The Gen Pop Podcast
Personal Trainer , Coach and people helper Larry Doyle , joined by colleague Daniel Daly sit down with you each week, sharing tips, insights and real world coaching to help simplify your health & fitness journey.We cut through the nonsense, fillers and BS to give you simple real life tips.
The Gen Pop Podcast
#60 - The One About "All or Nothing"
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Daniel and Larry dismantle the harmful "all or nothing" mindset that leads many to abandon their fitness and nutrition goals at the first sign of imperfection.
• People apply the all-or-nothing approach selectively to fitness but not other areas of life
• Social media normalizes extreme, unsustainable approaches that aren't realistic for most people
• Focus on the "big rocks" like adequate protein and sleep before optimizing minor details
• Work with your reality rather than fighting against it—what's optimal depends on your circumstances
• Look at weekly averages instead of daily perfection for sustainable progress
• Make small, incremental improvements rather than attempting complete lifestyle overhauls
• Develop "if-then" plans to navigate inevitable disruptions
• Even perfect tracking doesn't guarantee perfect results due to natural variations in food labels and bodily processes
• Choose approaches you enjoy and can maintain consistently over theoretically optimal but unsustainable practices
Remain proactive in your approach and stay ahead of the game.
Got questions? simply email or dm us with those questions
Larry IG https://www.instagram.com/larry_doyle_coaching
Daniel IG https://www.instagram.com/danieldalycoaching
Website https://www.larrydoylecoaching.ie
Coaching with us https://www.larrydoylecoaching.ie/1-1-premium/
Email : info@larrydoylecoaching.ie
Got questions? simply email or dm us with those questions
Larry IG https://www.instagram.com/larry_doyle_coaching
Daniel IG https://www.instagram.com/danieldalycoaching
Website https://www.larrydoylecoaching.ie
Coaching with us https://www.larrydoylecoaching.ie/1-1-premium/
Email : info@larrydoylecoaching.ie
Introducing the All or Nothing Mentality
Speaker 1You are welcome back to another episode of the Gempop podcast where this week, me and co-host Daniel we're going to dive into removing the all or nothing approach. Daniel, let's go.
Speaker 2Yeah, the one thing I always find kind of funny about the all or nothing approach is people only seem to apply the all or nothing approach to their training and nutrition. So, like somebody might be let's say for argument's sake they might be on two and a half thousand calories that if they eat 2700, suddenly they've fucked everything and there is just a free-for-all that they're eating all around them. But you don't see people applying the same principles to their sleep, that they don't say, like I planned on sleeping nine hours, only slept seven, so I stayed up for 48 hours. You don't see that happening. It's just when something in their training and nutrition goes a bit off of what was planned, it then turns into an all or nothing approach. But they just don't seem to apply that mentality to the rest of their lifestyle. And I think it is just because we're exposed to so much information or misinformation in certain cases around training and nutrition that we kind of feel that like if we don't follow this one singular approach, then what's the point?
Speaker 1yeah, could you imagine if, like financial advisor, influencers were going on like instagram and like talking about how much they're like all in on the saving scheme and like how much they fucked it because they overspent a little bit on the weekend and how much they're?
Speaker 1like binge on saving now for the next week. It's like it just doesn't happen. Because I think, like, the fitness industry is one that's like just completely lawless and it's it's. It's one that from the inside I will see a lot of it and and those who are on the outside mightn't be as aware of it.
Speaker 1But there's very distorted approaches, there's very disordered approaches that are employed by a lot of those, because it is quite an extreme thing for many people who will be on the internet, that who will post themselves, because, like your normal joan jane isn't going to post themselves on the internet, but you've got little glute princess mary, whatever her name is, and she's going to like go all or nothing and show like completely disordered approaches. But people think that's normal because that's what people portray on the internet and what you should do, and it's like 800 calorie diets and it's like the stairmaster till their legs fall off and it's like this all or nothing in thing, and people just assume that that's what's normal within the industry and I can tell you right now you can spot it a mile away when you're familiar with it. That is not normal, it is not a good or sustainable approach or anything that the other 99 of people should do, compared to what they see the one percent, which is the majority of the social media kind of thing as well, too.
