Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Kido, savage.com.
Today I've got special guest and good friend Dakota on the line.
He's been working me for quite some time.
He competed in October and November of last year, 2022, and
he has since been going through a pretty long, extensive reverse
diet period. So I wanted to pick his brain
about what that has been like. This was his first competition,
first reverse diet. So anytime you do a first
anything, you have this newfound sense of perspective and I
wanted to kind of just pick his brain as to what that has been
like as a first time competitor. We also dive into his home gym
setup. He's building out the pretty
impressive home gym at his place and I want to kind of pick his
brain as to what is what he's doing, how he's building that
out, what equipment he would get again versus not and just kind
of get that aspect of his gym situation down there because I'm
also in the process of building out my gym.
So I was curious 3rd into the conversation.
Always good catching up with Dakota.
Have no doubt they will take something from this.
So that further ado sit back, relax into the podcast with my
good friend Dakota and we are live Dakota.
How are your brother? Doing well, doing well.
How are you Sir? I'm good man.
I'm good. How are you feeling this far?
Post Show. Back to normal, to be honest.
Back to normal. Back to normal.
And I know the reverse diet I think is worse than the the
prep. To be completely honest, I
agree. I feel like a lot of people
like, I'll say that on a podcast or I'll say that in passing and
people were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but the prep is way worse.
But honestly, from a psychological standpoint, I
think the reverse diet is the most challenging part.
I think it is cuz you you have a hard goal when you're doing a a
prep. When you're in the middle of
prep you have the show, whatever it is.
Like I'm looking at, you know the show poster for the one, the
Washington State Natural. I got one from Aaron so I'm
looking at it here on the wall and like that's your goal.
That's an easy you've got a hard date to set, but then the
reverse diet after. You know, you're like, I gotta
take six months, eight months after with no goal there.
There is no show day. There is no, there's no hard
deadlines for anything, you know.
Whereas when you got the show, you've got all the all the
structure there. It's easy, easier, 100% man.
And for the listeners, let me give them some perspective.
You started working with me for the prep on April 4th of last
year. You started at 206.8 pounds at
2959 calories. And then you competed on.
Let me Scroll down here. Yeah, let's see here.
First show was 10. Cuz we had the WNBF which was
October 15th and then we had November 4th, yeah.
Which was the NPC natural. And on that October show you got
down to 168.2, it looks like was the lowest.
So you went from 206 to 168, actually had a couple, you had a
166 day one, 65164.5, I think 164.5 was your lowest and then?
Because that was that was the 110 pound weight loss.
That's the lowest I've been in. Which a decade.
So yeah, cuz when you you had lost quite a bit of weight
before you ever even started working with me.
So your heaviest weight was what?
275 That's the the heaviest known weight, heaviest.
Known weight Preface that when you get to that size, you don't.
You don't jump on a scale very up.
Yeah. And I mean we get you pretty
pretty lean man. I mean you were shoulder veins
were popping 164. I mean that is a pretty
significant change from where you were at the heaviest.
Yeah, yeah, it was. I'm ready to.
My shoulder veins stick around pretty decently, like anything
below like 18% body fat, but I'm ready to have the bicep veins
come back and the forearm veins. You're in prep right now.
Aaron says he's not prepping. I don't know what Aaron's doing
right, but I'm a skeptical man. Aaron's.
Prepping he's gotta be there's he's getting way too lean post
mini cuts so I would and I talked with him stem I regularly
and he's not letting anything slide but I'm like man he's
gotta be going for for something.
Well, I wanna know what he's doing so that I can step on
stage with the man. Well, I know he, so he can't
compete in Washington and Oregon because the show's there.
He runs the two, he runs the pro show.
I think there actually there might be 1 WNBF show that's also
a pro show. But I don't think he's going to
do that, cuz him and I were talking.
It's like he's got to go down to like the Bay Area or up to
Bridge Columbia or kind of his options.
Well there's there's several shows, there's several WNBF
shows that are coming. Most of them are you know third,
third quarter, fourth quarter of the year which would be like if
he's doing some of those later show that's that's a long, long
prep. But I mean shoot I'm doing long
prep. I mean I know he kind of
generally gravitates towards the longer preps as well.
But yeah he's he's a big wild card right now.
But shoot, I want to talk about you man.
So you you you've been reverse dining since your second second
show which was in November and you are still pretty much under
200. You have a couple high days
where you're you tiptoe over 200 but for the most part you're
still you know sub 200 pounds, which this far post show I think
is a pretty big win. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely
interesting. And like the days, I can tell
you what days those are. Those are the days either.
There's like some Saturdays and stuff.
I don't track, like my wife and I, you know, she's in the middle
of a bodybuilding of her own. We've got kit #2 on the way.
