Coach Justin: “What’s up guys and welcome back to, I coach nutrition radio today. Super excited. Have a special guest, somebody that I’ve had the pleasure of working with now for just right around the last six months or so. he’s a client that I’ve, that I that I went to high school with and and grew up kind of my whole life playing baseball with. So it was really cool for him to reach out you know, 10 years after after high school here and be able to kind of kind of work together and and coach him and help him with nutrition and training and and and really just kind of the mindset aspect of all of this stuff. So without further ado I’m excited to welcome on the podcast sean what’s up my man, how are you?”
Sean: “What’s up man? Thanks for thanks for having me.”
Coach Justin: “Absolutely, absolutely. I always ask my clients I’m like, is this the first podcast you’ve ever been on?”
Sean: “Yeah, this is the first one I’ve been on in the first one. I’ve never even listened to one. So this is all new to me.”
Coach Justin: “Wow, You never listened to a podcast either. Well, I guess we didn’t dive like super deep into like the personal development stuff. We didn’t get exactly to that point yet. But yeah, I mean we got to get you on the podcast all screenshot over the ones that I listened to on a regular basis. You can check them out. But I mean you got in like podcasts and audiobooks like that personal development piece, like such a, such a, such a crucial thing there. But anyways. dude so I wanna, I wanna first kind of share with the listeners a little bit more about you kind of give them a little bit more context on, on you and, and what you do. and who you are. And then we’ll kind of start talking about the, the coaching journey that, that we had. So yeah for the listeners, just tell them a little bit more about you, your age, your, your height, your weight your, whatever else you want to share kind of about about your personal life there.”
Sean: “Yeah, sure. Like you said, my name is Sean Allen. we grew up together in colony going to school, in 27 years old, I’m married with a kid who just turned 11 months today. so we’ve been super busy with that. I am a police officer in the area. I’m also on the swat team at that at that agency. so I got a lot of stuff going on at work and a lot of stuff going on at home as well I’m currently six ft, like about six ft one and I kind of fluctuate around like 202 05 right now is where I’ve been for a while.”
Coach Justin: “Gotcha, Gotcha., and I was, I joke with Sean too because he’s, my dad’s name is Sean so easy to, easy to remember there. But dude, so tell me a little bit like if we’re thinking about kind of the initial journey and like why you even reached out to me in the first place, like what was kinda going on? I mean like what’s, what was happening like what caused you to, to reach out in the first place to kinda inquire about coaching there.”
Sean: “Yeah. So I think what was it like the six months or a year before I started, I think I reached out to you once, there was a gap before I started and it was some questions and, you know, I’m sure like a lot of people I was kind of skeptical and online coaching like what what can that really do for me or whatever and so I didn’t end up following through with it and then this last time obviously I did and the reason for that is I think just everything going on in my life with I just recently got on the swat team, just just got married, just moved in the house, just had my kid. So a lot of all this stuff going on at home, a lot of personal stuff which was causing me basically to not sleep to not have any sort of plan of nutrition, you know, fast food a lot. I work nights as well, so that didn’t help you know, just, I guess the outside stressors that were added onto my life with no way to manage it and with my diet and exercise, I wasn’t helping either I was working out you know way too much with, with not sleeping and I just started to feel like crap and not see results and I was like man, it was a little bit harder than I thought doing on my own. And so that’s what kind of pushed me towards taking that first step.”
Coach Justin: “Gotcha. Yeah man, I mean, I I remember, you know, even looking kind of back over our notes here. So like I mean when we first started working together some of those initial adjustment items, like we, you know, obviously the sleep peace and and doing the shift work but even even outside of the shift work, it’s like we’re averaging like 5-6 hours a night caffeine intake was up really really high, right? So we’re averaging like 1200 mg of caffeine a day. And and then what else what else the calorie rollercoaster ride? So there’s some days that you were like significantly under eating and then other days that maybe you’re eating too much or you know whatever there. And then really like from the cooking standpoint right? Like there was a lot of fast food And you were you were you were low on protein pretty consistently there as well, so.”
Sean: “Oh yeah those were like some of the big pieces there, but I mean when we first started like obviously you know kind of hearing all those things and all those improvements that need to be made, I mean it can definitely be overwhelming especially if you have a bunch of other things going on in life there.”
