Tyla Serro joined us live in the Wits & Weights Facebook Group to share her journey. She was my first interview guest (back in Episode 17), before we started working together on her nutrition plan, and she even planted the idea of me becoming a nutrition coach.

Tyla Serro is a powerlifter, mom of a toddler, military spouse, and working professional. She keeps herself busy lifting heavy weights, volunteering with Protectors of Animals, all this while working full time as a Configuration Manager in the Aerospace Industry.

Tyla recently acquired the title of Connecticut State Referee for the United States Powerlifting Association and will be judging an upcoming powerlifting meet in November. She’s passionate about raising awareness of Primary Lymphedema, a rare disease that her son was born with.

When she's not doing all of these things, she enjoys the outdoors with her family and truly believes that an active lifestyle is one of the many hacks to living your best life.

Topics discussed in this episode:

• Tyla's background with lifting and nutrition

• Her fitness and nutrition goals over the last year

• Experience with dieting

• The process we went through for her fat loss phase

• Who and why someone should track macros

• Tyla's proudest moment on this journey

• Education and awareness that comes from working with a coach

• Planning ahead and enjoying social events and dining out

• Tyla's increased confidence in her ability to sustain results

• The importance of strength training

• Her thoughts about the upcoming muscle-building phase

• Where someone should start when it comes to health and fitness

RELATED LINKS

• Find Tyla on Instagram

• Protectors of Animals, a non-profit, primarily volunteer, no-kill organization whose mission is to increase the quality of life of all dogs and cats in the communities they serve.

• Watch the episode on video here

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Transcript

Philip Pape  00:08

Welcome to the Wits & Weights podcast, where we discuss getting strong and healthy with strength training and sustainable nutrition. I'm your host, Philip Pape. And in each episode, we examine strategies to help you achieve physical self mastery through a healthy skepticism of the fitness industry, and a commitment to consistent nutrition and training for sustainable results.

 

Philip Pape  00:30

Welcome to another episode of Wits & Weights, and we are streaming live in the Wits & Weights Facebook group and we just renamed it recently. To that so it's easier to find. You can join the group absolutely free, you get access to tons of free information guides, training and interviews like this one, which is an early preview to what will become a podcast episode, and tons more related to strength and nutrition. You can find the link in the show notes. I'm your host, Philip pape, I'm the founder of Wits & Weights, nutrition coaching. And real quick one of the best ways to support the show is to submit a five star rating and review for the podcast with Apple or Spotify. Or just share this episode, you could take a screenshot, throw it on social media, tag me at Wits & Weights. Okay, I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while because one of my superstar clients Tyler zero is joining me today to share her journey. She was actually my first interview guests way back in episode 17. Before we started working together on her nutrition plan, and she even planted the idea of me becoming a nutrition coach. So I'm very grateful for that. I've always admired her, I'll say tireless positive energy, she has a passion for everything she does, whether it's fitness, or any other causes she's involved in, and her commitment to the process, despite challenges thrown her way. So let me tell you guys a little bit about Tyler ciros. Tyler is a powerlifter. She's a mom of a toddler, she's a military spouse, and she's a working professional. She keeps herself busy lifting heavy weights, she volunteers with protectors of animals. And she does all this while working full time as a configuration manager in the aerospace industry. Tyler recently acquired the title of Connecticut State referee for the United States powerlifting Association, the US PA and she is going to be judging an upcoming powerlifting meet next month. So we're recording this on October and the meat is in November. And maybe we'll put a link up to that when it's when it's out. She's passionate about raising awareness of primary lymphedema, a rare disease that her son was born with. And when she's not doing all of these things, she enjoys the outdoors of their family. And she totally believes in an active lifestyle is one of the many hacks to living your best life. So Tyler, I'm stoked to have you on the show to share your story, the ups and downs all the success you've had this year, I think your true inspiration and thank you for coming on. Thanks, so. So last time you were on the show, we talked about your powerlifting journey. And what we did, and we talked. So listen to that episode 17, guys, and today I want to dive into nutrition with you. So let's just start earlier this year, what I remember is you've been listening to the podcast, it was maybe 10 episodes. And at that point, you reached out to me to give me some feedback. And then we started to go back and forth from there. And that eventually led to your interview on the show, becoming a coaching client and so on. So walk us through what was going through your mind when you first reached out to me and then we'll go from there. So, um, do you mean when I think you reached out to me first, right? And you asked I think the first said was, hey, do you want to be on the podcast and talk about powerlifting. And so I was really excited. I thought that'd be really fun. So I quickly binged all of the episodes of Wits & Weights, so that way I would. Well, one I had agreed to being on the show before I had listened to any episodes. And in hindsight, you know, you probably should feel out the whatever it is that you're agreeing to do, right? Because I had no idea of what message or messages you were putting out there. So I quickly listened to I think all the episodes in a couple of days. And I was really impressed with everything that you had to say. You definitely took an approach that I agreed with. Everything made a lot of sense. Sorry, Hang on one second. My cat is trying to eat my dinner.

 

Tyla Serro  04:34

You were you were saying a lot of good stuff. And I was like, Wow, this guy's really smart. And I had no idea I had followed you on Instagram and I knew you were lifting weights and doing things like that, but I didn't know that you knew so much about strength and conditioning, health in general. And I almost felt a little embarrassed myself for kind of like I've said this more recently to fill up that I consider myself a lazy athlete and

 

Tyla Serro  05:00

And that I don't know a lot of the reasons why I do the things that I do. Like I've always worked with a coach for my programming.

