Talking Nutrition

Johan had moving day all planned. Boxes packed, storage unit booked, trailer rented. Then the rental car turned out to be booked for the next day, and after an hour of waiting for a car that never came, his Sunday went sideways. So he sat down, recorded this episode, and spent the evening on client check-ins instead.

In this episode, Johan explains why he gets excited when a client has their first bad day or bad week. That is where the most learning happens, as long as the response is rational instead of emotional. He walks through three simple questions to ask after an off day, why tracking macros in ranges is close enough, and how two client stories, a Halloween party and a running injury, show what adapting looks like in real life.

He then shares if-then planning, a tool from behavior change research. Write down the life you want, list every obstacle you already know will come up, and decide in advance how you will respond to each one. The goal is to keep moving when life throws a curveball, because it will.

In this episode:

• A bad day or bad week is feedback, and with the right questions it becomes the moment you learn the most.
• After an off day, step back like a third person and ask what happened, why, and what you will do about it next time, without judgment.
• Macros are tracked in ranges, about 10 grams either way for protein and carbs and 5 grams for fat, because food databases are averages anyway.
• Weddings, birthdays and busy weeks are usually on the calendar in advance, so a few minutes of planning on Sunday keeps the week on track.
• If-then planning means writing one specific plan per obstacle, such as "if I overeat, I pick it right back up from the very next meal."
• And much more.

Talking Nutrition is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.

• Website and free resources: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/
• Follow Johan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
• Apply for coaching: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application

Johan says that if he ever told a client to bring a meal prep container to their Christmas dinner, he would want them to fire him. Festive dinners, work parties and family get-togethers are part of the plan, not a break from it. And as he puts it, it's called holidays, not holiday weeks or holiday months. For most people, it comes down to a handful of days.

In this episode, Johan walks through the last stretch of the year and why there is no need to wait for January. He explains periodization, the seasons of nutrition: a moderate deficit now, a diet break at maintenance through the holidays, then fat loss into the new year. For anyone who has been dieting for years, he makes the case for fueling up instead, with a reverse diet and a focus on building muscle.

He then shares his Reflect, Plan, Execute framework and practical in-the-moment strategies, from drinking slower and alternating with non-alcoholic options to pacing yourself to the slowest eater at the table. He also explains why a weight bump after a big dinner is fluctuation, and why punishing yourself the next day is never the answer.

In this episode:

• The holidays are a handful of days, not a whole season, so November and December are still a great time to build habits instead of waiting for January.
• Periodizing your nutrition might mean a moderate deficit now with a diet break at maintenance through the holidays, or fueling up with a reverse diet and a muscle-building focus if you have been dieting for years.
• The Reflect, Plan, Execute framework starts with looking back at past holiday seasons without judgment, then setting a few simple daily or weekly goals and keeping them visible.
• At the festive dinner itself, eating slowly and pacing yourself to the slowest eater at the table does more than tracking a single macro.
• A weight bump after a big event is fluctuation, so go back to your normal meals with no extra cardio and no cutting calories to compensate.
• And much more.

Talking Nutrition is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.

• Website and free resources: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/
• Follow Johan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
• Apply for coaching: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application

When Johan moved to Norway and started using a Norwegian keyboard, the first weeks were frustrating. Extra letters, symbols in the wrong places, a typo in every sentence. Years later it is second nature, and he doesn't even think about it. That, he says, is exactly what learning to track macros feels like, and it is why his clients learn by doing instead of starting with a meal plan.

Around week four of coaching, his clients build what he calls a perfect day of eating. Not perfect as in clean or flawless, but a day they could happily eat any day. In this solo episode, Johan builds one live: three breakfasts, three lunches, three snacks and three dinners, each one put together with his protein, carbs, fats and color framework, with color meaning fruits and veggies. He shows how simple food swaps turn one recipe into many, why herbs and spices matter, and how to keep the foods you enjoy, crackers included.