Coach Justin: “So like if you think about, you know we’ve talked about this a lot but kind of this all or nothing mindset right? Where it’s like so many people are either like all in or they’re all out. And so for you it’s like we really had to kind of meet you where you were and like slowly started to work on improving some of these habits, right? And I mean do you feel like that approach kind of helped you, you know rather than maybe trying to like change everything I want.”
Sean: “Yeah I think that took a lot of the like stress and overwhelming feeling out of it. Again I have never worked with an online coach. I didn’t really have any expectations on it. I had an idea of what I thought was gonna happen, you know, like you said, hey, you suck at this, this and this, this is what you need to do, like get after it start tomorrow. But I think your approach is much more sustainable and relatable like you said, you you meet your clients kind of where they’re at and set small achievable goals and once we hit those goals consistently we move on to the next and I think that you know helps long term and makes it a more positive experience throughout.”
Coach Justin: “Yeah, absolutely love that. So maybe I should have asked this before that last question, but what I mean, what were, like you said you were skeptical right and rightfully so I mean a lot of a lot of people are right, So I mean everything from like the investment that you’re having to make in yourself to you know, just like not really having an experience with working with another coach before and not really know what those expectations are. I mean essentially like what what what caused you to kind of pull the trigger and and to invest in yourself and and do this.”
Sean: “Yeah, I think it was just me kind of being hardheaded and competitive in nature and it’s especially as a male and certain personality sometimes you’re like I don’t need to reach out for help, I don’t need help, I’ll do it on my own. I think after so many times of like trying it on your own and fail and you’re like you just start to realize over, I started to realize like you know what, maybe you need a little extra help and I’m just tired of kind of doing the same thing or maybe not being educated on certain things and not getting the results I wanted and so that’s honestly why I reached out to you.”
Coach Justin: “That’s awesome. Yeah, man, I mean I think that’s one of the most, it’s one of the probably the biggest challenges for for everyone, right? It’s like I mean reaching out for help and being vulnerable and like having to like be transparent with you know what you have going on there. I mean that first step of reaching out is typically like the hardest step for so many people you know, and they just keep putting it off and putting it off and putting it off and waiting for the quote unquote right time or the perfect time, but you know I think the reality is that there’s never gonna be the right time or the perfect time, you know, I think it’s I think that’s where meeting you, where you are in this journey, I think that’s where that’s where it comes from, you know, because if not you’ll wait forever, it’s never gonna be the perfect time or the right time. I mean think about anything else in life right? Like getting, I mean, I think about like getting married or like having kids, I had this perfect vision in my head of like, I’m not getting married until this age, I’m not having kids till this age, But it’s like you can sit there and keep putting things off or have this like perfect plan in mind at the end of the day it’s like, you know, you’re never gonna truly be 100% ready. You know, You’re never gonna feel like 100% this is the time. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So I think one of the big things for you man is like, we figured out like that therm a genic had well you were taking a thermal ticket, had a lot of caffeine just in that alone, right? So 450. Yeah, so 450 mg of caffeine and that thermo genic. So, I mean like looking back on the notes, like literally within like three weeks or so. I mean, I already had already had, you know, notes in here about you were feeling significantly better So, I mean, I think you made, I mean like for a lot of times, I always tell people like you’re not going to, You know, don’t seek like fast results or anything like that, but when we look at something like the, you know, something as extreme as like 1200 mg of caffeine a day, right? And and then significantly lowering that, like, I mean you felt much better, like pretty fast, you know?”
Sean: “Yeah, no, it was, it was super fast. I think the caffeine was probably the Kickstarter of feeling better. And the funny thing is I thought I felt fine at that time too with the caffeine, I was like no, I feel great, but you know, I didn’t realize how I just worn down. I was until we started cutting that back and started getting actual sleep and I was like, oh man, this is a like a whole different feeling that I haven’t felt a long time. So yeah, I think the caffeine was the biggest quickest change that we did.”
