Laughing Through The Pain: Navigating Wellness

From London's No.1 Personal Trainer to South Asian fitness expert with 'The White Flower' Nathan Johnson

• Richard Blake

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How did Nathan Johnson transform from an overweight teenager to one of London's leading personal trainers and expert in South Asian fitness and nurtion? Join us as Nathan shares his inspiring personal story, detailing his early struggles with weight and how a knee injury ignited his passion for sports rehabilitation. Learn how financial necessity led him to a successful career in personal training at Canary Wharf and the evolution of his practice to focus on diet and nutrition, particularly within the South Asian community. Nathan's journey is an enlightening narrative that underscores the importance of resilience and adaptability in achieving wellness goals.

We also explore the nuanced relationship between lifestyle habits, genetic predispositions, and the rising rates of type 2 diabetes, especially within the South Asian demographic. Nathan provides valuable insights into how cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic factors contribute to health outcomes. Discussing everything from portion control and physical inactivity to the effects of blue light exposure and reduced sunlight, this episode is a comprehensive look at how minor adjustments can have a profound impact on health and wellness.

For those constantly on the go, Nathan offers practical advice on maintaining balanced nutrition and staying fit while traveling. From easy meal planning and protein supplements to finding local gyms and healthier meal options at hotels, Nathan's tips are designed to help you sustain your fitness routines wherever you are. We also delve into the emerging role of Ozempic in weight loss and share expert tips on effective strength training exercises. This episode is packed with actionable advice and personal anecdotes, making it a must-listen for anyone serious about taking control of their health and fitness journey.

9.07 - Link to evidence to show Northern European people have the lactase enzyme into adulthood 
Enattah, N.S., et al. (2002). "Identification of a variant associated with adult-type hypolactasia." Nature Genetics.

Swallow, D.M. (2003). "Genetics of lactase persistence and lactose intolerance." Annual Review of Genetics.
ns: Epidemiology, risk factors, and prevention." Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

9.28 - Link to biological differences with South Asian community
Source: Misra, A., & Khurana, L. (2009). "Obesity-related non-communicable diseases: South Asians vs White Caucasians." International Journal of Obesity.

Source: Lear, S.A., et al. (2007). "Ethnic differences in fat distribution and its association with insulin resistance." New England Journal of Medicine.


Source: Mohan, V., et al. (2009). "Type 2 diabetes in South Asia



11.05 - Link Jack Kruse and his view on blue light toxicity and South Asians 
https://jackkruse.com/

14.49 - Link to Khris Gethin 
https://www.krisgethin.com/


19.56 - Link to Clear Whey
https://www.myprotein.com/sports-nutrition/clear-whey-protein-powder/12081395.html

28.28 - Link to my fitness pal and chat GBT
https://www.myfitnesspal.com/


34.23 - Link to Aaron Aragon 
https://alanaragon.com/


41.19 - Link to Chris Williamson Modern Wisdom - 10 exercises you can do until the end of time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfYBMPCA5pg


51.22 - Link to Nathan’s socials and YouTube
https://www.instagram.com/nathan.autonomy/

Find us on Instagram
Richard @The_Breath_Geek
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl_gOq4wzRjwkwdjYycAeng
Webiste - www.TheBreathGeek.com
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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to Laughing Through the Pain Navigating Wellness with me, Richard L Blake, co-host, and the ESAM. Today we have London's number one personal trainer, Nathan Johnson. Welcome, Nathan.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, guys, really appreciate you having me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's great to be here with you and you, andy, how are you doing?

Speaker 3:

I'm good mate. Yeah, I hate to pick you up on your introduction. Introduction, but you did make a mistake, because you are now Dr Richard L Blake as of a week ago. Congratulations mate.

Speaker 1:

Thank you very much. Yes, nathan, for you obviously don't know that I've been doing a PhD for a few years and I had my public defense, public shaming last week in a park without being shamed too much. So yes, I do only respond to the Dr Blake, dr Shitbird, dr Smudge going forward.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I thought they're going to give you a bit more of a rough time. Then they just seem to be like yeah, great, research mate, here's your doctor.

Speaker 1:

I was hoping for a bit of like a fist bite, insulting them, that kind of thing, yeah, um, I think in England it's done differently. It's called a viva and it can go on for like hours and hours and it's normally private and they will really grill you, whereas in the US it's a little bit more of like a ceremony. Really, if you've gotten to your presentation, they're pretty happy with everything you've got and it's. I don't think they would let you do your defense if they publicly, if they were a bit cruel well done, nate.