 

Tyla Serro  05:10

And I wasn't really sure why I did those specific specific movements. I just did them and I saw great results. So listening to Philips podcast inspired me to listen to more content like that. I mostly listened to like true crime podcasts, which is a completely different genre. So that kind of gave me a bug to listen to more content like that and become more interested in like, what is progressive overload? And how does all that work? And why is nutrition such a big, important part of all of all of that? So yeah, so yeah, you you invited me on the podcast, liked it thought it was great. I think after our interview, I probably was like, hey, Philip, you should be a coach, you're really good at talking and smart. Why would why wouldn't

 

Philip Pape  05:59

you do this? Yeah, it's funny. So I mean, I love everything you talked about with education and awareness, even though you've been at this for years. And thank you for correcting my memory of all of this, because I get things out of out of order. You're right, I had invited you onto the show. And then you listened to it, and then got back. Yeah, so thank you for for correcting me there live, which is great. And when we started working together, so yeah, you're right after the last interview, we were off camera off recording. And we had a little chat about nutrition and coaching. And that kind of planted the seed. But as you said, you already have the solid foundation of, of practice at least of strength, obviously, as a competitive powerlifter. You'd work with nutrition coaches. So maybe tell us a little bit more about your fitness and nutrition goals, maybe just over the last year as you're working on process.

 

Tyla Serro  06:51

So I was working with some other coaches right up until I made the switch to work with you, once you decided to, you know, take on the commitment of becoming a certified nutrition coach. And I have nothing but great things to say about my my previous coach, she did a really good job, I guess the onus was on me that I wasn't really good at adhering to the protocols that I was given. I know I when I first started working with them, I was in the beginning, I was very compliant adherence to the macros and I was able to meet the milestones or goals that I was setting. And then as time kind of went on, I just became less and less interested in tracking really. So we tried to switch the approach to intuitive eating, which was so funny, right? When I made that switch to intuitive eating, I was intuitive eating at the time, and I listened to one of your episodes where you talked about that. And you were like for people who are brand new to the tracking and nutrition and whatnot, it's really not a good idea. Because it's really hard, especially if you don't have any foundation of weighing food and knowing what an appropriate portion is based on the goals that you have, it can be really hard to just lose it what is a serving of protein that really depends right on how many grams of protein you need, in that one meal. So I did have a pretty good foundation I was pretty comfortable, I guess was what a balanced plate or meal looks like. So I did do intuitive eating for a couple of months, kind of as my exit with the previous coaches that I was working with. And at that point, I had gained a decent amount of weight I want to say around like 10 pounds in like a year's time. And that was kind of weird for me because normally my weight would fluctuate maybe like three to five pounds, but 10 seemed like kind of drastic. No I didn't I didn't really wasn't really comfortable with that number of like, my clothes are starting to feel really tight and uncomfortable. Like, what's going on? I gotta die on my nutrition. And so when I started working with you, I definitely knew that that was the goal. Now however, like I said, I've been strength training and working with coaches on nutrition and whatnot. But I've never done a true caloric deficit and actually stuck with it ever. So I'm super proud that I was able to do that with you. Yeah,

 

Philip Pape  09:22

yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. And I want to say you said you were you had tracked before you then went to intuitive eating, of course, we track and you put it really well you put it better than I can about, you know, somebody who isn't quite experienced using tracking to develop that skill before they go to intuitive eating. But if we go even before that, had you had you tried other like dieting in the past, you know, kind of what a lot of people try, whether it's paleo, whole 30, keto, vegetarian, anything like that. Have you tried those in the past?

 

Tyla Serro  09:54

I yeah, I mean, I think all of us who have been doing this for five plus 10 yours, you try it all right, like I can remember, in high school even thinking that like sugar was the enemy. So anything I would like read late, that's when I started to learn to read labels to probably in like a home economics class. And man, you know, you start reading labels and just certain things were bad. So anything that had added sugar, I would try to avoid that. But I would find that like, you restrict yourself so much, and then you end up binging it. So I remember I did something like that, where I basically cut out all added sugars, but at the end of the day, like a car was a carb, right. So that, of course, didn't work. And then in my first few years of college, I started doing CrossFit. And at the time, Paleo was super, super big with all the CrossFit people. Um, and I was like, oh, yeah, I can get behind that. Like, I love meat and potatoes, and yeah, no carbs. Um, so I did. I don't think that I ever did any of these diets truly. But I tried, right, I would call it a low carb diet didn't really know what I was doing didn't have a legitimate training plan was just going in the gym, finding random workout stuff, a bodybuilding.com and swinging weight at my college gym. But it worked, I guess. So I'd say I probably gave paleo the most effort, but it was also probably drinking way too much alcohol on the weekends and stuff like that. And I don't think that's part of the Paleo plan. I never tried keto. I did try the carnivore diet for maybe like two weeks. Oh, my goodness. Like, no,

 

Philip Pape  11:41

that's gotta be tough, right? Because you're cutting out all plants. I can't

 

Tyla Serro  11:45

remember. It was like orange juice, eggs. A lot of red meat. Yeah. Just really interesting stuff. I mean, hey, if it works for you keep doing it. But um,

 

Philip Pape  11:55

yeah. So and that's the question is, do these things even work for people? And when we say work, what do we mean? Do we mean work to lose 30 pounds? Or do we mean work for something you can live with for the rest of your life? Right.

 

Tyla Serro  12:06

And I think you put it really basic, like, you've said this before? Maybe you haven't said it specifically, but other people have like, it doesn't really I mean, it does, it does matter what you're eating, but you need to be in a calorie deficit in order to lose weight. It's as simple as that and how you choose to fuel yourself. Yeah, there's better options, maybe but uh, other than that, I think those were the few diets. I never tried, like whole 30. I never did any like, cleanses or all those like I would call typical. Like a lot of women will do like whole 30. Or, like, I feel like keto is pretty popular with women too. But like all the talk, I remember listening to an episode, I think of Joe Rogan. On the Keto, real, the real effect of it and like to get yourself into a true state of ketosis is pretty difficult to do. And I don't think he average, Dieter can get themselves there without the help of an experienced, probably coach. So none of those things worked for me. None of those things were sustainable.

