335: Fit Vegan Coaching with Maxime Sigoiun

00:00:00 Maxime: And the reason why I love the way that we coach our members is because it's not about the end goal. It's cheesy, but it's about the journey. Because who you're becoming throughout the journey is you prove to yourself that you can do the thing that you say that you're going to do. That's true confidence. Once you know that you can follow through on the thing that you say that you're going to do, game over. You become unstoppable, right? You start to become very careful with how you set goals because you're like, damn, I can't set too many goals because I'm going to hit all of them right? So let me choose carefully. There's a different level of confidence that comes from that. 

00:00:35 Maya: This is the Healthy Lifestyle Solutions Podcast, and I'm your host, Maya Acosta. If you're willing to go with me, together we can discover how simple lifestyle choices can help improve our quality of life and increase our longevity in a good way. Let's get started. 

00:00:54 Maya: So Maxime Sigouin is a highly accomplished fitness coach, entrepreneur and athlete. He is the founder of Fit Vegan Coaching, a company dedicated to helping people adapt a healthier lifestyle through plant based nutrition and exercise. With over 10 years of experience in the fitness industry, Maxime has helped over 600 vegans successfully transition to a healthier way of living and has become a respected leader in the health and wellness community. In addition to his coaching and business ventures, Maxime is a highly accomplished athlete. So he has completed an Ironman and Spartan races, as well as cycling events to raise money for cancer research. These achievements demonstrate his dedication to living a healthy and active lifestyle and inspire others to do the same. 

00:01:44 Maya: Maxime's passion for fitness and commitment to promoting a vegan lifestyle has earned him a reputation as a leading voice in the health and wellness industry. He offers a range of services through Fit Vegan Coaching, including one on one coaching, online courses and community support to help individuals reach their fitness goals. He also owns several fitness businesses that offer comprehensive health and wellness programs, including nutrition and exercise, to help people live their best lives. With a mission to help one million people by 2050, Maxime is dedicated to spreading the message of plant based nutrition and exercise as the key to leading a healthy and fulfilling life. Welcome, Maxime. 

00:02:31 Maxime: Welcome. Thank you very much for having me. I'm really happy to be here. 

00:02:34 Maya: Very excited to have you here. I'm actually very honored that we were introduced by Robert Cheeke, someone who I admire so much in the fitness world. I'm so glad that you're here. This is a topic that's important to me. As you may know, on my podcast, I cover really under the umbrella of lifestyle medicine. So we cover exercise, stress management, having quality sleep, and of course, the importance of nutrition. And so you basically cover some of the important things that I emphasize on the podcast, and we can never have enough fitness instructors or fitness coaches. I should correct that. And also, I feel that not everybody is trained the way that you are in understanding how nutrition plays a significant role in our recovery, in our workout routines and all of that. So, again, thank you for taking your time to be with us today. 

00:03:30 Maxime: Yeah, very excited to be here and provide some value. 

00:03:33 Maya: Okay, Maxime, I did say that I've been listening to your podcast because I always am intrigued by the people that come on the show, and I want to study them, learn about them, and a lot of times, I end up being a fan of the people that come on the show. So let's get your story, share your story with my listeners. I learned a little bit about how you were interested in going into the fitness kind of modeling world and then pick up where you'd like to share about how you were introduced to the plant based lifestyle.

00:04:02 Maxime: Yeah. Well, thank you. So I'll start back to, like, over nine years ago. Like, well, over nine years ago, when I was younger, I was skinny, fat as a kid, got bullied, got made fun of. And then it was the typical story of, like, I need to get muscular so I can feel confident and people will love me. And so I started exercising and got into bodybuilding, ended up competing in bodybuilding, did some powerlifting, played college basketball, and played basketball for a very long time. So I was really into sports growing up. That was a part of my childhood because my family was also very active and into sports. And then slightly over nine years ago, I was training with a friend at a gym, and basically he drove me to the gym because we were working out together. He's like, I just have to stop by my friend's place before I drop you off.

00:04:47 Maxime: I'm like, no worries. We get to our friend's place, and there's a runway in the apartment, like, for modeling runway. And I was like, what kind of friend you got here? And it was his modeling agent, and I didn't know it was a thing. I didn't know it was a job. You never think of the people that are on, cover of magazines or all of that that people get paid to do this. And so she was like, yeah, I'm a modeling agent. I see something under your big, chubby cheeks. Right? I'm 6,4. I was 240 pounds. I was really big and strong, but I looked like a little chipmunk. And she's like, I see something on those chubby cheeks. Just trying to lose a bit of weight. We'll do a photo shoot, see how it kind of goes for you.

00:05:21 Maxime: And so I was prepping for a fitness competition, which you have to get leaner for. So I was like, you know what? Let me just try to lose the weight. And then from there, we'll do a photo shoot and see how it goes. So I lost the weight, did the first photo shoot, and I was like, this is fun. You can get paid for people to take photos of you. I didn't know that was a thing. And so she told me, if you want to work in this industry, you have to get skinnier, you have to get smaller. Because I was too big. I was wearing maybe, like a large, extra large in my shirts, and I need to be like a small medium, like a medium sized shirt. And so I went on Google, and I was like, what diet is going to allow me to get skinny? And then the answer that came up is, vegans are skinny and weak. I was like, I don't care about being weak. I just need to be skinny so I can fit in the clothes. So that's what made me go vegan at first.

00:06:04 Maxime: It was not because of health reasons. It was not because of animal, the environment. It was just, I need to get as skinny as fast as possible so I can fit in those darn clothes. And so when vegan completely did the opposite of what I was doing, right, I stopped strength training. I just did cardio. I stopped eating protein, which, again, is what most people do when they're trying to lose fat. I did that to try to lose as much muscle as possible, which says something about the approach. Lost 80 pounds in my first year. I managed to work in New York. I managed to work in Milan, Italy for Fashion Week. I kind of managed to travel around a little bit. And ultimately, as I went vegan, I just started to feel better. My nose got unclogged, my brain, I got gained more clarity. I didn't know I had foggy brain, but that's how I'd lived my whole life, and that's what I was used to. And so transitioned to veganism maybe a month into me starting this journey, my grandfather got diagnosed with cancer.