Speaker 2So again, it's like completely unsustainable practices that just end up people hitting the fuck it button massively right yeah, and I I always kind of bring it back to like the likes of bodybuilders or people that do photo shoots and stuff.
Speaker 2The people will always look at those on social media and they'll always be kind of saying like, oh, I'd love to have that level of willpower, that level of discipline, you know, to be able to diet for four months and get into shape and it's like okay, but like they probably have the same level of willpower as you, because look at the vast majority of them, once they finish the photo shoot or once they get off stage, it's like they'll go out for pizza, they're eating ice cream, they're probably stockpiling foods at home, they're already making plans on where they're going to eat after they finish their diet.
Speaker 2So, like they're, they're probably the exact same as everybody else, but it's just that they set up their lifestyle while they're dieting to kind of make it as easy as possible. That they're not bringing chocolate into the house, they're not, you know, going out at the weekend for food. That they're just kind of setting up their day so they don't have all those temptations around them. So it's going to make the dieting process a whole lot easier for them. So at the end of the day. It's not all about kind of like willpower and discipline.
Speaker 1It's all about like how you set up everything to make it a bit easier for you so you don't have to rely on willpower have to rely on willpower, and I guess another huge factor is that a lot of those who are um, I guess again putting themselves on social media, they're going to be in a position to be able to do it to a little bit more of an extreme level as well.
Speaker 1So if you've got 22 year old bro, bodybuilder or bikini chick or whatever it might be, who's all in on their lifestyle and all in on their results and getting massive results with the whole thing, chances are they have nothing else in their day that's in their way other than their food prep, and they're like picking out what outfit to wear in the gym that day is like the biggest stressor that they have or what.
Speaker 1The post on social media versus the type of people we deal with 35 plus year old professionals who have kids, who have mortgages, who have bigger responsibilities, who are involved with volunteering, who are involved with everything else that those one percenters are not involved with and those things tend to bring with them levels of different stress as well, too that are going to be potential derailers. And when you're trying to fit in something that's so unique to a specific set of lifestyles and specific set of individuals to others who are not that individual or not that normal, or haven't got that level of time or accessibility or environmental structure, it's going to lead to all sorts of disasters. But again, if you think that's the approach you need to take, it's going to lead to very poor outcomes. So how can we look at removing other than removing social media?
Social Media's Distorted Fitness Reality
Speaker 2how can we remove the all or nothing approach for people? I think it's to first start off with the fundamentals and, like the big rocks, as we could call them, it's like are you focusing on them? Are you looking to, like, over-optimize the minutiae that matter very little? Because, like, if you're trying to place a huge amount of importance in what's going to just bring you like 0.1% of an improvement without focusing on the other 99.9%, like, you're ultimately setting yourself up for failure.
Speaker 2So, are you doing the basics of what is required to set up like a successful diet? If it's a diet you're looking at like, are you eating sufficient calories? Are you sleeping enough? Are you resting enough? Are you like getting your steps in, whereas a lot of people will focus purely on, like, the timing of their meals, or should I be taking creatine? It's like, what's the best training split? It's like you're thinking way beyond what you should be doing at this stage. Like, once you have the fundamentals nailed, that's when you can start thinking about these things. But it's not only you have the big rocks in place that you can actually worry about those details.
Speaker 1Yeah, let's give some outlines, I guess, on what we expect around the big rocks for people to realistically aim for and then we can look at. You know, fleshing that out that little bit more. So, again's what is appropriate sleep? Because, again, like people are looking at, okay, just sleep better, and you know you'll see this from again influencers all the time it's like, oh, you need your nine hours sleep per night. It's like I can tell you straight up I am not getting nine hours sleep. I can't tell you the last time I had nine hours sleep, I can't tell you last time I had like seven and a half hours sleep. So it's like that's not realistic and I'm obviously, you know, brutally aware of the impact of sleep inequality, but like what is realistic for people to actually set towards in terms of the what we should look at as optimal or reality?