That's due here in August, but so we'll do like Saturdays, kind
of like a. Like, I'll eat pretty close to
what my normal macros are, but like Sundays after that or I'm a
little bit heavier, or the days that I work till 9:00 o'clock at
night. I don't get to sit down to eat
until 9:30 or 10:00, and then I go straight to bed.
Like I can tell you the next morning I'm heavier, but that's
just part of it. What's the there's?
A little bit of variation every day.
Yeah. And that's totally normal man.
Like that is nothing, nothing to worry about there.
Same thing is true with me as I'm dieting down like I'll have
some, you know, high days, some low days.
I had a low day this morning but then you know last week I had a
unexpected hire day. You know, like you just can't
let that gnaw at you or else it gets in your head and good.
What has it been like for you post show from a reverse that
standpoint? Because what I have found
amongst all my clientele and amongst my, my and for myself is
that the first show and the first reverse diet are always
the hardest because you just simply don't have any
perspective as to what you can compare to.
This is your first rodeo with the competitions and reverse
diets. So this is like the pinnacle of
as hard as it gets per se. So what was it like for you
emotionally, psychologically, as you're don't have a show that
you're working for, but you're still trying to stay within some
degree of, you know, consistency with your foods and not go
totally off the rails eating everything Insight.
It's hard. I mean, there are days that I
remember like fairly early on at the reverse side, that there
were days that I slept and everything insight was eaten.
And like, it's harder. With the reverse diet, mentally,
because I don't have that goal and I'm I can be very goal
oriented, not with everything but with a lot of things.
So not having the the show day as the you know, like my focus
and like that's what keeps me going makes it incredibly hard.
It it just becomes harder and like we have dieted down.
And reverse dieted a little bit before, so I had some
perspective. But it's completely different
when you just do like a small cut and then a small reverse
diet versus you're doing 6 to 8 months of a cut and then, you
know, 6 to 8 months of a reverse diet.
Like the time frame difference. It just wears on you.
It wears you down. Yeah, for sure.
What was it like? Like what was your your close
knit group of people and family and friends around you?
Like when it comes to reverse dining, like, because I I think
that's hard too, because after the show is over, they don't get
the concept of reverse dining. So they're just like, well, you
your show is over, you might as well join us for dinner, this
celebratory meal. I mean, what else are you
working for? You might as well eat with us.
So, like, were they pretty supportive or were they just
like totally not not understanding and not on board?
My wife very understanding, very much on board, very much my
saving grace and how she didn't murder me at the tail end of
Prep. I have no idea.
I'm pretty irritable. Her family was pretty
understanding for the most part because they they, well, my wife
actually grew up like watching bodybuilding shows in the, you
know, the late 90s, early 2000s, like her dad watched them when
they used to be streamed on TV and stuff.
So like there's a little bit more understanding from that
side from them. But my family who has zero
nutritional background at all, does not understand like
raising, for example. Like raising my son.
Like there are certain things we generally don't, you know, a lot
of the flowers and things like that.
And like, oh, that has flower that has, shouldn't.
Yes, those kind of things like. To you and me and a lot of the
the bodybuilding and health oriented communities understand
like it's hard to understand something that you have no grasp
on to start with. Yeah.
So like I I I gave them as much grace as I could.
But you know it's just like they don't under they don't
understand so they don't but they never have the drive to
compete in a show whereas I think.
Like with my inlaws, I think my father-in-law might eventually
do a master's class Nice. After going to the WNBF show
with us, I think he kind of got a little bit of the bug.
That's good. That's really good.
What was it like for you on the days where you would go off the
beaten path and eat everything? Insight, like how did you handle
that? Mental.
Like, did you beat yourself up about it?
Did you try and, you know, do something the next day to, you
know, overcompensate for that deviation or you just get right
back on track? Like what was that like?
I was blessed with a very good coach, so that's super helpful.
But yeah, I still beat myself up.
I but I didn't go down the path of well, I over ate yesterday so
I'm not gonna get it all today. I didn't go down that path.
I don't think that that's good. So I tried to make it as
mentally healthy as possible because I think like the beating
yourself up, you're gonna take a little bit of a mental hit
there, but if you go down the route of starving yourself the
next day because you overeat, it creates.
A disordered eating tendency. And that's what I wish avidly
trying to avoid. Yeah, I didn't.
I didn't want to do that. I already, I've already
experienced eating disorders. So I don't want to go back down
that route. No, I totally agree, man.
I think when you start going down the route of trying to make
up for past events, that becomes a very slippery slope.
That's honestly why I'm not really a fan of averaging out
caloric intake goals over the running span of a week.
You know, cuz like you'll have a high day and then you've got to
have a low day to, you know, correspond with that and it just
winds up being a negative more often than not.
