Episode 396: Andrew Coates: The 3-Bucket Nutrition Hack, Mindful Eating, and TRT After 40

Are you eating food you don't even like? In this Fitness Friday episode, Andrew Coates and I discuss everything nutrition. He shares a practical "three-bucket" framework that could revolutionize your relationship with food. We discuss a sustainable, enjoyable approach to nutrition, shaping your food environment for success without giving up the foods you love, and realistic portion sizes. We also dive into societal influences on our eating habits, and the truth about TRT in your 40s. Andrew Coates is a dedicated fitness professional with over 23,000 hours of on-the-floor coaching experience. After graduating from Memorial University of Newfoundland with a Bachelor of Commerce, he began his career as a certified personal trainer in 2010 and founded Andrew Coates Fitness in 2017. Andrew is a prolific fitness writer, contributing to renowned publications such as T-Nation, Muscle and Fitness, and Men's Health, and has been featured in Arnold Schwarzenegger's newsletter. He is the host of The Lift Free and Diet Hard Podcast and a frequent public speaker at industry events. What we discuss: The "Three-Bucket" nutrition framework Creating a sustainable food environment Portion size realities Canadian food culture Fitness after 40 Modern food environment Thank you to our sponsor: Therasage: Head over to therasage.com http://therasage.com/ and use code Be Bold for 15% off TruNiagen: Head over to truniagen.com http://truniagen.com/ and use code HUSTLE20 to get $20 off any purchase over $100. Magic Mind: Head over to www http://www/.magicmind.com http://magicmind.com//jen and use code Jen at checkout. BiOptimizers: Want to try Magnesium Breakthrough? Go to https://bioptimizers.com/jennifercohenand use promo code JC10 at checkout to save 10% off your purchase. Timeline Nutrition: Get 10% off your first order at timeline.com/cohen http://timeline.com/cohen Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com http://airdoctorpro.com/ and use promo code HUSTLE for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. To learn more about Andrew Coates: Website: https://andrewcoatesfitness.com/ Instagram:@andrewcoatesfitness https://www.instagram.com/andrewcoatesfitness/ Find more from Jen: Website: https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices http://megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, this is Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:09Jen Cohen?

  Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle Podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  I've got a framework that I think is helpful for people when it comes to the way they look at nutrition. And I like to think of food in three, we'll call them buckets. A lot of people tend to feel like if you take away the things that they love, then they get scared and then they don't want, they don't respond to all of that. But I like to get people clear on three things. One is think about all of the food that is home-cooked, healthy, whole, minimally processed, nutritious, that we also really like. And there's a ton of that. I like to bake salmon, I'll bake some Brussels sprouts, rice or whatever, and I'll make that and I'll food prep that. And I actually really like that meal, or a lean ground turkey pasta that I make. Those, to me, I would rather have than virtually anything I can get fast food. And so I'm clear on that.

• 1:16Speaker 02

  So that's bucket one, the nutritious stuff we enjoy. Bucket two is all of this mediocre crap, this shit that we eat on a fairly regular basis. You know, when we were kids and like there's nothing in the house, you're like eating crackers because you're hungry, right? And it's not because you're hungry, you're bored, right? That's a different topic. But it's getting clear on all of the things that you eat that you don't even enjoy, you tend to feel guilty about, you tend to feel shame about, it's high calorie, you feel like you wasted the calories. I always use the example of mall food court Chinese food. Now, we all know what good Chinese food is like, but you get in a mall food court, I've done this for years, years ago. I would see this stuff and it's the, you know, the hot three combo for $11.99 back when food was cheaper. And you get it and it's always garbage. It's not like the good Chinese food.

• 2:00Speaker 02

  It looks good, it's not. And then you feel, it's a belly bomb afterwards, you feel terrible. And so remember the things that you continuously get fooled by, or you out of having In the house laziness and I I care for that word because that gets weaponized. But we just continue to feed ourselves without boundaries. Get clear of that. But then there's the third bucket, the things we love, the absolute treats and treasures that we would not give up. Separate the mediocre crap from the really, really good things. And my personal thing is I like a medium Dairy Queen Blizzard Reese's Peanut Butter Cup flavor. And I have it on Saturdays after I train likes. And I get to look forward to it because I know I get that. That is a million times better than any mediocre rubbish I could have in the cupboard.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  And because I enjoy my regularly cooked meals, I'm actually quite fulfilled. I know I get to look forward to this real treat and I get to enjoy it. I I sit down, I turn everything off and I just like slowly eat it. I'm not rushing through while I'm driving, I'm not distracted, I literally just to savor it. And it's an experience that I treasure and no other amount of mediocre crap can compare to it. And I feel no shame and no guilt. And sure, it's maybe easier for me to say because I have a life dedicated to fitness. I have a lot of muscle mass, I have a higher metabolic rate, but I still build its calories into my weekly calorie amount. And I stay active in order to be able to preserve muscle mass, burn more calories so that way I can create room for that. But I think anybody can create room for the things they love. Get clear on the things you love and you can't love it all. You can't have chips every night, you can't have two glasses of wine every night.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  What's her name? Uh, Carrie from Sex and the City and their lifestyle. You know that like that apartment she lives in like? I I know there's this article somewhere on the internet that talks about all of the apartments, a place like the Friends cast live in in New York and their salaries and how like realistic or unrealistic all these things are. They Carrie Bradshaw, Sex and City, totally unrealistic, just like a false sense of reality what's possible. You can't have these martini lunches and two glasses of wine or whatever and still also look like what, you know, Carrie did in the show.