Speaker 3:

And yeah, nathan, it's great to meet you. Thanks so much for making the time. Thank you, I guess we'll kick off nice and easy. Uh, can you just tell us a bit about your journey into the kind of wellness industry?

Speaker 2:

yeah, uh. Everyone has a story of what like, like. As a young child I was the fat kid that used to play PlayStation and eat biscuits and decided not to be fat and eat biscuits. I still play PlayStation, but I ended up just like getting into it because of my own journey. I was wearing an XL t-shirt when I was like 14 years old and I'm only five foot four and I'm still five foot four, so I look like 50 Cent, but the white version. When I walk around with a big white t-shirt on.

Speaker 2:

I thought now I need to make some changes because I'm wearing my dad's clothes and basically at the same time as I had a knee injury when I was younger, I had osteomyelitis which meant I couldn't play sport. I couldn't really do anything with my knee and then I wanted to be a physiotherapist, because when you want to solve your own problems, you end up trying to help other people through that. So I basically went to university to do sports rehabilitation, but in central London, as you know, it's quite expensive to live there. So I had to pick up a part-time job along the side to be a rugby physio. I was working on Seven Circuit with one of the teams there. I'm working within Rugby Union on like a semi-pro basis, but that didn't pay the bills, so I had to be a personal trainer.

Speaker 2:

So I was in Canary Wharf working for a gym Nuffield, which is in Morgan Stanley. So basically just working with the bankers and working with the people that were working in that office. So basically just working with the bankers and working with the people that were working in the office. It turns out I like that more than I liked injuries, because injuries is very grueling. Everyone's depressed and they're really angry that they can't play sport anymore. And then PT is more like oh, you just didn't follow your food. This week You've had McDonald's and you want to go and lift the gym with me. It's pretty cool. No-transcript 2017, a lot of people were doing online coaching and my friend set up a business and that's how a listener do you love what you're hearing?

Speaker 1:

if so, drop us a like, share your favorite episode with friends and help us grow by leaving a review wherever you get your podcasts. Your support means the world to us and helps keep the conversation going, so tune in, follow, like and review today got into the online space and wellness space after that because I see like you've got a hell of a lot of followers on instagram, but it seems like a lot of what you put out now is more diet focused.

Speaker 3:

Would that be fair in terms?

Speaker 2:

of for us. Um, after spending a lot of time working with the general populace, I got the luxury to work with, like some friends who were south asian or indian, and he had a business who was solely helping like gujaratis, which is a community within india, and, um, that became a massive thing. I didn't knew nothing about that community and it just became something where I sunk my teeth into it. You go an inch wider than a mile deep and you start learning a lot about the traits, the cultures, what, how they eat, what they eat like, what their mum says when they're eating, like the traditions, and that become a massive thing.

Speaker 2:

And when we look at changing these people's lives, it really does come down to behaviors and what their mum's been feeding them for the last 20 years, and that's why a lot of our stuff comes down to diet and nutrition first, yeah, because I suspect when you were injured, um, you were probably diet was the one thing you could actually control if you couldn't play sport and whatnot yeah, I thought, yeah, I couldn't out, I couldn't try and out train a bad diet because I had no, I had no training to out train it yeah, at least you can try most people try be like I went to the gym, I did a deadlift so I can have Papa John's tonight.

Speaker 1:

It makes sense. Um, okay, so you started in personal training, then you moved more into to nutrition and then you niched down a mile deep into uh, asian population. So can you tell us a little bit more how you got into that? And then, um, how that different, how your advice differs for asian, south asian people versus other people you work with?

Speaker 2:

yeah. So, um, I think the way that I got into that was with that other company. They were having a lot of traction because the owner was south asian. And then, uh, within the community, uh, once you get one family member, you'll get the seven others, or the 15 others from the wedding that they go to. All you have to do is get someone in amazing shape and then, oh my god, 200 people, 500 people at a wedding. They all want to be that person. So you get this windfall of influence. Uh, the modern day influencers, basically the people. That was when I knew nothing.

Speaker 2:

You go into an environment and you're the white guy and absolutely nothing, that your normal diet tactics don't land. The calorie counting doesn't land, because mom's cooking the food and you ain't got no choice. Mom's not letting you in that kitchen at all, so you can't make any adjustments. She, you're eating what she tells you to eat. So then you're like okay, that was one of my tactics, so that's gone, that's not work. Then you pull another card out and you're like okay, I've got you here's three of clubs. Nope, that doesn't work. Then you try and pull out all your cards and you, by the end of the the time you're working with people, you're like this is a little bit different. So you understand, you go and spend a lot of time with them, you sit with them over dinner, you sit with them how they think, how they're brought up, and then that's where it starts to differ. Like I don't necessarily think the diet nutrition advice differs, uh, to anybody, like it's very much similar, the basics of the basics around nutrition and calorie deficit and like kind of proteins and all those nutrient variables. But it's how it's delivered and how it's packaged is often the stalemate for for most individuals and how the diet methods or the principles are pushed onto people. I find that's a big thing.