 

Philip Pape  13:15

Yep. So they, so they didn't work. Yeah, no, they didn't work. And for a lot of people, they, you hear time, and again, they they tend to not work. That's why we have, I think something like 95% of people eventually regain all their weight, within five years, something like that. So we're trying to change that. And I want to wait to talk about what you've learned, even even since we started working together about the process that others can use, when it comes to your relationship with food. And where I'm going with this is, you mentioned energy balance is important, right for gaining and losing weight, calories in calories out. But we also know that it's not as easy, it's simple, but not as easy for people to actually do that, in practice, due to a bunch of other reasons have nothing to do with food, right. Like weekend's, you know, or social events. And maybe we can dive a little bit into that. The process we kind of go through to identify those triggers those obstacles and things that have nothing to do with food and and deal with those.

 

Tyla Serro  14:13

Yeah weekend's so I always tell people that there's a huge like, for me personally, food, there's an emotional connection that I have with food, I love food. I love sharing a meal with friends, family, even a stranger, I think I can sit down and drink some coffee and eat, you know, a croissant or whatever any delicious thing and I feel like there's some level of joy that that brings me and then also that like conversation as well and they just seem to go really well together. And I always tell people, I have like really good discipline, but I have terrible self control. So I'm disciplined in the sense that like, I typically don't like people come over my house and like you guys have no snacks. And I'm like, Well, you Yeah, like, what's the point of snacks like just put together a meal? In the snacks I do have I guess my friends don't approve of.

 

Philip Pape  15:07

Oh, yeah, they're thinking like bagged packaged foods right like chips and stuff

 

Tyla Serro  15:11

Cheez Its and pretzels and things like that. And like, cut off

 

Philip Pape  15:15

cucumbers of hummus they want

 

Tyla Serro  15:17

no or they don't. Because the oil separate. But, uh, yeah. So if, if so back to the discipline, self control thing, right? Like, I typically don't buy that stuff. I just buy stuff that I know I can eat in appropriately so that way, I'm not like binging it should control your environment. And right, yeah, but if I go out to like a social gathering, and there's a huge charcuterie board with a ton of cheese and jellies, and jams and crackers, myself, control is like really hard, because it's there, and it's in front of me. And I'm like, Well, I'm just going to eat it. And I tend to be like, the type of person and you've actually taught me like, if you go over your macros by like 100 200 calories, it's not a big deal. But don't just like say screw it. And like, I hope I can say that. Whatever, like, I'm just gonna, you know, binge always just go 1000 over your macros, which I personally kind of had that all or nothing mindset. And I'm still working on like, not being that person. Because it can be really detrimental to your goals and progress, right? Like, a couple, a couple 100 calories is maybe not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But when you're doing that on a weekly basis, every weekend, you're going over by a ton. It's just going to take you longer if you're if you're in a deficit, and you're trying to lose weight. So yeah,

 

Philip Pape  16:45

and let me just stop there, because you just hit on the, I think that's the heart of the vast majority of people, where the issue is, you just talked about a lack of self control. And so basically comes down to emotion. And in the moment, decision making, you're all of a sudden presented with all these options. You're like, what do I do? And then you make a decision. And you're like, Ah, I feel a little guilty, you know, that over my calories, but what the hell, let me just keep going. And, and especially if you throw alcohol in the mix, where you don't even realize what you're eating, or you throw appetizers at the Mexican restaurant or whatever, yeah, it adds up. And like you said, on a weekly basis, it can, it can sabotage your goals. But conversely, if you're over by 100, or 200, on a given day, on a weekly basis, it really isn't that big of a deal. Don't beat yourself up over it, you know, aim for perfection, but don't beat yourself up when you don't get there.

 

Tyla Serro  17:35

That's yeah, and you really helped me see that too, with like, I tend to be because of my personality. And I feel like I tend to be somewhat of a perfectionist. And if things aren't perfect, I'm like, well, it's ruined. Just forgetting, um, you want to help me? And during my, like, weekly check ins, see, like, the positive sides of things and be like, Yeah, I know, you. You like, like, I was focusing a lot in the beginning on my scale. Wait, I'm not to try and wait. Like, every day I was like, like getting excited to to weigh in. And it would fluctuate a little bit. But I'd be like, when it would fluctuate down some. And then it took me a cup, like maybe a month or two to really be like, Okay, I really need to be looking at the trend way here. Because I would mention that in my check in and be like, oh, you know, my skill weight fluctuated a little bit. And you're like, Yeah, but when you like, look out at the big picture, your trendway is so going down. And that's what we're trying to do here. So it's like, oh, okay, like adjusting my mindset in a way that I didn't even know I was capable. Doing really. So that's

 

Philip Pape  18:37

awesome. Yeah, that's awesome. Man. That's another great point you made about a trendweight. Now that that's the term we use, because the app we use macro factor uses that term, just for the listener, the person watching all we're talking about as a moving average, right? If you did this on your own spreadsheet, it would be taking a moving average, or even if you weighed yourself once or twice a week, and just looked at it over time. But what Tyler is saying is that if you if you look at your, on any given day, you look at the scale, you could freak out because it could go up by three pounds. Or it could go down by three pounds. And over time. The trend is really what matters, right? So when So speaking of the the weight and the data and the tracking and the macros, you mentioned tracking macros, and you went to intuitive and then we I got you back to that. Yep. When did you start tracking those and why with you or, like ever? Yeah, just more of a general question for the listener. But I mean, like, do you think people should track macros? Why should they do it? You alluded to earlier right, as there's the education and awareness piece, but I mean, is there more to it than that?