Speaker 2and I and I think that is the key thing is looking at what is optimal in reality, because we can look at like what is the most optimal in terms of, like health outcomes. But again, like if you take a person who's working as a pd or like an online coach that like they can be a bit flexible with their times, compared to, like, a parent of three kids, then sleep for one person is going to be a lot less than the other person. But what's optimal for the parent might be I get five hours unbroken sleep. That is absolutely amazing, whereas like five hours unbroken sleep for the PT is going to be insufficient.
Speaker 2So, like, you're gonna gonna have to look at what's your current life circumstances and if you're, you know doing everything you can within your own powers. Like you know not going you're going to bed to go on your phone, that you're not drinking caffeine later in the day you're doing everything within your own power. You can't really control how many hours you're going to be able to sleep, as in you could be woken up by a kid crying throughout the night or they might wake up in the morning. You can't really control that, but what you can control is the controllables within yourself. So, as I said, staying off your phone in bed, not drinking caffeine later in the day, focusing on stuff like that is probably going to be the most important variables that you can focus on most of the people we deal with who have insufficient sleep.
Big Rocks vs Minutiae
Speaker 1They are not choosing to have insufficient sleep, right? So it's like there we, we look at their reality and then we try to create a little bit more optimal base of their reality. So, again, like I had a client recently who came back to me and it's like, okay, I've seen a Dr Mike Isra tell video coming across and it's like, you know, forget about your training split, forget about your macros, forget about everything If you're not getting optimal sleep. This client has been a chronic insomniac for years and he gets three to four hours most nights. So now he's questioning to a degree. It's like when I've seen this guy who's got like a million plus followers on his YouTube, and it's like he's telling me that you know my training and even though I've been really enjoying my training I've been training really hard Am I wasting my time now because I'm not getting better sleep? And I'm like, well, that's not your reality at all.
Speaker 1You know, we've been looking at his sleep for a long time. We've been looking at making subtle improvements and we have made subtle improvements, but he's not choosing to be awake all the time. It's not something that he's looking, that's his reality and something you have to work around. So, again, like it's understanding each person's situation and how we can improve it a little bit more. Ideally, we improve it a lot more, but for the most part we can't improve it. Perfect as well too. So it's removing that perfect approach of the again the optimal, because your reality is going to dictate your optimal. Cool, so sleep. That's one. In terms of nutrition, how perfect do we need to nail our macros and calories every week to actually get it spot on? To see a?
Speaker 2result. I think it all comes down to like consistency, but all across the board. But everything is like how consistent you are with any approach is what's going to bring you results. So if you're consistent with your calories, you know 90% of the time you're going to get results. But, like again, it's the people focus on that 10% and they worry about that 10%. And I always kind of use the example of like exams because, like we're at this stage of the year now in Ireland people are just African. They're leaving cert results. So, like for people that are listening outside of Ireland, they're leaving.
Speaker 2Cert is the final exam you do before going to university. So if you were to do six exams, you've done amazing in five of them and then one of them you got maybe 50%, but you've still got enough to get into your college course. Are you going to be hyper-focused on that one that you didn't do as good as the other ones in? Or are you just going to accept and say I've done enough to do or to get into what I wanted? And that's what I always say to people.
Speaker 2It's like when you're looking at your training and your nutrition, you should almost look at it as if you're like a very lazy person.
Speaker 2It's like what's the least amount I can do, but it's still going to bring me results and for a lot of people when they come to us, for me what I might do is I might look at what their current diet looks like and I'm not going to break it down and say, right, we need to change everything.