Speaker 2:

Like we try and go really back to basics and look at okay, in 20 years time are you going to have the traditional food? Are you going to be in mom's cooking? In 20 years time you're going to be going on a sunday. Because I know if I lived in the uk I'd be going to my mom's roast dinner on a sunday. I know I'd be doing fish and chips on a friday night.

Speaker 2:

So I always think about those things when I'm thinking about these people too, because everyone has their own traditions. You guys, I'll have your own traditions about what you do on a week-to-week basis and if we want people to stay in shape and learn learn the strategies of not going, you know, under your diet or extreme measures we have to look at what they're going to be doing in 20 years, and that was one of the things that came coming back to me was going to be hey, you're going to be in mom's cooking, you're going to be in the traditional food to some degree, at least once a week or once every fortnight, and that's normally where it it became a bad rep. A lot of people didn't know how to control it. It's like a gorging experience. So then they'd gain weight, they go back on their restricted diet and then they'd fail and then go back around in these cycles. So that was a long answer to how I see it differ than the most. It's just the packaging and the the thought process behind it okay.

Speaker 1:

So it's more about um lifestyle habits than genes or things like that, because I know even within races there are differences in food. For example, northern european people supposedly, uh, are much more likely to have the lactase enzyme into adulthood, whereas southern european people are much more likely to lose that lactase in enzyme and then become lactose intolerant. So are there any things like that that you've seen, or are they just myths?

Speaker 2:

no, so there are some variables like, for example, like even at baby level, there's higher levels of fat mass and lower levels of muscle mass, um, and then at the same time it's like some skeletal muscle is less, they have less. Naturally, some bones are smaller as well, but it's like very minor too within the research. Um, there is some interesting stuff when it comes to uh, even this year there's something published from 2024 about what happens after they get certain health diseases, so like, for example, when type 2 diabetes comes around. Uh, there's something like called vascular regeneration exhaustion, which is basically where those vascular cells don't repair once they've had some damage to it, and there's some theories to support that.

Speaker 2:

Uh, once the people would say from the south asia community get these like issues like type 2 diabetes and the effects that they have on the vascular system. They harder to regenerate and recover compared to other races. But that's really the outside of that. That's where the most people from the south asian community have not all cause mortality issues. They more have like just cardiovascular disease or mortality. Higher rate rate and it's 10 stems to come from the type 2 diabetes into the cardiovascular disease, then into mortality. So there is some details like that change. But again, majority of the stuff comes down to like, the basics of like, let's not just get too crazy fat, let's not get, let's not let those things go to the point where it gets to the point where we have to talk about health conditions. Rather, you not get to the popping a pill stage before we talk about what pills to pop yeah, I have heard some interesting theories, uh, about indian population and sort of the growth in diabetes.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if Jack Cruz, but he's this quantum medicine doctor, neurosurgeon, and he believes that the reason for that is because blue light toxicity so many Indian people have gone from working outside, as everyone has, into call centers and tech jobs and service jobs and things like that, and they're just constantly in front of the computer. And in the past, because they were living close to the equator, they would get so much more sunlight exposure, which meant they would be more insulin sensitive. But without that sunlight exposure they can't tolerate those high carbohydrate diets that they're now living in and as well a lot of them are vegetarian as well, so eating less protein. So any thoughts on that?

Speaker 2:

yeah, from that side of things I have no, I know when I've not read anything about the blue light toxicity side of things, but I do know from like a you sit from a portion size, behavioral perspective, everything. I'm more like a nurture type of guy, so like what parents have done in front of them and what's the the behavior. So, for example, like we know how carbohydrates should get pushed in their family massively, whether it's rotis or rice or even like legumes are still carbs to a degree. Most people call them protein, but like effective protein probably not is like those are always getting pushed in meals and it's not just one serving, it's normally two or three. And then when you then add that on to the risk of type 2 diabetes, 77 chance that if both family members uh, mom and dad have it, you'll get it too.

Speaker 2:

44 if one family member get it. So there's a higher likelihood of like there are some variables like those, uh, the exposure, the vitamin d stuff. There's also like mass feeding, low levels of activity. The kids don't haven't really done sport when they were younger especially the generation that are now 30 plus 40 plus they were always like study, get your grades, be a doctor, not like, hey, let's go to the gym and let's exercise. So they're now paying those consequences.

