How To Get Back On Track When Your Routine Gets Screwed Up

Jeremy (00:35.854)
Thank you so much for being there. Zach is not here. He is still on vacation today. So we are joined again by my coach, my friend Joe Villegas. Joe, thanks so much for stepping in, sitting in Zach's chair. I'm sure he won't mind when he gets back. But for our audience who is not familiar with you, please tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Joe Villegas (00:51.97)
Yeah, man. Thanks for having me on again. It is my pleasure. My name is Joe Villegas, longtime kind of strength nutrition coach, and I've worked with all kinds of folks. I think I said in the last episode, everything from stay at home parents to folks in the UFC, getting ready to beat the crap out of people for a living. So been a lot of fun, very blessed to have these opportunities and very blessed to have this opportunity yet again to sit in Zach's chair and keep it warm for him.

Jeremy (01:08.303)
you

Jeremy (01:18.088)
Well, I appreciate you being there and I appreciate you being here now especially because I just went through one of these weekends where you know, we had we had visit We have friends in town staying with us for a few days and luckily I had gotten in like all of my workout goals before they got here So I didn't have to worry about like making up for one on a Saturday or something I have my schedule pretty dialed in with this stuff. So I got ahead of it and I was like good to go They got here and it was immediately like up super late catching up, you know talking till 1 2 in the morning and

Sleeping in then of course like you know not the healthiest breakfast choices like we did get in some hikes we got some movement in during the days and stuff like that but for the most part most of the routines most of the things that I used to hold myself up and keep depression at bay and feel healthy and feel strong and all the things I mostly cast them aside for the sake of like spending time with my friends who I never get to see. Worth it sure yeah I love spending time with them but I immediately

felt the effects. Like within a couple of days, I found myself hitting a wall in the middle of the afternoon, started like my brain started playing tricks on me with like feeling a little depressed, feeling a little down. And it was just, it was so alarming how clear the difference was in my behavior and the outcome, where that was much more symbolic of the way I pretty much lived my life all the time prior to getting on this track of taking better care of myself.

And there's so many things like this, like supplements, different things you can do where you don't really notice the difference until you stop. This was that, right? I stopped and oh man, I just felt awful. And I found myself going, I can't wait to get back to the routine so I can feel good again. So I mean, I don't know really what the question here is that I have for you other than is this common? Do you see a lot of people doing this where like everything's going great and the minute the thing comes off the tracks, it's just a mess.

Joe Villegas (03:09.186)
Yeah, oh yeah for sure I feel like you know, I mean, okay here's here's my personal experience a page out of Joe's book, right is I I have had trouble with this in the past where like if my wife and I go on vacation by like the middle of the second or third day, I'm like I Gotta I gotta prep a meal. I gotta go do some push -ups. I got it right and I have a hard time like letting go because I know I

what it feels like to not do those things after a while. And like you said, when you set those routines aside and you start to feel what the old lifestyle felt like, dude, you go running back to like, all right, I'm gonna get up on time, I'm gonna hydrate, I'm gonna work out, which I think is important for folks every once in a while. I think it's important to experience that, right? Like we get caught up in our routine, like yeah, you might work out regularly and you eat well and all these things.

Jeremy (03:42.964)
Yeah.

Jeremy (03:53.746)
Yeah.

Joe Villegas (04:08.386)
but you can get even complacent doing that. And I think, you know, it's something where it actually can be beneficial to experience what you've experienced because now you know what the opposite feels like and you don't want to go back to that. So it's almost like a little injection of motivation to get back into your routine and do your thing. So.

Jeremy (04:10.281)
Mm -hmm.

Jeremy (04:18.644)
Yeah.

Jeremy (04:25.171)
Yeah.

Joe Villegas (04:27.04)
You know, for the context of what you dealt with, overall, like, how often do you see these friends? Like, almost never, right? They probably didn't stay for terribly long. So you want to be present, you want to enjoy the moment, enjoy the time, give yourself a little bit of grace. But you know full well, the second they start driving away, you're like, I'm back to Jeremy world, you know what I mean? Like, I'm doing my thing now, for sure.