He also talks about the little voice that says to wait until after the holidays, why new habits take longer than most people think, and why tracking is a tool for learning and fueling, not restriction.

In this episode:

• Why learning to track macros feels a lot like learning a new keyboard.
• The protein, carbs, fats and color framework, and how to build any meal with it.
• Three ideas each for breakfast, lunch, a snack and dinner, plus easy food swaps that turn one recipe into five.
• How to keep foods you enjoy, like crackers, and still build a snack with enough protein, healthy fats and fruit.
• Why waiting until after the holidays doesn't help, and what research says about how long new habits really take.
• And much more.

Talking Nutrition is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.

• Website and free resources: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/
• Follow Johan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
• Apply for coaching: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application

Johan missed a week of the podcast, and he opens this one by owning it. A conference trip to the US, a wave of new clients after summer, a giveaway and re-recording the Odyssey course all landed at once, and something had to give.

Recorded straight after a full day of client check-ins, this solo episode is a little more off the cuff than usual. It starts with something Johan told a returning client who was struggling to find balance: balance, the way most of us picture it, doesn't exist. Trying to give work, family, training, sleep and nutrition an equal slice every single day is a setup for feeling behind on all of it. Zoom out, and balance starts to show up across the seasons of life instead.

From there, Johan talks about setting expectations that are too high, cutting a long list down to what matters right now, and why putting your own health first is selfless, not selfish. He finishes with what consistency actually looks like on a weekly checklist, how to stop one missed day from becoming a chain, and why keeping the promises you make to yourself is how you build confidence.

In this episode:

• Why day-to-day balance is a myth, and how it shows up across the seasons of life instead.
• Setting expectations that are too high, and how to prioritize when your list is too long.
• Why putting your own health first is selfless, not selfish (and what the oxygen mask has to do with it).
• How to pick it back up from your very next meal, without trying to make up for last week.
• What consistency really looks like on a weekly checklist, and how to keep one miss from becoming a chain.
• And much more.

Talking Nutrition is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.

• Website and free resources: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/
• Follow Johan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
• Apply for coaching: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application

Johan sits down with Caitlin Jones, a functional nutritionist who has spent the last three years focused on blood work, blood sugar regulation and insulin sensitivity, including reversing pre- and type 2 diabetes. They open with the CGM-and-oatmeal posts that circulate online: a blood sugar rise after a meal is normal, and what actually matters is the rest of the meal and whether the basics are in place. Caitlin shares how she was diagnosed pre-diabetic while powerlifting and reversed it with a calorie deficit, lower carbs, steady protein, walks after meals and the same lifting she was already doing. You'll walk away with a plain-language picture of how blood sugar rises and falls, what an unbalanced eating pattern does to that baseline over time, and where labs, muscle and maybe even a GLP-1 actually fit.

More from Caitlin:

• https://www.caitlinjcoaching.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/caitlin.j.coaching/

In this episode

• Why the CGM-and-oatmeal posts show something normal: a rise after carbs is expected, and nobody eats a carb by itself.
• Caitlin's story: diagnosed pre-diabetic about four years ago while powerlifting on 370 grams of carbs a day, fasting blood sugar in the 140s, 192 pounds at 5'2".
• Over-eating and under-eating can feel the same in the body: tired, poor sleep, poor recovery.
• The protein craze, fortified everything, and why so many clients come in over-eating protein and under-eating carbs.
• How her parents taught balance without making it a thing: soda or ice cream at team dinners, never both.
• Blood sugar 101 in plain language: it rises after eating, insulin brings it down, and an unbalanced pattern slowly pushes the baseline up.
• Type 2 as a lifestyle condition, and why "you don't look pre-diabetic" is not a diagnosis. The stick-thin client whose doctor doubted it until a week of testing said otherwise.
• How Caitlin reversed hers: a deficit, lower carbs, protein held, walks after meals, same lifting. Her transparent take on an eight-month semaglutide microdose as a tool, not the reason it worked.
• Why people who skip the basics on a GLP-1 tend to regain, and what she does with them next.
• What she checks first with a new client: three to five days of food logs (under-reporting, hidden fats, the coffee), then A1C and fasted insulin.
• Why muscle is one of the best blood sugar tools you have: the sugar has somewhere to go.
• The hardest part: the habits people didn't know were habits, and eating for a purpose.
• A little hunger is normal and doesn't need fixing right now.
• Intuitive eating as "the PhD of eating": the long-term goal, not the method.