So I think that that, like I said, it just becomes a slippery
slope. So I'm glad you didn't go that
route. Yeah.
And I mean there's. It's going to take a toll on you
no matter what. So you just kind of you're
trying to minimize the damage. At least I was.
You know there there are days that you know things are harder.
It's. I know at the very end, like you
love the Stairmaster. I hate the Stairmaster.
I I love that time every morning that I had to go do that.
And, you know, but it's like there were some days that it was
just a struggle And I'm like, oh, if I eat less than, do I
have to be the Stairmaster? It's like, no, it's gonna mess
it up. Yeah.
So no, for sure, man. There's everyone's gonna have a
different definition for what is sustainable for them, what's in
trouble for them, what is reasonable, what is rational,
and what is just totally not worth it and not worthwhile.
And a prep like anybody can recomposition their body and
reach a new level of conditioning for them.
And they can do it in a way that is sustainable and enjoyable for
them. They just to figure out what the
levers they have to pull are and then pull them accordingly.
Yeah. And for me, like, I freaking
love the Stairmaster Man. I think it's very easy to
standardize. It just works well for me.
My body responds well to it and it responds.
Most people's bodies respond pretty well to it.
I feel like it's a safer bet than trying to do like hill
sprints or something like that, which is going to be a lot more
volatile based off of you know, what your energy levels are like
for the day or what your recovery is like, etcetera,
etcetera. So yeah, it's just a matter of
figuring out what you can adhere to, and then ideally some would
enjoy as well. Yeah, it's like I found I've
never used like a row machine. The gym I was going to had a
concept too, and so I found that for me.
Sustainability wise, I could do 5000 meter rows much easier than
and it would take you know 30 minutes.
But it's I'm still hitting the distance and I found that easier
than the 15 minutes on the Stairmaster.
Yeah, totally man, Totally. Speaking of gyms, Speaking of
what you've got access to in the gyms, talk to me about your gym
setup cuz you were going a similar route to I and that we
have had it with the corporate gym scene.
We we're not really doing that and we've pretty much doubled
down on the home gym setup. And when I say home gym setup,
I'm not talking about like you know, halfway squat rack in
somebody's garage that's sitting next to their Christmas
ornaments. Like, this is like a legit home
gym set that you're building out here.
It's pretty much done. I'm going to actually add
another squat rack at some point here soon.
I got to get two more uprights for it, but.
Yeah, building a home gym is great.
I was commuting, commuting an hour to the gym every day.
So then you throw the workout and that's two hours of my day
every single day. That was time away for my
family, time away from work and things that generated income for
our businesses. So it's like it just didn't make
sense so. We decided to start building a
gym and we have an 800 square foot space that works perfectly
for it. It's our old off the space but
you know we did redid it and I mean I got an 8 post Rep rack
with the area's cable. I've got one to 100 pound
dumbbells. I got a set of adjustable
dumbbells too. I think I'm up to like 9 bars
now. Something like that.
For plates and all kinds of stuff.
So I mean the only piece of cardio equipment I have right
now is we have a one of those old Schwinn bikes.
Yeah, yeah, that was given to us.
But eventually I want to get a Concept 2 rower and then I want
a treadmill. That's one of the like the
assault runners, the non powered ones, the self powered ones.
Yeah, those are fun. They're spending and I'm just
like no, they're surprisingly expensive.
Like I was, I looked them up cuz I wanted one too.
Like man, this is probably like under a grand easy and they're
like 4 grand for the entry level ones.
Yeah, the ones I was looking at for like 35 to 37.
So yeah, it's like, I can think of a lot of different things I
would rather spend almost 4 grand on.
Yeah, no, for sure. Like a Stairmaster.
You're definitely gonna get one of those too, right?
I don't have the ceiling right for that.
I'm limited. I have 8 foot ceilings.
I'm not blessed with your compound gym with like 15 foot
ceilings, that's true. Didn't think about the
situation. Yeah, the I haven't found one
yet. That's a low enough profile, but
it's like I have room for it. It's just I don't know what one
I'm gonna end up with because of the way this there's.
Cycle back, yeah. They required from 12 to 18
inches of additional height to clear the step trap as it cycles
under. So it's just that's kind of
hard, makes it difficult. I don't feel like having my head
in the ceiling. You could just have like a
little cutaway just for your head.
Like a little one of those. Like I got aquariums, you know,
I got a little bubble cut away. You can just.
Cut that out. I might need to do that.
That might work perfect. But then if I ever want to move
it, then I got to set another hole.
Yeah, there you go. There you go.
Speaking of aquariums, I'm totally going to deviate from
the the, the gym talk right now. Talk about that aquarium you Did
you go to that aquarium when you were here or no?