Jeremy (04:48.395)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah. No, and it's so easy to lose the self compassion piece of that where I in the past anyways, I know that had I done the same thing, I would spend the first week they're gone, beating myself up for what a failure I was for not being able to stick to my promises to myself. I can't believe I did that. I'm such a loser, like all this stuff. But like you said, like they would they left, I look at the calendar and went when's the next time I can get to the gym.

how like, let's drink a ton of water, let's flush the flush out the system, like, let's get things back on track. Because I just I just felt miserable. I know Zach's been going through this he a couple months ago traveled, he's been sick for like three months and hasn't been able to go to the gym hasn't been able to do the things. So much of our conversation has been how depressed he is how lethargic he feels how miserable he is because he's not doing these things. But I'm also curious, like, do you see people become too dependent, like, to where the to like when the routine falls apart, it's like,

Joe Villegas (05:33.954)
Yeah, yeah.

Jeremy (05:42.776)
almost catastrophic for them.

Joe Villegas (05:44.928)
Yeah, yeah for sure and that can be tough right like You've got to have a degree of flexibility Right in my opinion like I mean even even some variety in your life is important, right? You can't like I only know of maybe Legitimately in the 12 years I've been coaching people I've maybe has Definitely to maybe three clients total like ever this is like I mean I haven't coached a million people but like

easily over a thousand people that I've like, you know, worked with in some way or another or more who like legitimately live that lifestyle of like at 8 a .m. I do this at nine oh five. I do that. I'm like they're very type a and they basically put themselves in a bubble and that's how they do it. But that that's how they're wired. They're just wired that way. Right. For other folks like and I think a lot of like the downfall in.

Jeremy (06:33.914)
Right.

Joe Villegas (06:39.49)
Some of the motivation we spoke about in the last episode which if you're listening now and you haven't go check out that episode because it was it was dope we heard from the P90x man himself You know, it's a record anyway, but the you know, the point is is like I think it's important to build in some flexibility to your plan and to your program so that Psychologically when these things pop up you're prepared for it. Okay, so like

Jeremy (06:59.481)
Yeah.

Joe Villegas (07:07.05)
An example would be and this is what I do with with folks that I work with when we focus on nutrition generally speaking is They've got a plan a we discuss a plan B and we discuss a plan C So like if all goes to shit they have other things to fall back on So mentally they feel like they're still on task. They feel like they're still on the plan

Jeremy (07:26.511)
Yeah.

Joe Villegas (07:29.25)
and they don't just like hit the rumble strip driving and then just like go off into a ditch. You know, they can hit it and just kind of get back in the lines, which is what you would do in real life. So the examples would be like a plan. A plan A is like the ideal scenario. Okay. Like you've weighed and measured your food. It's portioned. You have it with you on time. You heat it up, you eat it. That's like the best case scenario, right? Plan B would be like I...

Jeremy (07:34.939)
Hahahaha

Jeremy (07:40.283)
Right.

Joe Villegas (07:55.756)
control all my prep but I can at least control what I'm putting in my mouth. Like I'm gonna focus on single ingredient whole foods like lean meats, vegetables, fruits, etc. Plan C would be like I'm stuck at a kid's birthday party and I'm surrounded by sheet cake and pizza and I don't know what to do with my life, right? Like what do I do? In that case we focus on more, you know, sometimes you find yourself like that but who knows?

But in those scenarios, you focus more on like mindful practices, right? Like, hey, I'm just gonna eat slow. I'm gonna have like one piece of pizza, eat it really slow and feel myself getting fuller sooner. So I don't like, you know, wake up covered in cake, you know, in a ditch somewhere. That's I don't wanna do that. So when we have those kinds of plans in place, it's like, yes, you have a plan, but it's almost like built in flexibility, right? It's kind of having a plan ahead of time.

