it's, like you guys said, not the perfect nutritional thing, but you're intentional on what you're doing is still can feel good and can be the right, right choice.

[00:16:02] Brent: What are some tips and tricks you guys would give to somebody on shift? Cause I think that's off shift. You know, using word control off shift, it seems like we have a little more control over our. When we eat and what we eat or it seems like on shift, you know, especially, I'm not gonna name names, but like Burton's crew, it may be like 9:00 PM and like, Hey, what are we gonna do for dinner?

[00:16:25] Brent: It's like, oh, well let's just scrounge what has and their fridge. Yeah. But you know, sometimes it's just the way it goes. But what are some tips and tricks you guys have found that have been helpful for maintaining the best kind of. Nutrition you can while on shift. And that's probably when it's like some of the most critical, right?

[00:16:45] Brent: Cuz you're not sleeping as good, you're super active and your body's firing off that fight or flight way more often. And so to give it the right fuel during that time is probably super important, but it's also the hardest time to get the best control of what fuel you're putting in. But

[00:17:02] Liz: Right. It is super helpful when your crew is on the same page.

[00:17:08] Liz: If you guys know and have the same goals, like you're gonna pick similar foods, focus on that protein and go from Thereor will always be that one guy who brings in like $40 worth of candy and just like four feeds. Yeah, hate that guy. But no, definitely be on the same page as your crew.

[00:17:26] Brent: So do you make a plan ahead of time with your crew or is that something you guys actively talk about?

[00:17:31] Brent: Like who's gonna do the meals next week or like how do you guys do that as a crew For our crew, crane

[00:17:36] Liz: loves to do the meals and the magic table. It is the magic table. We, at the same time every day, which I think is very helpful. I mean, we don't go till that eight or nine till bedtime and yeah, we just have lunch at noon and dinner at six and.

[00:17:53] Liz: You can count on it, so that is helpful.

[00:17:56] Tyler: Yeah. Yeah. The most weight and healthy weight that I've gained since I started working at the fire department was when I was on K CRA's crew. And I mean, side note, sidebar. We gotta, you know, give some love to Captain Burton. He just needed grandma war to be there to make sure that he, his crew's taken care of.

[00:18:16] Tyler: But yeah having that, I think having a plan is totally awesome because, What happens when you don't have a plan? Yeah, man it's 11 o'clock. We should probably start thinking about having some lunch, man. Are you guys hungry? It's noon. Okay, well now we're sitting at three o'clock and we all haven't eaten since breakfast.

[00:18:35] Tyler: So what are we gonna do? We're gonna, we're gonna go out to eat. And then we're gonna go shopping. And then a transfer comes in. Yeah. Yeah. And then what happens is you got, you are hungry at 11, but you're not eating until three. So chances are your choices that you're gonna be eating. And I mean, going out, that's, it's not the, an ideal situation, but I mean making a good decision when you actually do go out and you eat.

[00:18:59] Tyler: Can kind of help that. But eating regularly, man, I can't we would laugh with when I was on CRA's crew that we would overeat for two days and then we would recover for the four that we were off, and then we would overeat. And the nice thing was, is again, I gained a ton of healthy weight. That consistency.

[00:19:17] Tyler: I, I wasn't going for those snacks all of the time because I was full. I knew that we were gonna eat at noon and I knew we were gonna eat dinner. Was something, I mean, We do on my current crew is the, when we first get there, breakfast is something that happens on day one. You, we all eat breakfast.

[00:19:39] Tyler: It's not that we skip it, it's not that you were expected to eat breakfast before you got to work. You just do it. Something similar. We would do with crane's crew, but then we make our plant early on what we were going to eat. We went probably six months where we ate steak and potatoes, at least one meal while we were on shift.

[00:20:00] Tyler: And I mean, we perfected the steak and potatoes and it was great. And then as far as. That, that mental loader as far as the you know, the temptation to, to snack all day or, and to do anything like that it's eliminated because you have a plan. You're gonna be eating, you gotta prepare your food, which is, I think is always a great thing because you get to see what goes in there.

[00:20:21] Tyler: You, you get to be part of the process of making your own food and then eating your food. You start to really appreciate. The process. But yeah, I think like what Liz was saying having an overall general goal as a crew as far as what you're gonna be eating and what your plans are, I think that's super important.

[00:20:41] Brent: Yeah. I think You know, and it seems like plans can change, but it sounds like just from what I've gathered to and having been on, we've all had the crane experience, but I hadn't really thought about the consistency until you guys brought it up. But I think. Both mentally and physically when your body expects to eat at a certain time and you do.

[00:21:00] Brent: And I think there's a lot of benefits to that. Something our crew just tried to everybody's dismay, but we gave it a shot as I was like, we're gonna try and make like do a recipe meal. For all six meals of the shift. So breakfast, lunch and dinner $240 later. Everybody hated my guts. Still. We ate really good.

