Mat Lock
Ed Morrison. Welcome to The Unleashing Potential Podcast, vlog and podcast. How are you doing?
Ed Morrison
Good, thanks Mat. How are you?
Mat Lock
Yeah, I'm good, thank you. I'm actually looking over the top of my computer at a beautiful view across Jervis Bay. Thankfully we can see blue skies these days, not the same a few weeks ago, but what's it like at your end?
Ed Morrison
Well, at the moment I'm in Noosa and I'm in a very enclosed office space, but if I was to walk out the door for about five minutes, I'd be on the Hastings Street, Noosa main beach. So it's beautiful here. A little bit warmer than a Melbournite like I am normally used to, but very lovely.
Mat Lock
Awesome. Very good. So, our paths first crossed, or your paths crossed with the Bay Games, and in particular the Grand Slam last year, 2019, where you came and commentated for one of the live announcements.
Ed Morrison
Yeah, that's right. And it feels like only yesterday that we did that in Sydney and I've been involved in fitness competitions and specifically in CrossFit competitions for a while. And just to see the growth of fitness competitions has been, it's been really enjoyable for me because I was, for a period of time, very specifically involved in only two or three events year after year. And then in the last 12 to 18 months we've watched the expansion of that sort of fitness competition scene, we've seen lots more local competitions and now we're seeing, like the Grand Slam, more of these sort of online competitions, which are incredibly inclusive for people all round the world. So that was a great experience for me.
Mat Lock
Yeah. And it was a lot of fun having you there. And in fact you're going to be the face and voice of the Grand Slam from this year onwards. So we're pretty excited. And as you know, there's a lot of planning in the background about where some of those live events, live announcements could be held. So yeah, really pleased to have you on board. Thank you.
Ed Morrison
Yeah, I couldn't be more stoked with it and I'm not too sure exactly what is public knowledge just yet. So make sure I keep my lips sealed. But as you well know, some pretty exciting locations and people in the works. So yeah, I can't wait for people to find out about that stuff.
Mat Lock
Yeah, no, absolutely. And at the time of recording this, not very much has been announced yet, so shh. So for our viewers and listeners, just tell us a little bit about who Ed is, your background, and that'll bring us into today's subject, which is of course, nutrition for everyday athletes.
Ed Morrison
Yeah, sure. Well, I entered the fitness industry in about 2009 and there wasn't much fanfare in terms of entering it. I was an athlete at a CrossFit gym and I was pretty disenchanted with my current job and I decided to leave that particular gym, was looking for a trainer. So I did what needed to be done to qualify myself. And then I sort of grew up as a trainer through those ranks. And I've done some study at a tertiary level, a nutrition course at Deakin University. I'd done the first year of that. And I sort of got drawn into the authentic way in which my fitness was changed by the training that I was doing. But I guess over the 10 years that I've been a trainer, I have noticed that even though most people with knowledge that nutrition is the base of health, there isn't the same effort being put into nutrition as there is into the everyday athletes training. Most people aren't waking up and thinking about exactly what to do with their nutrition. They're waking up and thinking, "Right, I can't wait to get to the gym, to do my squats or to do this session or whatever it is". So there was a little bit of a disconnect for me there and in the last few years I've found myself having more and more, at first they were just, I guess off the cuff discussions with athletes about nutrition. I mean if you're looking after an athlete properly as a trainer, you're going to talk to them about all sorts of things and naturally nutrition was coming up more and more frequently for me as a way to make really profound change with people. So in the last sort of 6 to 12 months I've decided to make that transition towards helping people with their nutrition a little bit more official. I've joined a nutrition company called The Method Now, which allows people to work with me online and sometimes in person, I can meet them in person, on their nutrition and the way that ties into their overall health, not just sort of isolating nutrition as one piece.