Jeremy (08:22.971)
Yeah.

Jeremy (08:40.315)
You

Jeremy (08:49.115)
Yeah.

Joe Villegas (08:49.73)
before you experience those things. So in your case, like for someone listening, yeah, go ahead.

Jeremy (08:51.899)
Yeah. This.

Jeremy (08:57.118)
No, no, finish with that. That's fine.

Joe Villegas (08:58.434)
Yeah, so I was gonna say like for for your case like let's say your friends are gonna come back in the summer Right and you kind of know what to expect you can begin to plan ahead a little bit and say, okay I know like we're always gonna have dinner together and breakfast together, but during the day is variable So maybe you can like, you know plan lunches a bit better and hold on to a couple things in your routine But like let go of some other stuff right like for me every summer

Jeremy (09:16.415)
Mm -hmm.

Jeremy (09:24.32)
Yeah, yeah.

Joe Villegas (09:25.226)
Every summer my family goes to Long Beach Island for a whole week. My whole mom's side and it's like craziness. Like my cousins are all grown and like rowdy and it's a ton of fun. And I know like there's certain food that's gonna be there that I love and I only have it that one time a year. It's like.

I don't eat a jelly donut all year, but down at that beach, I'll have like one every morning. You But it's like three days of the, you know what I mean? It's not about a whole week that I go, I only go for a few days, but it's like three days. You know what I mean? Like I'm not gonna beat myself up over a few days. I'm gonna have like a pork roll, egg and cheese, not Taylor ham, pork roll, egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast. Like I'm gonna have those things, cause it's kind of like what comes with the package of that experience.

Jeremy (09:48.992)
Right. Right.

Yeah.

Joe Villegas (10:09.282)
Right? And I'm not going to give myself a hard time, but I'm planning for that. And I know that the bulk of the rest of the year, I'm pretty dialed in. Right?

Jeremy (10:10.402)
Right, right.

Jeremy (10:20.227)
Yeah, yeah, this occurred to me that this happened last summer. And I know we're talking about this in February, but and actually people are hearing this in March. So anyways, this came to me the other day, I was thinking about the fact that, you summer vacation for my kids is right around the corner. Last year, I started my year strong, I was going to the gym every day doing all the things. When the kids were home, I did not have a plan. To me, I was like, I'm still going to go to work. I'm still going to go to the gym. I'm going to do all the things. Meanwhile, there are little tornadoes running around me. I'm like,

Oh my God, I can't, how do I fit this in now? And it took me all summer to figure out I really never had a plan and it completely derailed everything. And so I'm trying to be much more thoughtful even now, months ahead going, how am I going to do this differently? What is that going to look like? Meanwhile, like as people are hearing this episode, I'm on vacation, right? We scheduled this, we recorded this a few weeks ago, it's finally being published and heard, but I'm probably somewhere in Italy right now.

Like, I mean, eating amazing food, like just living the life, probably haven't gone to the gym in days. I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what happens. But I need to go into it with some level of what's realistic. We're going to be on planes constantly. We're going to be traveling constantly on the road, working, doing all these things. There has to be some level of balance here where enjoy it, experience what there is to experience. But don't let yourself so far off the hook that you're now, you know, needing to crawl into a dark room because you're so depressed and miserable about how awful you feel.

that you can't enjoy what you came here to enjoy.

Joe Villegas (11:44.866)
Yeah, for sure. And again, like there's a balance to it. So like when my wife and I go on vacation, like before we had our son, like we know that we like to go out to dinner. That's what we like. Like that's part of that experience of vacation. We like to try new restaurants and like we want to go and like split an app and get entrees and a glass of wine. Like that's our big meal for the day. So like when we travel, I'm not like, oh, I got to have 50 grams of protein every three hours. I set that aside. Usually breakfast, we get something quick.

Jeremy (11:58.629)
Mm -hmm.