The the restaurant? No the the aquarium in
Springfield, MO. Cuz you came and visited with
me, I don't know, a couple months ago now, you did you stop
by that aquarium when you were driving through or no?
No, we did not. OK, must been somebody else I
was talking to. But there's like, this massive
aquarium in Springfield, MO. Like, that's part of a bass pro
shops, but they had like a, like multiple museums there.
They had a rifle museum, all kinds of historical rifles
there, an archery museum, this gigantic aquarium with all
different kinds of exotic species in there.
That's the one you guys just went for Rivals birthday, right?
Yeah, yeah, very cool. So next time you're in the area,
man, you definitely gotta check that out.
Yeah. No, yeah.
We when we went down there, so we flew into Memphis.
That was a mistake. Yeah.
And then we spent a couple days in Memphis and then we went to
Nashville. I had some work training out
there, so I had the we were out there at one of our manufacturer
plants out there. And then we came out to you guys
cuz it was an 8 hour drive and I'm like you know what, it's a
like a 30 hour drive if I were to drive from my place here in
Washington. So let's just make a couple
hours hung out with you guys for a couple of days and then we
ended up going back to Memphis before we blew back home.
Take care man. It's a good time.
Is a good time for sure. Well, I'm gonna come check out
your operation in person before 2.
For long, I'll be able to use your home gym.
When I'm in Washington for those competitions.
At least that's the point. Yeah, I think I might need some
more plates for. You though?
Well, how many people are gonna be using your gym at any one
point? You said you got like 8 bars.
That's a ton of bars. Yeah, I've got.
So I joined the home gym Discord server, which watches out for
like rogues deals, and they have like one deal that pops up from
every now and then, but it sells out generally in about 20
minutes. But it's like $100 for a random
bar. You don't know what it's gonna
be. It's $100 if they ship it to
your door. So I have a couple of those,
I've got Ohio bars, I've got deadlift bars, all kind of stuff
like that. My collection just keeps
growing. So one of my clients just
completed Joe. He just sent me a rogue deadlift
bar. And because I've never, I've
used deadlift bars before, but I've never owned the deadlift
bar and the rogue deadlifts are not legit, man.
Like, I've I've trained the gyms that have deadlift bars, but
they tend to jar. They just jar me.
If I'm doing multiple reps, like if I'm doing a single, it's
totally fine. But if I'm doing multiple reps,
most deadlift bars like, I don't like the way the weight
disperses, you know, upon multiple reps.
It just jars the hell out of me. But but this new rogue deadlift
bar? I haven't had that issue at all.
It's super smooth. Yeah.
I've been looking at the Texas power in the bars, but I just
haven't pulled the trigger yet. But I need more bar storage
before I. Continue on.
Well your your home setup man is I think it's it's more complete
than mine. Like you've got more equipment
than I do. I believe you have that.
You got every. You have the legend, though, so
you got you got the well beat there.
Yeah, but I don't know, yeah, pretty good setup man.
How do you like the the Rep branded, the Rep fitness brand
from like an equipment standpoint?
Is that pretty solid? Yeah, I'm I'm happy with it.
Overall it is a metric rack. So it's instead of being three
by three, it's like 2.95 or something by 2.95.
So like I have Go Strong Roller Jacobs for example.
They fit perfect on rogue racks, but they're a little sloppy on
the Rep rack. So I've got to get some spazers
made. But overall I'm super happy with
it. So it was a little bit of a pain
because so Full disclosure, if you spend more than $10,000 for
the Rep Fitness in one purchase, you are considered a commercial
account. So they give you a discount and
it varies based off of how much you spend, but you need to be
way more specific when you're with building it through the
commercial side. Then if I were to just go on
their website in order. So that was a little hard
because we had some missing pieces and things like that that
weren't put in our order that I didn't catch.
So it took me a couple extra weeks to get that all sorted
out. But overall I would do it again
a heartbeat and you if I had the hype, I would have gone with
Rogue. So.
Yeah, I like my rogue stuff. I haven't had any issues thus
far. And you, your rogue rack is
super nice. Yeah, like my rack.
I I got that one specifically because I want to add the belt
squad attachment to it because they've got that drop in Rhino,
you know, the Rhino, yeah. Belt squad.
Which Aaron's got as well, and he was singing its praises.
But you got a belt squat attachment that is like just the
the pivot on the the column, right?
It's just like a a pivot on the one of the rack, one of the rack
arms of the squat rack. And you can just load that with
plates right? No, I have one that actually
attaches to the cable machine. So I have £300 stacks of in the
back of my rack but it and I have the lat pull down
attachment with it. So I have a cable that goes up
and then I have a base plate that goes drops in like the
Rhino but it's just a lot smaller that I can do the belt
squat that way. Gotcha.
