Nate Miyaki is a fitness author, athlete, and coach. He has run a private personal training and nutrition consulting practice for the past twelve years, working with a wide variety of clients ranging from professional athletes and models to busy working professionals looking to lose weight and improve health.

Nate's pictures and his work have been featured in Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, LIVESTRONG, Muscle & Fitness, T-Nation, and Bodybuilding.com. He has provided nutrition seminars and been a guest speaker for several corporate wellness programs including Zynga, Wix.com, Hanson Bridgette Law Firm, and Stanford Business School. He is a 2x natural bodybuilding champion and has worked as a model and representative for several fitness brands.

Matt: Nate, you’re a huge advocate and lover of the book “Musashi” which happens to be one of my favorite books as well. What lessons did you learn from this book that would lead you to recommend it to other fitness professionals?

Nate: One of my favorite lessons from Musashi is to use all of your weapons and that’s something I really try to do. With nutrition I’ve focused on studying many different areas of research like Paleo, bodybuilding nutrition, and more to test it out myself. I’ve tried to take some of the best parts of each one and not get caught up into following any single system. Testing to see what works through trial and error over and over to ensure I’m using all of my weapons. It makes even more sense in the training realm when you need to focus on figuring out the right tool for the right job. There’s really no one right way to train and that’s part of our job as trainers, and same with you for software, to match our clients with the right programs based off of where they are and what their goals are. If you’re a powerlifter that’s one style of training and if you’re a bodybuilder that’s another. It doesn’t mean that there isn’t overlap. So using all of your weapons and using the right tool for the right job are the two biggest lessons I took away from Musashi. He was undefeated in his battles right? He didn’t get caught up in systems or in the dogma. He made sure to use whatever worked in battle. I think that we can do that as coaches as well. We definitely have our biases and beliefs and we need to make sure to use science and experiments. It’s staying focused and avoiding getting caught up in any one system and ensuring things are individualized for the person you’re working with. You use whatever you can to help get them to their goals.

Matt: This is more of a personal question for me, but is there a similar book you would recommend as a follow up read to Musashi?

Nate: Yeah, absolutely! I have a fitness client who’s deep into philosophy and he was telling me that the greatest people across history are all saying the same things but just saying them in different ways. Another big one for me is Bruce Lee. Most people know him for the movies and martial arts, but he was a big time philosopher as well. The funny thing about Bruce Lee is that most of his philosophy was never meant for other people or publication. His writing was mostly just notes he had been writing to himself as an athlete and a student. These were only published after he passed on. You know it’s authentic and he says a lot of the same things I mentioned before. Jeet Kune Do is not really a style, instead it’s pulling from multiple styles. It’s really about efficiency and what works. Hacking away all the unessential stuff and focusing on simplicity. I found that this method worked for me as well. When reading Bruce Lee’s philosophical works you can see he must have studied Musashi because there’s a lot of the core principles are the same. I incorporate a lot of stuff into my work because it’s helped me so much as a coach, as an athlete, and just life in general.

Matt: Just like the last few interviews I’ve done you advocate a diet that’s easy to adhere to in the long-term. With this is mind what should fitness professionals be aware of when giving diet/nutrition advice to their clients?

Nate: One thing that was big for me to figure out was to stop assuming just because I could do something that my clients could do it as well. I followed bodybuilding diets for a long time and I would write similar style plans for my clients. After a while you find out that you’re just willing to suffer a little bit more than other people. That’s what lead me into further research. I would see problems  with my clients where they couldn’t eat six meals a day, pack tupperware, or not eat out. I had to dig into further research to see that most of the unbiased research is saying meal frequency isn’t necessary. As long as you’re controlling for the same meals and macros you can have some flexibility with meal frequency and distribution. What I try to do is get into the head of my clients. I work in the gym, but they are lawyers, doctors, or entrepreneurs. We need things that are a little more practical than what normal fitness nutrition recommends. Getting into this and the psychology of thinking as a busy professional instead of a fitness meathead (laughing). Efficiency is important to them because they can’t train 5x a week. They needed efficient, sustainable plans. Once again, I had to get the right person to the right program.

Matt: So right now there seem to be three main philosophical factions in fitness nutrition to me. I see macro counting, paleo/cavemen, and intermittent fasting. You seem to advocate a blend of the three. Could you talk about the process that led to your nutrition beliefs today?

Nate: Of course. One, it was just getting into the research and studying the different nutrition groups. Two was practical experience. I admit that I do a lot of this stuff for pure selfish reasons because I am a competing athlete and am really passionate about it. I want to go through a lot of these things myself to test and assess them. On top of that, working with people in the real world helped me see a lot more. Anything can sound great on paper and research studies are great, but if it’s not a sustainable plan in the real world it’s meaningless. It’s not about theoretical debate, it’s about getting the results.

I kind of have an overall approach that works for me and integrates everything.  From the right numbers to the right food choices to finding a meal frequency and distribution pattern that works for someone. It could be intermittent fasting, bodybuilding nutrition, or something else. Really to me the whole intermittent fasting sports nutrition debate is really third on the hierarchy of importance. If you get the numbers right and you optimize food choices then IF is third. Not nearly as important as one and two.

Matt: The nutrition industry has been overwhelmed for years with pseudoscience and misinformation. I believe that it’s slowly changing with industry leaders such as Examine.com and yourself putting out great content. Where do you see the industry going in the next few years?

Nate: I think we are getting smarter as coaches and consumers. It’s definitely going to go in the direction where higher quality content from the more informed writers will rise to the top. Some of the bullshit stuff will fall to the wayside. Honestly, reading certain people has inspired me to get back into the research and get better myself. I think the quality of content that’s out there is only going to improve. For guys like me it’s finding the right platform to get my stuff out there.

Matt: So going along with that what are you focused on improving with your craft and your coaching?

Nate: What I’m really excited about is focusing even more on my content which is my true passion. I love researching, educating, and sharing what I know. This my current plan, but that does change everyday (laughing). I’m working on something completely outside of fitness which I think is good to keep me balanced. It’s more of a philosophical thing based off of Musashi, Bruce Lee, and other writing out there. No one’s going to read it, but it’s good for me. Second, I have some books out there where I could make improvements based off new research. Really since I’m integrating mobility and exercise protocols I’d like to do training book or video to complement the nutrition stuff I have out there. Sometime this summer I’d like to start filming or doing something with that. I’m going to be competing as well so I’m looking forward to what’s coming up.

If you’d like to follow or read more from Nate check out the links below:

• Nate's Website

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