Speaker 3:

Now I was going to ask, like how much of an adjustment did you have to make in terms of just how people spend their time? Because without having ever lived in these communities, I don't know. The differences between how much time people are outside and the way they're burning their calories might be totally different. The weather's better for a start, so I'm assuming people like to be outside more, and then the type of exercises might differ. So how much did that kind of play into the way you're looking at diet?

Speaker 2:

um, yeah, so majority of the community that we work with are more like the desi community, which are the ones that live in the uk, the us, so it is like a more of a westernized style. It's like most people walk to work, like central london or, if they're in places like dubai or mumbai, for example, is taxi driver everywhere. So, or kenya um, we have a lot of clients in kenya, the south edge community. They're strong and they basically go from house to work with the driver in the middle. So you actually have to enforce them to do like exercise breaks, like a lot of them are a lot more sedentary because they're either running companies or they're big like operators in their businesses where they're just desk to home. So it's very much.

Speaker 2:

We actually go into people's routine and be like, hey, you need to put 30 minutes of walking here, you need to buy a standing desk, you need to do these things. Or 20 minutes after a workout to get these activity marketing because we know how important steps are and just general activity. So, and then for those that are in india, it's actually probably a lot more, especially females in those communities. It's not something that you just go and walk around the street. In those areas it's quite potentially unsafe. So a lot of this is gym related, treadmill related, uh, which can get boring and cumbersome at time for people as well. So we try and habit stack them with netflix or, you know, playstation potentially.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, decent plan yeah, um, how about from the sort of muscle building? I know I've been to india, spent a fair bit of time there and the gym culture is huge, like the gyms I've been to are packed, and I've got a friend called, uh, chris gethin who owns quite a few gyms out there, sort of bodybuilding biohacker, and you know he's always out there because there's such an appetite for gyms. So is there different recommendations for building muscle going to the gym for your indian clients?

Speaker 2:

chris, chris, get the news. The og, one of my friends who was first introduced me to the south asian community. He was uh friends with uh chris and they did some of the bollywood stars together, uh, like brown bear saying these are the guys guy called lloyd stevens. He's one of the first ever pts I met working with within the indian community as well. See him out here. He lives in dubai, um.

Speaker 2:

So from a muscle building perspective, the community is massive. Everybody wants that kind of. They don't want they. They don't want to be skinny fat, so therefore they want to build muscle. It likes that's what they want to get their chest up.

Speaker 2:

The prominency of the the shoulders, the biceps, the arms, um, and it just comes down to the training side of things is more the exposure like maybe we been the gym since we were 14, 15 years old, but most of the clients that we work with have never been into the gym past, starting with their baseline, are so much lower.

Speaker 2:

So therefore their potential for like growing a significant tissue over time is just going to take longer if they haven't started the gym since they were 30, um, but the newer generation or the younger generation that are getting into it early will have the same potential as other individuals.

Speaker 2:

There's some good research to say that. You know, south asian individuals can have had the potential to build the same amount of muscle as caucasians, for example. It's just the potential for that. It's just training age, how long we spend doing it, and then obviously the nutrition side of things, which is obviously that massive part of if you're a veggie. You have to be quite selective with the protein sources and you do have to, I guess, at that point if your goal is building muscle the way that I view it to my clients, I'm like to build muscle tissue you have to go outside of potential, your normal traditional food intake, to get that desired result. But if you want fat loss, if you're going to be general health, some small adjustments will be absolutely fine, but the most adjustments will come if you want to stack on some tissue.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, protein. Are you subscribed to the view that it's two grams protein per kilo of body weight?

Speaker 2:

I love those. I like those kind of adjustments Over the last couple of years when I'm dealing with the population that I am who eat the traditional food and they want to keep some of that in. I take more of an approach with them initially where I'm just like let's get something in where it doesn't feel like a massive chore, and then we build it up over time because most people from for who I've been dealt with don't really want to sit there and have 350 grams of yogurt in one go. They have that. They're used to having one tablespoon of yogurt with their curry and then that's enough.

Speaker 2:

Or like protein powder is a steroid to some aunties in in the desi community, so they get stick for that if it's in the house. So I like to take my time when it comes to protein intake because a lot of people they've been on plans before they go to two grams per kilogram. There's you got a lady who's 60 kilos eating 120 grams of protein for the first time in her life and she hates the living shit out of it and she'll never do it again. She'll be scarred by it. So I like to build it up. Uh, but if we wanted to play up the game of optimal.