Speaker 2It's like let's look at the diet and say, right, I don't really see too much fruit and veg in there, so let's look at including that first. Before we even might even track calories, let's look to just including that. Once they have a couple of weeks back to back where they've brought up their fruit and veg intake, that's when we can look at maybe, okay, protein intake is kind of lacking in breakfast and lunch. You're getting off throughout dinner. But let's look at maybe having you know some eggs alongside your toast in the morning, or maybe, if you have some greek yogurt in the morning, some berries, or maybe at lunchtime you're going to have like double up your chicken in a sandwich or whatever maybe. But again, it's about kind of periodizing things like that and you should always just look at where you are now and just look at how to go one percent better, rather than trying to go from, like a to z, a to z.
Speaker 1We're going to try to go from a to b and then from b to c yeah, there's a huge amount of, I guess people think that they've failed and I think that's the big thing. Holding people back is like a fear of failure because, right, they might have tried several different approaches previously and they just have this association that they're going to fail or going to fuck it up and it has to be perfect, because they didn't get it perfect every other time and that's why they fucked it up. Essentially, something I really love to look at with everyone and kind of get across very early is to work in averages all the time and it's taking this kind of helicopter view of the whole thing, as opposed to this keyhole view where, yes, you might have gone over by 500 calories on one day of the week. On average, that's like going over 70 calories on a daily basis, which we all know. 70 calories is just largely irrelevant. If we look at your, you know, caloric needs over the week, and it's 2000 calories a day, we've, you know, suggested that's 14 000 calories. We're suggesting over the weekly average that if you know monday to friday, you've gone 1800. Well, that means you've got an extra thousand left over in onto the weekend. That's still going to see us, if we stay within that very close to our 14k on the average for the week, right? So again it's like knowing and understanding that and we'll see this with you.
Speaker 1Know, the weighing scales, I think, is one that really screws people's heads, because that's one where you can really like, tick all the boxes and do all the things and you wake up the following day and, hey ho, we're up a half a kilo for no reason all of a sudden.
Realistic Sleep Expectations
Speaker 1But again, when we look at the averages, now all of a sudden it's like, oh, I don't have to respond to that number that's between my toes because I know my weekly average now, because I'm weighing myself a little bit more frequently, because I'm looking at the numbers over a longer haul as opposed to a day in isolation being good or bad. Now all of a sudden it removes that all or nothing approach and all of a sudden it's like that doesn't matter anymore, because now I understand that I'm down a kilo last week on the averages, as opposed to only weighing myself on a Monday or only looking at the calories in isolation or only looking at the one thing, I'm looking at the bigger picture, and when again you can remove that intensity of the focus on just one day people realize that that's okay. Shit's going to happen sometimes, or sometimes I'm going to go a little bit over, but the averages are actually linking back in and it's all okay. I'm still moving towards my goal yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2And I think like the thing with like all or nothing is, people will kind of bring it back to like if it's all, it's 100, nothing is 99.9, like that's not good enough. It has to be 100 or nothing. And one thing I like to speak about and I think I've been bombarding all my clients with it lately because I'm just reading a book uh called switch. I recommend everyone read it. Switch how to change things when change is hard.
Speaker 2Um, but, it's an amazing, amazing book. But there was one example they gave in the book and it was about a study they done back in the 90s around the willpower. So they brought two groups into a room where they had two plates. One plate was filled with fresh baked cookies that was radishes and they divided the groups up and they told the one group it's like you can eat all the cookies. The other group, you can only eat the radishes and the researchers left the room and they monitored them and, as you would expect, you would thought that the people eating just the radishes would try and sneak a cookie, that they wouldn't be able to resist the temptation. But they held off. And then the researchers came back in said good, the study is done.
Speaker 2Then other researchers came in and said we're going to do a completely unrelated study this time. We're going to see like how you would compare to high school students when it comes to solving a puzzle. But what they didn't tell them was this puzzle was unsolvable. So it was one of these puzzles where you have to trace the lines in a geometric shape but you couldn't go back over the lines. The people who had the cookies I believe it was 19 minutes they spent trying to solve it and I think they made 38 attempts or something. The people who had just the radishes, I I think, only tried it for maybe eight or nine minutes and they made half the attempts and that was because they used up so much of their discipline and self-control and willpower just resisting eating the cookies that that had a knock-on effect then to actually, you know, trying to finish a puzzle. So if you compare that to real world examples, if you're spending your entire day from start to finish in the like, from the morning time, if you're stuck in traffic and like you're resisting the urge to start blowing the horn of people or stick up the middle finger or whatever, if someone cuts you off, then you go to work and you're trying to resist screaming the head off of your colleagues. Then you come home and the kids are running riot and again you don't want to scream at them once the night time comes around. You use so much discipline throughout the day that you're not going about to resist the food that's put in front of you.