Mat Lock
Excellent. Thank you for that. Actually one thing that really stood out for me there was, I guess, a lot of everyday athletes when they go to the gym, and as you say they're diligent and put a lot of focus on the actual training part. Most often they're going and either doing the workout of the day, which is written by someone else, or they have a personalised programme or maybe they are using an online app. The point being, they know what to do because they've been told what to do because it's written on their phone, it's written on a whiteboard and so on. And I know from my experiences as very much an everyday athlete, I'd love to give it time and attention that it deserves and I understand the importance of it, but it's finding my own way I guess. We get bombarded online and in person with everyone's different ideas about diet and nutrition, whether it's plant based as I am, whether it's paleo or whatever it is.There's so many different diets out there, or regimes let's say, and I can't help but wonder whether it's either overload and then we defer to the path of least resistance, which is what we know and what we've always done or whether it's just simply not knowing and not finding a path that resonates deeply enough with them to give it a fair go.
Which is why I think from what I know about The Method Now, it's very personalised and therefore I can imagine it's a great solution and maybe you could tell us a bit how that works. If I was to go online today to Method Now, how does the process work?
Ed Morrison
I love a lot of what you just said. If you don't mind, I might address that. The first thing you just said about the way in which people get a programme to follow and they normally look at that programme and they're able to, not necessarily question anything and they're willing to learn that topic. And that was something for me early on with my journey and trying to teach people about nutrition is that I realised that it was a very personal and confronting subject for a lot of people.
Ed Morrison
I suppose some people's history with exercise is quite long and others are quite short, so some people are more than willing to go into the gym and be the newbie and put up their hands and be like, "Hey, this is a learning environment for me. I'm really not sure what I'm doing, so please help me, please teach me". When it comes to food for whatever reason, we don't seem to be as open about, "Hey, I actually don't really know what I'm doing". Maybe that's because it's as simple as we've all been eating since birth, so we all feel like we should have more knowledge on that. And then I've found, particularly for young men, there's a resistance to admit their lack of skills when it comes to basic things like cooking. It's just like no one wants to put their hands up and be like, "I actually don't know how to cook. Like that's what stopping me. I know what I should be doing, I just got no idea how to cook". So a lot of that is just breaking down the barriers and being like, "Hey, it's okay to admit that you don't quite have either the knowledge or the skillset or that you're overwhelmed by the amount of information that is out there", and truth be told I'd like to think that I have a really good handle on nutrition. However, there's times where I'm just like, "Whoa, there was so much information, so much conflicting information for me". And I suppose that leads me to answer the second part of your question, which is I guess the first step for any trainer or any nutrition coach when working with someone. And certainly this is the first step in The Method Now is just to get an idea of where you're currently at with your nutrition.
So before I make any changes to anybody's nutrition, I just want to get to know the person and what their, not their history with food is. That's probably not the right term but what their relationship with food is. Like do you think about what you eat or is it just a matter of you get up and whatever happens to be in a cupboard, that's what's going on the plate. Are you particularly meticulous when it comes to preparation or are you more than happy just to grab whatever's available from the shop round the corner and just get an indication of where the person is at from there. Then once I get that, really it's a matter of trying to get the basics right and you know that basics piece. There's so many parallels that I can draw between when I was coaching people in the gym and now coaching people in an institution. If I was to name the basics when coaching people in the gym, I basically want them to move right, try to move well, and I want you to do it with some form of intensity. Now that's going to look different for everybody and it's going to look different in every programme. It doesn't matter whether you're doing CrossFit, doing bodybuilding, doing F45, you should try to move well and you should try to do it with some intensity.
When it comes to eating, really all I want you to do is eat the right amount of food for you and I want you to eat real food. Now, if you're doing those two things, it doesn't matter to me whether or not you're plant-based or paleo or carnivore or whatever it is. I can't really see a point in time where I'd compromise on either of those two things. Keep the right amount of food for what you're doing and eat actual food, so that tends to be the starting point. And I realise I've answered your question in a very roundabout way, but that's the starting point for me.