Coach Justin: “Yeah, I would agree. so as we start moving through the program, I mean if you know our initial goals there right? Where you wanted to improve body composition you wanted to improve performance? Right? Very, you know, very popular goals amongst a lot of people there But you know, from a body composition standpoint, what do you feel like the, you know in terms of like accomplishing that goal of improving your body composition. and then also with the goal of wanting to improve your performance like what do you feel like was accomplished kind of through this 56 months here we work together and what are you kind of still excited to be, to be able to work on accomplishing as you move forward?”
Sean: “Yeah, I think body compositions, everyone’s is a goal for everyone looking back, you know, I don’t think that was my primary goal. you know, jokes like I’m already married, already have my kids, so that’s kind of on the back burner, it’s not like I’m out, you know, a single guy looking to show off body composition is obviously a goal for everyone like I said, but I think my main thing was performance especially with my job, I think within freaking nutrition and performance that the body composition kind of comes with that naturally. but I’d say the biggest thing was I thought I was educated on nutrition, you know with like Youtube and researching stuff on my own, but there’s so much freaking information out there nowadays that it gets confusing and I think what I was most proud of is kind of how you taught me the nutrition part and I think naturally by getting that fixed the performance came and then the body composition you know, eventually we’ll follow follow after that I think that’s what I’m most proud of and most excited of it’s just the knowledge I gained on the new christian part.”
Coach Justin: “Yeah, I mean I think like if you, I mean if if we, if we look into that, right, and we’re thinking about for your job, you know specifically there, it’s like, man, like if we, you know, were completely under recovered, right? Like we’re the, you know, we’re not getting enough sleep, right? We’re over caffeinated right? The quality of the food isn’t that good, right The quantity. Some days you’re under eating, some days you’re overeating like you’re in a calorie rollercoaster right? and then essentially your your, you know, the workouts weren’t the issue when you’re working out a lot, but like you’re working out under recovered right under your in a sleep debt. You were in a on a nutrition quantity and nutrition quality debt. So yeah, I mean it makes sense that, you know, once you started making these changes, especially as young as you are, that you saw really, really fast results. I think the, you know, the scary thing is like for people that aren’t as proactive as you, right? I mean, the people that aren’t 27 reaching out to a coach to do this you know they’re they’re 30 40 50 60 years old or whatever and they’ve been doing shift work for however long, right And they’ve been kind of living that lifestyle that comes with the job for that long. and you know, then it’s a lot, it’s a lot harder to come back, right? Because now we’re talking about, you know testosterone levels, you know inexistent and having to get on T R. T. And you know, different things like that, so I mean it’s it’s again it’s just another reason why you being able to to focus on this as early as you as you are and build that confidence in nutrition so that you feel like it’s a skill set you have and there’s not, you know, it’s not a guessing game for the rest of your life there, you know? So as we as you know, as we’re starting to work through this here, like where are you sitting at kind of present day now right? Like in terms of, you know, just just with nutrition, like if I had to ask you like, hey if somebody came up to you and asked you about what it means to you to live a healthy lifestyle, like from a nutrition standpoint Fitness standpoint sleep, like whatever the habits one of the big rocks are in your life, like what would be that advice for them? Like how do you live? Like how do you define living a healthy lifestyle for you?”
Sean: “Yeah, I think it’s just all about balance. so that’s the biggest thing is balancing it out because we talked a lot about how You know, some people may try to go dive in 100% and never miss tracking, never miss a meal, never do a cheap meal and and it’s all about sustaining it long term. I think it’s just about being humble with yourself and giving yourself grace. We’ve always talked about an understanding that, you know, sometimes you may need, like a cheap meal or you may need a rest day and or you may need something that’s kind of off your your goal. I think that’s something that is big for me, just accepting that you’re gonna have those days where, you know, maybe today’s not the day for a workout or maybe need a cheat meal today, and I think that’s kind of helped me sustain this thing. it’s just understanding that, hey, it’s okay to take a day off and it’s okay to not be perfect and one meal or one workout is not gonna change basically your lifestyle, your progress I think that’s a big one, and then just, you know, on the other side of that is consistency and just staying consistent with what you’ve learned in the lifestyle you’ve built. so that answer your question or?”