Jeremy (12:13.926)
Right.

Joe Villegas (12:14.722)
Like this is actually literally what we do is we'll get something like on the road for breakfast. We usually sound silly. We'll just buy a loaf of bread and like PB and J at our Airbnb and just make a couple sandwiches. And then we, and then we go out to dinner and like, that's just what we do. And so what I'm focused on is like generally my total calories for the day, not like macros and timing and all this stuff. It's like, let's, let's.

Jeremy (12:26.406)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Villegas (12:42.154)
Loosen loosen the grasp so to speak a little bit like enjoy my life It's all good. But when I when I do that and I know that's my approach going in I feel successful because I'm following my like updated vacation plan. Yeah, I mean versus like You're trying to follow your home plan where you're in like the perfect environment you sent spent months or years like Massaging this thing to fit your home life. Well, you're not at home. I

Jeremy (13:00.902)
Right, right, yep.

Joe Villegas (13:11.97)
You're not in that environment. So you got to adapt to the new environment. And like, like for God's sake, like if you're in Italy, like how often do you get to do that? You know what I mean? Like, I like, you don't have to like go bananas. Yeah. It's like, you might do it twice, but like, you know, that's something where like, you don't need to go like totally off your rocker, but like, enjoy the, like, enjoy the experience. And, and to me, like there's 365 days in a year.

Jeremy (13:13.978)
Yeah.

Jeremy (13:21.865)
Right. Apparently every 47 years is what I'm finding.

Joe Villegas (13:41.026)
You know, like you can have like 30 to 50 of those where like you just kind of fuck off. You know what I mean? Like it's not going to like derail your progress, really.

Jeremy (13:50.121)
Right, right, yeah.

Yeah, the only part where I need to be careful and this is still just, I think, a matter of experimenting and learning my limits is I know just this last weekend was such a glaring example of what I put in my body drastically changed the way it functioned. So there is a level of enjoy balance and things like that. But I also know if I'm not putting the right things in, I'm not only going to feel kind of crappy like.

I'm going to get depressed. Like it's going to take over and it's going to shut me down and it's going to make me a miserable son of a bitch to be around. So I need to be really careful about like, yes, enjoy, but figure out where that line is between enjoy and you went too far and now it's going to take days to recover and you need all this quiet alone time to crawl back out of the cave. That's a, that's a tricky thing that I don't know that I ever really knew.

until really the last year of getting these things dialed in. I have, I got a little depressed on Saturday after eating my crap and not taking care of myself for a few days. That is the most depressed I have been since the end of last summer, which is like the longest stretch I think I've ever gone without some sort of a depressive episode. So it became incredibly clear and apparent to me that what I'm putting in my body plays a big part in what's going on between my ears and the stories I tell myself about who I am. So.

That's a lesson that I'm still trying to figure out. Like, where is that line for me?

Joe Villegas (15:17.954)
When you say that, do you mean like you ate certain things and they made you feel that way or you ate certain things at quantity and you were so full that you felt that way? Like what do you mean when you say that?

Jeremy (15:31.785)
Mm.

Jeremy (15:35.805)
I don't think it was I didn't eat like excessively but it was it was the things that I ate like normally I am very like you're talking about protein every three hours whatever like everything I try to eat I try to at least lead it with protein or have it be protein heavy and I only eat like two or three times a day and so in this case people were here so there was there was snacks out on the counter all the time lots of kids so lots of you know chips and you know snacks and things that were just sort of around

So just sort of that grazing of like when you walk by, you grab a chip, when you walk by, you grab a cookie. Like it's just, it was sort of that, that constant influx of foods, foods that I don't normally eat. That was like the major change because like I said, we went for, we went for a hike one day, we did a nice long walk and I've been talking four days. So it was like the physical activity part wasn't that much different than what I normally do. But what I ate was drastically different than what I normally do.