00:06:56 Maxime: And then I started watching documentaries like Forks Over Knives, where they talked about the correlation between plant based eating and disease reversal, or eating animal products and cancer and heart disease and all these things. And I was like, wow, I see it now. It makes sense to me. And so I ended up losing my grandfather, I think, a few months after that. And that was kind of a big wake up call for me of, like I need to stay plant based. And then fast forward in my journey, almost, say, like, almost seven years ago, I meet my ex partner. Within three months of us dating, she gets diagnosed with breast cancer. And the doctor gave her one year to live. And out of that one year, she was like, you know what? I'm just going to do what I need to do to kind of heal.

00:07:39 Maxime: And so she was vegetarian, pescatarian-ish. She went vegan. She actually went, Whole Food plant based because that's what I've been for the longest time. So no fake animal products, ultimately. And instead of living one year, she made it five years with an amazing quality of life. And she unfortunately ended up passing away over two years ago. But her journey, her quality of life was amazing for those five years compared to what they had prescribed for her, of just one year, and then you're going to pass away. So made it longer, reduced her inflammatory markers, and unfortunately, it just wasn't enough for her to kind of survive. But that's kind of where my mission stemmed after that, we always hear or experience family members kind of going through cancer, and we're like, that's terrible.

00:08:22 Maxime: But for me to have been a caregiver for almost five years, 24/7, waking up in the middle of the night to screams, driving to all the cancer treatments, paying everything out of pocket, I was like, I don't want anyone to have to go through that. Right? And ultimately, if we eat a plant based diet, which, again, science has shown that is the most beneficial to help reduce these risks of diseases, if we're mildly active, we keep a healthy weight, we're greatly reducing our risk of heart attack, cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's. And so I was like, I don't want anyone to have to go through that. So that's what embarked me on this mission ultimately. And in the past three years, we're at 600 plus people now, transformed. My story in a nutshell. 

00:09:07 Maya: Wow. It's very touching. I didn't know that she had actually passed. I remember hearing you on other podcasts talk about your grandfather and then of course your ex partner, but I somehow missed that she had passed. I'm sorry to hear that. It's interesting. We always talk about how we are driven to making that significant change, either when we're afflicted or in your case, you had loved ones that were afflicted really primarily as a result of lifestyle choices that they made, although with breast cancer, it could be genetic. So there's that [concluding as well]. 

00:09:43 Maxime: Yeah. It was lifestyle for her.

00:09:44 Maya: Catch it early. Yeah. Wow, there's so much to talk about. I want to go back a little bit. I messaged you. When I heard that we had a certain person that influenced us in common, I've mentioned her before on the podcast. So Freelee The BananaGirl, a YouTube influencer was the reason why I made my change overnight. And I had been watching her, you probably remember. I know that her content has changed, but for the most part, when she was with her former partner, Durian Rider, she used to make these videos, basically nitpicking celebrities and their diets and really talking about diet culture, which a lot of women face and how you can be fit and healthy eating. In her case, a Raw till 4 Diet.

00:10:36 Maya: And so I jumped on that. And I had… Maxime, I could have used the coach, by the way, because when I saw how she was in shape, she was very athletic, a cyclist, she looks great. Till this day, she still looks great. And she was basically eating raw foods. So I started doing that, the Raw till 4 Diet. And then for those of you who may not know what that is, it's just having most of your food really uncooked because then you get the whole, like the entire nutrient content from the food. So I was eating a lot of papaya, mango, bananas early on till 4:00 PM, and then I would have a cooked meal. So tell us about your experience with learning about Freelee and what did you do at that time? 

00:11:19 Maxime: Yeah, for sure. Like I was telling you on our previous conversation, it was just I think within one or two weeks of me going vegan, I kind of went on YouTube trying to look for some resources because it was like nine years ago, there wasn't that many great resources out there. But again, I spoke to Robert Cheeke or Geoff Palmer, which has been vegan for almost four decades, and they're like, there was nothing, there was no resources for these guys. So we were kind of lucky with YouTube, and I think I did Banana Island within two weeks after. So I was eating like 30 bananas a day. I was making banana and ice cream, banana smoothies, like, just eating plain bananas. It was a fun time. It was interesting. I didn't end up sticking to it too long simply because I live in Quebec, Canada, which gets down to like minus 40 degrees celsius and so raw food during winter, you're just freezing, right. Freelee was in– he was like in Thailand or something where it's hot and humid outside. I was in the middle of winter, all skinny and eating raw foods. I was way too cold for me, so I didn't stick with it for too long after that. 

00:12:18 Maya: So I went vegan in the first year. I started with Raw till 4. That was my thing. And then we were traveling a lot, my husband and I. And by the way, I just celebrated seven years of being vegan. And so, yay. But I've gone through my own journey of trying to figure out exactly what I'm supposed to eat for optimal health. And so the Raw till 4 was not a sustainable way of living because we were traveling a lot. So as you know, depending on your location, the fruits are not necessarily ready to be consumed, they're not fully ripe.

00:12:48 Maya: So needless to say, I gravitated towards the easy foods, which were processed vegan foods. And so I hope that we could talk a little bit about nutrition and what you recommend. And so, yes, that was my story. The first year, I ended up gaining weight. You as a coach really understand all of this, like the journey of transitioning to healthier whole plant based foods. You understand the power of foods, really to maximize our health in combination with exercising. So I've also heard you say that you initially started working with individuals who were only vegan. And please correct me if I'm wrong, and today, you've opened up your coaching program to be more inclusive of individuals who might be ready to make the transition, but you actually help them make the change, not only to consuming plant based foods, but building their exercise routine. So tell us about that. 