Mat Lock
No, that was perfect to be honest, that really does resonate with me and, I remember, I think it was Rich Roll who I've been a long time follower of and listener of his podcast and in some ways followed in his footsteps. Certainly with his endurance training and so on, he gave me, quite a lot of belief actually that you can be plant based and you can perform at those levels and so on, which was fantastic. And one of the things that I would like to about what he said, "Eat real food and eat it as close to the ground as possible", as in the least amount of processing and messing with it and so on. And that's certainly something I try and do, real life gets in the way. I don't tend to eat junk. Well I don't eat junk, but nonetheless, it's not always raw, organic and so on, non-GMO because you know that's not real life.
Ed Morrison
Yeah, and I think it's, you've got to be realistic and for 99% of people simply doing what you just said, which is try to eat the food as close to the ground as possible, is going to make a profound difference to their health. I think there's this absolute validity in buying things like organic food, which doesn't have any pesticides or any growth hormone added to it. However, if your current situation is that you're eating takeaway foods and eating lots of trans fats, that conversation about trying to eat organic, that doesn't need to take place for a long time. Let's get you away from eating that stuff that doesn't look like any type of real food and then we can have the discussion about organics later down the track.
Mat Lock
Yeah. Excellent. And I guess like any coaching, you would hope the coach is meeting the athlete where they are at.
Ed Morrison
Absolutely.
Mat Lock
And that's the point and whether that's in the gym from programming perspective or in this case from a nutrition perspective, I guess again, my starting point would be different to someone else's. I'm not doing Macca's and drinking and all of those things. Lots of people do, and if that's their starting point, then that's fine I guess.
Ed Morrison
Yeah.
Mat Lock
Which is good because it would give you plenty to work with.
Ed Morrison
That's one of the interesting things about it. Often people that come in that think they are, you know, "I would love you to help me, but I really think I'm doing so much wrong so I don't know if I should do this", and I as the coach think, well, the more that you're doing wrong, the more potential I have to change things. The challenging, and any coach, any trainer, any nutrition coach would definitely resonate with this when somebody looks to be doing everything right or getting 9 out of 10 things right and we're still not getting the results. Well, that's when you've got to really dig in and ask questions and try different things and be a bit more creative, so it can work for anybody. And if you're thinking to yourself, "Wow, I don't think I'm ready for nutrition coach, I'm doing so much wrong". Well you're the person that would benefit off it almost immediately.
Mat Lock
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you'll get the most profound impacts quite quickly if you follow the advice that you'll be offering. Of course, for sure. So when an athlete comes to you, because you're working with athletes. When athletes come to you, what does it look like? What's the process?
Ed Morrison
Well, the first thing that I would do is, if they sign up for The Method Now and then the first thing I do is call them and just get an understanding of who they are really. I know that sounds a little bit philosophical, but at the end of the day we're coaching people, we're coaching human beings. So I want to get an idea of what's family life look like? What's a day to day? What time do you have to get up, what time do you to go to bed? How tired do you feel? How happy are you? All those types of things play into the type of prescription and the top of coaching that I might give you.
Ed Morrison
So the first thing I do is just call and get to know the person. The next thing that is pretty key for me is I ask the person to keep a food diary. So before telling them to do anything, I just get a really sort of honest lay of the land in terms of where they're at and I ask them to eat as normally possible, although the studies will show us that as soon as somebody's asked keep a food diary, they tend to do something very, very different because they know that somebody's watching. But, nonetheless-
Mat Lock
But isn't that an interesting psychology and I've been down this path myself and for sure as soon as I have to write down what I'm eating or drinking, I think it just creates an awareness. It makes you more aware and by default then you become a bit more intentional or deliberate about what you put in your mouth, which is a benefit actually in itself. But nonetheless, it doesn't necessarily give you a truly accurate position of what the last month might've looked like before you asked for the food diary.
Ed Morrison
That's right. And I try to keep that in mind and most people, irrespective of trying to, not necessarily impress by the food diary, but trying to change things for the better in the first week of a food diary, I can still sort of see the general path that they're on. It's like "Right, you've got this thing going on or you're eating too much of this and not enough of this, or you don't have time to do this". So maybe the food diary might express the best possible version of that, but all the themes tend to remain constant. But after that I've kept my interest in coaching. I can't believe how much I've kept the same sort of model that I used when I was coaching in the CrossFit gym and still am coaching in a CrossFit gym. Really I think of short, direct, actionable cues that I can give somebody. So rather than tonnes of information, although if people want that, then I have that for them. What I really want them to be able to do is read something which they can then go do.
