159: How to Eat and Train in 2026 | My Philosophies

**Nick Bare** (0:00)
We are offering the greatest subscription discount that we have ever offered before, 25% off at bpnsupps.com. When you sign up for a supplement subscription on our website in 2026, you are saving 25% off, which is a crazy offer, something we've never done before. So I would highly encourage you guys to take advantage of this discount, this sale, this promotion and this opportunity, so you can stay consistent and committed to your goals this year. Now into the episode.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is all about my diet and training approach and or philosophies in 2026 So what I am focusing on this year. And what I'm gonna talk about is based off of my personal approach, but also guided by questions that were submitted on Instagram. So earlier this week, as I was planning this episode and in this discussion, I posed the question on one of my Instagram stories, asking what do you struggle with the most when it comes to diet, nutrition and food as it is related to your fitness goals? And there were a lot of questions or answers submitted. And I'm going to use those submissions to guide some of the things I'm talking about. Now, before we dive into those approaches, those philosophies, I want to share how you can take ownership of your diet in this next year. And I have these four ways you can take ownership of your diet in this next year. And I've come up with these four things, because these were the most commonly submitted answers and or questions based off of that Instagram story prompt. I find that a lot of people struggle with meal prep, meal consistency. A lot of people struggle with meal portions, eating too much, eating too little, under consuming, over consuming. I have found and heard that a lot of people struggle with snacking and not eating enough protein. And the last thing that I heard quite frequently is that late night snacking and consuming and bingeing even is a problem. So here's four things you can do. Write these down in this next year to take ownership of your diet. The concepts are few, the methods are many. Here are four methods in which you can take complete ownership of your diet, of yourself, of your life in 2026 Number one, meal prep or food prep weekly. Now, this sounds like common knowledge, and we're going to get into deeper detail in these throughout this episode. But yeah, if you meal prep and food prep, it will make your life easier. You will have a convenient options, you have accessibility to food. But what I hear from a lot of people is, I don't have time to meal prep. I don't have time to food prep. My response is, if it matters to you, you will make time, you will find time. If it truly matters to you. I consider myself a very active individual. I have a full schedule. I am busy. I'm running a business, leading a team. I have two young kids. My daughter is three and a half. My son is one and a half. I'm married, happily married. Our schedule every single day, from the time we wake up to the time we go to sleep, is very full. But I still find time to meal prep. And I think a lot of people believe that what meal prep looks like is being in your kitchen Sunday afternoon for four hours. And you're making all this chicken and ground beef and rice and potatoes and vegetables. And you're putting them all, this bulk food, into individual Tupperware containers. So you have breakfast, lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch, dinner, breakfast, lunch, dinner, prepared for Monday through Friday. That is a way to meal prep. That's not the way that I meal prep. So if your response is, I don't have time to do that, well, neither do I. So my approach to meal prep and to food prep is to just find five to 10 minutes here and there throughout the week. It doesn't have to be all in one day to prepare foods and meals. So here's like the rhythm in which I take the approach.