• 3:57Jen Cohen?

  Right. Impossible. I think there's like a major disconnect between reality and and that.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  Here's another one that's worth thinking about. On average, and this is key because people freak out, on average, women are smaller than men and have less muscle mass. Okay, on average, so whenever we go to a restaurant or eat anywhere, there's not a women's menu and a men's menu. There's a kids menu, but the serving sizes of everything we get in society. And they're getting larger and larger and like the men walking around in North America are metabolically healthy and obese on average. If you get women who have smaller bodies, less muscle mass, and by virtue of that, lower metabolic rates. If they're eating or feeling like they're entitled, this is a tricky one, to eat the same amount of food or drink the same amount of alcohol, then they're actually getting more calories than they can handle.

• 4:44Speaker 02

  So it's actually a good thing just to recognize the fact that our society, because there's also the food engineering and the marketing. You have these supernormal combinations of fat, sugar, salt, food that's engineered to sell. I don't think it's any more nefarious than that. These companies are profit driven. And there's tons of it out there and it's easily accessible via delivery or drive through or whatever in supermarkets. And it's right there at the display in front of you. You're bombarded with it. And people are tired and stressed and overwhelmed and they default to it. Or they're busy and it's convenient, or the kids are crying for it and they just give it to the kids to shut them up. And we're drowning in this stuff. And I think you gotta clear all these things.

• 5:24Speaker 02

  But when you have these supernormal combinations of these foods that never existed in nature. We're living in a society that is obesogenic. So there are other people who will scream and rail that we need to change the system. Guess what? Over time, it's probably not a terrible idea, but it's not going to save you in time. And when we start talking about personal responsibility, there's a subsection, an ideological subsection of the industry that gets really mad about that. They do not like that. No. But unfortunately, if you want a better outcome for you, personal responsibility does have to become a component in it. But I want to just help people by setting them up to be successful, shape your food environment, recognize these things around you. And you can preserve the things you really love.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  You just gotta cut out all this other stuff that you don't even like. Why are you eating it?

• 6:10Jen Cohen?

  It's mindless. It's mindless eating.

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Mindless eating.

• 6:12Jen Cohen?

  So I love that you said that because actually what I was going to say is that that's what I do. Part of my parameters is not focusing on food. That is just me mindlessly eating because I'm bored or just like hungry. And that's why a part of the parameter thing is having food around me. That is healthy that I can grab versus having stuff that's like shitty. That's just going to be empty calories that will not do my body good. So knowing your environment and then creating an environment where you won't get yourself into trouble. The other thing is having something that you actually really, really love that you look forward to. And the funny thing is you, I knew you're a Canadian because you said two things. You said the Chinese food food court thing in the, in the food court, the Chinese food.

• 6:57Jen Cohen?

  Cause the Manchu walks of the world, which of course that's what I grew up looking at, knowing. And then you said the, the Blizzard, the medium sized Blizzard, because I just came back from Montreal with my kids. And what did we, there was a million ice cream places. I'm like, no, you guys, if we're going to have ice cream, let's do it right. But that's not like fuck around here and go to this place or that place. Let's go get a Smarties and score.

• 7:20Speaker 02

  Blizzard. I was, you read my mind. I was going to side quest, like all the Americans have, like, we grew up as Canadian kids with Smarties.

• 7:26Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 7:26Speaker 02

  And American kids like, what are those?

• 7:27Jen Cohen?

  I mean, it's like guys.

• 7:29Speaker 02

  Ketchup chips.

• 7:30Jen Cohen?