Speaker 2So again, it's not about how well you set up your diet throughout the day or your approach. It's how well you've kind of handled all the stresses that come about with life. It's how well you deal with all the situations that pop up. And that's why I always say to people it's like you should plan for the chaos, you should set up your diet and your training. That because I always ask people it's like how many days could you train if shit hit the fan, if work was incredibly busy, if you had all these social occasions and stuff? How many days do you realistically think you could train? And for most people it's probably less than what they would like, but that's going to be a sustainable amount for you.
Speaker 2So maybe we could say maybe you could do three sessions and then have a bonus session if time allows for it. You can get that done. But let's look at having the baseline level of sessions and maybe three. And the same goes for your nutrition. It's like maybe you will have ability to track three out of four of your meals. The fourth meal we can kind of estimate it and that could again could be a starting point. That down the line, that's when we can start adding in a couple more strategies that can allow you to track that fourth meal a bit better. But again, you need to kind of look at where you are now and be realistic with your approach, considering where you are at this situation at this time.
Speaker 1So what you're saying is that if we want to take the pressure valve of stress off, that we should cut more people off in traffic, give people the middle finger, tell the boss to go fuck themselves and scream at the kids. We get that here.
Speaker 2Absolutely, and I always. I don't know if anybody's ever watched a TV show with Ricky Gervais. I don't know if anybody's ever watched a TV show with Ricky Gervais Afterlife it was called where it's kind of morbid at the start, whereas he was going to take his life and then his dog came in hungry and he realized if I take my life, no one's going to look after my dog. So then he kind of lived the rest of his life as I'm just going to do whatever I want and if all goes to shit I'm going to take my life. That's not what I want people to take from this. But he was a lot less stressed after he had that realization of just telling people what he actually thought and just doing what he wanted.
Consistency and Weekly Averages
Speaker 1So maybe there is something behind that. But even to come back, like with that, with the approach to stress, when you can be that little bit more proactive, you're going to be less reactive as well too. So it's like, once you've planned that, uh, what's the strategy? If, then you know, if I, if I am late for work, then I will. If I miss a meal, then I will. If I, you know, get wound up with the kids, then I will.
Speaker 1You've already premeditated the thought process of what we can do to navigate that situation, should it pop up. Because, again, I think a lot of people live in a fantasy land where they think everything's going to be perfect and the sunshine and rainbow is going to be out all the time and the birds are going to be chirping in the sky and the boss is going to be perfect and the kids are going to be super sweet. It's not the case. Shit's going to go happen. But when you can and I'm not saying to be hyper negative, just focusing on things that aren't ever going to happen, but be realistic to understand that, okay, chances are, every Thursday it kicks off and it goes crazy. What do I need to do to have that plan B, to just that I can switch into the alternative mode and be like okay, I knew this was going to happen, because I worked it out.
Speaker 1Here's my strategy I put in place now, instead of fuck this, I can't handle it, I'm done, I'm out, I can't. I'm done, I'm out, I can't. I'm just super stressed and everything else is going to go to shit for the day. Now there's different levels to different stressors. Now I understand that some are going to be more serious, but if you have that kind of chronic low level, always getting exposed to some level of stress and you're not able to manage it, it's looking at that.