 

Tyla Serro  19:45

So that's a really interesting question. Short answer is no, I don't think everybody should track macros. I think we're probably a very small minority in the world, right? Like the average person probably does not track macros. Um, and I think it goes. So there's so much to this with wellness and health and nutrition, and also mindset. And I think that a lot of people who maybe get into this space or they want to lose weight, there can be a huge emotional connection to that. And it may not come from like, the healthiest of places like if their their goal is primarily I just want to lose weight, I want to look better, like I hate the way I feel or look, I'm tracking macros, if you've never done it before, it could be a really hard thing to do. And the whole point i Well, I'm not a coach, but I would assume as like a coach, you want to help people you want to like create sustainable habits that will work for a lifetime? And is tracking macros, something that you can do for a lifetime? I mean, maybe you can, but I don't think that's really anybody's long term goal. And the average person to I don't know, I don't know if it will work super well for them. But I think you yourself have to really figure out like, Okay, well, what am I trying to do here? And I think you've taught me to see that, like, all this is just data, it's just data. And if you separate the emotion from it, and you're just seriously looked at as like data, because one thing to say to about the app that we use macro factor, with previous coaches and apps that I would use for tracking, I would not be truthful, I would often underestimate or not track things. And then when I would, you know, my coach would see, okay, this is what your weights doing. This is what you're telling me, this is what you logged. I don't know, you know what I mean? It's like I was doing myself a disservice by not being 100% honest. And what I really like about macro factor is like it is you see it live time that it is not in your best interest to not track what you eat. Because if you do that, it's going to think that your expenditure is less than what it actually is. So you should track everything. And if you're not going to track then just don't track for that day. But I mean, I get it depending on like your lifestyle and your your goals, it may not be for everyone, I will say that if you're serious about wanting to lose weight, or gain weight, or understand the data on how all of this stuff does work, it's definitely gonna probably be the easiest way to do to reach those goals. It works.

 

Philip Pape  22:31

Yep, I like, Yeah, I like how you put that it's the easiest way is, you know, something that seems complicated, or seems inconvenient, or seems like it'll take much time. Once you figure it out, it's a skill, right? Within days, you can start to figure out how to do it pretty quickly. It just takes a few minutes out of your day. Or what Tyler just said, what you just said was, if I interpret it is the structure itself creates the freedom kind of to get to your goals, because now we have information we have understanding. And you talked about expenditure. And just so we can clarify what we're talking about. That's, that's the metabolism. That's the calories you burn every day. If you know what you're eating, and you know what you weigh, you know how much you're burning every day. So your coach, if you if you're working with a coach, or yourself, you know, then okay, this is why I'm gaining or losing weight. There's always a factual reason behind it. And that doesn't mean there's not other things at play, like stress, sleep hormones, especially for women, especially, you know, perimenopause, there are a lot of factors. But you've got to, you've got to rule out all these variables one by one. So I like what you said about macros. My clients all use those. But if someone came to me and said, I really don't have a good relationship with macros, I don't want to do it. Is there another way, of course, there's always an alternative, it's going to be slightly less optimal and slightly less effective from a time perspective. But from an emotional perspective, it might be what the person needs, you know, like, using portions or just tracking protein or something like that. So that's a great point. Yeah.

 

Tyla Serro  24:08

One thing that I think is, you know, interesting, what was I gonna say? Ah, remember,

 

Philip Pape  24:14

I'm rambled on. Maybe it'll come back. Okay. Yeah, this, this is a stream of consciousness type deal. We go off on tangents, it's not good. Alright, so let's switch. Let's get some macros. Think about so far. What would you say is your most proud moment on this journey so far?

 

Tyla Serro  24:34

One actually, like, it's crazy. So it's October now. We started this in July. And there were definitely some hard days and weeks and feeling like and that's the whole thing too is if you're in a caloric deficit, you're eventually going to feel it. You're gonna have nights where like, I'm hungry right now. I need to just go to bed and tomorrow's a new day and maybe I'll make better or day Rent choices. I don't want to say better or worse because it's whatever, but make different choices when it comes to the volume of food that I'm consuming, so I feel a little bit more full tomorrow. So it was, it wasn't easy. It definitely wasn't easy to do it. It took a ton of like discipline and self control and saying no to certain circumstances. Not that I did that all the time. I did I will. I'm not going to sit here and say like, I didn't have any fun this summer I went out I enjoyed myself. I did limit the alcohol though. I would say in total, I maybe had five, five total drinks during this whole deficit. For me alcohols just not a big priority. It's not worth the additional calories. I'd rather have ice cream. So pick your rice, but you can't have it all. Or you shouldn't she's gonna take forever.

 

Philip Pape  25:51

But you could have some of it. So that's yeah, to the point here. You

 

Tyla Serro  25:53

absolutely you can you can have like you can't not. And I think that's the whole point, too. It's like, you can eat just about anything in a deficit. You just might be eating less. So

 

Philip Pape  26:08

you know, for me watching they're eating ice cream now.

 

Tyla Serro  26:11

For me, I got addicted to like, yeah, so bars, which they're just frozen Greek yogurt. I think they're they range in calories from like, 100 to maybe 150. For the, like chocolate covered ones. They're super, super macro friendly. So those are good ice cream alternative if you are in a deficit.

 

Philip Pape  26:34

We just started when we say macro friendly mean, high protein.

 

Tyla Serro  26:37

No, they're not. They're not. Okay, just, they're like 100 calories. So they're probably like 1518 grams of carbs and low fat and probably not much protein. I'm not somebody who ever has an issue with hitting my protein. That's true. I'm always over. Um,

 

Philip Pape  26:55

which is fine. You can never be too far over the protein is fine. Yeah,

 

Tyla Serro  26:58

protein can be hard for somebody who's who's not ever tracked it right? Because like, you know, when you think of the average, what does the average person ate for breakfast, maybe a bagel, maybe some cereal, some fruit, oatmeal. None of those things are high in protein. So, people, Americans love carbs. I mean, I'm an American. So I can say that. I don't know what other cultures like they probably like carbs too. Who doesn't?

 

Philip Pape  27:29

Hey, this is Philip pape, letting you know that applications are now open for one on one coaching. If you're a busy working professional, who has tried dieting and exercising for years, with little in the way of results, and you want to lose fat, get lean or if you're confident in your body without excessive dieting, cardio or restrictions. Just go to wits & weights.com/coaching to apply. You're gonna be getting a lot more carbs now though, because you're gonna be better handle it. Yeah, yeah, because Tyler is talking about so we just finished a, she said she finished the deficit. She's just finished about a 15 pound fat loss phase, I think roughly. And it was over a reasonable timespan about three weeks, about three months about the time we want to do 12 weeks. And she was able to enjoy most things that she enjoys, but some trade offs and some restraint involved. And now we're going to turn it around and try to build some muscle, which is gonna be a different I'm gonna be telling her to eat more food.