00:13:47 Maxime: Yeah, of course. So originally, the big mission was to help people disease proof their body and get it into a healthier state to greatly reduce those risk of those, again, cancer, heart disease, diabetes and all these issues. And after two years of doing that, of just working with vegans, I was having a conversation with my team and they're like, well, why don't we just work with people that want to eat more plant based? And I was like, yeah. I'm like, but I don't want to include animal products in our nutrition. It just doesn't align with who I am. Right.

00:14:15 Maxime: And then I went away to a vacation for one week. I just took off work. I just meditated, reflected on kind of where we were going, the bigger mission and what we wanted to accomplish. And I was like, you know what, I don't need vegans to be more vegan. I need more people to eat plant based. Right? And so if I can get someone that just doesn't associate with the word vegan, but that wants to eat, slowly transition to eating 100% plant based, we can help them with that. If they simply want to eat 70% more plant based, that's a huge win, right? You just greatly reduce your meat consumption and the risk of all these chronic illnesses. And so I just realized we need to work with people that are looking to transition, are just simply looking to eat more plant based. Because vegans are already vegan, right? I don't need them to be more vegan. I need more people eating more plants. 

00:15:04 Maya: I appreciate you saying that because when I think of people that hit the gym for the first time or are just building this exercise routine, food is the next thing that they focus on. And you are going to talk about the difference between weight loss and fat loss and what skinny fat is. But I've seen people in the gym who are muscular and have a belly, like they have that added fat. And you might know this, you might be able to explain to us what is happening there, but sometimes as we are exercising, our hunger increases so we can eat a lot more. And then that's where people can actually gain fat and not burn it. Maybe you can explain what is happening there and why it's important for you to know what foods to recommend to people. Say for recovery after an exercise routine?

00:15:53 Maxime: Yeah, for sure. Well, let's touch on the fat weight loss versus fat loss aspect, right? So most people, when they want to take on a transformation, they're like, I want to lose 40 pounds, right? But what is that 40 pounds that you're losing? Is it pure fat or is it with muscle? Right? So typically people that will associate to weight loss will just be like, I want to see the number on the scale drop. How we do transformations for our members is we focus on fat loss because for the members that are listening on audio, but for the video, there's two variables when it comes to shifting your body, right? There's fat and there's muscle, right? We want muscle to increase and fat to decrease. If you do that, you have what we call a shift in body composition. That's what makes you look more lean and more toned, right? 

00:16:38 Maxime: So logically, if I ask you, if we have fat and weight and fat and muscle and we decrease these two variables, guess what we have? You're just a lighter version of yourself. You're not going to look more tone. You're not going to look more lean, you're not going to look more defined. You’ll just be, I always put it this way, a skinnier fluffier version of yourself, right? No one wants to be fluffy. Everyone wants to be lean and tone. So we want to focus on fat loss versus weight loss. So that's the difference. So now people that do weight loss and fat loss do nutrition and exercise completely differently. Remember my story when I mentioned I was trying to lose weight so I can fit in those darn clothes for the modeling industry? What I do? I stopped strength training. I just did cardio, and I ate very low protein. 

00:17:25 Maxime: That's what I did to purposefully lose fat in muscle because I knew that was the surest way to get lighter. But that's what most people use as a fat loss strategy. They do cardio, they don't strength train, and they don't consume enough protein. And I'm not saying protein in the way that bodybuilders talk about protein, right? It's way less than you think. But there still needs to be a little emphasis on it because it is critical to, again, shifting that variable of building lean muscle. So weight loss, if you just want weight loss, do cardio, don't strength train, eat whole food, plant based, and don't worry about your protein, you will look skinnier and fluffier, right? Going to look lean and tone. 

00:18:10 Maxime: Strength training is one of the only things, honestly, resistance training, whether you're lifting a dumbbell, a barbell, a kettlebell, a bag with books or bricks in it, a tree trunk, it doesn't matter. Resistance band. You want resistance training basically, because it's one of the only forms of movement and exercise that will put enough of that stressor on the muscle to tear those muscle fibers, that you can repair them with your recovery nutrition. That process is what's going to allow you to increase your variable of lean muscle mass that you have on your body. By increasing your variable of lean muscle mass on your body, you're naturally increasing your metabolism because it does require more energy to sustain more muscle. Right?

00:18:48 Maxime: You do feel stronger. You do feel like you have better posture. There's more confidence that comes with it as well because you're more in control of your body and it allows you to have the specific look that you want. So strength training, aka resistance training, is one of these core important things. Cardio, I like to frame it as heart training, right? Because cardio has a negative connotation for a lot of people. You think of cardio, like, I hate it, I don't want to do it at all. But you have to realize that it's training your heart. Right? You can have the sexiest, leanest body you want. If your heart gives out, you still die, right? So you need to train your heart. It's an important factor to you having a long and healthy life. 

00:19:26 Maxime: So we want to do some heart training. And that doesn't have to be running. It can be whatever you think is fun. So some people it's swimming, some people it's running, some people it's like… some people it's dancing, right? Whatever it may be, do something fun as long as it's working your heart. So that is meant as a tool to help with the fat loss. It is not the main vehicle for the fat loss. And then from a nutrition standpoint, right, I preach whole food plant based because that's one of the ones that's been around for the longest of time. That's been the most studies and it's the most natural one compared to all the vegan processed foods that have been out there only for the past five-ish years. And they need to worry about protein to a certain extent. 

00:20:03 Maxime: So I'll put a disclaimer on this. A lot of people that eat whole food plant based or that just focus on eating healthy, you're eating specific foods, you're exercising, but not seeing any results. There's one component that's missing, it's a protein component because you can eat very low amounts of protein and be very healthy and live for a very long time, all 100%. But if your goal is to shift the way that your body looks, there needs to put a bigger emphasis, which you're only looking at about 1.2 to 2 grams per kg of body weight. So that's a lot less than most people think and is very achievable without consuming all those fake meat products, without including animal products, ultimately. 