Speaker 1:

I like that kind of grammage marker yeah that, uh, protein powder is steroids thing. It still makes me laugh how people can think that, but yeah that that myth certainly does pervade um. So for people who are vegetarian, how do you um any tips, hacks, for getting more protein in?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I think, uh, we got like two ways with this. So like, if you want to go og traditional route, then we're looking at what we call like paneer I love paneer. You'll have lots of paneer when you're in india. Like it's my favorite thing in the whole world. Like paneer, chili paneer unbelievable.

Speaker 2:

That variations with the yogurts. Like I do I still with my clients who like to take more traditional food route, I still use the legumes, the chickpeas, what chana and rajwan, which is basically kidney beans and chickpeas um, I still use them. I just explain they're not exactly the most effective. If they do want to put some eaas or essential amino acids along the way, that will help get that leucine intake. But you've basically got your yogurts and some veggies. Depending on where you are in the world, do will put eggs in there too, maybe when the mom and dad's not watching, so you can get that luxury too, uh, but it's the usual stuff that you would try and cross over the bridge between like a bodybuilder, askable. So like, step by step with these people, maybe one protein shake a day or one of the ones that don't taste like completely sweet, maybe some variations of EAAs and then adding in the additional bits of yogurt and making things a little bit more tastier that they're not used to.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm glad you said EAAs and not BCAAs there. Yeah, BCAAs still seem to linger around, despite EAAs essential amino acids being better. But yeah, when I still work occasionally with people for fat loss and things like that, Nathan, I am technically still a nutritionist despite doing my PhD in psychology. But the best tips that I found or I've heard and that I pass on to people to get protein in is one EAAs. I've got a big water bottle here. It's full of EAAs and electrolytes and I just sip on that throughout the day. And then collagen. I just dump collagen into my coffee. Just a tablespoon of that. It's 15 grams of protein. And then the other one is clearway. Have you come across clearway?

Speaker 3:

yeah, yeah, yeah, that's yeah go on what is that for the those of us who have no idea what you're talking about?

Speaker 2:

so basically imagine robinson's fruit juice, but that'd be like 20 grams of protein so it's like okay, it's more they. They've obviously sat in a room and thought like, how can we make this not have any stigma around it? How can we make something that like it's nice, but your grandma might have it? That's clear way, and they've done a good job. They just probably should have done a different name and it would have been great. Yeah, they have.

Speaker 1:

Yeah in the uk they have vimto flavor. I tried my friends vimto. In the us they have like lemonade flavor and micah nikes flavor, but it just tastes like those drinks and again I just put it in a big shaker and just sip on it throughout the day and then I'm getting 20 grams of protein from that, 10 grams from my aas, 10 grams from the collagen, and just little ways to just sneak that stuff in rather than being like oh, I have to cook another chicken breast or a steak or or some paneer you mentioned, you had a bit of resistance then, like trying to get, um, let's say, protein powder, going.

Speaker 3:

But what are the things that are the sort of the easy wins that you've been able to influence people with and get into?

Speaker 2:

the daily routines, important for people that are trying to not stay away from like seconds or thirds of our aunties plowing on the rice. So we use something like that, which can really resonate in any scenarios you got your socials, you got your home, you got your work life. If you have one plate of food with the quarter plates of protein, quarter plate of carb, half a plate of veggies, it's just a good structure for people to use. So when they do get that home cooking at home, they can still get the right portions to. Again, they'll control their calories at ask. So we use that initially when, firstly, I knew nothing about, like the different variations between like a different curry versus like a panera curry, I would just like try, how do I just get you to eat less of this? Because that's the key. Like, how do I stop you having four plates instead of two? So, um, that was the big thing. One of those is just the the one plate rule. Um, I think the second part for for the majority of people is handling, I think, the gap between home work and social. Like a lot of people go in the diets or whatnot and they just have one plan for every single scenario. We like to cut it up into different sectors that they're going to be in, because their thought process around the social occasion and how to drink or how many limits you should have versus a home plan might be slightly different. So we use like a bit more of a tailored approach to those.

Speaker 2:

Another thing is like getting the mum on board, getting the person who's cooking the meals on board. It's like that's the pièce de résistance, like that's why, um, we take a little bit of a different stance where we actually get, if you like, oh, I want to go really hard on a diet but mum's cooking food we'll be like, like, just take a more of a moderate approach, but I actually want, I want you to eat your mum's cooking. I want that to be the part of the job because that's going to be there in 10, 20 years. So that was always a big win for us, because they'd been on diets before. They tried things before where they'd had to say no to their mum for 12 weeks and it was drama and someone was getting punched in the head because they tried to use the kitchen the wrong way and all this type of stuff.