Coach Justin: “Yeah, no, I mean, I love that these are great answers. Do you feel like the habit tractor kind of, the habit tracker kind of helped you with you know, adopting more of that mindset, like with finding more balance because essentially it’s like a lot of people we get in our own head about you know, again, it’s like we’re either all in or we’re all out, you know, we have one bad meal and that and that makes us go into the ethic mentality, right, screw it. But it’s like with the habit tracker and you and you tracking those habits like you were there you know you’re able to literally see it’s black and white, you know, it’s like okay out of the last how many, you know, days, months, weeks, whatever. They’re like this is how consistent I’m being with this habit and this habit and this habit and this habit right? And that awareness right there, it helps you to become more consistent and also helps you to give yourself grace when you think that you’re not being as consistent as what you thought.”
Sean: “Yeah, the habit tracker is awesome It’s a love hate relationship honestly, like it’s it’s great. You know, Some days I’m like man, I hate this thing, but like you said, yeah, it’s nice because it gives you real time data of kind of what’s going on and like you said, allows you to basically look back and like alright, hey, you know, it’s okay, I’m not doing that bad or you know, like me, I like to see things on paper, like physically in front of me and that gives me sometimes, you know, motivates you like oh crap, I’ve been sucking that at this lately, I need to step it up for you just set goals that you can track real time in front of you on on a piece of paper or an app or you know however you do it. I think that’s that’s important rather than just trying to go off memory like yeah I think I had a pretty good last three days. It allows you to to know for sure. Like I said, it’s it’s great but it’s tedious and it was definitely a love hate relationship for me using it.”
Coach Justin: “Yeah, I mean it’s it’s awareness proceeds change, right So if you’re if you’re not tracking, like if you don’t track it, you don’t change it typically, right? But I think that, I mean it’s I mean look like I’ll be the first one to say, I mean, I I hate my fitness pal and tracking and all that. Like it sucks, but at the same time like it brings me a level of awareness that makes me way more consistent than if I wasn’t using it. And I think for so many people, they haven’t they haven’t they haven’t got that awareness from these tools right? Like most people haven’t tracked their food on my fitness pal for, you know, 90 days plus or most people haven’t used a habit tracker for 90 days plus or food picture log or these things. So for you it’s like as soon as you get to a point where you, you have built the awareness that you need to be able to graduate from using that tool then awesome like go prove it right, go prove your consistency without the tool and put that tool in your tool belt and you can you can whip that tool back out whenever you need it, right? I guarantee you there’s gonna be another time in your life where you want to, I don’t know, lose weight or build muscle or whatever, right? And you’re gonna know that, hey, if I use that tool, it’s gonna really help me to do that, right? So just having that that skill set, that understanding the education of how to use the tool and how to use it properly is key, you know? So yeah, I mean, I like if I really broke down the habit tracker as I always joke with you, I’m like Shawn dude, it literally takes 60 seconds habit tracker, like it’s not hard, it’s not serious, it’s not time consuming in your head. It is that’s what the story you like narrated, but you know but at the end of the day, I get it when you’ve been tracking on my fitness pal and doing the habit tracker during the picture and like doing all those things for so long. Yeah, of course you’re gonna get burnt out and you don’t wanna, you don’t wanna feel like tied to happen to, you know, use some type of tracking system all the time. It’s just if you’re doing like if you’re, if you’re going about trying to accomplish a goal and you’re, and it’s not happening? It just comes a time where you realize like if you’re gonna do it on your own, if you’re gonna accomplish on your own, you would have already done it by now, right? And that’s where you’ve got to like, you know, whether it’s a coach or not, but you’ve got to start to build that awareness through starting to track these things so that you can change these things Yeah, here. so if you think about like, if we dive into kind of the performance aspect and look, I know that we’ve kind of had a lot of, a lot of different things come up, right? Like there was the whole like, covid experience and like, all these different things, right? So it’s hasn’t, hasn’t, you know, been like rainbows and sunshine the whole time, but that’s part of it, right? That’s part of this journey is navigating through the seasons of life for you. So when you think about the performance side of it though, and you think about the, you know I know we didn’t get like, In terms of like the programming all that, like, we really didn’t evolve that into like you know, 100% everything that we wanted to get into there. But even in the time that we did, I mean like what were the things that you got from a performance standpoint with even like following that string training program? like what were some of the big things like the work outside of it, the performance side of it that that you felt improved?”
