Nutrition Coaching: Part 1

Doing something new for the first time is kinda scary, isn't it?

You don't know if you'll fail or succeed, but you never know until you go for it,

This past February, I was a part of revamping the nutrition program at DEUCE Gym with Logan (it's weird he my boss now). In short, we offer a 101 program which had a weekly call with students and coaching them through their nutrition journey and reaching their goals. We also offer a 202 program, which all-digital based where everything is done via SEISMIC, the digital partner the gym has formed with to use for the nutrition program. Both those programs is a 3-month commitment to make sure that they can be time for room to learn and grow knowledge. As I was a fresh and new nutrition coach, for my first program, 5 clients signed up for DEUCE Nutrition 101 to be coached by me. I was nervous and scared, but also excited all at the same time.

I'm not going to lie, those first 3 months was really tough for me. I would wake up early for calls and either some students wouldn't show up to the calls or had to cancel the call minutes before we were supposed to have our check-in. In the end, 1 of those 5 clients decided to continue on with DEUCE Nutrition 202 as they kept up with their goals, which was to have a healthy relationship with food and increase their health & well-being, then eventually got to tracking macro, and an added bonus was that this student lost 10 pounds without even realizing!

I was a bit discouraged when 4 of the 5 clients didn't want to continue (one wanted to but was making a life-changing move and didn't have the capacity). I thought to myself, "Am I really cut out for this?" But I did have one client who trusted me in the process and they were extremely excited to still continue on with their journey with food.

I did get 5 more clients for my second program with DEUCE Nutrition 101 but I felt down on myself because of my success rate of my students continuing was at the Mendoza line. With my Nutrition 101 clients, if time allows and stars align, I try to schedule a "Get-To-Know-You" call to talk to them about goals and their background. It gave me more confidence that they had the "All-In" mentality with their nutrition journey with their specific goals they wanted to meet.

As I went through the 3-months with the group of my second Nutrition 101 students (and my one 202 student), I gain more confidence and leading them to closer to their goals every week and I couldn't be more proud of those students reaching goals they had told me at the beginning of the program, whether if it was to have a healthier relationship with food, lose weight, increase in performance at the gym. Shoot, two students even lost weight for the first time in a long time, one was about 17 years! At the end of the second program, 3 are now enrolled in 202 and 1 wanted to do the 101 program again.

As I started my first week of my third DEUCE Nutrition 101 stint, I have 7 students who are enrolled in the program and I couldn't be more excited to see their progressions and helping the reach their goals!

It's only been a short 8 months of being a nutrition coach, but it all goes back to one of my first students I had in my DEUCE Nutrition 101 program that stuck it out, continued onto 202 and writes me the most, detailed summary of their week as we call it the TED Talk. I cannot thank this student enough for keeping me going throughout my nutrition coaching journey and making it worth while from the start. The day this student graduates from the program and goes off on their own, it'll be a bittersweet day for me, selfishly.

If you are reading this, you know who you are...Thank YOU!

Keep going.

Jun

Unexpected News.

I don't really write on here as much anymore, but when I do now, I used this as an outlet to let my thoughts out. Most of the times (or I should say 99% of the time), I'm afraid to express my thoughts and feelings to people, so I usually keep it to myself...

Other day, I went to go get dinner with my mom since I really never get to spend time with her besides the 15 minutes I see her in the morning and maybe 30 minutes when I get back home from work.

On the drive back home, out of no where, she brought up my dad.

My parents got separated when I was in middle school and they don't meet eye to eye at all.  My dad didn't live the healthiest lifestyle, smoking cigarettes and drinking every night (like about a 2-3 glasses of whiskey), never went to go workout but went to go play golf once or twice a week as his physical activity he does, which I guess is better than not.

The last time my mom talked to my dad was when he had a stroke back in November of 2018. Last time I talked to my dad was in 2020 sometime where he called me out of no where in the middle of the night saying he's looking to move back from Japan, where he moved back to after the strike, and asked me if I would buy a house under my name so he can live in it. I haven't spoken to him after that day...

Mom asked me if my dad had reached out to me. I was thinking to myself I haven't heard from him about 3 years, and I lost all my expectations of him reaching out. 

I told my mom I haven't heard from him. 

She explained to me that a mutual friend my mom and dad told her that my dad quit drinking, smoking and most surprising of all, golf.

I was in bit of a shock when I heard about this news. My sister's and I would tell him for years that he should stop smoking all together and to also stop drinking every night. He always told us, "One day I will."...

For starters, the reason why he's quitting golf was he was finishing towards to bottom every week when he goes out and plays with his friends. I guess losing that many time would do that to you. I still surprises me even now because growing up, he LOVED the game of golf. He lived, breathe and bled golf. He would tell me when I was younger to stop playing baseball and start to swing golf clubs instead. Every Sunday, he would turn on ABC or NBC to tune into the final round of whatever tournament the PGA was playing. So to hear that was a bit of a shock.

Secondly, the reason why my dad is quitting and smoking is because one of his friends, is hospitalized and is getting fed via enteral nutrition. My dad most likely realized that he doesn't want to be in that state ever, after already having 2 strokes in his lifetime...

I really never talk about my dad with anyone, but I just felt like writing this today because I hope this change brings some good to him. My dad and I weren't that close, but I do miss him and wish I could go to him to ask for advice, to ask for help when I need it, and have conversation I can't really with my mom.

Tell the ones that you love that you love them and hold onto them dearly. Forgive them for their mistakes, we're all prone to make them. Whatever thing you have wrong in life with a person, small or big, let it go. Life's too short not to love, to be holding grudges and being mad at someone, because you never know when the next time you'll see or talk to them.