So often, the very first thing that I'll do is give them a grocery list. It's like, "Hey, I want you to purchase these items. I want you to tell me if you feel comfortable how to cook these items and I want you to try and replace this with this, this with this, this with this". And there's normally some big, broad brush concepts that I'm trying to implement at that point in time. It's like, "Hey, I really want you to try and get rid of the processed food and add some real food". But I don't necessarily need to go on that rant, that becomes obvious over the weeks of coaching them that that's what we're doing.
It's just at the very start, the most beneficial thing for the person is, "Hey, let's take this action. Let's start doing something". Because most of the time when it comes to nutrition, people have been thinking about doing something, people have been reading information for a very long time, but they haven't done anything. They haven't actually gone and changed anything. So the first thing is like, "Hey, let's convince you that you are capable of change". And that might be as simple as, "Hey, don't go buy that today, go buy this today and get back to me. Let me know how it went for you". And that's the first step.
Mat Lock
Sure. And I can imagine the most powerful motivator for people to continue on the journey with you is results.
Ed Morrison
Yeah. And that's, I think, why I've always been drawn to this industry because it is so results based and the results are so profound. Like when people start seeing changes to their fitness, whether it be through training or nutrition, or seeing changes to their body composition or their performance. They for me are the most satisfying results that anybody could achieve, as opposed to, I know there's a lot of results based industries where you could print out a piece of paper and it tells you that the data is going in the right direction. But when people feel different and they have different confidence about themselves, that is, like I said, very, very satisfying for me.
Ed Morrison
I'd like to think that always throughout my training career, I've been able to call a spade, a spade. And what I mean by that is that when it's not working, I don't try to pretend that it is. So it's like "Hey, whatever's happening, it's not having the effect we want it to have, so why don't we try something else?" And that tends to be my approach with nutrition. "Okay, this hasn't worked. Let's go down this route and see if we get a better result".
Mat Lock
Yeah, sure. And we're just getting a little bit short on time and I'm certainly going to ask you for a takeaway, sort of your top tip, if you like, as a takeaway. But, on average, how long do athletes tend to stay with Method Now? Or is it in fact too hard to answer because athletes tend to stay because they're getting results they want.
Ed Morrison
Yeah, I'm not privy to all the information in terms of those statistics, but I'm fortunate enough to have sort of 30, 40 clients on my books and I've got a number of them now that have been with me for close to a year or they've been with The Method Now for close to a year and others have just begun their journey. And I think that the most profound thing with any training or nutrition journey is to understand that the progression isn't always just linear like that. So I try to instil in all the people that I work with, that we get to probably around about maybe that six, seven week mark and those initial kilos that came off easily and now not coming off easily. That's no reason to panic. That's no reason to abandon ship. It just means that we're now in a new position. So the circumstances have changed. So we've got to change our approach. I can't really think of a time where he would say, "Great I've been training for 12 weeks, so now I don't need to do anymore exercise". And the same would go with nutrition. It's like, "Yep, we've tidied up some things, but you're going to be eating food for the rest of your life. So let's work on the next evolution for you".
Mat Lock
Yeah, sure. And actually that leads me into a final question, which is a little bit of a pet thing of mine and I do have my own opinion of course, but I'm very keen to hear yours, if you could share your thoughts. The idea of a cheat day or a cheat meal is not something I personally subscribe to. For me, doing what I've done has become a lifestyle. And in fact, me having a cheat meal is simply I might go to the Indian and have a vegan dhal, a bit of rice, which all things considered, it's really not that bad for you rather than going and having a burger or whatever it is. So for me it always felt, when I hear the term cheat meal, it's like you're not allowing yourself to have this thing or these foods six days of the week, but you can on the seventh. But actually for me all you're doing is feeding that, I'm going to use the word addiction. I don't know what other word to use.