 

Tyla Serro  28:30

Yeah, it's only been what we'll say like a week. But last week was kind of crazy for me nutrition wise this week. I didn't do it today. But tomorrow, I need to actually like divide, what I like to do is like so take my macros and then divide it by like the number of meals that I plan on having which is usually four or five, and then try to make a balanced meal within those those targets. And I would like to give myself a range. So if I'm like, Alright, I need to have about 25 to 35 grams of protein per meal 35 to 50 grams of carbs per meal, and then that same type of thing, usually probably 10 to 15 for my macros adjust as whatever your macros are, but yeah, I'd say my proudest moments are comm actually completing a deficit losing weight, doing my check ins on a weekly basis, that was something I was pretty bad at with my previous coach. I just, I couldn't they could not get me to do my check in. And I will say if you're not a client of Philips and you're considering working with a coach Phillip has a pretty awesome setup. Also use macro factor. Also get a digital scale like these are all things that you gave as advice and your podcast and I actually took it and I was like wow, this made a huge difference to be able to just step on the scale in the morning and poof it beams to my phone. did have a little bit of issues in the beginning with that I think I don't know what it was maybe As my Bluetooth or something, but it makes it so much easier. And again, going back one of the first things I said when I joined this call was I'm a lazy athlete. A lot of us like to be lazy. I think you even maybe said that that's why you like to make a lot of processes, streamline systems and process. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Because like you want to take the easy or lazy way out. There's nothing wrong with that. Um, and if you make something easier, you're probably more likely to be compliant with it right? If something is hard, you're not going to want to do it. So thanks for all the advice Phillip gave. I hacked my way to make things more streamlined, more easy. So that way, when I do my check in now, instead of it taking me 45 minutes to complete, it takes me 15. And, yeah, one of the apps that you use for clients is super great, because it's like a dashboard. And it's got all your data right there. So if you have like a smartwatch, you can connect that and you can see your step data, your sleep data, your weight, your measurements, progress photos, that's really cool to have the all there. The the previous coaches that I was working with, I had it in like a Google Docs thing. And the thing was, like, over 100 pages long, it was just a mess, it was really hard to like actually compare data points, working with you has made that really easy to do. And it's great.

 

Philip Pape  31:21

Cool. So I didn't tell Tyler I didn't see any of this stuff about about my coaching. So I appreciate it. Plug. Like make sure to get that in there. But she did. But I do you really hit on a point when you talk about the proudest moment being not just getting the result, which I know everybody wants the result. But the skills that allowed you to hear be compliant and have consistency toward the result, which is something you can carry forward mean for the rest of your life. And that's one thing we all struggle with is doing it and doing it regularly and then continuing to do it. And a coach can help because you know, they poke you and they give you that extrinsic motivation. But of course, you have to do it yourself as well at the same time. And your comment about systems and process and efficiency and tools. Yeah, I mean, we come from engineering backgrounds, we're techies and stuff like that. So we understand sometimes the value of that as long as it makes sense as long as it pushes things forward. So the other the other piece, besides the doing it part is in the accountability is the education. Right? You know, I'm a huge fan of education, awareness. anybody listening or watching knows this. Of helping you understand why we do things, as opposed to saying just do it because I said so. So you can call it evidence based ScienceBase just stuff that works, whatever. What's something you've learned, it was like a big aha moment or something that changed your perspective or mindset about nutrition concepts. Just one thing, you've already mentioned a few. So

 

Tyla Serro  32:56

I've learned a lot. I feel like there was something Can I just do like a kind of silly this isn't really science evidence based. But it was something really interesting that you taught me when I first started working with you is like, on, like, if it's your thing, it's gonna take too much time to like, weigh out all your food, like weigh your plate, and then just like weigh the total weight. And then I think it was like, subtract out the weight of the plate or something like that. And then you can kind of like, break it apart. Let's say you had, you know, this much protein, this much vegetable, this much carb, you can divide that by what it looks like. And that's a pretty good estimate. So what do you say? Is it 20% 30%? Of what you want to be? 20%? Right?

 

Philip Pape  33:39

Yeah, yeah. 30 Actually, if you're within 30% Okay, your estimate? Yep.

 

Tyla Serro  33:43

So that that's something that I learned to that the whole 30% thing, like, you just have to be close, really, and like that'll pretty much work or get you to where you want to be. It doesn't need to be perfect, which is something that maybe my personality type being like type a perfectionist, it's got to be perfect, every little detail. Like it doesn't need to be perfect, you just need to be consistent, and you need to be really consistent. So like something I think you maybe mentioned this in one of your podcast episodes to in the beginning you said like, I don't know if you're just like doing a splash of creamer in your coffee like whatever, don't track it, but you need to be consistent with that if you're not going to track it don't ever track it don't just start tracking it like on Tuesdays you track your creamer I don't really track my almond milk, because I do unsweetened almond milk and

 

Philip Pape  34:31

like 15 calories for a water Giant Cup. Yeah, sure. Yeah.

 

Tyla Serro  34:35

So that's something I never really have tracked. I mean, and I still was able to do a deficit lose weight. It was fine. So

 

Philip Pape  34:46

yeah, like that. These are the all these little hacks and skills they add up. I mean, the the 30% You're talking about just so people know is the it's better to track within 30% than not track at all when it comes to China. Understand your intake. And that's a ton of saying is, if you go to a restaurant, and you have a bunch of food, you don't know what's in it, you kind of eyeball it, or you take a picture. And later on, you just estimate, you know how many grams and split it up by the ingredients. And I think Tyler You were talking about specifically, if you're like at home and you have the plate, you can weigh everything on the plate, so many serves you and then you can weigh the empty plate, subtract the difference, and then divide it. And we're making it sound maybe a little complicated, but it's these are helpful skill when you get into tracking with food skills. Yeah, good. Yeah.