Speaker 1If, then strategy, if that happens, then I will do X, y, z, and this can be really, really key and empowering for people, because now they'll say, okay, I recognize what's happening here, I know what I need to do to navigate it. I'm going to do my best to switch into that mode here now, all of a sudden, a little bit less stress, a little bit less reactive, far more proactive with the whole situation, and that again removes that all or nothing of well, fuck it, I've missed a meal or I've missed the session, I, I've missed whatever. So now it's done. Next Monday I'll just start back up again.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think it's about looking at progress over perfection. Because, like, if someone came to me and they were getting takeaways four times a week, a lot of people would look at it and say, like that's not the best approach to take whatsoever, like that's ridiculous, you have to cut out all those takeaways, whereas I would think if you can go from four to three, that to me is progress and that could be enough. Then just kind of move the needle a bit and then once we don't see that needle moving anymore, that's when let's all right, let's see if we can bring it from maybe three down to two, or maybe bring it down to one, and then you kind of make your own mock takeaway meal instead as like, as a replacement. Because, like, if you were to look at removing and completely overhauling your approach from day one, you're going to struggle, because that is what the all or nothing approach is. It's like you read it all or nothing, it's like. But progress is always going to trump perfection.
Speaker 1So, like, if you can just make marginal improvements to every aspect of your life, you're going to get far better and more sustainable results from that and even if you look deeper again, like where it's okay, those people are having three to four meals out a week and they want to try and remove it completely to improve their diet and get the big result. Some of those meetings might be actually a social thing, and that's where you're meeting some friends or you're going for a date night or you're doing whatever. That's going to be critically important that you keep actually those things in. Yes, we might change the approach of the amount of food we might have at that, but a big reason why, again, the food is there is that it's that social element or a celebration or whatever it might be. And these, again, it's like you can't remove yourself from those situations because now you're alienating yourselves from friends and family and you can't put yourself into that bubble as well too. So so it's understanding that we can include that, that we can work around it, we can navigate it, and I think that's like really, really key to the long-term success of a approach. That's again removing that all or nothing mentality, with it all. Looking at that in terms of how we can create that successful. Let's do a bit of a recap on this and what we can put in for people to remove the all or nothing One.
Speaker 1I think most important and people aren't as aware of it sometimes, so when they start a new diet, a new approach, a new structure or whatever trying to improve their health, it's to audit who you're getting your information from. And I think like that's a big big part, and like that's a big big part and like, right, a big part of our presence is obviously with social media, and I can't rag on social media, but if you're kind of constantly looking at, you know foodies, if you're constantly looking at those who are living a very extreme lifestyle, is that actually a lifestyle or an outcome you want? Because people say like, oh, I want to improve my health. Well, I don't look like a bodybuilder. Well, chances are, don't go looking at bodybuilders for inspiration then as well, too, right? Or those in that fear and in in in that space. And again, it's like really, really key that you're all that, your environment, what you're exposing yourself to.
Speaker 2Um other suggestions you have here, daniel, on this uh, yeah, like I think, as I said, like the, the big rocks, as you mentioned, like the sleep and nutrition and stuff, but I think it's having like realistic goals for each of these is is key because, again, like we could get caught up in in the, the minute details. It's like to set up your sleep. It's like you need to have like the, the blue light blockers, you need to take all these supplements and you need to do all this but like to improve your sleep, you just need to sleep a bit better it's like to improve longer yeah, it's like.
Speaker 2It's like saying you're going to do something is completely different to doing something, and like people will overthink all of these details so much they'll spend more time, you know, researching like how to set up the most optimal sleep. But it's like just focus on just going to sleep first of all and then try and try and figure out like what areas within my life now am I not actually doing to improve my sleep, but like start focusing, I think, on just doing the thing first of all. So when it comes to like going to the gym, just start going to the gym. Don't worry about like what's the most optimal training split. And when it comes to your diet, don't worry about what's the most optimal diet. Just start tracking what your food you're eating currently. Notice trends, see where can you make marginal improvements. As I said earlier, maybe it's about looking at increasing the amount of fruit and veg you have in your diet. Maybe it's increasing the amount of protein you're having in your breakfast.