00:20:44 Maya: Okay, I've heard you speak about this before and I had questions, and you might have just answered my question, but I remember attending a conference, sort of like a vegan fair, and there was a panel discussion among vegan athletes. There was a vegan athlete panel discussion. And I remember them speaking among themselves, saying basically that the doctors prescribe a whole food, plant based diet, as you said, like the least whole foods that are minimally processed. But they were saying that really to get results, like, you were saying that they felt that they have to gravitate towards the fake meats, the processed vegan food. You're saying we don't necessarily have to do that. But what do you mean by increasing our protein intake? What foods should we be eating to see results? 

00:21:38 Maxime: Yeah, of course. So again, I'll say the word soy, right? Which triggers a lot of things for a lot of people. So I'm talking about organic non GMO soy. So there's actually a lot of research about how organic non GMO soy is cancer preventative. Right. Prevention for breast cancer, prevention for prostate cancer, for men, actually helps to strengthen their bone, actually helps to balance some of the hormones. So in soy, there's a compound called phytoestrogen. Because it has the word estrogen in it. People kind of freak out a little bit of, like, it's estrogen. I don't want any of that excess in my body. 

00:22:13 Maxime: So I'm going to use an image to kind of explain what it does. For example, for women, you have receptors in the breast for estrogen, right. If you're drinking out of plastic bottles, pollution, using bad skincare products, bad makeup, any of these things that produce toxins, aka bad estrogen, into your body, those estrogen come to your body and can bind to those receptors. Right. What phytoestrogen does from soy is they'll come in and fill those receptors, which, again, are not negative, and they're going to block those bad estrogens from attaching to it, ultimately. Right. This is a very simplistic way to explain it, but there's a lot of benefits from it. 

00:22:48 Maxime: And I think I was interviewing Dr. Matthew Nagra, Dr. Klaper, Dr. Greger. I've spoken to all of them about soy. All of them are pro soy, as long as it's organic and it's non GMO. I think what the metaanalysis studies that they looked at was they looked at someone consuming over 17 servings of soy per day and that they found no negative side effects from it. And that's abusive. Like, no one should consume 17 servings of soy. That's a lot of tofu or soy milk, whatever it may be. So when we talk of including a bit more protein, right, tofu, tempeh, natto, edamame, lentils, beans, chickpeas, some specific grains that are higher in protein, nuts and seeds, there are so many options to get in more protein that is very easy without having to consume again, like a Beyond Burger or any of those fake products.

00:23:36 Maya: Yeah, well, that's good to hear. I don't like the fake meats. I stopped eating meat when I was in college, so I've never really craved, like, a burger. But I know that when we transition sometimes to a whole food plant based diet, then people start to gravitate towards the processed foods that they never really ate in the first place. So that's what happened to me that first year. Okay, I want to learn more about your coaching program. So I'm the individual that has never liked going to the gym, which is a shame, because I will say that when I was in high school, I took a weight training class as an elective in high school. Loved it, learned to train, ran around the track. And what moved me away from pursuing that to stay in shape was that the boys used to make fun of me. 

00:24:24 Maya: So the teasing kind of you went through some teasing when you were younger, too. So I'm that individual that loves being outdoors. I'll do anything outdoors. I'll hike, I'll run. No, I'm not a runner. I'm a power walker. I'll cycle. Being in the gym because I see it, like and this is mindset that I want to talk about, but I see it. I'm over here, and where I want to be in the gym is way over there in terms of lifting weights. So how do you work with people that have never really developed a habit of going to the gym? How do you start with them? Is it better to do a group approach or one on one?

00:25:03 Maxime: Yeah. So on a personal level, I like one on one because you're actually being efficient with the session that you're having, because it's tailored to you specifically. But here's what I'll say for people that don't like strength training, but they have an apprehension to it. I'll put it this way. The majority of people we work with, I would say maybe like 70% women, 30% men between the age of 40 to 80 years old, that's typically who we work with. Right? Because as you get older, you're more health conscious. Right. You actually care. When you're 20s and you’re 30s, you still think you're invincible until it hits you. And then you're like, oh, I need to take care of myself. Right? 

00:25:35 Maxime: So typically the people I work with are health conscious. So as you get older, few things happen, right. Decrease in bone density, there's a decrease in lean muscle mass, there's a decrease in protein synthesis. So it does become a little bit harder to put on muscle. And on top of that, you lose muscle at a faster rate. And so it's important to stimulate that muscle. So the best ways to accomplish all of these things and if you look at perimenopause, menopause, post menopause as well, balancing the hormones, strength training helps with that as well.

00:26:04 Maxime: So if you want to strengthen your bone, you need to do bone bearing activities. So putting pressure on the bone, right? Strength training is the best way to do that. If you're hiking, it's great. It's very minimal, specifically on your legs, but it's not as overall as your body. So strength training for bone density is one of the best things. In terms of building lean muscle mass, again, we need to have a stimulus, a stress around the muscle that would force the muscle to grow. Because if you're already doing exercise that your body know that it's able to do, why would it become better? Why would it have more muscle? It has no reason to, right? So it helps you to build more lean muscle and retain more lean muscle, especially as you get older. 

00:26:43 Maxime: So now for the comment of, I don't like strength training, I've worked with a lot of people that didn't like strength training originally, so here's how I frame it, right? Transformation. 80% of it is psychology and 20% is strategy, right? We have some of the best strategies in the world. When we coach our members, if we don't stick to them, there's no magic that happens, right? So a lot of it is focused on psychology and mindset. So we, as humans, we typically don't like something that we're not good at. If you get me to play soccer, I probably won't have as much as a good time as if you put me on a bike because I'm way better at biking than I'm at soccer.

00:27:17 Maxime: So same thing for strength training is either it burns the muscle, it's a level of discomfort that we're not used to it yet. And any sport or any new thing that we take on in life, whether it's having a child, when you first start off, there's a huge learning curve. There's a huge adaptation phase. When you start a new job, huge learning curve, huge adaptation phase. Same thing with strength training. There's that initial learning curve and adaptation phase, right? It's about three to four weeks for most people. After that, the higher level of soreness kind of like, backs down a little bit. You start to become coordinated with the movements that you're doing. Like, you feel more confident when you're doing a squat, and eventually you start to feel that mind muscle connection.