Speaker 2:

Um, so so we got the mum on board, and that that tended to be the better, because, within the community as well, you've got a lot of guilt and shame, which comes as well, that there's a lot of this um, you need to be doing this, you need to be doing that, you can't date this person, you need to do this doctorate. And that also transpires into food as well. So if we get the family on board, they don't end up getting those comments about oh, you're looking sick, ill, you're looking skinny, you're looking too fat that's that comes from the family too, in a negative way. So if we can get them on board, uh, in all those ways, uh, it tends to be an enjoyable journey as opposed to a hard-fought one sounds like you're more of a therapist than a nutritionist literally, but I think that's um.

Speaker 2:

I imagine if you go into psychology from being a nutritionist too, you'll know that the value in like the mind is everything and how we communicate to these guys and how they portray everything we do and how they portray it in themselves and the people around them. That's what makes the difference long term. Like. I've had enough of these. I've been, I've got enough people in shape and then had people gain their weight back to know that it's not a nutrition thing. And now what? My goal is like a 20-year thing. I just don't want people to gain their weight back in 20 years. That's the thing. So when I look at from that lens, the objective is different.

Speaker 3:

Right, the belief systems, the behavior changes, the, the navigation of different scenario situations they all change with the length of goal that you have, so that when I change that too, it became, um, yeah, more of a therapy session, to be fair yeah, well, you talked a bit about getting into this community, but, um, presumably it was very difficult to almost dissect these dishes, many of which I'm assuming you'd never even heard of, let alone tried, and trying to make up the nutrients in there and what's it composed of. So can you talk a bit about that?

Speaker 2:

I've eaten the food for a long time. So when I first got into the coaching online, I actually was working as a digital nomad. So I took my life at London and Dubai and was like, fuck this, I'm going to my laptop. And basically what I did was I went to all the places that had the DESI community. I went to Kenya, I went to the UK, us, I went to Singapore, malaysia, australia, and whenever we had clients I would go to their house and meet them and I would get offered to go for dinner because I was like, give me some of the good stuff, give me some of the good food.

Speaker 2:

And then I'd go and I'd ask questions and spend time with them and I would firstly get that understanding of that dynamic. And then I would then sit there and I would look at the recipes that their mums passed down from generations and I'd be like, ok, cool, this is the kind of rough guidance of what they're going for. I'd write some of those things down, I'd go away and do my own, like tracking and measuring and looking at this and reviewing this, and then I'd then start getting that kind of feel or ingredients, or metric size or objects, the calories, the food intake within those. So I could give the best guess that I could and help people understand what's in their food too. But it all came through a nice, a good night, a good, enjoyable time, that's for sure.

Speaker 3:

A couple of pounds extra came on that week fair enough, and it's some of your advice, some of your advice connected to travel as well, and when a lot of your clients sound like they might be in different, lots of different situations, um, so presumably the aim is to keep them consistent, whatever they're up to yeah.

Speaker 2:

So, again, like they'll go away and we'll treat that like a separate plan altogether. So, like, where are you going? Maybe the first one that we do with them. We actually go down to the granary of like, okay, what hotel are you staying in? What? What are the restaurants in the local area, so that we can give them, like another viewpoint on what is like to look at this in a different lens.

Speaker 2:

A lot of them people will go to the hotel that they've traveled with before.

Speaker 2:

It's the same Hilton, the same pizza on the menu, there's this, that, and they get into old patterns and we're like, hey, no, there's actually a world outside where there's a gym five minutes away from your radius.

Speaker 2:

Maybe you could nip there in the morning before you go or, better still, but hilton's got a gym, so let's go downstairs, let's do this 20 minute workout, and then, when you are looking at lunch and dinner, here's some options for you that you can change and tweak versus what you would normally do. Get that sandwich or get that bacon butty for the from the all-inclusive breakfast. And you start there with maybe one like heavy hitter of a travel and then they start to see from a different lens what options there are, and then they start like adopting those principles too, for holiday too. So, yeah, we try and give them a different lens, but also, if they're going away for a nice time, we'll teach them how to do that too, you know yeah, I love what you said about coaching people for 20 years and I think expanding time horizons is so key in fat loss.

Speaker 1:

And I know you've said calorie counting may not be an option for people. But yeah, whenever I that's normally my first recommendation with people is like, if they'll do calorie counting and I've one of the things I've changed over time has been like I'm not going to give you, say, 2 000 calories per day, I'm going to say 14 000 calories per week I think when you expand that, people just become more compliant. They don't think, oh, I had a good day yesterday so I can have that whatever nando's pizza fill in the blank the next day. But so, yeah, where do you stand on calorie counting and what do you do when people won't do that?