Speaker 1But just look at looking making marginal improvements like that yeah, and the big thing is like I I'll always say to people okay, here's what we need to do and here's all the bits and pieces, but what's most realistic that we can actually fit in for this week, and I'll say, okay, can we actually just now get your water shaker and bring it to work with you every day and make sure that it's topped up and you're going to have three liters a day. Okay, cool, I can work on that, larry, because now it's less overwhelming. It's like well, all I have to focus on is just drinking more water, or all I have to focus on is getting more veggies, or all I have to focus on is just getting a little bit more protein and that's it. Cool, I can manage that. But now show me that you can do that consistently and it's part of our routine and you can manage and handle that and it's easy. Then we layer it up, then we layer it up, then we layer it up and like again, people are going to come with different things and maybe it is the showing up for the hyper optimal split for some people and they're at a different stage of their approach with it all. But again, it's meet yourself where you currently are and fix the needs that need to be fixed immediately and get them sorted. And, big rocks, get them nailed down. And now, all of a sudden, you've fixed the 80%, as opposed to spending all your energy on the 20%. Again, that's going to be absolutely huge. With that Other sign offs for this, because I think there's been a lot of value with this in terms of removing that all or nothing, I think the averages are really key.
Speaker 1So take the helicopter view of your week, of your month, of your year. Because again, okay, you fuck it up. One day big deal, that's 364 other days that we have to figure it out and sort it out. It's not that big a deal and again it hasn't because the scales goes up. Half a kilo irrelevant. You can't put on half a kilo of fat.
Speaker 1When we kind of look at it and we explain to people, it's okay, one pound of fat is three and a half thousand calories. Have you gone three and a half thousand calories? Have you gone three and a half thousand calories over your maintenance for the week, yes or no? Like no. Well, I only had like a couple of extra slices of bread.
Progress Over Perfection
Speaker 1Cool, no drama, because again, our biggest role for a lot of it is that reassurance all the time in terms of saying to people do you know what? It's actually okay here, it's not the end of the world, we're absolutely fine if we get back and we do the other 80. We focus on that. The is irrelevant. It's going to outweigh it significantly, and this is where, again, we can get that long-term result with it all. Again, I think, managing expectations around what people think they should be able to do and what they actually can do in terms of their weight loss. They see people losing 8, 10, 12 pounds in the first week and they want to lose that all the time themselves. No, we're not going to be going that fast because we're looking at keeping it a little bit more sustainable for the long term as well, and that's going to be really, really key to actually get that long-term success.
Speaker 2And now, again, it's liberating that people can actually manage this as well too yeah, and I think actually just to kind of expand on something you mentioned there but like the, the three and a half thousand calorie analogy for the, the one pound of body fat that the one thing people don't realize is that you could be tracking everything to a t.
Speaker 2You could be weighing everything to a t, but it still might be wrong, because nutrition labels can have like a 10 to 15 percent discrepancy and every food manufacturer is not testing their food because it is a quite costly process. So they're going to be looking at averages from other food products, basing theirs off of that. So you could still be tracking your 2000 calories down to a t, weighing everything to a gram, but you could still be 10 to 15 off. That means you could still be eating above 2000 calories. It could be below 2000 calories. So even though you're doing, even though you're doing everything within your control, you could still be off. So you could actually, even though you think you're doing everything, you're not actually doing everything in the background. You're doing everything exactly. So everything is an estimate and everything is an average. And once you understand that, that's when like these fluctuations on the scales or that's when you were like two grams over when you're weighing your oats and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1All these little fractional things actually just do not make a difference because, again, when you get people to understand the variables that are there, that are going to impact the scales or impact your weight or impact your results, like you're never going to walk the exact same amount of steps per day. You're never going to eat the exact same amount of calories per day. You're never going to digest, absorb or simulate the exact same amount of steps per day. You're never going to eat the exact same amount of calories per day. You're never going to digest, absorb or assimilate the exact same amount of food every single day. The weather is going to be different, the temperature is going to be different, your amount of clothing you're wearing is going to be different.