And that is the only change that I saw compared to what I normally do. And that, I think, is what started to bring on this episode that I was able to crawl myself out of. But yeah, it was very clear to me that that played a huge part.

Joe Villegas (16:40.834)
For sure. And so, I mean, if in the time we have, we can chat about that a little bit, right? Like if you want my two cents. Yeah. So it's, it is very challenging when there is like no friction between you and this like crappy food, right? And by friction, I mean, there's no like distance, right? Like when you and I have talked about this concept before, we're like, if you are somebody who's like, Hey, I come home from work and I'm tired and I ended up eating a whole pint of Ben and Jerry's cause we all know that's one serving, right? And I get stuck in that, like that loop.

Jeremy (16:45.742)
Yeah, let's do it.

Jeremy (16:58.028)
Mm -hmm.

Joe Villegas (17:09.89)
It's because there's no friction between you and that thing. And the idea is you want to create a lot of friction between you and the things you shouldn't have and very little to no friction between the things that you know serve you well. So for instance, if I like creating friction, let's say from ice cream, if I don't keep ice cream in the house and I want it, then I have to like put pants on and go to my car and it's cold out. Dude.

Jeremy (17:10.572)
Right.

Jeremy (17:33.743)
That's the worst. If I have to put my pants on for something, forget it. Game over. I'm not doing it.

Joe Villegas (17:37.122)
Deal breaker, yeah. I will never get ice cream again. But then I gotta get in my car, I gotta go buy it, I gotta pay the dude money. It's a thing, it becomes an ordeal just to get it. It's a lot of friction. Where if I have a bowl on the counter with apples in it, I can just go grab an apple and I'm good to go. So the next time, let's say in this scenario, you have these people over, try and have both snacks out.

Jeremy (17:45.873)
Yeah, yep.

Joe Villegas (18:01.666)
So at the very least you get a visual cue of like, okay, I know this one's bad food is gonna make me feel horrendous and I don't want that because that sucks and I don't even know where that rabbit hole is gonna go potentially. But I know that if I have this thing and there's no friction, it's right in front of me, I can still reach and snack on something and have the sensation I'm getting to eat, but I'm eating something I know is gonna serve me and what I'm doing. And like, If your friends are good friends, like if they really care about you, they're gonna give you shit.

Right? Like any good friend is going to bust your balls because they should. Like they're supposed to. That's why they're your friends.

Jeremy (18:33.105)
Yeah, totally. Right. That apple looks delicious, Jeremy. How's that going over there eating that apple? Right. Right. Right.

Joe Villegas (18:41.888)
Yeah, nice job nerd, you know what? They're gonna give you a hard time just like I would playfully because you know, I'm gonna coach you but the point is is like it's it's gonna come up, right? You might get a little pressure or like ha ha whatever but at the end of the day like If you can stop yourself for a second like take a breath and say, okay What what is life gonna look like in 24 or 48 hours a week from now?

If I keep doing like indulging in this particular food, I know it's not serving me. And like, I would challenge you to get very associated with that feeling. which I know is not something you wanna do when it's depression based. But when you say, okay, if you put yourself in that moment, like, dude, what does that feel like? And you're like, holy shit, it doesn't feel good. The likelihood you're gonna reach for that versus the fruit you put out.

Jeremy (19:22.197)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Villegas (19:32.29)
is way lower and you'll go for the better option. right? So that's like in this context that we're talking about, that's like one way you could handle it. Now on vacation, that's another thing, right? Like I talked about my wife and I focus on dinners and we increase the friction on the other two meals of like reaching for crappy stuff because we know dinner is gonna be like more indulgent. Do I sit down and say to my wife like...

Jeremy (19:54.357)
Right.

Joe Villegas (19:56.93)
Hey honey, we're gonna create friction. Like, I don't know, I don't do that. Cause she'd probably not be around anymore. But like I set us up to win. You know what mean? Like in one way or another. So that's kind of the point I want to put across. Hopefully that's helpful.

Jeremy (19:59.633)
All right.