Speaker 2:

love it so. So I'm a big fan of like I used to be a bodybuilder back there. I don't look like that now, but like I used to be a bodybuilder back in the day, I used to track every macro. I used to do meal plans for myself, so I recognized that value massively and if I needed to check anything now from a calorie perspective, I'd be straight on my fitness pal or chat gpt. Nowadays, um, and then on the other flip side of things is like uh, there are certain dynamics and where that is a logical step, uh, in terms of like, the accuracy of those like sometimes guessing for guessing sake sometimes is not really my kind of vibe.

Speaker 2:

I'd rather get something that's a little bit more 20 year viewpoint sometimes. So if someone's cooking their own food, we will look at calories in meals as opposed to maybe like across the day. So it'll encourage people to have normal portions. So we normally like break up and like hey, lunch, breakfast, I want them to be about three to 500 calories, for example, because it's like when someone gets their 2000 calories budget for the day and they spend it all in breakfast and I've done that too. I'm the worst dieter overall, so I know how it feels. I'd like it's one of those days you pick up the tesco cookies on the way home, on the way to work, and then you have a croissant. You know, oh shit, I've got 600 left and I'm only 10 o'clock, um.

Speaker 2:

So we tried to like teach people structure across the day, because I think structure and routine in a nutrition framework is like the secret source. I think to have flexibility, you have to have structure, and I think MyFitnessPal offers you, like it gives you flexibility, unlimited, but it doesn't provide you the structure. If you don't, it's not as rigid as what. You could just change it on the app itself. So I like to provide a structure with the day, some food options and then that's when you can start weaving in that traditional food. Or if they're cooking themselves, yeah, we will go with more of a calorie approach or weighing food, for example, if they want the best results, like fastest results and did you say you were using chat gpt for fat loss now?

Speaker 2:

yeah, a lot of people are using it. I like it just to check things, for example, like what is the average calories in like a McDonald's order, or what's under 500 calories for McDonald's, and then using those as like some reference points for clients is fantastic. Sounds good.

Speaker 1:

With fat loss. Ozempic seems to grab all the headlines. I heard some amazing statistics. I listened to Johan Hari he's my favorite author, but he's just done a deep dive into it but he was saying that Ozempic is going to change the world as much like the iPhone did, in that, for example, people are investing in jewelers much more because people are losing so much weight they're having to have all their rings resized and airlines are changing their budgets for fuel because the weight of passengers is going to decline so much in the next few years. So where do you stand on Ozempic?

Speaker 3:

Wait, you know what I'm going to ask, don't you Rich?

Speaker 1:

What, what is?

Speaker 3:

it.

Speaker 1:

What is Ozempic? So Ozempic is a GLP-1 agonist, so it affects your satiety. So people who go on a zen pic, they will basically. They just won't feel nearly as hungry, they won't have the same level of cravings and it just stops people from eating so much. However, it comes with a lot of side effects, so muscle loss is one, supposedly uh. The other one is um, you put the weight back on, probably afterwards. Uh. The other one there is. Now I just saw an article about um ozempic face. Google ozempic face and you'll see celebrities like jessica simpson, sharon osborne just looking very gaunt, uh, very unwell, but you know, a lot slimmer than they used to. But anyway, um, nathan, what do you reckon?

Speaker 2:

yeah, I think I've been looking at the same stuff too and, um, someone that was who runs like a gym company he put it very eloquently which is like um, if you're gonna take it forever, then it seems like a viable solution, minus the cons because of the appetite suppressant stuff it'll give you. But obviously, if you don't learn how to regulate that appetite and you come off it and you just think, oh, maybe six months of that it'll sort me out, and then you go back off, you haven't learned anything, your appetite may actually go potentially worse. Um, and for some people there's like a, there's a specific group of individuals that have like heavy, deep-seated emotional routines with food and that's lots of craving based stuff that gets triggered by appetite and that can create a lot of be a lot of problematic stuff. So therefore, having a reset of that would be pretty awesome.

Speaker 2:

But I don't know, and my jury's out, because one it probably my cognitive bias is that people might not need me if I, if this did. So I'm not like I'm not fully out of that yet in terms of that, but I think anything it might solve the problem of appetite. But I know a lot of people that eat not because of appetite and and I think there's a large part of it that comes down to you sat there with a bag of chips and even though your belly's been full, you finish the bag off. So I think there's still going to be work to be done, regardless of if this epic happens.