00:27:57 Maxime: And then you're like, oh, I'm good at this. This is fun, right? You start to feel it when you're picking up the groceries, when you're pushing a door, when you're picking up your child. You start to feel like, oh, I got some power in me. And then you kind of start to get addicted to the feeling of feeling strong, right? But it's just getting through that initial phase. And that's what we are always a little bit more present with members that don't really exercise when they start off. Let's build up your fitness solely. We don't need to start you training like an Olympic athlete. We're not there. Let's just start build you up slowly so you can kind of feel that muscle connection, that coordination, feel that strength in your body. And once you feel it, most people get hooked on, and then when they're out of the program, they're like, I never thought I would say this, but I feel weird and bad when I miss a workout now. I never thought I would be this person. Yeah.

00:28:43 Maya: This is motivating. I'm so glad we're having this conversation, because I really wanted, one of my goals for the year was not necessarily that I have these annual goals, but I always have goals. There's always something that I'm working towards. And the more that I learn about lifestyle medicine, the more that I realize that I have to really optimize certain pillars of lifestyle medicine as I'm aging. I mean, you just talked about what happens as we enter menopause, and as I age, I realize the importance of exercising and building muscle for my mind to prevent falls, to build my balance or work on balance. So there are many reasons why I'm now very interested in developing a routine that I can sustain throughout life. 

00:29:31 Maya: During the pandemic, my husband was my coach because he's been athletic for many years, and he put me in a P90X program during the pandemic. Oh, my God. First of all, it's not sustainable, but I will tell you, Maxime, I remember telling him, oh, my God, I never realized that I could feel so good. And it was because I was challenging myself physically and seeing and feeling that high of, wow, my body is getting strong. And so, yeah, I definitely want to enter a program, and which is why I wanted to have this conversation with you, because I said, well, Maxime knows this. He gets it. He understands the difference between weight loss and fat loss. 

00:30:17 Maya: Many times we women focus on the scale, on the numbers on the scale, and we tend to focus too much on calorie intake and burning calories. It's that old mindset that we've been programmed to believe we should focus on. We focus on what size we can fit into. You said earlier that body composition is what you focus on, and now I understand that that's a new way of looking at what we're trying to build with our body. Tell us more about your programs. How does one get started? 

00:30:47 Maxime: Yeah, of course. Well, I want to address one of the things you mentioned that women tend to be more focused on a number on the scale. When I start working with new members, I always tell them the number on the scale is irrelevant to a certain extent. As a coach, we use it as a piece of data to better coach you. But ultimately, I don't want you to be attached to it. Because what if I could snap my fingers? Get you to the ideal body that you've always dreamed of, but you're 10 pounds heavier on the scale than what you want to be, right? So you have the body that you want, but you're 10 pounds heavier. Would you be happy? 

00:31:21 Maxime: And a lot of the answers are no, which is when you look at, it's not interesting. You have the exact body that you want, but you're 10 pounds heavier on the scale than what you thought you should be. Right? So that means there's a strong emotional attachment to the number on the scale, which is completely irrelevant. If I say 150 pounds to you, maybe it means that you're overweight. If, to someone else, it's severely underweight. It means nothing to anyone else but yourself. And so I always invite our members to work on that emotional attachment to the number on the scale because realistically, there's been a terrible history in a fitness and fat loss transformation online of just worrying about the number, lose as much weight as fast as possible, and then everyone got attached to the number on the scale. 

00:32:02 Maxime: But when you do a body recomposition and when you do a proper transformation, you might end up being a little bit heavier because you have more lean muscle mass on you, which is heavier than fat. Right. Like a pound of muscle is this big, but a pound of fat is this big. So the number on the scale is just an indicator for heading in the right direction, but ultimately the mirror is telling you, if you are where you want to be. So throwing that out there for people. So, yeah, typically how we work with people is it's on a custom duration basis, which I'm not like, everyone three months, twelve weeks. We're transforming. You guarantee.

00:32:35 Maxime: If you want to lose 100 pounds versus if you want to lose 20 pounds, it's a completely different journey. Right. And it's just fair that it wouldn't be the same duration. I am not a fan of drastic fat loss, and I'll just explain that quickly because that relates into the skinny fat versus lean and tone. If you do a rapid calorie deficit, which is typically what most women and most men that want to lose weight fast will do, like, well, if I cut 500 calories a day, I'll lose a pound a week. If I cut 1000 calories a day, I'll lose two pounds a week. But you have to think of your body in terms of a survival and adaptation machine, right? 

00:33:09 Maxime: So if your body is only looking for survival, it doesn't really care if you're trying to have a flat stomach, if you're trying to have tighter legs, whatever it may be. So if you remove 1000 calories from your daily food intake, Maya, your body goes, okay, we have this much energy coming in, we're putting out this much. If we continue at the strand over the next rest of our life, we're going to die 10 years early because we're going to run out of energy. So what does your body do? It slows down your metabolism, slows down your metabolism and starts to let go of things that are not necessary, aka muscle. 

00:33:39 Maxime: So muscle requires a lot of energy for your body to be able to maintain it so if you remove a ton of calories, your body is going to be like, let go of muscle, right? This is requiring too much of us. We need it for survival. We don't need this muscle. Because reality, you can be really skinny and live a long time. And that's why most people that do rapid calorie deficits end up looking skinny fat because they're sacrificing a lot of lean muscle. So for our members, we go the steady road, right? What we do is the real non sexy approach, right? I want you to have a transformation so that when you lose the weight, you keep the weight off and you keep it off for years after. 