Sometimes in the morning, after getting back from my morning run and the kids aren't awake yet, I'll fire up the Traeger and I'll throw some chicken breast on the Traeger. And then maybe at night, once the kids go down, before I hop in the sauna, before going to sleep, I'll throw some rice on the rice cooker and I'll heat that up. And right before I go to bed, I'll take it off the rice cooker. When it's done, I'll throw it in the fridge. And then maybe when we're wrapping up dinner at night and we're cleaning up, I'll throw a few packs of ground beef in a pan over the stove and cook up the ground beef as we're cleaning up. And I'll throw the ground beef on there, I'll season it. I'll go start cleaning dishes, throw them in the dishwasher, go back, mix it up, stir it up, clean off the table, go back, mix up the meat, stir it up, clean up the kids. Multitasking. So I find these moments throughout the day, throughout the week to prepare foods here and there. It's not this bulk amount of time all at once to prep. And I make food prep and meal prep part of my daily and weekly rhythms. But I think that's one of the best ways you can set yourself up for success and take ownership of your diet in this next year is to meal and food prep. Have healthy, reliable, accessible options available all the time based off of these rhythms you're building out and incorporating throughout your day and your week. The second thing you can do is to have appropriate meal portions. So I have two tips here. One, weigh your food. I don't track my food daily. I'm tracking intuitively. So I have a rough estimate and guess of how much and what I'm consuming on a daily basis. And this is really based off of me just eating the same thing pretty much day in and day out with slight variations. But I still weigh my food. I weigh my food for breakfast. I weigh my food when I'm preparing my lunches before going to the office. I weigh out the ingredients in my overnight oats. I weigh out my dinner. Even though I'm not tracking, I still weigh things for portion control. So when we're making dinner, for example, earlier this week, one of the dinners we made was grilled chicken and grilled steak. We roasted potatoes in the oven. We had broccolini on the side. I threw a bunch of broccolini on my plate. I didn't weigh that, but I did weigh out the meat and the potatoes. I added 10 ounces of potatoes and 9 ounces of meat. It was 4 ounces of steak and 5 ounces of chicken. And I do this not so that I can then go back and add the foods and the amounts into my fitness pal or any of the other food tracking apps that you might be using. But I do this for portion control. So I would encourage you, if you struggle with filling your plate, if you are a person whose eyes are much larger than their stomach, then maybe use a scale and weigh out your food so you have appropriate portions. There are some people, and I used to be this way, by the time dinner comes, I'm starving. And I would load that plate up. I would fill every part of that plate so you couldn't even see the plate. And I'd pile it high. And in some cases, I probably had 20 ounces of meat and 20 ounces of potatoes and just loaded it up. And I'd be stuffed and uncomfortable afterwards. So, get a food scale. You can get one for $20 at Target or probably your local grocery store. And weigh your food. I have multiple food scales. I have one in our pantry. We have one here at the office, in the break room. I have one in the main kitchen. I have one that I travel with. I like traveling with a food scale. For portion control. And the second tip when it comes to appropriate meal portions, this is something that I have found has been extremely beneficial. So when I eat dinner, I'm a fast eater myself. Maybe you guys can relate, but I sit down, I'm starving, I'm scarfing that food down. Especially because I know my son, who is in a high chair, I got to eat as fast as possible because he's going to lose attention and he's going to be crawling out of that chair as quickly as possible. My daughter is going to eat a little bit and then get distracted and probably be crawling on the table. So I have to get all that food down so I'm blocking and tackling the kids as they come at me during dinner. But if you eat really quickly, you finish that plate, it sometimes takes a moment for that satiety signal, that hunger signal to be dulled as you're still digesting the food. So weigh out your food, make your plate, get your portion set up. This is down the table, eat dinner. First off, if you can, I would encourage you to eat slower. It's going to be better for digestion. It's going to be a more enjoyable experience. And your satiety signaling, your hunger signaling will be better regulated. But with that being said, sit down at the table, eat your plate of food. You might be hungry still immediately upon finishing that plate. I know I typically am. Sit there for 10, 15, maybe 20 minutes. Let the food digest. Let your satiety signaling catch up to your stomach and your digestion. And after 10, 15, 20 minutes, if you're still hungry, go back and get seconds. But typically what happens to me is I finish that first plate, I'm still hungry. I sit for 10, 15, 20 minutes. My satiety signaling catches up to my stomach and my digestion. And I realize I don't need a second plate. And if I would have went and got that second plate, I probably would have been overly full if I would have done that. So weigh your food and wait after consuming that first plate before assessing if you really do need more. The third thing you can do to take ownership of your diet in 2026 is to