Keep going.

Jun

My Training and Nutrition Journey

When I turned 29 in March 2019, I sat down on the couch and had one of those deep thought moments about life. Then I came to terms with myself one of my goals was to be “as fit as possible” when I turned 30. With the job I had at the time, I was traveling all over the country year round to work live sporting events for FOX Sports. I would have an “off-season” from traveling for about 3 months, but would be getting ready for the next 9 months of traveling.

April 2019

Few months after I turned 29, I started my work travel to help broadcast USGA Golf events, where I would be gone for a week at a time, maybe more. During my second trip of the year in Charleston, South Carolina, one of my co-workers was on his own journey of weight loss to get ready for his wedding. Whenever I saw him at the office, he would be eating his salad and tell me about how he’s been working out since he knew I trained from time to time. So while Charleston, he told me one day, 

“Why don’t you come work out with me in the morning?”

“What time?”

“I’ll be there at 5 (am).”

“That’s early man.”

“I guess you don’t want it that bad.”

I didn’t show up that first morning he asked and when I saw him at the TV Compound later in the morning, where the trucks would be lined with trailers to broadcast the sporting event, he said, “Man, I’m disappointed in you.”

Not that I felt bad at the time, but I also didn’t want to hear it from him again. So guess what, I showed up at 5am every morning for the next 4 days.

That was the only trip we worked out together/ we did work together the following week at Pebble Beach, CA but we were at different hotels but we kept each other accountable if we worked out or not.

August 2019

When I didn’t have any one else to workout with, I would still kept going to the hotel gyms even if they had little-to-none equipment whether if it was in somewhere along South Bend, Indiana; Toledo, Ohio; Stevens Point, Wisconsin or in Starkville, Mississippi.

After the USGA Season was over, I went right into football season. 

During football season, I would only travel for 3 days so I did my best to carve some time out of the day to go workout at the gym I had at the condo I was living at at the time.

For the football season, I worked with a director, who is one of the nicest and also best dressed person in the sports TV industry for 3-4 years where his eating habits was very particular when we went to a work dinner (Asparagus cooked in no butter, no oil is what keeps replaying in my head). He would also make a Whole Foods run before getting to the stadium to bring his own food since the catering wasn’t always the greatest. 

When we would get fly into a city, where we had a game, he would find an OrangeTheory and would religiously go to class, even if he was traveling for work. He made sure he made time for that.

This director, a Texas native, told me in a past life, he would eat whatever was around when he was traveling, but after years of doing the job, his body didn’t feel great. So he decided make a change. 

After I talked to him about his lifestyle and habits, I decided to change my nutrition. I didn’t go too extreme in 2019 but was really mindful of what I was going to order and also how much alcohol I was going to be consuming. I allowed myself one glass of wine per week at a work dinner. 

What also intrigued me was I came across an article on NBA start Dwight Howard on how he changed his diet from eating 24 candy bars a day to taking in very little sugar. He went on a strict diet.

Of course, Dwight Howard is a multi-million dollar athlete and probably has all the resources in the world, but after reading the article, that really made me start my journey of nutrition.

I knew it was going to be a long journey of weight loss at first and had to be mentally tough that it’s marathon, not a sprint.

In November 2019, what I decided to do to start my own journey was to do intermittent fasting, one of the things that was mentioned in the article that Dwight Howard went through. I started with the 16/8 rule, then eventually got to about the 20/4 rule (Ok, so maybe it got extreme). Then, I chose a protein I was going to religiously eat for every meal: Ground Turkey. Lastly, pick a vegetable to put with my ground turkey: Green Beans. My one meal would be right after I worked out. I didnt measure, scale or track anything at the time but ate only until I was content. And if I was still hungry, I would drink a shit ton of water throughout the day.

Mid-January 2020

Of course, when I traveled for work when I started my journey, I may have broke the 16/8 rule, but I was very mindful of what I was ordering and limiting myself to one glass of wine.

Once the football season ended around February 2020, I lost about 20 pounds. I remember going to workout with Kyle Henmi early in the morning one day, he looked at me and said, “You look sick.” I went from about a chub-185 to a leaner 165 pounds, and I still felt good and strong. 

Then COVID-19 hit in March 2020. It was a very unfortunate situation across the world, but as weird as it sounds, it changed me for the good. Being stuck at home and doing the workouts DEUCE Gym programmed relentlessly every single day, along with doing two-a-days with their Delta Bravo dumbbell program, my goal was to keep going with my training any way I could. It also helped my roommate at the time was also in on working out with me. There was a point I worked out for 100 straight days since the start of COVID.

As far as meals, I was still intermittent fasting and limited myself to one meal a day, but a protein shake after my first workout, if I doing two-a-days.

February 2023

What improved most was the amount of sleep I was getting. I would religiously sleep around 10pm and wake up at 6:30am every morning to start my day. Why 6:30am? Just incase work started back up and I wanted to be on a regimented schedule and not try to adjust when it was time to clock-in again.

Fast forward about almost 4 years later, I still follow a similar regiment of eating habits, though I do eating recklessly and might go over in my macros at times (no ones perfect here). Training has been different now that I am training for a competition and moved from bodyweight and just dumbbell workouts to working out (and now working) at a gym. I track my macros and aware of how much I am calories and macros I’m consuming.

Looking back to the start of my journey, I’m glad I relentlessly stuck with my training and nutrition to get to where I am 


today. But the journey doesn’t stop here, I can always be and get better.

I get asked from time to time, “How do I get to where you are?”

My answer: Be committed. Be consistent. Be relentless. And do it for a long time.

Keep going.

Jun