So it uses a lat pull down basically and just pins it at
the bottom for a belt squat. It's it's nice, it's not as nice
as the Rhino. I had the privilege of using
Aaron's when I was down there for opposing class.
Yeah, it's way nicer than this, but it's also, you know, this is
like a 200 dollar $300.00 setup versus I don't even know what
the Rhino is, I. Think it's like 2500 or
something like that. Yeah.
I mean, your cost difference is huge.
But I have never used the Rhino, so I'm glad to hear that you.
I also use it and are a fan of it because it's always kind of.
I like to use the equipment before I get it, but I feel like
it's been pretty well tested from the people that I would
consider reputable people. When it comes to knowing what
the equipment feels like, it should feel like it's way
smoother than anything else I've used.
As far as belt spots, I've only used a handful of them, but
honestly, the Rogue One is probably the nicest.
And I did consider the they have the Rhino with the deadlift
platform modification, where it's like the Rhino can also
double the deadlift platform. I've seen people build that out,
but it's just the space thing at that point.
Like that's a huge footprint. So I may do that in the future,
but you know. It's always good options, man,
Always good having options. Home gyms are never done.
Yeah, that is the truth man. Because I've honestly, I have
not added that much equipment to mine over the past, I don't
know, probably 4 years because we built our home gym out
originally at our first compound in Bryan and all we had, that's
when we got that legend fitness like jungle gym thing and then
we had a squat rack and then since then.
And we had our dumbbells. Since then, I've gotten an
additional squat rack, but that's pretty much it.
Like, I've done pretty much all of my training for the past four
years on free weights and some simple cables, and I don't feel
like I've got any glittering holes in my workout at all.
I think the barbell the was the most, the most efficient piece
of equipment you can use. If you have like limited space.
Yeah, totally a barbell and a couple of plates and you can
knock out every single muscle group you need to.
It's not gonna be perfect, but it's something.
Yeah, 100%. Well, all these crazy fancy
gyms, they have like all the different types of equipment in
the world. And a lot of people in the
bodybuilding space are trying to train very specific muscle
groups and isolate everything and target something through a
specific Rep range. And it's like they kind of like
turn their nose up to just, you know, simple dumbbells and free
weights. And I've done literally, like I
said, nothing but those for the past four years.
And I don't feel like my physique has got.
Any glaring weak points as a result of not having all the
fancy equipment? Like, I feel like everything
that I've wanted to bring up has been brought up using just the
basics with training. I think that is that's important
cuz I feel like a lot of people get so same as nutrition, they
get so hung up and all the minutia out there.
There's just so many different ways of doing things and there's
so much content now that people come into the nutrition space
and like, Oh my gosh, do I need to?
Count net carbs, total carbs. Or do I need to worry about seed
oils or do I need to do keto or do I need the carb cycle?
The same thing happens with training.
They're like do I need to do drop set super sets?
Do I need to do a deload week? Do I need to have a certain body
parts split or trained full body?
It's like just get in there and freaking transist to A/C T
Fletcher song when I was working out today and he was like the
hell with range of motion. Just get your body in motion,
you know? And I feel like that's that's
half the battle right there. Yeah, I think well.
And I think exercise, diet and everything blows down to
sustainability. What is sustainable for you?
There are certain people. I mean, you can get stupid lean,
you know, if it fits your macros.
Taking a vegan approach, A keto approach, a chronicle approach.
You can do it in any any nutritional manner you want.
You can also, you know, get stronger using if you're doing a
full body split, push, pull, legs, you're doing your eight
day rotation, you know you. There are so many different ways
to do it. It's just finding what works for
you and sustainability in your lifestyle. 100%, ma'am, 100%,
Well, what, what's in the pipeline for you from a
competitive standpoint like you and I are still working together
with your reverse? And I mean kind of going into
the building phase now your calendars are getting high
enough where you're starting to tip into a surplus that allows
you to build more muscle. But what do you want to do from
a competitive standpoint? What do you, what do you foresee
the future looking like? So you're competing this year
and then you generally take two years off.
So what's that 20/5/2025 that you're going to be competing
next again? May that would be pretty early
for me. Certainly not any earlier than
that, but maybe an additional year 26.
Why you trying to step on stage with me?
Yeah, I'm trying to get big enough to where hopefully I can
do something. I mean, ideally my goals next
time around is when the novice class, yeah, then go in and
compete and be open. When it open class, then win it
overall and maybe a pro card depending on, you know whether
it's like OK if I win my class, so like the Washington State
Natural Pro AM, that's a super pro qualifier for the WNBF.
It's like the winner of the class gets a pro card.
So that would be great. But you know, I don't know, I
just wanna take some time, get bigger.