make protein a priority. One gram of protein per pound of body weight daily, build each meal, each plate around protein. And my rule, take it or leave it, is no snacking. I don't snack. I have my first meal and my second meal and my third meal, I have my fourth meal and I have my fifth meal, which is a smaller meal before going to bed at night, which we're about to get into. But a lot of people struggle with snacking. Don't allow yourself to snack. Have your meals structured and set up throughout the day. And I consider a meal a meal if it is built around the foundation of the protein source. So, for example, my breakfast is built around eggs being the protein source. My second meal is built around either chicken or ground beef. My third meal is built around the foundation of protein powder. My fourth meal is built around the foundation of whatever we're having for dinner, steak, chicken, fish, salmon. And then my last meal that I ate, which like I said, is my smaller meal, is built around the foundation of Greek yogurt being the protein source. So I don't snack. I build my meals around the protein source and I aim for one gram of protein per pound of body weight daily. Make protein a priority. And the fourth thing, last thing you can do to take ownership of your diet, is to be prepared and have a plan for your late night snacking and or meals. So I like to have my go to after dinner before bed meal if I need one. And to be honest, I typically do need one. I personally like to eat before going to bed because if I don't, I find myself waking up in the middle of the night pretty hungry. We eat an earlier dinner, we eat dinner typically at 5 p.m. I'm starving by 5 p.m. And then I'll have something around 8.3 or 9 p.m. And for me, my go to is Greek yogurt topped with raw cacao nibs, little bit of maple syrup, unsweetened coconut flakes, and some honey. And then on the side, I have an avocado, I cut that avocado in half, I eat the whole thing, and I sprinkle it with everything but the bagel seasoning, which is delicious. So I get solid protein, some superfoods in there, and healthy fats and fiber from the avocado. If I'm extra hungry, I'll add some berries, some raspberry, blackberries, blueberries, or strawberries to the Greek yogurt. But I find that a lot of people struggle with late night eating because they don't have a plan, they don't have their go-to meals, and they end up binging or cheating on their diet or their plan because they're just grabbing whatever looks and sounds good at the time. You know, for me, what sounds really great before going to bed at night is sometimes half of a loaf of sourdough, a big old bowl of cereal, which I consumed a lot of during Iron Man prep because I was burning so many calories, but right now with my training, I'm not burning as many calories, so the whole bowl of cereal is not preferred. I'd rather stick to protein and fats. But if I just consumed what I wanted to consume and what sounded good every night, it'd be a bowl of cereal or a bowl of ice cream or half of a jar of peanut butter or whatever else is around. But I know every night what I'm going to eat right now, and this will change from time to time, but right now what my go-to is in the evening is that bowl of Greek yogurt, a good source of protein, the superfoods from the cacao nibs and the unsweetened coconut flakes and the honey, some berries, fiber, and then the avocado for healthy fats. And that makes me feel really good. It digests well. I can sleep really well after consuming that food. But have your go-to meals at night. Know what you're going to be consuming if and when you get hungry. And that you're not just grabbing whatever sounds good. Set yourself up for success. So those are the four things I wanted to share on how to take ownership of your diet in this next year to see huge transformational progress. With that being said, now we're going to get into my diet and training approach and philosophies for this next year. Okay, the first one is to be in a caloric surplus over a caloric deficit. Let's first define what is a surplus and what is a deficit. So you have your maintenance calories. Your maintenance calories are the amount of calories you need to consume on a daily basis to maintain your current weight. Let's say, for example, my maintenance calories are 3,500, meaning that if I consume 3,500 calories a day, I will maintain my current weight. A surplus is anything over 3,500, and a deficit is technically anything under 3,500. Now, I'm not saying your maintenance calories are 3,500. That's something you have to establish on your own, but a surplus is more and a deficit is less. Why am I pursuing a clorox surplus that on this next year? Well, to be honest, I want to gain size and strength. During my Ironman prep in the back half of 2025, I lost a lot of weight. I lost a lot of muscle. I lost a lot of size. I was consuming a lot of calories, but I was training a lot. I was training anywhere from 18 hours at the minimum to 22 hours per week between the run, the bike, and swimming. And I wasn't strength training much at all. So I lost a lot of weight, lost a lot of size, a lot of strength. I'm rebuilding right now. But throughout 2026, what I want to do is on a pack on size again, on a pack on strength. I want to get stronger. I'm spending more time in the gym. I'm still running, but I'm running less. And I want to be in a caloric surplus to assist in that gaining phase and goal of getting stronger, putting on more muscle, getting bigger, building. I'm going to building phase in this next year. And to be honest, I'm really enjoying it.