How Bret developed our Cognitive Nutrition Program
When I (Bret) started coaching in 2011, I went from having a positive relationship with food to feeling incredibly insecure.
Suddenly, because I was a coach, I felt like I needed to look and eat a certain way.
I didn't fit the typical mold. I wasn't incredibly muscular, and I ate carbs (gasp).
The other coaches I worked with even made fun of me for the amount of carbs I ate, to the point I started to eat lunch in my car.
I eventually fell in to the trap of thinking that if I ate more of the "healthy" foods
and less of those "bad" foods that I'd magically build more muscle and lose body fat.
But what actually happened is as I changed what I ate to be
more "healthy" I got fatter, and started to hate food along the way.
Because I restricted so many of the foods I loved, I started to binge on them over the weekends.
So even though I generally ate more nutritious foods,
I also ate more overall, which contributed to my weight gain.
By 2015, I was 30 pounds heavier and felt extremely out of shape
(this is despite training 3 days per week religiously for the last four years).
I then restricted even further. I cut back on how much I ate big time,
and figured the faster I could get it over with the better.
Four months later, I lost the 30 pounds. But along the way
I lost strength and muscle and destroyed my metabolism.
While my scale showed a lower number, I looked and felt just as squishy as I did before.
It wasn't long before the scale was going back up again.
It didn't feel sustainable to continue eating so little while remaining so active.
Slowly the scale climbed back up, and by 2019, after I'd re-gained
25 of the 30 pounds I originally lost in 2015, I threw in the towel.
I knew if I ever wanted to help our members in a way that was sustainable, I needed to figure out how to do it for myself first.
I admitted I needed help.
In 2019, met a guy named Dr. Trevor Kashey at a business convention in Austin, Texas.
He spoke about his business Trevor Kashey Nutrition,
and I appreciated how his approach involved showing his members how to
re-incorporate the foods they'd restricted while following any of the various fad diet programs.
I worked with his company for just shy of three years, and completely changed my life.
Now, I've successfully re-incorporated all of the foods I'd stopped eating for years.
I know how much I need to eat to support my goals, whether it be to lose fat, OR to gain muscle.
But the most important part of my journey is that I have better tolerance to frustration and am able to stay strong
in the face of negative emotions and stick with my plans, instead of throwing in the towel like I used to.
Because my decision making skills have improved so much, I feel like I've got superpowers.
They lend me a sense of confidence and control that I never previously felt...ever.
The skills, tools, and strategies I learned from my time working with Trevor Kashey Nutrition
I now strive to pass along to the members who work with me in our own Cognitive Nutrition Program.