 

Tyla Serro  35:33

So that was one thing that I learned. I mean, Philip literally does like tips of the day, every day, I don't know, he's got like, a ton of content, because I would try to do that for a few days and run out real quickly. But it's usually like really helpful tidbits of information that sometimes it might seem like, oh, yeah, that's obvious. And then other times, it's like, oh, wow, I had no idea that that's how that worked. And it's just a quick little knowledge drop, that I find really useful. So please keep doing it. I look forward to them. Even if I don't get to read it right away, I usually will catch up on it.

 

Philip Pape  36:11

Yeah, and what are the tricks, a lot of information comes from, you know, clients, and people watch podcasts. And people ask questions, and it's like, everybody has something they they're trying to figure out. And so, you know, even if 99 People have heard it, the 100th person hasn't. So it's gonna resonate with somebody and help somebody out. That's what we try to do. Awesome. Now, we you can't we touched a little bit on the weekends and the dining out. Maybe we can go a little bit more into the strategy, one or two of the strategies we use for planning ahead. You know, weekend's for you had been and maybe maybe continue to be a challenge because the routine is off. Right. And you're going out, you talked about a little bit earlier today about if you had the charcuterie and what do you do? But what is the strategy we use ahead of time to plan for that, that other other people struggle with this? So what do you think might work in that situation?

 

Tyla Serro  37:03

Yeah, so I really liked your approach to my struggles with the weekends, because you didn't just one like rain on my brain and be like, You need to stop doing that. You were never, you were always like, okay, you know what, like, these are a few options that we could try. So you came at it with several ideas, which was great, people love choices. You know, even my toddler who's two loves to make a choice, I give him an option, like these are the two shirts you can wear today. And he likes to pick one. So that was great, I was able to choose from several options that you gave, and one of them, the one that I chose was, we can do higher calorie days on Saturday and Sunday. Now, this may not be the most optimal thing for your training, because ideally, you want to have higher food days on the days that you're working out. But we know that like you're consistently not meeting your macros on the weekends. So what we'll do is we'll shift your caloric intake. So Monday through Friday, your calories will be slightly dipped. And then Saturday and Sunday, there'll be slightly higher, nothing drastic, but enough wiggle room so that way, if anything, it was almost just like a mental thing for me, too. So on the weekends, I feel like I don't know I was treating myself or Yeah, sure. Having a little bit more less structure than I do during the week. Kind of Yeah, especially you know, if you've got like a family and you're, you know, the weekend is going to be busy. And you don't want to like show up to all of your events with packed Tupperware man meals. I mean, maybe you're that person and you're dedicated and good for you. But it's hard for me to be that person. I like to enjoy myself. Not that you can't enjoy yourself with a tub or male you absolutely can.

 

Philip Pape  38:57

Yeah. Yeah, that's a that's a great strategy. If you're listening very, very simple. Strategy, right is to just toggle your calories during the week. And it may not be the weekend for you. It may be Friday, maybe Wednesday, it depends on your schedule. And then we just we kind of joked about it earlier today, that now that Tyler is eating more, and we're going to be even more food shortly for a building phase. I said, why don't we just stop doing that for now because you're gonna have so many more calories, we'll work with you. You may want those calories during the week while you're training to support your muscle growth. So we'll see how that goes.

 

Tyla Serro  39:31

Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to see how that how that goes. Like you said it's real nice to go from being in a caloric deficit to now eating well, what we're trying to find as my maintenance my husband is actually doing a cut right now.

 

Philip Pape  39:52

You're gonna overtake him.

 

Tyla Serro  39:54

And keep joking with all you know, you could have done this a couple of months ago and we could have done this together and it would have been a lot easier because you know At night, he would be eating his snacks. And I'd be sitting there like so sad, oh, I want to have that. And now it's kind of the opposite way around, like my maintenance calories are just below what his like deficit calories are. And he's like, makes no sense.

 

Philip Pape  40:15

I'm a big guy. So it's two different goals. It's

 

Tyla Serro  40:19

two different goals. Yeah, yeah, I told them to us, like, just stick with it, or you're gonna be doing it longer.

 

Philip Pape  40:26

Yeah, and if, and if you're doing it the right way, you're gonna, you're gonna be in a cut for a quarter of the time that you're not or, you know, one a one to three ratio of cutting to building or maintaining, that's the goal, right? So that, like nine months out of the year, you don't have to be dieting, and in the three months where you are, it doesn't have to be that bad. You know, it might be a little tougher the first time you do it, but then after that, it should get better.

 

Tyla Serro  40:50

I will say to the deficit gave me like a confidence boost in that now that I know I can do it. I actually am excited to like almost take charge be in control of like, my, my fitness my health? Yes. Whereas before, I was kind of just going through the motions of lifting and eating and like, Oh, I've gained like 10 pounds time to dial that in. But now it's really exciting to like, Hey, you just successfully did a caloric deficit, you can do anything. Not that I think I'll ever do like a bodybuilding show or something like that. That takes some serious commitment, dedication, time, money, a lot of things, but it gave me the confidence to say, you know, what, if I actually really did set that as a goal, I could do it? Of course, I could do it.

 

Philip Pape  41:36

You know, my next question was going to be whether you have confidence in sustaining your results. And you just answered that question. And I love that. Because you said before, it was like, I need to lose some weight. Now, you know, like, we've all been there our whole lives, like look at every now and then you hop on the scanner, like, Ah, well, how did I gain those 10 pounds? Back? And you're in control? And yeah, we might, we might have done it in a kind of process oriented way. But you know what it took to get there, you know what it felt like, you know what you ate on most days? Like, if you had to repeat that without macro tracking? Do you think you could do it? Oh, yeah, I'm asking you that. Like, do you think you could do it without the macro tracking? Now that you've been through it before? Once?