00:34:16 Maxime: So first phase is we do a body recomposition fat loss phase. Let's just say you want to lose 20 pounds. Example, we take four months to lose 20 pounds, right? I always tell people, we can go faster, but I need perfection from you, right? I need you to be perfect on your training nutrition, which is not realistic. We've coached over 600 plus people at this point. I've never had someone, had a perfect journey. Because life happens. Sometimes you're stressed, you make the wrong decision. Sometimes there's a date night that kind of slips into other things. And so I want wiggle room for us to have time to get you to where you want to.

00:34:48 Maxime: Post fat loss. Your metabolism slows down during your fat loss phase. We want to speed up your metabolism. Something called reverse dieting, right? Takes about four months to do. The faster to go, the more weight you put on, which is what most people experience when they do a fat loss phase, aka yo-yo dieting. They lose the weight. They like, oh, yes, I'm done. They go back to normally put all the way back on. The stats for North America are 95% of people put the way back on six months to a year after. That's crazy. You just did all this hard work to just have it back on by the end of the year, ultimately. 

00:35:19 Maxime: So there's a process to stop that and that we do that with every member. After we've done that, we go into post program support because we want to support our members post transformation. Because my focus at least is not on a cool before and after photo. It's the after, after photo. Like, where is Maya three years from now? Is Maya from three years from now still where she wants to be or even better position, not where she originally started with us. That's kind of how I structured everything.

00:35:46 Maya: This is really exciting, the idea of possibly… I'm actually considering working with you for that same reason that it's been difficult finding a coach that has the knowledge that you have. And I've known other people that are very disciplined. They take themselves to the gym. They sometimes might want to work with a trainer and the trainer will tell them, you got to eat meat, you're not going to build muscle. And it's a story that we hear all the time, Maxime. Yeah, exactly. It's always the same story and we get it now. We understand. I mean, you have lots of examples like Robert Cheeke, yourself, many people that are plant based athletes that have proven that you don't need to consume animal products. But also we need the discipline and the guidance to, like you said, sustain this lifestyle.

00:36:34 Maya: This is not just about reaching your goal, your body goal, and then going back to an old way of life. I know that I myself have been seeing myself since I went plant based. I've been able to achieve certain things physically that I never thought I could. In my story, I've shared in the past that when I was in my 30s, I felt like I was 50 years old. Now I'm in my early 50s and I can't believe the strength that I have, but I only want to improve it. We recently did a hike near Amarillo, Texas. It's about six hours away from us, and it was a group of four of us, and we did a hike that was close to six miles. It should have probably taken us maybe four because you do a lot of going up and downhills and all that, but the conditions were not the best. It had been raining and the rangers had actually asked us not to. 

00:37:27 Maya: Well, they had been basically advising people to not hike the trail. But we went ahead and went and we had a little bit of rain and there was some flooding in some areas. Needless to say, I was hesitant. I told the group, go ahead without me. I can't do this. I don't want to be the one to drag everybody down. But they encouraged me. It took us seven hours because of the conditions and the rocks and the slippery paths and all that. And I will tell you, Maxime, after seven hours, I was like, wow, this was amazing. This is going to be my new hobby. The whole hiking thing I love, but I also know about strength training now. I know the importance. So I just need a coach to guide me. I do well with coaches, so that's not going to be so much of an issue. It's more of making a decision, isn't it? 

00:38:17 Maxime: Yeah. Well, I like to touch base on one of the things you said. You guys go ahead. I don't want to slow you guys down. How often do we do that? Because we feel like we're going to hold the group back. Like, hey, you guys go to the beach. I'm just going to stay home because I don't feel confident being my bathing suit. You guys go for the hike. You guys go for whatever swim or for the kayak trip or whatever it may be. And we miss out on so many opportunities on life because we don't have a body that is functional for us to live our best life.

00:38:48 Maxime: And ultimately, that's just what this is, right? Six pack or no six pack, it doesn't matter. You don't need a six pack to be healthy, to be able to do all of these things. And I'll share this. I've never really shared this on podcasts because I'll say it triggers people. But you losing the weight and having the body that you want won't solve any of your problem. Right? I've coached over 600 people to achieve the bodies that they want. I've done every single transformation you could ever think of. I've been 80 pounds overweight, I've been 3% body fat. I've done all of it.

00:39:21 Maxime: Every time I was like, when I reach this goal or when I look this way, then I'll feel good. Then I'll have confidence, right? Or then I'll be happy. Then I'll be able to do these things. But ultimately, it was just this little thing internally that I needed to deal with that external transformation couldn't fulfill. And the reason why I love the way that we coach our members is because it's not about the end goal. It's cheesy, but it's about the journey. Because who you're becoming throughout the journey is you prove to yourself that you can do the thing that you say that you're going to do. That's true confidence. 

00:39:58 Maxime: Once you know that you can follow through on the thing that you say that you're going to do, game over. You become unstoppable. Right? You start to become very careful with how you set goals because you're like, damn, I can't set too many goals because I'm going to hit all of them, right? So let me choose carefully. There's a different level of confidence that comes from that. 

00:40:16 Maya: Absolutely. And as you're saying that, I was also thinking about how I had a guest on the show once who had significant weight loss. That's part of her testimony. And she said early on when her kids were growing up, she was the by standard. She was the mom that sat on the sidelines and couldn't participate in family activities because of her weight. And many of my female listeners may be battling and dealing with weight issues. And again, we hold back. We're not as active for the same reason that we either don't have the energy or we feel like the weight is holding us back. So the idea that we can free up our life to be more available, to experience life in general is awesome. 

00:41:02 Maya: In the past, my husband is a surgeon, and I often talk about, I bring him on the show and we talk about his patients or what he sees. And one of the things that we once talked about was sometimes he does have to amputate a leg. And once the patient becomes wheelchair bound, their immediate life and surrounding changes. So not only are you limited when you have to use a cane initially, but once you lose a leg, now you're dependent on everyone to do things for you, to take you around. And that's sometimes how we feel when we're not in shape. We feel that, no, we can't go on certain vacations, or if we are on vacation, we can't spend too much time at the beach.