Talking Nutrition is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.

• Website and free resources: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/
• Follow Johan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
• Apply for coaching: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application

This week only: I'm giving one person my entire 1:1 coaching program for free. Four months, a full ride, celebrating 6 years of Odyssey Coaching Systems.

In this short episode I cover exactly what the scholarship includes (The Odyssey, my RESTORE Method, the root cause assessment, the mindset work), why I'm doing this, and who should apply. Plus the story of Anita, who won this exact giveaway in 2024, and what she wrote me in her final check-in 18 months later.

Chapters:
(0:00) The announcement: one full 4-month scholarship
(2:25) What the scholarship includes
(4:39) How to apply (takes about 2 minutes)
(9:58) Anita's story: the 2024 winner
(12:31) Celebrating 6 years of OCS + how long are you going to wait?

🎓 THE OCS SCHOLARSHIP - OPEN THIS WEEK ONLY

To apply: DM me the word "SCHOLARSHIP" on Instagram, or apply directly here: https://www.odysseycoachingsystems.co/scholarship

Takes about 2 minutes. One question matters most: why should this scholarship be yours?

Applications close Saturday, September 19 at 8pm CET (2pm Eastern). Winner announced Sunday.

Talking Nutrition is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.

• Website and free resources: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/
• Follow Johan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
• Apply for coaching: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application

There's an old photo of me on stage, playing guitar. I've lost 30kg since then, and the only thing I recognize in that picture is the guitar in my hand. Everything else... different person.

In this episode I'm telling the whole story for once. The XL shirts, the 1200kcal MyFitnessPal target, the juice cleanse, the wallet-burning supplement stack, and the moment I stood there hangry, eating everything in sight, thinking "why is it so damn difficult to just eat healthy?"

I'll walk you through:

• Everything I tried that made me more miserable and confused
• The two choices I was left with, and why option 2 was really the only one
• The two futures in front of you right now, and the math on how much time you actually have
• Why "the right moment" you've been waiting for has a date this time

Stick around to the end, because this episode is landing THIS week for a reason. Something is coming this Sunday on my Instagram that you won't wanna miss.

Do this now: open your calendar, set a reminder for this Sunday, and name it "Check Johan's Instagram." Then follow @johanvesters_ocs so you don't miss it.

Talking Nutrition is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.

• Website and free resources: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/
• Follow Johan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
• Apply for coaching: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application

In this episode of Talking Nutrition, Johan is joined by his friend Katy Margison - nutrition and fitness coach, founder of Athena Nutrition, and known on Instagram as @thesoberweightlifter.

After 13 years inside the US healthcare system, Katy walked away from what she calls chronic disease management to coach disease prevention instead. And behind that career change is a bigger story: overcoming alcohol and cocaine addiction, and rebuilding her identity from the ground up. 

This conversation is about what the hardest form of behavior change teaches us about nutrition, fat loss, social pressure, and becoming the person who follows through. This isn't a lecture on drinking. It's an honest story about what change actually takes.