 

Tyla Serro  42:19

The audio cut out there for a second? But do I think I could?

 

Philip Pape  42:22

Oh, that's weird. Yeah, do you think you could repeat a deficit now, anytime, with or without the macro tracking, knowing what it feels like what it takes to do

 

Tyla Serro  42:30

it? Without it? I don't know, Philip, um, I honestly, don't, I hate to say I don't think sorry, that I couldn't. Because I don't want people to think like, Oh, if macro tracking is not for you, like you're never gonna lose weight, I just think it's gonna be a lot difficult. And this actually, I remembered halfway through this point of what I was going to say, a little while ago. What you eat and what you fuel yourself with is in your control, right? You have control over that. Whereas a lot of these other factors that play into like, maybe while you're having a difficult time losing weight, or can't lose weight, like sleep and stress, and hormones, and all those other variables are a lot harder to control than what you actually eat. So if you can just say, You know what, like, I'm gonna make a conscious effort to eat these things. I know, these are gonna fuel me appropriately for whatever my goals are. You can like start there. Whereas like, stress, for instance, like maybe you have a really tough job, maybe you're commuting a lot, maybe, maybe you have like a lot of things that you just have a harder time controlling. Not that those are things that you can't take charge of as well, I think you can do it all. But baby steps you have to maybe the nutrition part of it is the easiest one to actually take control of. Yeah, I like the model like anything is possible. But again, the the tracking macros is just a it's an easy way to take control of the data.

 

Philip Pape  44:07

Yeah, it's a very effective tool. And I think, if you if you apply planning ahead, which is what the what the macro tracking does, right? Like you've got, you've been through a deficit, you know about what you eat in a given day and how it's distributed. You could conceivably create your own meal plan for that. And in the future, repeat that without necessarily tracking and I just want people to be aware of that. That is a possibility. It might be a fun thing to challenge yourself with future to get off of because what I want people to know is you can get off of macros eventually if you want to. I personally track track macros for a year and a half now and I just like to do it. It's a habit but not everybody is like that. The other things you talked about are the other areas that affect our nutrition that aren't food, right sleep and stress and things and you can't change everything. Sometimes you have to cope. But what you just hit on is everybody's different. Everybody has their own, like red flags and their own priorities. And it may not be food for somebody, but it's often food for for most people, right? So now what about let's talk about lifting for a little bit, you're, you know, You're a strong woman who competes, you'd like to lift. You know, it's not anything I had to worry about educating you about in any way when we met. So how important is strength training to you and your ability to get results?

 

Tyla Serro  45:27

Oh, it's super important. I mean, that for me, it changed my life. Like, I think back in 2012 2013. I was never like a super athletic person growing up. I played some sports, but I was the type of kid who like on the cross country team, my, my, I wasn't fast, and my friend and I would like run into the woods, and we'd sit on a rock for like, 20 minutes and be like, Okay, it's time to run back. I was definitely not like setting any records or anything like that. I think I tried out for like, the softball team didn't make it. I did cheerleading. No, I'm just kidding. Um, but I never was like, super athletic. And then I did CrossFit for a little while hurt myself. So went to Planet Fitness and did things like that. And I would go on bodybuilding.com. And I would find like workout programs. And I was like, kind of a good squatter, just naturally, people were like, you're built to squat, whatever that means. Um, so I would just go to the gym and squat every day, six days a week. And I got better and better at it. Even though I look back at like, old training videos. When I first started, I'm like, Oh, this is horrendous. But, um, it was really fun. And it built a community for me of people that were like me, and then a friend of mine. I think I mentioned this in the last episode, she invited me to her powerlifting meet. In this, this was in Rhode Island. And I mean, you had women who were like 138 48 pounds, squatting like close to 400, benching close to 200, and Poland close to 400, at like a local meet, which to me, I was like, This is crazy. These women are so strong, you know, they're totaling almost 1000 pounds, what can I do that so I joined a local gym, close to me, and I mean, made lifelong lifelong friends. And I started listening to another podcast to not just Phillips about like, strength and conditioning. And like they, they really, like say, strength is for everyone. And it really is. And that was like, one thing that I like, too is like you didn't have to have like a certain body type, or look a certain way to strength train. It can be really intimidating when you first start going to a gym. Like, I just think of a lot of those like commercial type of gyms, like, like are people there to like, what are they really there for. But in the actual lifting community that I joined, it was really truly people that were just like, hey, we like being strong. And people that really got behind you when they would see you like, lift, big weight for you, too. And it's all the other thing too, that I like about lifting is it's competitive, but like it only really needs to be competitive with yourself. Like you can be competitive with yourself, you can keep getting stronger, you can keep making progress. And it's not like a win or lose sport in that sense. I mean, it can be as you get with more elite, but it's just it's a it's a really fun thing. I love it.

 

Philip Pape  48:32

It's fun, it's part of what you do. I think it's also of course been instrumental in your ability to get your nutrition results as well, because you've, you know, you make it easier to hold on your muscle and, and prioritize fat loss, which I think is important for people to understand even if they're not doing that a powerlifting level of lifting, just getting that resistance training in on a regular basis. So we're about to start a muscle building phase. First of all, are you worried about getting big and bulky? No. Second, how do you feel? No, yeah, so face.

 

Tyla Serro  49:07

That's like my biggest pet peeve of all like here, women, people. One thing my previous coach taught me was like, Don't give advice just like it like advice is never free or shouldn't be. Because I've in the past, like tried people have come to me and asked like, Oh, I'm not losing weight, or can you help me like, you're so good at this stuff. And I'm like, I'm really not that good. I'm not certified in any of this. Like I can tell you what worked for me in my experience, but you should really probably work with a coach. And, you know, I feel like every woman says like, I just want to get toned. I don't wanna have big muscles. I'm like, me, I'm like the opposite my I want big muscles. I'm like, it's hard, right?

 

Philip Pape  49:46

It's hard to get them.