Speaker 1Like, all these things have some form of an impact and multiples of those can create that bit of a fluctuation of variance. One random figure, like a liter of water is a kilo, but we produce up to two to three liters of saliva per day. Cool, are you tracking that? No, well, then forget about your weight being all over the place, you know. So it's like very random things.
Speaker 1Do you drink more water? Do you excrete more water? Did you go for bigger bell booms and smaller bell booms? Did you weigh those? No, so again, it's like looking at all these variables and understanding that when you're ticking the majority of the boxes, obviously when everything's in play, we know we're in a deficit. You will absolutely be losing body fat, but it's never going to be linear and, again, that's the big thing of understanding it's not going to be perfect. It's not two plus two equals four. Sometimes two plus two equals eight when it comes to body fat and when it comes to physiology and all these other aspects as well too, but still at the same point. That's a little bit more reasonable and a little bit less 100%.
Speaker 2All in, you're going to find the results are significantly improved and significantly better and less stressful in the long run as well too definitely, and it's actually funny because I had a conversation with my girlfriend recently that, like I mentioned that the best period of time I had training, or the most enjoyable period of time I had training and like dieting, was when I kind of started and I was training in my uncle's garage and I was just doing random shit. I was just like I'd go in and like do bench press and superset that with squats, I'd be doing drop sets and everything and then go on the treadmill for 10 minutes doing sprints and then go on to a rowing machine. But that's actually what I enjoyed doing at the time and like people would look at that and that's not optimal or like you're not doing things properly. It's like, yeah, but if you told me at that time, it's like the most optimal is to do X, y and Z, I just wouldn't have done it because I didn't enjoy it. But like me going in and doing what I enjoyed doing was going to trump what's optimal.
Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts
Speaker 2Every day of the week you enjoy doing, whether it's for your diet, whether it's for your training that to you is what you should be doing, regardless of what everyone else says. You should be doing that, and I say it in time and time again to clients when they come to me maybe looking to train, change their training program or whatever. They'll say like, oh, can we add in, you know, a flat barbell bench press? And I could be like in my head thinking, okay, but like we're looking to grow your chest, that might not be the most optimal thing. That maybe we should use like a cuffed cable fly, that we're going to get more muscle fiber recruitment from that I'm going to be able to isolate the chest a lot more. What's the likelihood that they're going to repeat that session over and over again if they don't have that flat barbell bench press? So sometimes you kind of have to disregard what optimal is and just look at what you actually enjoy doing I think that's absolutely powerful.
Speaker 1And again, when you can remove that and you can say, do I actually like enjoying this or do I enjoy it and do I like it, chances are you're going to stick to it for the long run. Do you like being hyper stressed? Do you like being hyper focused on all the numbers? Probably not. Do you like freaking out every friday and scrapping it off the weekend and go back at it Monday? Probably not.
Speaker 1So we need to look at that approach and just make sure that we're removing that all or nothing mentality. It's never going to be perfect. You're never going to always remove that all or nothing mentality as well too. So I think that's pretty key to understand. You're going to have your type A and type B individuals. But again, when we can improve it, it's always improving and things are going to be moving forward. Daniel, I think there's been a lot of value in this for people and I think we're going to be helping a lot of people kind of remove that all or nothing approach. But again, if there's something you want a little bit more clarity on, if it's something that's spiked your interest a little bit more, make sure you reach out, make sure you touch base. Make sure you're dropping us a DM, ask us questions. We're always here to help. Tons of value packed within this one. Hopefully you've managed to digest some of it and hopefully it's going to remove that all or nothing approach.
Speaker 2But uh, any final words on that, daniel, before we wrap it up, I think the biggest takeaway is to just think about progress over perfection. Don't worry about the the minute little details. Just focus on just doing the main components of it. And when time, when the time comes that maybe the minute details matter a bit more, that's when you can worry about them. But for the most part, as I said, just focus on the big rocks and the pebbles and look after themselves awesome advice, as always, until the next one chat you then.