Sean: “Yeah, I think the quality of my workouts and recovery immediately got better just due to the first changes that we did, that’s what I noticed the most is I thought I was working out hard and getting good quality workouts in, but really, you know, I wasn’t and I realized that put the more sleep the less caffeine, the better nutrition immediately I could feel the difference in the gym. Like I had you know, just just more muscle endurance, more energy throughout the whole workout. And I think if I remember correctly, wasn’t it was taking like 2 to 3 days sometimes to recover muscle soreness sometimes even longer in the beginning and then after that it was just, you know, I could notice that I recover a lot quicker one or two days maybe which was was good and obviously that helps you you know, work out more, recover more so you’re gonna gain strength and performance. What’s nice about my job is we have these physical assessments throughout the year, so it’s it’s a little bit easier to track the performance game off the program off of that, you know, it’s not something where I had to do some sort of like what do you call them? Like the murph, what kind of water is that? It’s like a assessment water placement. What what do you call those? well it would be like a, like a hero wahd benchmark benchmark. I mean, so you’re not having to use that. Like I have to do that for my job. And I noticed that that was a goal of mine and to improve that, which is we did do that. I think I made it hard on you with going back to your strength burden for me because I had so many different small goals that are changing throughout throughout our time together. And so, you know, you did a really good job at writing me the initial workout that we wrote and then I think I’ve changed my goals a couple times throughout there and you know, you’re supportive with kind of adjusting our plan to meet those goals. Yeah, I mean, overall, I think the performance piece increased a ton mostly off of like a recovery standpoint. I’ve gained strength as well. I mean we saw that the assessments I had at work. So overall yeah, just in six months, I saw performance increase That’s awesome man.”
Coach Justin: “And for the listeners that like don’t know what that test involves, Can you share like a little bit on like what that test is? And I don’t know if you remember specifics here, but the maybe the improvements that you had with the retest.”
Sean: “Yeah so the test is, it starts off, so when I say full kit, that means you’re in like Btu pants, like tactical pants, your work boots,, you’re in a £30 heavy vest and you have your, your belt on with like your guns is maybe another £10 something like that. So the first part you are in, full kit, you do an 800 m run you come back, you get two minutes of rest and then you’re in full kit again with a gas mask and you’re carrying 2 £45 weights on each end. That’s a 400 m sprint., After that, you go into burpees as many as you can in three minutes, two minute rest. As many squats as you can in three minutes. Just body squats and we’ll get with the gas mask on and you get two minutes to rest and then you go into pull ups, you have to do five strict pull ups and then as many as you can in a minute, that was the assessment test. so pretty hard I don’t know how it sounds on paper, but when you’re doing it, it’s, it’s tough and it sucks. But, yeah I think after working with you for three or four months probably I bumped up to beat like half the people, I didn’t the first time. So that was good for sure.”
Coach Justin: “That’s awesome, man. Well, and I mean, I think like as you continue to move forward, I mean that’ll probably get even better. I think what was the remind me again It was so the weakest, the weakest part. What wasn’t the pull ups? Right? How did the, I mean, I know we didn’t get like, you know, maybe all the work in that we want, but like how are, how are those doing now in comparison to before?”
Sean: “Good. I still use that bullet program that you sent me. so I still try to incorporate that in, it’s like back days and then maybe one other day week just depending on what I’m working on. But yeah, that’s improved now. I’m doing it with like weight best song. So increasing the weights on bullets and it’s no problem. The five strict and then,, the minute of pull ups, I mean it feels easy now and I know we joked about that you’re like, yeah, after this program it should feel easy like you shouldn’t have an issue and that’s definitely the case now.”
Coach Justin: “Nice man. That’s awesome. That is very cool, very cool. well dude, so I definitely respect your time here. But if we’re, I guess one more question I have or maybe a few more here. I have. for, for anybody that’s like maybe on the fence about working 11 on one with a coach. you know, maybe somebody that’s been following this podcast or you know, follows me on social media or or any of the other coaches that are out there would be your advice man. Like, I mean obviously for you, you didn’t pull the trigger the first time around, but the second time around you did, I mean if you had to give maybe advice to your, to yourself, you know, maybe that first time around, like, do you wish that maybe you would have pulled the trigger then so that you didn’t have to get to the place that you got to before reaching out the second time around or?”