 

Tyla Serro  49:47

Like, yeah, like I want to be like stronger than your boyfriend or husband. Somebody had a shirt like that the gym was like, I was more than your boyfriend does or something like that. I'm like, Yeah, but I don't know. Maybe that's That's just my personality. Like, I have nothing like I've always and I've never been like a super petite female I weigh my weight normally is like, my adult life has been around like 140 to 150 pounds 150 pounds usually is pushing the like, Alright, I'm not feeling comfortable and my clothes. And I remember I can like remember talking to a coworker telling her like how much I weighed. I was like, Yeah, we're about 145 pounds. She's like, you weigh that much? Which like, don't say that to people. That's not like, like, I mean, I think intent is good, right? But it's like,

 

Philip Pape  50:36

right? She said, You mean she's saying you don't look like you weigh that much. Do you think oh, oh, that sounds heavy.

 

Tyla Serro  50:43

Heavy, because I think like maybe the ideal size for a woman is less than that. Which, what whatever that ideal is, you know, you can be somebody who weighs 145 pounds and be like a rock solid, lean muscle, and can be somebody who weighs 145 pounds and be like, not, you know, you could take two people that have the same body weight, and the same height, but like have completely different body compositions. So in that regard, like, weight doesn't matter. I mean, it matters for you individually, because you know, your body knows, like, what is probably a good healthy weight for you to be. And like, I'm not gonna like, I'll just put it bluntly, like being overweight, being obese, not necessarily your BMI. But like, if you are truly an unhealthy weight, like that's not good for your body, our bodies are not designed to carry around all that extra weight. Our organs are not designed to sustain that. You want to live a long, healthy life. Probably see if there's something you can do about that. Maybe.

 

Philip Pape  51:44

Yeah, I don't think there's anything controversial what you're saying. We talked about this all the time. No, I mean, there's, there's fat shaming and stuff like that, and body and the whole body image thing. That's like a different topic. But when we're talking about just blood pressure, and weight and stress, joints, and all those things, there's a factual component to it. And you're saying, you know, there's a wide range where you can be in a healthy weight, right, and it's different for everybody. And if, honestly, if I was working, I would want every female client that started with me to actually want to gain weight first, but that almost never happens. Because everybody wants to get to what they think is their ideal weight. Even you wanted to lose weight, let's be honest, right? But right, and that's okay, too. I mean, I myself, like I want to be leaner, but then I also have to spend time building muscle. So the building muscles side of it is super important. Because until you do that, you're just you're never really improving your body composition, just kind of oscillating between, you know, there's a good good points, Tyler. Okay, so I think we're getting close on time here. Let's say somebody is listening, they feel overwhelmed about everything we're talking about. They don't know where to start, like, what advice would you give them,

 

Tyla Serro  52:54

you have to start somewhere. And you have to be serious with yourself. Like, if I think a lot of people struggle with actually setting goals and sticking to them. Don't wait, today is as good as any day. Don't wait until Oh, I'm gonna wait till the New Year. Just start. And even if that's just like, You know what, like, I can't afford to pay for coaching right now. Or, like, there's so much information out there that's free, whether it's a podcast or YouTube or a lot of these people who are coaches that have clients produce a ton of free content on their, their social media pages, their websites, that you if you are truly interested in learning about this stuff that you can consume yourself. And you can probably teach yourself how to do these things. Like I said, In the beginning, it's really not difficult. It's not it's not like super hard to do tracking macros is not a super hard thing to do, it actually makes the whole process easier, you just kind of have to bite the bullet and like, try it and give it an honest effort. And then make the determination after giving it an honest effort, like is this for you? Or is this not for you? Is it working? Or is it not working? And then go from there, but I do think that if you have the means to pay for coach, finding a good coach, it makes a huge difference. I mean, I've been working with a coach now for fulfil up since July or end of June. But before that I was working with a coach for the past like year and a half. So you might ask like why do you why are you gonna keep paying for coach or don't you know all this stuff? And the answer is yes, I do know a lot of this stuff. But the accountability for me personally is huge. So maybe that's what you need to do too. You put money on the line and you're more willing to stick with something and hold yourself accountable.

 

Philip Pape  54:45

Yeah, I couldn't have said any of that better myself. So I will leave it at that. Tyler's wise words. We've got great information on this podcast and many others. That's how I learned. I did a lot on my own before I decided to go out and be a coach and I also had many coaches myself, and I still have coaches for training. I mean, we all need them many times in our lives and sometimes it helps us accelerate, getting to where we want to get and, and helps us become more educated so that we can be more successful for the long term. So, last thing, Tyler, where can people connect with you or any, any causes that you want them to support?

 

Tyla Serro  55:20

Sure, I'm mostly active on Instagram, my handle on there's at tireless zero,

 

Philip Pape  55:25

okay. We'll leave it at that. I didn't lose you today at Tyler zero Instagram. All right. So I'm gonna include that info in the show notes. And I hope anyone watching or listening who feels like you know, what they've done before hasn't worked, that they feel inspired. They feel empowered by your story today. Because I think it shows you know, you can, you can do whatever you want, you can take control, like you said, of the process and your results. And if you're committed to learning, right, if you commit to learning what we're learning about yourself and focusing on it. So you can do it on your own. You could accelerate it with a coach, you can see that someone like Tyler with tons of knowledge or experience she She's competing at a high level, she still faces challenges that we all face, you know, emotional eating, accountability, maybe some direction guidance, those kinds of things. So if you found the discussion helpful, or if you have questions for me or Tyler, just comment on the video, click the link in the show notes, or go to wits. & weights.com, look for the Ask Philip section on the homepage, including questions for Tyler could throw me in there and I'll make sure they get back to her. And we'll get back to you with an answer. So thanks again for supporting the show and listening to Tyler's story. Stay strong. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for listening to the show. Before you go, I have a quick favor to ask. If you enjoy the podcast, let me know by leaving a five star review in Apple podcasts and telling others about the show. Thanks again for joining me Philip Pape in this episode of Wits & Weights. I'll see you next time and stay strong.