  And ketchup chips, of course, salt and vinegar chips. I love the old Dutch, the old Dutch salt and vinegar ketchup chips. I love them. And of course the Blizzard, like I know I'll be very satisfied with that Blizzard. And then that will be my treat. And then I feel like I didn't deprive myself. And then I don't have to like eat 90 pounds of something else I didn't like. Because I, I know I have that to look forward to. So I love that you said the Blizzard and that. And although if they are salt and vinegar chips, I mean, there's nothing better. And by the way, when I came back, the, the customs guy said to me, where are all your chips? Did you bring a bunch of chips? I'm like, oh my God, you must be, you read my mind. Like that's what everyone does. It's such a Canadian thing. It's so funny. It's very funny. Okay, so let's talk about like you're 46. Are you on anything? Are you taking peptides?

• 8:15Jen Cohen?

  Are you doing testosterone? Are you doing, what are you doing?

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Um, I've never messed around with what we would call peptides or whatever. So I actually don't openly talk about this. And I think it's complicated because I think sometimes there's a bit of a stigma to this. It's not an area of expertise in mine, but I mean, effectively like testosterone, you know, forty six year old man at this stage of things. I think testosterone replacement therapy is becoming more and more common, so susceptible. Uh, I very deliberately sort of, I, I think there are things that we gravitate to in terms of knowledge base, and then I think there are things that we don't. And maybe it was deliberate because I didn't want to attract the guys who are always asking me these kind of questions because none of my media brand is around like competitive bodybuilding or that side of stuff. And I don't know if that stuff almost didn't interest me. It's

• 9:00Speaker 02

  just, okay, I'm not going to restrict what my experience in life is like because of some sort of arbitrary societal stigma over something. But it's one of those topics that I think most people don't have a good understanding of because we get the, the sensationalism over the baseball players who were quote cheating on various different comments.

• 9:25Jen Cohen?

  That's more like HGH though. I feel like you're talking about like hu- human growth hormone. I feel like in your forties, people in their fifties, you do get a massive diminish, like your, your, your hormones do play tricks on you.

• 9:38Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 9:38Jen Cohen?

  And then for your energy is thrown off, you're unable to build lean muscle mass by doing the same things that you're doing. Like I talk about this all the time on my show because it's a really, A, it's very popular topic right now. I think, I guess because where I am in life, that's why it's also super popular. But most men I know who are thirty seven and up, most of them are taking testosterone. And I think they're taking it too early, quite frankly. But I don't know what their numbers, it depends what your numbers are, right? Like.

• 10:05Speaker 02

  We're getting more and more people talking more openly, like Alex Hormozi talks openly about, you know, how he uses it. I think obviously people are always clamoring to like, who's natural, who's not in Hollywood? Who gives a shit? I like.

• 10:17Jen Cohen?

  Is that not being nat- like to me, that's not being natural or unnatural. It's a testosterone is like a, is a major hormone in your body. It's different if you're taking HGH. I'm not talking about human growth hormone.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  Yeah. And if you're taking super normal amounts of it. Other other types of steroids than sure, but I guess like what again comes to whether or not I'm not going to say any specific actors names because I'm not interested about like, I remember growing up on wrestling and when we We thought wrestling was real, right? We thought that. And then Who's your favorite wrestler, by the way? I mean, I I grew up on Hulk Hogan, so I love Hulk Hogan. A lot of the classic ones. Yeah. I love the, I mean, I love the Mark Bubaiers and Sammy Soses and the the home run era of baseball. That's baseball, yeah. And I loved larger than life Hulk Hogan and Randy Macho Man Savage and Scott Steiner, Big Papa Pump and you name it, goes on and on and on. And this stuff's entertaining. I mean, there's complicated stuff there, tons of complicated stuff.

• 11:10Speaker 02

  But this sort of cliche, but it would be kind of interesting to see the the juiced up Olympics. And I think it's almost trying to start them, but you get a whole bunch of like people who are like super normal. And then, but you also really should just take a bunch of average shows and put them together and just see what it looks like. Yeah. I don't, it it's it's a nice thought experiment in theory, but I actually think it's probably something that it's it's hard to get accurate information about it. I think it's something in society as people hopefully mellow out on like the stigma of certain things, we'll see people having more open conversations about it and then people can get the benefits of it. You mentioned all the things, I'd mental health, depression, men, if you have like low testosterone, you're vulnerable to that as well and What's low? What's what is that normal range for a guy?

• 11:43Speaker 02

  I I don't have, I'm not good at these sort of things because I think there's two different ways or saliva and serum levels of testosterone, but testosterone also fluctuates really wildly. So, I mean, I don't, I don't have the expertise in knowing what is or isn't normal. And I I am of the understanding because society as a whole, we are seeing declining levels of testosterone in the environment for a variety of reasons, exposure to environmental pollutants, microplastics, you name it, all sorts of stuff, a long list of things. And it's trending the wrong way. So I think the definition of what is normal is also going down because what's normal aside, I mean, like our our society in terms of metabolic health, obesity, all those sort of things, what is normal is now unhealthy in most of these like health metrics.