There are certain body parts that I have that are lacking.
My lacks are definitely that one for me.
So I'm going to be working on those pretty heavy for the next
couple years and then definitely want to bring up like my
hamstrings and glutes and everything.
You felt like they didn't come in tighten up.
So and then we'll, I mean we'll see like 2526 is kind of the
time frame. I'm looking at competing next.
Give my wife and my family just enough of a break to where they
forget about how miserable I could be at the very end of
prep. To where?
Hopefully this time around, this next time around, I'm a lot
better to where she's not even realizing I'm in prep.
That will most certainly happen, man.
Like I like I said, the first show, the first prep seasons of
the hardest, because you just don't have that perspectives the
next time you go into a cut. Like, you'll be so much more
aware of when you're being an ass to your family and you'll
catch yourself beforehand, ideally.
And then not be an ass because that's what I'm trying to do
with my prep now. Like I'll like, I'm I'm nine
weeks in as of today, this this is the my nine week, nine week
mark. And I don't feel, granted, my
counters aren't that low yet but I don't feel like I've been rude
at all. I don't feel like I've been
short at all and it gets easier and easier the more preps you
do. So, like, I feel like the fact
they're even thinking about that now.
It just ensures that you're in the right head space, and when
that time comes, you'll just be that much better for it.
Now, if you would have caught me, like, right after the first
show when I had just gotten completely mopped by everybody
on stage, you know, and you'd caught me before one of the gals
backstage. Her name's Effie, but she
actually works for Aaron quite a bit.
But before her and I talked about, you know, it's the first
show. Like, I don't remember exactly
what she said, but it like completely turned around in my
headspace. And, you know, she's just one of
the sweetest, most genuine people you'll ever meet.
So she, you know, if you would have caught me before her and I
chatted, I probably would have told you I'm never doing this
again. Yeah, now you know, post that
show, post the NPC show and a couple, you know, several months
into a reverse diet. Yeah, I'm gonna do it again.
What do you think? I'm definitely gonna do things
differently. Like what did she say?
What triggered? Like what do you think the the
catalyst for that tipping point was?
I think it was along the lines of it's your first show, you're
learning and you know your goal next time around needs to be to
beat yourself, not you know. You win a pro card on your first
show like that's a pipe dream, you know, but you know just
doing better than you were yesterday.
And I think that's a very much a mentality that like since then
I've just tried to adopt into everything, cuz I think I kind
of swept that all under the rug. I'd be a better father, be a
better, you know, business owner, be a better son, husband,
whatever. In every aspect of your life, be
better today than I was yesterday.
Yeah, and people say those things and they make great
quotes, and it sounds so cliche that people just kind of brush
over it. But it's so important, man.
Like, if you just simply fixate on that and truly try to be
better than you were previously, that is a monumental leap of
progress. You know, like if every single
time you step on stage you look better than you did previously,
and not just simply look better, but also have a better outlook,
a better mentality, better relationships throughout the
entirety of the prep like that. That has a if that happens.
Then everything that led up to that and everything that's
happened as a result of that has also had a compounding
improvement effect on your overall life and everything
interacting in your life. So it's a huge win on all
fronts. Yeah, I mean what is it like if
you make a 1% improvement every day you're it's I think it's
like 35 days or something that you've made 100% improvement.
Yeah, I can't remember the exact math, but it it's some along
those lines. And it's it's a I don't know,
it's a beautiful thing. Like, I look at the mentality I
have now when I'm training even, and I like enjoy the workouts,
like I push myself and I'm I'm hitting new Pr's.
But I legitimately look forward to working out.
I have fun with it, whereas I remember at points in my, you
know, first competition prep. I hated going to the gym.
I hated working out. I hated the way it made me feel.
I hated feeling depleted and trying to, you know, put this
this weight on my back and go down and come back up with it X
number of times. Like I put all this pressure on
myself, which I mean, no telling what my cortisol levels were
with that first prep, but like, it just it sucks the fun of them
at the end of the day. Bodybuilding.
Is like a sport. Like people go and they play
tennis because they like tennis. People go and water ski because
they like water skiing. People go to bodybuilding
ideally because they like bodybuilding.
If you're absolutely miserable through it all, then what's the
freaking point? Yeah, if you're not, if you're
not finding some sort of enjoyment, why are you
continuing just making yourself miserable?
Yeah, totally, man. Totally.
Well, I'm stoked for you, bro. I'm stoked for the the future
competitions. I would love to step on stage
with you. Although I will warn you, man,
like, if you're up on stage of me, like, I ain't gonna be going
easy on you. Yeah, I know.
That's why I gotta figure some things out first, you know.
Gotta get, gotta get bigger than you.