Jeremy (20:09.941)
Yeah, and I think it comes down to the same thing that gets me into the gym every day and has me doing what I do all the other days is there just has to be a certain level of discipline and there has to be enough compassion for the situation to realize I don't need as much discipline for these next few days because it's not going to completely change all the work I've already done. I'm not going to completely undo everything in two weeks or three days or five days, whatever that short period of time is. So little compassion, little planning.

It all applies to every aspect of your life. Give yourself a little compassion, have a plan, have a purpose, have a little accountability and go for it, right? Like that's, it just depends on the situation and varies depending on what's going on in that particular time.

Joe Villegas (20:44.192)
Yeah.

Joe Villegas (20:50.53)
Right and and I think some of it to the last like point I'll make is like where you set your focus right? Like when you're at a party and there's food out and it looks yummy or whatever like a lot of us fall into that sort of like FOMO like all like There's they have jalapeno poppers like if I don't have them now, I can't have them later But like we we are some of the first generations Literally in human history that have food certainty you know I mean like like my grandparents great -grandparents had a ration food back in the day, right like I

Jeremy (21:16.44)
Right.

Joe Villegas (21:19.522)
They don't I don't even do that now I can literally walk to a convenience store for my house and get pretty much anything I want if I really wanted to right so like It's not that you're gonna miss out like those foods are at least you know here in America, right are abundantly available You can get to them if you wanted to so like no worries there, right? but I think a lot of it too is like understand like you said like give yourself a little bit of grace like and and

Jeremy (21:28.12)
Right.

Joe Villegas (21:45.954)
point your focus at what really matters in that time. If it's vacation or like you said with your friends, like why are you focused on junk food in the first place? Like why don't you focus on the conversation you're having with these amazing people who you never get to see? I'm like indulge in that, like indulge in that. Ask them how they're doing, like dig into like what's going on in their life and get outside of yourself a little bit. And I think you'll find the next thing you know, you're in a different room talking about something else away from the food in the first place. You know what I mean? It's like try and...

Jeremy (21:59.448)
Yeah.

Jeremy (22:03.512)
Yeah.

Jeremy (22:07.608)
Yeah.

Jeremy (22:13.622)
Right.

Joe Villegas (22:14.314)
direct your focus on things that really matter and I think it'll better serve you.

Jeremy (22:19.608)
Yeah, absolutely. Great advice. I know you would give advice and get advice like this from your guests on your show. Tell us about where we can find out more about you, Joe.

Joe Villegas (22:27.104)
Yeah, for sure. If you wanna check it out, my website, it's resultswithjoe .com. I've got a bunch of free stuff on there you can check out. And also to any social media platform is Results with Joe as well. And hopefully, you guys can check it out, take a look. And it was a pleasure having me on the show, dude. Thank you so much for having me.

Jeremy (22:46.584)
Yeah, thanks for doing this. But also you have a brand new online community you just launched.

Joe Villegas (22:50.434)
I do, yes I do, on the school platform. So if you wanna check that out, you can go to my website, the links, they all go right there, or any of the social platforms I'm on, like the link in bio stuff, it all just drives right to that community. It's super cool, basically building it up to be something where people have videos of me teaching them how to do all this kind of stuff that we're talking about and more. They get support from me to answer questions, and actually gonna start scheduling live calls they can just tune into and ask questions and get coaching as well. So.

If you're checking this out, you want to check it out, it's on the school community. The group's called Get Lean and Stay Strong. Or you can go to any of the Results With Joe socials or my website, resultswithjoe .com and get it there.

Jeremy (23:34.333)
And all that will be in the show notes for this episode at thefitmess.com. And by the way, if you've gotten any value out of this conversation, please do share this with somebody who could benefit from it. Just hit that share button today. Help us accomplish our goal of reaching as many people and helping them as possible. You're the key to doing that. So hit that share button and come back next week to thefitmess.com We'll see you then. Thanks for listening.