In this episode:

• Who Katy is: 13 years in healthcare, and why she left to coach prevention instead of disease management
• Coaches as the missing piece in preventative healthcare: education, accountability, and more than 15 minutes of your doctor's time
• "It creeps up on you": pre-gaming everything, the moderation lie, and how 2023 snowballed
• December 15, 2023: rock bottom, and why she still waited until January 1 to quit
• The first sober Sunday morning, and what the substances were really covering up
• Why food addiction can be even harder: you can quit alcohol, you can't quit eating
• Tier 1, 2, 3 days: planning for chaos so one bad week doesn't undo everything
• Why maintenance is harder than fat loss, and why comments about your plate are usually projection
• Whether alcohol is poison, the culture that glamorizes it, and why we might look at it like cigarettes in 20 years
• The birth control conversation: 16 years on the pill, and learning to advocate for yourself at the doctor's office
  
  
  Connect with Katy:
  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesoberweightlifter
  Website: https://athena-nutrition.com

Talking Nutrition is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.

• Website and free resources: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/
• Follow Johan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
• Apply for coaching: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application

Last week was about reading your thyroid labs. This week is about what you can actually do. Johan walks through the full thyroid pipeline - from the brain's TSH signal, to T4 production, to the T4-to-T3 conversion that sets your metabolic rate - and turns it into a practical checklist: the raw materials your thyroid needs, the factors that quietly inhibit it, and why stress and chronic low-calorie dieting push your body into reverse T3, the metabolic brake.

In this episode:

• 00:00 - Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger: why this week is a checklist, not a lab lecture
• 04:49 - DM Johan a topic on Instagram - first suggestion in might become next week's episode
• 06:14 - The pipeline from the top down: TSH, T4, T3, and reverse T3 as the metabolic brake
• 06:59 - The raw materials for T4 production: iodine, tyrosine, iron, zinc, B vitamins, vitamin D3 with K2 - and why chronic dieting leaves you short on all of them
• 09:25 - What inhibits production: stress above everything, plus infection, trauma, fluoride, toxins, and autoimmune attack on the thyroid itself
• 10:37 - The conversion step: zinc and selenium (two Brazil nuts a day), and what shifts T4 into reverse T3 instead - stress, low-calorie diets, inflammation, liver and kidney dysfunction
• 13:34 - Testing smart: full panels once or twice a year, trends over single numbers, and the free at-home gauge - your body temperature
  
  ---
  
  **Free resource: The Thyroid Decoder**
  
  Everything in this episode in PDF form - which labs to ask for, the leaky gut and trigger side of Hashimoto's, and a symptoms quiz to gauge whether hypothyroidism is even on the table for you. Free guide, linked below.
  
  https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/thyroid-decoder
  
  

Talking Nutrition is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.

• Website and free resources: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/
• Follow Johan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
• Apply for coaching: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application

If your doctor has told you your thyroid looks fine but you don't feel fine, this episode is for you. Johan breaks down a real client case where a "normal" lab result missed autoimmune thyroid disease for a year and a half, and walks through the exact markers, ranges, and lifestyle factors that actually explain how your thyroid is functioning.

In this episode:

• 00:00 - Why "my labs are normal" doesn't mean your thyroid is actually fine
• 08:30 - A client with no menstrual cycle for 18 months, and the labs that finally explained why
• 19:49 - Two clients who brought autoimmune conditions into remission through nutrition and lifestyle
• 21:53 - What "normal" actually means on a lab report versus what's functionally optimal
• 32:57 - The 5 thyroid markers to ask for, and what each one does (TSH, T4, T3, reverse T3, TPOAB)
• 39:37 - The diet and lifestyle factors that push your body toward reverse T3, including iodine, selenium, stress, and undereating
• 42:06 - Building your own toolkit: Dutch tests, GI maps, and why trends matter more than a single lab result

**Free resource: The Thyroid Decoder**

Johan just released a free guide and symptoms quiz built to help you make sense of your own thyroid labs and symptoms - what's high, what's low, and what it actually means, plus a breakdown of the three factors behind Hashimoto's. If this episode sounded like you, start here: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/thyroid-decoder

This isn't medical advice, it's the questions to bring to the doctor who gives it.

Talking Nutrition is brought to you by Odyssey Coaching Systems.

• Website and free resources: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/
• Follow Johan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/johanvesters_ocs/
• Apply for coaching: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/coaching-application