You probably wouldn't. I mean, you've got more size
than me for sure. So like you would most certainly
outsize me. And I'm never gonna be the
biggest count stage. Like I'll never hope to be the
biggest count stage. I just wanna get, like I've
said, the latest man alive that is, yeah, and that's, I think,
okay. So we went to an NPC, an
untested NPC show here in Vancouver April 1st.
But I was looking at the level of competitors, comparing the
WNBF, the NPC, untested, and the tested side the natural one.
Man. The WNBF competitors are just a
different level. You look at them like, yeah,
they're not nearly as big. Yeah, that's to be expected with
a lot of them. But man, they're way later.
It's just, it's crazy. Yeah.
And so I look at some of the NPC guys and they're I'm looking at
them going, man, you look like some of these WNBF guys that I
know that you know are just getting, you know they're
halfway through the prep and you're you're stepping on stage
right now. It's just it's a different
level. I think the WNBF and I don't
know if the Federation you went pro and looks at it this way
too, but like the leaner the better.
I I think that is definitely what embodies the sport of
bodybuilding most, you know, like it's great to have size.
But not at the expense of definition.
Like if you are outsized, but the person that is bigger simply
lacks that conditioning. Like that to me is much less
impressive like I am. Like you obviously want to be
somewhat, you know, developed. I mean you don't want to walk up
on stage at 110 pounds as a man in the open bodybuilding class
and be peeled out of your mind but have no size at all because
it's not going to be good. But if you've got.
You know, I would much rather sacrifice size for conditioning
and most natural bodybuilders share that same sentiment.
You know, that is that is where the work is put in.
That is where the the, the dieting philosophy and mentality
and just you know, discipline comes in.
So that that is key that that to me is what embodies the support
of bodybuilding and I don't know why A lot of the NPC competitors
there are certainly some really shredded and PC competitors.
So not to take anything away from them, but I feel like such
an emphasis is placed on size In the untested shows that
conditioning is oftentimes just put on the back burner, and I
think that needs to be flipped for sure.
Yeah, I agree. But you know, each federation is
gonna have their their biases and their preferences like some
are gonna want. They're gonna put maybe a little
more emphasis on the symmetry side rather than the size.
It'll. The lameness and conditioning or
others are gonna put the conditioning in the front versus
size like the smaller guy may give it because he's more
peeled, but the NPC has and that's the beauty of the
different federation. So you get to pay and if you
have a certain an advantage like you're.
The bigger guy in the room, and you're very broad shouldered,
but you're not able to get his lean.
Like the NPC might be a better option for you if you're wanting
to be more competitive, yeah, versus if you have a really hard
time putting on size. But you can get freaky lean and
just peeled out of your mind, you know?
OK, maybe you go look at the WNPF for the OCB or one of those
other natural federations, 100%, man.
Yeah, always good having options when it comes to federation.
There's certainly a lot of federations out there now, so
options are abounding everywhere.
What about coaching, man? You started coaching yourself as
too as well, right? How's that going?
It's it's going. We really haven't.
It's so it's my business season. We also own a pool and spa
contracting company. So we fix and repair pool and
hot tubs. And so we're recording this on
Memorial Day which is one of like four days a year.
I take off and this is we just got done with our big push.
So now we're going to kind of float through to 4th of July.
We're going to have another big push there right before then.
So it's like I don't put too much emphasis on the other
business right now, which is Gal Strength Co, which is just like
you guys is. We're not coaching competitors.
I don't want to. We started this because Alyssa
wanted to help moms who are postpartum and I know.
Crystal kind of feels the same way with the bounce back
mentality of that's unhealthy, like, oh, I lost all my baby
weight. It's like, yeah, you've gone
from one face to another though. You've gone from creating life
to feeding the life. Like you need to not worry
about, oh, I'm, you know, got to get back to my, my prepregnancy
weight. It's no.
Let's focus on, you know, things like milk production.
Like just getting you feeling better or getting strength, you
know, losing some of the, the unnecessary but still focusing
on the important thing. So we built that for her.
So, but I haven't put much into that just because with the other
business I'm so wrapped up with. But it's it's fun.
We had a couple clients for a little while.
So a lot of them, because we do take the Kyo approach.
They think keto is great and just gonna be, you know, bacon
and eggs and that's all they're gonna eat.
And then, you know, we take a whole food approach and they
don't like it because they're like, well, I just want to eat
potato chips now. It's like, well, that's not how
we do it. Yeah, so finding that niche is
kind of hard. But you know, under a year old,
it's actually under, it's six months old now.
So I didn't expect it to be. Any profitable for the first
like 4 years. So hey, growing it bit by bit,
day by day, man, that's the name of the game.