[00:21:21] Brent: And so, but we learned from that, that's not feasible. Like you can't obviously do that every single shift. You can't make, you know, this well thought out plan one time and money, but So now what we've kind of converted to is we pick two recipes and we do like try to have good cereals or like a yogurt or something for day one breakfast or for both breakfasts.

[00:21:46] Brent: Some sandwich stuff always around. But then our day one dinner, we over. Make or make more servings than we need, and then we just plan on leftovers for lunch the next day and then anyways. So that's kind of where we're at now. We're only a couple shifts into it, but we're trying to figure out the right balance of like well prepared meals with the flexibility and time we actually have on shift to.

[00:22:11] Brent: To prepare those, but that's kind of where we've landed right now. But yeah,

[00:22:14] Tyler: I I gotta just say that I have spent not $240, but Cole and I, when we were at 72, we got super hungry one day and we were like, we're, this is the end of this. And we went shopping and we spent a lot, but we bought a lot of junk food.

[00:22:30] Tyler: So, I mean, you could totally do that, but

[00:22:32] Brent: we were starving at that point. I felt good about the $240 cause it was all good food. I've spent. Close to that, just on junk. So, you know, I felt like we were moving in the right direction, but I don't think Ryan White's ever gonna forgive me. So, let's talk about one more thing before we wrap up.

[00:22:49] Brent: But I think this is a big one for everyone on shift. And that's just energy levels and how caffeine plays into that. Should it play into that? And so just kind of thoughts on, and what do you do on late night transfers, you know? Cause ideally you probably shouldn't be having caffeine right before bed, but you know what happens if you get that midnight transfer or whatever, which I know you guys don't give very much, but, oh, just kidding.

[00:23:14] Brent: Liz is the king. But yeah, so just I'm interested in your thoughts on caffeine in general and then just kind of what you do to keep your energy levels up during shift, and especially during those late night calls.

[00:23:26] Liz: I think this all wraps back up into your nutrition of you're eating the amount you should be eating.

[00:23:32] Liz: I think that plays a huge role in your energy. I'll start my day off with a couple cups of coffee and the latest I'll have coffee is probably three or four o'clock. And then, Like when we do get late night transfers, I wanna come home and go to bed. So I've kind of told myself like, no energy drinks or coffee on a transfer, just no, cuz I can't come home and go to bed.

[00:23:58] Liz: But I know a lot of people stay awake while they drive or something like that. They might need something and maybe coffee is the way to go if it's 60 milligrams to, you know, a hundred milligrams rather than two 40. During the middle of the night, but I don't know, I haven't dialed that in yet.

[00:24:16] Brent: So would you say caffeine is an okay thing to have as part of a normal diet or is that something you should steer away from and kind of only use as needed?

[00:24:26] Liz: I think it's okay. I think it's a lot like anything else like sugar, you can overdo it. But I definitely drink a cup of coffee every morning. I mean, I can go without it. I don't get headaches or anything, but just kind of that routine of drinking coffee and getting that little extra boost with the caffeine is awesome.

[00:24:46] Brent: Yeah. Would you say all caffeine is equal? Like is the caffeine from an energy drink the same as what's in coffee? Or is it is like one a different form of caffeine that's better or worse?

[00:24:55] Liz: I don't know. Okay. I choose coffee because it doesn't have the other additives that energy drinks do. Whatever those may be.

[00:25:05] Liz: Faring sugar. What else is in energy drinks?

[00:25:09] Tyler: Goodness. Yeah, deliciousness. Sweet, lovely. Goodness.

[00:25:13] Brent: Yellow, five acid. Everybody needs that and they tie

[00:25:16] Liz: it. Yeah. On the other hand, I have heard that artificial sweeteners, canned curb, some cravings, sugar cravings. So that is interesting.

[00:25:25] Tyler: Yeah. I love me, my energy drinks.

[00:25:29] Tyler: But caffeine, there's have one here. Like right now it's right next to my foot. I'm trying to hide it. No, I'm not. Yeah I mean, caffeine is probably the most research supplement that, that's out there. The second one is creatine. Side note. Everybody should be having that. Everybody. But is, you know, it's.

[00:25:48] Tyler: There are actually different types of caffeine. There's a natural caffeine and there's an artificial caffeine. You could do your own research on that. I just like caffeine and I do have to have it, or else I do get headaches. But I try to stay with under 500 milligrams of caffeine a day. But it, to me it's a tool.

[00:26:08] Tyler: I might not drink it first thing when I wake up. I try to at least drink 16 to 12 ounces of water. I try to wait for as long as I can, a couple hours or so. There's some hormonal things that kind of help with that, but yeah, at some point during the day I stopped drinking caffeine, and that's about five o'clock.

[00:26:29] Tyler: I drink caffeine. I have it in pre-workout before I work out. If I'm working out later in the day, I probably won't have as much. I kind of net that out because I'm gonna go and I'm going to do some work, you know? And I think that, I think the halflife of caffeine is like four hours or something like that.

[00:26:49] Tyler: But I try not to have it when. It's time to go to sleep. That also being said, if it's a late night transfer I might take some with me as a safety net that. Being said, I don't drink the whole thing. And when you've had your you have a PhD in energy drinks like I do you know, which ones have 240 milligrams or 160 milligrams or things like that.