Ed Morrison
It's a fair word to use.
Mat Lock
You know, once a week you're feeding that addiction. So you're maintaining that addiction rather than displacing whatever that food is and just removing it naturally, displacing it from your diet. But anyway, that's my rant. But I'd love to hear your take on the whole cheat meal idea.
Ed Morrison
I think Mat, if I'm honest, we could probably have an entire episode, multiple episodes on where that sits and the psychology of the cheat day is so strange. I've got a few different moving parts and I hope it doesn't open up too many more questions because I know, like you said, we're short on time. The first thing is I've tried to not ever really use the term cheat day. I just think it insinuates some things that are very negative and like you said, it sort of feeds this addiction and almost reinforces to the person that, "Hey, you're always going to want this thing that you shouldn't have. Let's not try and address why you want it. Let's just accept that you're always going to want it. And the goal would be for you to have it as infrequently as possible so you can just stay on top of that addiction", as you called it.
Ed Morrison
That's the first thing that is problematic for me. So I try not to use that terminology. The second thing for me is the cheat diet itself is one aspect of the interaction of going and eating some food that you shouldn't eat. But for me, I don't coach food. I coach people. So the most important thing for me is who is it that is having this indiscretion? If it is the person who has just started with me, who has told me that they can see that their health is deteriorating quickly and they want to watch their kids grow up and that they really need to make change and they're on the far end of the health spectrum in terms of all the negatives, well then all of a sudden there's way less wriggle room for those indiscretions. That's just the reality of their situation.
If I've got a competitive athlete who, the day after a competition decides that, "Hey, I actually have been really wanting to enjoy this thing, but it hasn't been something that fits into my current goals, I'm going to go have that thing now". That's probably an indiscretion that I think is healthier and I can tolerate a little bit because it lines up with their goals. So it just makes sense in terms of who we're actually talking to rather than just thinking that all cheat days are the same.
Mat Lock
Yeah, sure. No, great answer. Thank you. I appreciate it. So if you were to give one gem, one takeaway piece of advice to the viewers or listeners, what would that be?
Ed Morrison
Well, I think the major thing that I find myself reiterating time and time again is telling people to not major in the minors. And the minors would be things like meal timing, supplementation, eating some weird food because it has some antioxidant that you found one research paper on. The reality is all that stuff might be true. Let's say all those things do have benefits: meal timing, supplementation, antioxidants. Unless you have the quantity of food that you should be eating correct, and the quality of your food is real food. Then all of that stuff is secondary.
Ed Morrison
You really must get that right first. And I think the reason that's so hard to get right is because it's so basic that it's almost confronting. It's like it would be way easier if leaving your onions out for 30 minutes, oxidise them in a way that makes you burn fat for longer, but it's not that and it never has been that. And I think deep down we all know that it hasn't been that. I need you to eat real food and I need you to eat it in an amount that suits you. And anything else after that is just additional fluff. So that's my big takeaway for people. It's like stop trying to kid yourself that it's anything else but that. Unless you've got that right, let's get that right first and then we can move on.
Mat Lock
I think that's pure gold, what you just said. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Mat Lock
And if they want to reach out to you, if they want to get in touch with you directly or The Method Now, what's the best way for them to do that?
Ed Morrison
themethodnow.com.au is how they could contact the company and if they'd like to work with me then they can just request doing so. I’m on social media, my Instagram hashtag is #EdwardLMorrison, so if anyone wants to reach out to me there, I try and leave that thing so that any messages that I get from anybody will be viewable. So if you want to reach out, I'd be more than happy to chat.
Mat Lock
Absolutely. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time today and I know we're looking forward to, we're going to dive into a second subject, which is all about, I guess, nutrition with competition in mind.
Ed Morrison
Yeah.
Mat Lock
Well today, thank you very much and look forward to chatting next time.
Ed Morrison
Thanks so much, Mat.