I mean, having your own niche carving that out, I love like
the focus on, you know, postpartum moms and getting them
healthy and not fixating on their weight necessarily so much
as their compositions. I think that is absolutely key.
Yeah, I mean, shoot. Look at a.
You know, because we're talking about moms.
Look at 140 pound mom with 110 pounds of lead mass versus 140
pound mom with, you know, 70 pounds only in mass.
Like they're going to have two completely different
compositions regardless of the weight being the same.
Yeah, totally, man. The.
Scale is a number. It's not going to hurt you.
That's hard to understand, but. It's great data but it's not the
end all be all you know there's so many more things.
It's like the the non scale victories are more important.
You know the hey, this shirt fits a little looser now or you
know, oh I have to go buy my favorite pair of pants in a size
down now. Like those are the little things
that you know, we need to focus more on rather than just oh I'm
sub, whatever. Number it is, yeah, totally
agree. And I feel like bodybuilding can
force people to operate on either of the extremes when it
comes to that relationship with the scale and weight body
composition. You know, like it really.
When you do a bodybuilding show in a healthy, sustainable
manner, you're able to appreciate what the body is
capable of and how various compositions and weights look on
you. And then you can take that
knowledge and leverage it going forward throughout the normal
daytoday building phases. But I think at the same time,
people can oftentimes fixate on the negatives and focus on the
things that aren't as important as the actual composition.
But if done correctly, I think bodybuilding just opens one's
eyes to what's possible and what their weight at various
compositions can look like. Yeah, there's.
I mean, there's a whole lot more.
To all of this than just one number, one number isn't gonna
define you. You know your your day-to-day
functional strength is gonna be a huge, huge thing.
How you feel every day is gonna be an important thing.
If you're you know, yeah you can you can be keto or you know
heavy carb or vegetarian or vegan.
But if you feel absolutely miserable the entire time.
I think you need to re approach it.
Really look at it and approach it at a different angle.
Totally. Cuz it's about moving forward in
a positive direction and finding what works for you as an
individual. And I don't.
I Kito works for me, Kito works for you, it works for my wife.
But it doesn't work for everybody.
Not everybody sees it that way, like my brother.
Was vegetarian and vegan for years and he found that work
would be well for him for several years and then he, you
know, has moved away from that side.
He doesn't think it works for him now.
So now finding what works for you and changing with your
cycles. Yeah, 100%, man.
How's your son doing? Great.
Yeah. He's a freaking tank though. 18
months now. Yeah, running like crazy.
Is Rigel running yet? Not running yet, but he's like
standing up and not holding on to anything.
So he hasn't walked yet, but I think it's literally gonna
happen within the next day or two.
Yeah. I saw him trying to open the
doors in the pantry the other day.
Yeah, yeah, he's. And I was just like, oh boy,
that's that's fun. He fell out of his crib this
morning. Like, we needed to lower it
down. We, I know.
I pointed that yesterday. Like, man, we need to lower that
down. He's getting too big for it.
And then literally today he rolls over the top of his crib,
hits the ground. So that's been lowered now.
But but yeah, he's getting into all kinds of missions for sure.
Yep, Yep, It's fun. It's fun.
But you know I'm excited to get them back together here and
October when you guys come out to this side of the country,
yeah, I'm looking forward to it man.
It's gonna be awesome to see you again in person.
It's gonna be awesome to to get a work at in with you at that
legit gym you've got building out now and just it's just good
to know you man. I appreciate all that you've
done. I appreciate all the support,
appreciate working with you as a client, coach, and I just
appreciate what you're doing, man, so keep doing it.
Where do people go to find out more about you, brother?
So we got a couple of ways. So the guile strengthco.com,
that's GEIL strengthco.com is for our coaching stuff.
If you're looking at us, though, go with Robert, He's a better
coach. Full disclosure, you can find us
on Instagram. DG under Score Keto is me and
then we also have at Guile Strength Co.
On Instagram, if you want to see pictures of our border collie,
one of our puppies, you can always go to revin the border
collie and that's linked and on my page too.
And my wife's linked their mind too.
Beautiful. Well, I will definitely post all
those those in the show notes being easy for people to find
you. And we will be in touch on
Slack. I got your macros updated for
this week, so definitely hit those.
And if you have anything from, yeah.
I know. Can we please have some more
fat? Well, I'm trying to.
I'm the. Proteins killing me.
I'm getting tired of chicken. Don't your bricks.
And chicken has been my saving grace for the last three weeks.
I'm gonna bump up your fat really soon.
I just want to get you up to 200 grams of protein first.
We're getting, We're getting gotta.
Give you a hard time about that, though, before you know it, man.
All right, Dakota. We'll keep killing it, brother.
We'll be in touch and we'll talk soon, man.
Sounds great. Have a good one.
You too, brother. Bye.