Sean: “Yeah, definitely. I think there’s a lot of people out there like me who you know, maybe thought goes through your head and they really motivated and like, you know what I want to reach out to to Justin and for whatever reason, maybe they don’t guess my advice would be just just reach out and get talked with him just to reach out and ask questions. Doesn’t mean, you know, you’re starting the program, but, I’d say that, you know, I kind of red around about different coaching and stuff online Obviously I knew you did this and I knew from high school, so I thought that that might be kind of weird to be honest. You know, I mean, like you said, being vulnerable to a coach and being vulnerable with someone especially, you know, we’re both type a personalities and competitive and, and athletes together. So I thought it’d be a little bit weird, but honestly it’s the opposite I’d say that you I can tell that you genuinely care and you can relate to me on a professional level, on a personal level with not only nutrition and fitness but on the family side as well. I know you’re always asking about family and I think that’s important. That creates a, I guess I’m more like fluent relationship as client coach doesn’t feel like you’re just a coach It kind of feels like your resource for, for different aspects of life as well. So I think that’s, you know definitely something I wasn’t expecting when, you know, before I started working with you. So I think, you know, if I was giving myself advice or somebody’s on the fence, just just reach out and take that first step and at least get a conversation starting. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the process and how easy it is and how easy you make it.”
Coach Justin: “That’s awesome man. Well, I really appreciate those those those words, man, that means a lot. you know I do care and and every every opportunity that I have to work with somebody, you know, I think that it’s it’s it’s an opportunity, right? Like it’s a blessing It’s it’s, I mean I’m humbled that, you know, you would even come and reach out to me in the first place. So you know, I definitely want to be able to provide as much value as possible and, and ultimately just, you know, help to make this, like I said, like a skill set, you know, something that you feel confident and no different than if you were coming to me as a financial advisor or something and wanting me to help you with your, you know, with your finances, right? Like it’s a skill set and so I think, you know, helping to develop that and help you to feel confident in that, you know not only for you and maybe the goals that you have for yourself, but obviously it carries out into, you know, the rest of life, right? I mean, now this affects you know, the other police officers, you know, this affects your family, right? Your your son growing up and, and you know, watching, watching you kind of lead from the front and showing what a, you know, what it means to, to live a healthy lifestyle there. So I think it’s awesome man, I think it’s, I think it’s really really cool to you know, to to that you made that decision to be vulnerable because I mean, I get it like I.”
Sean: “I totally, I totally agree. I mean it would definitely be you know, you could definitely kind of think that it would be a, a weird thing, but, you know, for me it’s like I I want to make sure that I’m just as vulnerable as you are, You know, it’s like the end of the day, it’s like a lot of us, especially you and I working together as you know, us being dads and and us being, you know, married and, and all of these different things, it’s like we can, if we are vulnerable, we can really relate a lot of this stuff and we can really like bounce ideas off each other and help each other through different things and you know, I think men need support, you know, I think, I think it’s been a stigma for a long time that men are supposed to be so tough and that there, you know, bad to the bone and they don’t have feelings and all this, and it’s like, that’s just not, that’s not the truth, you know like dads, dads, husbands, police officers, firefighters everyone in between. I mean, we all, we all need support and we all need a community and we all need,, you know we can all benefit from, from working with a coach and somebody that’s in our, in our corner that can help us to, you know, accomplish whatever the goal is that we want to accomplish for ourself. Yeah, so I love it brother. Well, hey dude, I wanna, I want to respect your time here, I any any final thoughts or any final words that you wanna, you wanna share with the listeners here for the podcast? not not really for the listeners. I just wanna again while I have you on here. Thank you for your time over the last six months and all the effort. All the texts and calls and stuff, man, I really appreciate it. Yeah man, absolutely thank you, thank you for for making the process, you know, an enjoyable one and, and one where, you know like I think there was, I think it was a really cool journey.”
Coach Justin: “I’m excited for you. You know, like I’ve mentioned as you move forward here, you know, especially being able to see this kind of carry out for much longer timeline, right catching up with you a year from now three years from now, five years from now and you’re still confident in this skill set and not being a struggle for you. I mean that’s that’s that’s the game.”