00:41:44 Maya: I remember my mom once telling me that she doesn't like going in the pool because she can't get out of the pool. Can you believe that? This is like, what people are living with? Just simple things that are simple to us become challenges for someone else. And so by getting a little bit more in shape and having someone that can believe in us and encourage us, can open up a whole new world for us.

00:42:08 Maxime: Yeah, I'd love to add to that, because I work with a lot of moms, and I work with people that have conquered cancer or they're recovering from cancer. What I'm going to say, I say this very respectfully, but we always, especially for people that are naturally caregivers at heart, we talk about like, I just want to put other people first. I just want to put my kids, put my partner, put other people first. But at the end of the day, it's actually selfish for you to not put yourself first. And here's why.

00:42:40 Maxime: Because by putting other people first, you're neglecting yourself. We all know that. But what happens after years of neglect? You get sick. And guess what happens when you get sick? Now the people that are around you are forced to take care of you. So now you're putting additional stress and burden on the people that you love because you didn't take care of yourself. And I got to experience that firsthand, right? That was the roughest five years of my life, having to be a caregiver. And that was simply, again, it was lifestyle [created]. It was not genetic. It was out of, like, being busy eating crappy food. I kind of let her to be in that position.

00:43:15 Maxime: But it's selfish for you to not take care of you. Like, it's the opposite of what people think. It's just it's not immediate. It's like 2030 years down the road, your kids and your partner are forced to take care of you because you didn't take care of yourself. That's why I invite people to start taking care of themselves today. And it doesn't have to be huge, right? It's like, let's just go to the gym three times a week for 30 minutes. Let's just start swapping some of the foods that you're consuming. Let's just start heading in the right direction. It doesn't need to be a drastic change, right? But let's just start heading in the right direction so that when you're 60, 70, 80, 90 years old, you feel good, your kids don't have to take care of you, right? You can enjoy life with your partner. I think that's the biggest win beyond just, like, having a great body? 

00:43:57 Maya: Absolutely, yes. And so a lot of people that follow us, whether it's on the podcast or locally, because we do other events here in Dallas, are a little bit older. We don't have too many young people in their 20s or 30s joining us. We lead a community walk once a month. And so I always tend to be the person that walks with the slowest person. And that's because it's part of my wanting to just build community and encourage people that no matter where you are in your walking routine, you can still be supported by someone. But it feels so good to us because at the same time, I mean, we do our own walking separately, but it's just once a month where we touch on a health topic, usually about chronic disease and lifestyle and what people can do to prevent those diseases. 

00:44:48 Maya: And then we go for a walk and we really enjoy it. It's a great way to connect other people to each other. They can meet people probably from their area that they can walk with during the week. But we know again, we know that as we age, building muscle is important. I even heard that for dementia, you reduce your risk for dementia and Alzheimer's, you reduce your risk for cardiovascular disease, you improve type two diabetes, if you're battling with diabetes. I mean, blood pressure gets improved by exercising and walking. So there are so many health benefits. It's not just about building that body that you want, but it's also about helping to your overall health, including mood swings. Like, you have more mental clarity by working out. There's so many benefits. So I just want to go back to what I read in your intro, which I think is fascinating, that you have a mission to help one million people by 2050. 

00:45:45 Maxime: So the full mission is ultimately to help 10,000 people get lean, thrive, and disease proof their bodies on plants by 2033, because that's the age at which my ex partner passed away. So she was quite older than I was and she was 39 when she passed away. So by 2033, I will be her age. And so that's my goal, is to have 10,000 people transform and in a million by 2050, just to continue to impact more people ultimately. So I've found various different ways to help transform people ultimately and got creative with hitting 10,000 and the million. 

00:46:22 Maya: Awesome. Wonderful. So tell me again, how does this program work? Do we do it virtually, remotely like this? Do you give me videos and then I hope I go, hit the gym? How does all that work?

00:46:34 Maxime: Yeah, for sure. So we have our own application, our own app, which is also available on desktop, and everything takes place on there. So we build you a custom workout. So you talked about earlier, about potentially feeling uncomfortable going to the gym. If you want to work out at home, we can build you a home workout, right? We don't force you to go to the gym, we don't force you to work out at home. I don't want equipment to be an issue for you to have your transformation. So whatever you have access to, we help you with that. Same thing for nutrition, we build you several custom meal plans per month that are a whole food plant based, that are tailored around your specific needs. 

00:47:09 Maxime: Because I would put it this way, we rarely work with people that have no issues. Most people that we work with are like Crohn's, celiac, PCOS, Hypothyroidism, recovering from cancer, right? So we're used to dealing with working with everyone ultimately. And we do work with everyone. Besides, if they're currently going through cancer treatment because their body is under enough stress, they don't need more. But we've worked with people recovering from cancer. We work with cancer survivor. We literally work with everyone. All that we ask from people is that they have an open mind and that they are coachable. Because we do things quite differently than what you're used from the traditional fitness and kind of fat loss world. Because we're focused on health first.

00:47:49 Maxime: We have daily group calls with several coaches. We have a doctor of physical therapy on our team, we have a holistic nutritionist on our team with 10 plus years of experience. We have several coach on our team. There's daily group calls that are recorded so if people can't attend them, they can watch the replay. There's texting with their coaches every day, there's one on one conversations, there's check ins, there's a lot of support because like I mentioned earlier, all transformation is 80% psychology, 20% strategy. And so we're really good at creating sustainable plans for people, but if we don't stick to them, there's nothing that happens, right? I always say I'm a coach, I'm not a magician, so I need some type of compliance to the plan. So we make sure that we go above and beyond to help you be compliant with, kind of what we build for you. 

00:48:34 Maya: This is wonderful. I have a life coach that I work with. I've been working with her for now, over two years and I check in with her every Thursday. Actually I have a session with her, but she's very reachable. She'll text me and contact me throughout the week and I just have had a lot of breakthroughs working with her. And so now I want to put more emphasis in my fitness, so I definitely want to get in shape and I want to encourage my listeners to join me. So if I do some sort of challenge, challenges work for me. And what all that means is that I'm dedicating this time to actually focusing on a goal that I want to, then create as a sustainable way of living. 