[00:27:16] Tyler: So like any other medication that I'm gonna give myself or I'm gonna give my children or my patients I understand it. So when. If I get up and I'm feeling super groggy and I know that I'm going to Primary Children's, I'm gonna drink half of that right off the get-go because I'm gonna, I know I'm gonna be gone for about four hours.

[00:27:36] Tyler: So by the time I come back after I've, you know, finished that or whatnot it should be about time for me, the, that the caffeine's starting to wear off and I'm gonna go to sleep. If it's to McKay, then. You know, I might just have a little, roll the windows down, do something, try and keep me a awake.

[00:27:55] Tyler: But if I need it, I'm going to, I'm gonna use it. And then when I'm off duty, that's when I have more control over that stuff. That's when I don't drink caffeine after five o'clock. That's when, I mean, we're off for four days. We're off for a longer period of time. So use that time and then the caffeine at night and the things like that late night transfer should be in the exception to your rules.

[00:28:18] Tyler: But that being said, I know there's a gentleman that was super. Super successful with losing a ton of weight and he was drinking a thousand milligrams of coffee or a thousand milligrams of caffeine a day, and he lost a ton of weight. Super healthy. What did he do after he lost all the weight?

[00:28:33] Tyler: He weaned off of it. It was a tool, you know, and now he stays about underneath that, that 500 milligrams. The other thing, make sure that you're hydrated when you're having caffeine, that you have enough salt when you have enough caffeine, cuz it can be a little bit of a diuretic and as long as you're drinking it you're fairly safe.

[00:28:52] Tyler: It's not going to, you know, quote unquote dehydrate you, but it's a

[00:28:55] Brent: tool. Yeah. Now I think what you guys both says is really great and I kind of, I just keep circling back to that sense of control. You know that I think people, they think of caffeine. This red flag goes off like, oh, you're addicted to caffeine.

[00:29:10] Brent: But you know, looking at it just like that, like a medication, you know, you're in control. And I think sometimes we feel. Like, you know, our parents over our shoulder. If you don't finish that, you're gonna be in trouble. Right. But if you're in control, you don't have to finish the entire energy drink, you know?

[00:29:26] Brent: And I think that's a really good point is, you know, just be intentional about it when you eat what you eat, and Seems like you can make a lot of progress there. Let's end with one last thing and then you don't have to go into detail on this. So if people want to know more, they can find you on the department and get the inner workings of your plan.

[00:29:44] Brent: But cuz you mentioned creatine, but just what are the supplements you take and just kind of like your go-to. Kind of your go-to fitness supplements that you're just like all about. And like I said, you don't have to like go under great detail on why or anything, but just kind of your bullet list of your daily supplements and then we'll kind of wrap up.

[00:30:05] Liz: Let's see, creatine like subscriber said, I think everyone should be on creatine. So many benefits and lots of research done on it. So, You can do that on your spare time. But Brad and I both take protein, whe powder creatine, and Beta Alanine is our other supplement. We try and limit it, but I'm sure there are some other awesome ones out there that we just don't know about yet.

[00:30:34] Liz: So.

[00:30:34] Brent: Sure. Yeah, that's great. And every day, whether you're working out or doesn't matter what the day looks like, you're kind of always. Do

[00:30:41] Liz: those. We try, we are also on those athletic greens. Okay. Yes. We love those too. Thanks. Lots of vitamins, minerals, and that. And every day we try every day, even when you're not working out, you can have that way, you can have that protein, you still use it to recover and that sort of thing.

[00:30:59] Liz: The creatine, yes. We take that every day. And the greens, I mean, there's gonna be those days where you don't get it in, but we don't stress over it. Gotcha.

[00:31:08] Brent: Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Yeah.

[00:31:10] Tyler: Pretty much what Liz just said, creatine a multivitamin. And definitely mine's in a powder form, so it's a lot more digestible.

[00:31:19] Tyler: It's, the bioavailability is a lot better on that. I throw in fish oil. I have a protein supplement. And then obviously caffeine, like pre-workout. Yeah. That might be borderline addiction, which is fine. Yeah.

[00:31:34] Brent: If we're gonna have another podcast later, you should probably be a part of, but I don't have a problem.

[00:31:38] Brent: We have a problem. Gosh. No, I think that's great. And I think people feel. Really overwhelmed when they're trying to like, get into this stuff for the first time. And so I hope everybody that's listening or tuning in knows that they can reach out to anybody here. Anybody on the peer support team?

[00:31:53] Brent: On the peer support website, we have lots of good nutritional things on there. If, and that if it serves as nothing else, it's just a way to get started and then you can kind of take it from there. But the idea is I think be in control. You know, and that feels good. Excuse me, that feels good.

[00:32:09] Brent: Just as much mentally, I think, as it does physically. So anyway, appreciate you guys being here today and all your wisdom that you're willing to share with us. So, we'll, thanks for having us on the next one. Thanks guys.