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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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
  
  

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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.

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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

You lost the weight. Then, within a year, it came back. I hear this story constantly, and the diet itself usually wasn't the problem. The problem is that the diet ended. One day you're tracking everything, the next day you're on your own with a slower metabolism and zero plan.

In this episode I walk you through the reverse diet, the half of the process almost nobody teaches. This is step 4 of my RESTORE Method, and it's the step that decides whether your results last.

In this episode:
- Why regain after a diet is a process failure, never a willpower failure
- What a reverse diet actually is: calories climbing week by week while weight holds
- How metabolic adaptation reverses, so you eat more than you have in years
- Why the industry sells the weight loss but never the exit ramp
- How we run reverses at OCS: small weekly increases, mostly carbs, heavy mindset coaching
- Why I reverse clients into summer maintenance before vacation season hits

Real client example: Kristine messaged me when we started her reverse: "I'm scared of going back. I trust you 100% but I don't trust myself completely yet." Four weeks in, calories are up from 1,365 to 1,900, weight is stable, and her waist measurement was down. Read about her reverse diet here: https://www.instagram.com/p/DaM2yoAlVqg/

FREE calorie calculator. Want to know your real maintenance calorie range, or fat loss/muscle gain targets? Click here: https://odysseycoachingsystems.co/tdee-calculator 

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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

We're back! After a short break to finish two big projects (a brand new client app and a fully revamped website), Talking Nutrition returns with a big one: the introduction of the RESTORE Method. This is the 2.0 version of the OCS Process, and the exact roadmap Johan takes his clients through, from root cause to resilience.

In this episode, Johan walks through all 7 phases of the RESTORE Method step by step: Reveal, Establish, Solve, Transform, Own, Rebuild, and Embody. You'll hear real client stories (including autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto's and ulcerative colitis going into remission), why internal health always comes before external results, and a full tour of the free tools on the new website, from the Gut Repair Blueprint symptom assessment to the updated TDEE calculator.

Want to learn more about 1:1 coaching and how the RESTORE Method can help you finally reach your long-term goals? 

DM "COACH" to @johanvesters_ocs on Instagram for a free Discovery Call.

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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

Most advice for women online is some version of "cycle sync your macros & training". But, what do men and women really need to do differently to reach their goals? Here's what I've actually seen work with 400+ clients (mostly women) over the last 6 years: most of that advice is noise. Especially if you're on birth control.

In this episode I break down the real differences (and the surprising similarities) between men and women when it comes to nutrition and training. No influencer hacks, seed cycling, or cycle syncing. Just what I actually do with my clients.

You'll learn:

• Why cycle syncing mostly goes out the window if you're on birth control, and what to focus on instead
• The universal habits that drive results for both men and women, and the parts that actually need to be individualized
• How I use symptoms like energy, hunger and mood to dial in a plan, instead of defaulting to generic advice
• Why "find what works for you" is the wrong framing, and what to do instead
• And a lot more.

If you want to stop guessing and start building what actually works for you as an individual, and you're curious how 1:1 coaching and the OCS Process can help you get there, DM "COACH" to @johanvesters_ocs on Instagram for a free Discovery Call.

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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

Feeling bloated, foggy, skin breaking out, or reacting to foods you used to tolerate? Your gut bacteria might be out of balance. What if the issue isn’t just what you’re eating, but who’s living inside you?

In this episode of Talking Nutrition, Johan breaks down gut dysbiosis - what happens when your microbiome turns chaotic, why it matters for your digestion, mood, skin, and cravings, and how to actually restore balance without falling for probiotic hype or endless supplement stacks.

Gut health isn’t about killing off “bad bugs” or popping random probiotics. It’s about restoring your internal ecosystem, one simple step at a time.

You’ll learn:

• Why gut dysbiosis isn’t just “bad bacteria” but a loss of balance and diversity
• The real-life symptoms that show up when your gut ecosystem is off (think bloating, skin issues, brain fog, food sensitivities)
• The 5R Framework for reversing dysbiosis step by step — so you stop guessing and start healing
• And much more

Want the full step-by-step Gut Repair Blueprint that helps you understand your symptoms and take steps towards improving your gut health? DM “GUT” to @johanvesters_ocs on instagram now to get it for free!

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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