00:49:16 Maxime: Yeah. And that's how I tailored everything. So the big emphasis is to make this the last program that you need to do, because I want to help you lose the weight, speed up your metabolism after, offer you support after, get you educated throughout the whole progress. I'll put it this way. You ever watched a movie, Karate Kid before? 

00:49:34 Maya: Oh, yes. Okay. Yes, I have. 

00:49:36 Maxime: Right. Karate Kid. Okay. You heard Mr. Miyagi, like, wax on and wax off? 

00:49:40 Maya: Yeah. 

00:49:41 Maxime: All right. Okay. So how I put it is the program is wax on, wax off. Right? You're learning to structure your meal. You're getting educated about nutrition. You’re getting educated about training. You're seeing the progression, how they're built. We're explaining to you why we're doing things the way that we're doing. So you're learning to kind of, like, block and strike, right? It's a wax on, wax off part. So most people, when they do a fat loss program, when the program ends, the coach is like, hey, Maya, you're on your own now. So in the world of Karate Kid, that's your first fight on your own, right? Now you're fighting someone else. You know how to block, you know how to strike. You've never dealt with someone else coming at you, trying to hurt you ultimately, that's life. 

00:50:20 Maxime: So when you're out of the program now, you have to be self accountable. You have to watch your own training. You have to watch your own nutrition. It's your first real fight. Most people get beat down a little bit on their first real fight, right? And they kind of find their footing, and eventually they kind of get back at it. So for me, I wanted to increase the rate of success post three, four years after the program. So I realized that ultimately, as coaches, we can't have to fight for you because that would be a crutch, right? You need to learn to defend yourself, ultimately, learn to stand on your own two feet when life throws a curveball, but instead of leaving you on your own for your first fight, we put a coach in your corner. 

00:50:54 Maxime: So as you're out of the program, you still… can still text your coach. You still have weekly check-ins because we want to make sure that you feel supported. And we basically coach you on your first fight so that you can win it, build a confidence, and you're like, oh, I can handle my own training nutrition. I can be self accountable. And then you move into the world. All right, so that's kind of my funny Karate Kid analogy. 

00:51:14 Maya: It's perfect. Most of us my age would remember what the lessons were from that movie. So it's a great way to connect with us. Okay, as we're wrapping up, I kind of want to mention, I recently came back from the Vegan Women's Summit that took place in New York, and there were 1000 women that attended. And this is all about the world of entrepreneurs, product developers, women in the food industry. I came back on fire. You have two podcasts. You have the one that focuses on fitness, the conversations that we've been having, and then you have another one that caters to entrepreneurs. So please tell my listeners a little bit about both. And we have just a few minutes left.

00:51:57 Maxime: Yeah, for sure. So thank you. So the Fit Vegan Podcast ultimately is to kind of help people in their transformation, kind of like everything we talked about. The other one is I have a lot of friends. I own four different businesses, so I have a lot of friends in that space, a lot of experts in different fields that didn't necessarily want to be associated with the name Fit Vegan because they're not vegan and they have their own personal brands. I was like, well, they have a lot of value to provide, so how can I interview them? And then after two months of debating, I was like, I'm just going to start a second podcast. So it's called the Maxime Sigouin Show. It's just my name. That way it's neutral, right? People can't say anything about what it's about. 

00:52:34 Maxime: So basically, just interviewing people in different fields, like you mentioned, life coaches. I work with Tony Robbins and kind of some of his team, so I have this team behind me. So kind of interviewing people in there, my mentors. And I think entrepreneurship is a beautiful thing, and it's one of the ways that I get to have the impact that I want to have. 

00:52:52 Maya: I mentioned earlier, I don't know how you do it with two podcasts, but you mentioned you have a great team and that is significant when you have the right support that's aligned with your values and they know how to work with you, that's amazing. Do you have a final message for our listeners? And again, if you want to share websites or links on how people can learn about your program and actually get involved?

00:53:16 Maxime: Yeah, for sure. So the message I'll share is actually something I have tattooed on myself. For the people listening, you won't be able to see it, but I have it right on the inside of my wrists here. It's E plus R equals O. So it stands for event plus response equals outcome. So it's the equation that explains why we're responsible for every single outcome in our life. Because there was an event that was presented to us at one point, we had a response to it or created the outcome that we have. Right. So the R [can stand] for two things, reaction or a response, right? Response is a lot more powerful. Reaction typically puts us in trouble.

00:53:48 Maxime: So I always tell people, you have an event in front of you right now. You want to lose 20 pounds, you want to lose 30 pounds, you want to get healthier, you want to change your career, you want to meet a partner, whatever it may be. How are you going to respond to create the outcome that you want? A lot of time, we feel powerless in our life. A lot of things that we can't control. You get to control the thing that creates the outcome 100% of the time. You don't control the event, right, but you control how you respond to which you create the outcome that you want. So the choice is yours. The ball is in your court, ultimately. So realize that you have that power and make a choice that will serve you. That'll be my message. 

00:54:24 Maxime: To learn more fitvegan.ca would be the best way. You can see, we have hundreds of transformations, tons of testimonials. It explains a little bit more, kind of what we do. And you have the opportunity to book a call directly with me one on one to have a conversation and see if we might be able to help you ultimately.

00:54:43 Maya: Wonderful. Well, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. I look forward to listening to your podcast even more, both of them, actually. And I will be in touch to get started on getting fit and healthy. So thank you again for being on the show, Maxime.

00:55:00 Maxime: Beautiful. Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it. 

00:55:04 Maya: You've been listening to the Healthy Lifestyle Solutions Podcast with your host, Maya Acosta. If you've enjoyed this content, please share with one friend who can benefit. You can also leave us a five star review at ratethispodcast.com/HLS. This helps us to spread our message. As always, thank you for being a listener.