Speaker 3:

Yeah for sure um, I've got a question. How have your opinions changed over time? So if you could take you back to the 14-year-old boy who was wearing extra large T-shirts, you started your journey into getting yourself healthier to where you are now. Could you talk a bit about that in terms of lessons learned?

Speaker 2:

You know, that's the statement I always have is like I have learned through failure more than I've learned through, like trying to be right, I like to try things and that's what that's my like. 14 to 28 was where I just tested a bunch of stuff over that time period from probably 18, 18 to 20, 20. I probably worked with a thousand plus people At one time. I was working with 150 people on a day today basis, every single day at one time. So within those challenges and repetitions, you change your opinion a lot because you see someone that you thought I'm going to work very hard, this is going to work every time, because you get that belief like, oh yeah, that worked with that last person, this is going to work. Now it doesn't really work like that. So just over that like 18 to 28, I guess I I got to the point where I thought I now know I know less than I did when I was 18, and all the way up until probably about 28, until I was like, hey, I actually know less than I think I do.

Speaker 2:

Um, so my, my, my journey came through like I used to sit in the store cupboard at Nuffield and just read research. So, like Aaron Aragon's research review and all of these people's like stuff I just used to. I backdated it whole. I waste all of the ink on a nuffield printer and spent like cost them about 500 quid. I just got it all printed out and I just sat in the store cupboard as I was like rolling towels.

Speaker 2:

So everything came from research and then it became practical application because I got my first few clients and then I thought I was the billy big bucks, because I was, I had the research and I had a few clients. And then I realized how wrong I was and now I I know extremely how wrong it was for the people I work with. Like all of the things I knew in the last 10, like 10 years changed when I now have this approach of that 20-year thing and I have that approach of like working with this particular, that subset of individuals, like, um, everyone is so different but it comes down to behavior, behavior.

Speaker 1:

Okay, um, with that and your cross-cultural understanding, did you know that the us medical system recently said that they were no longer going to use race as a consideration in in health care, in diagnoses and things like that? What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 2:

and I understand why previously that, like the information has been, specific racial groups had specific conditions or preconceived notions of each and every. I understand why they would take that away to. I guess everyone can get the same nutritional advice. They can get the same behavioral advice. Um, it comes down to those scientific parts. Um, I guess I understand from both camps.

Speaker 1:

I think I'll um yeah, it's certainly a tricky one. Yeah, I think some people think that their sides of opinion I've heard is like this is just virtue signaling trying to say that there is no differences between race, and this is ultimately going to harm uh, all races because they're not going to get the specific treatment and diagnosis they need. Other people have said that diagnosing by race is a very blunt tool, and it's there are.

Speaker 2:

The differences between race are so small and effectively irrelevant, and we should be treating people not based on these huge subcategories, but actually based on individuals yeah, and I guess if that's like the healthcare system is based on the individual, it's always going to win to that person and I think that's really awesome and even I've had time to digest it.

Speaker 2:

It's like even from like a bmi perspective, like we know, the south asian community probably should aim for a lower version of like 23 versus like 20, 24 or 25. But the margins between 23 and 25 are not that big like they're what they're one to three kilos and in the grand scheme of like healthy on that bmi scale which for me, by the way, is like the lowest, the highest of healthy is like a gap is 14 kilos. So I can be healthy up here with 14 kilos extra fat. I could also be healthy down here on 14 kilos less fat. So when you're looking at those marginal differences, I think that the, if the individual is put first, based on the treatment patterns in the particular diagnosis and symptoms that they're coming across, I think only benefits that individual yeah, okay.

Speaker 1:

Do you get much pushback from people saying um, you're a white guy, you shouldn't be giving opinions to other races every single day every day yeah, it's, uh, it's the it luckily.

Speaker 2:

Um, what I found is like within the content that I'm doing is like normally when it's when I can say the things that are true and maybe you make instagrammable, which is like a bit more of a picture take it's a 30 second video. It has to be interactive, it has to be ballsy to garnish attention. As long as I'm true and what I'm saying, there's large people that fight my corner as well. So, like I've got people that I like don't even know me, that are like, hey, this guy actually knows what he's talking about. He like he understands this, the cultural dynamics, the psychology and that kind of. I guess it makes you feel a little bit better when you get in the air. Go back to england type of messages or white flower as I'm known, that's white flour beautiful.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I love that for you. Yeah, um, I suppose you'd like to think there are enough people who take it as a positive as well that you've taken the time to become an expert in a community that isn't your own, and it's a big surprise. It was a big surprise to me when I looked at your social media. I said to rich. I was like, hey, do you know? This guy is like an expert in asian communities. Okay, cool, great, um. So, yeah, good on you, I think it. Yeah, we've got two more supporters here anyway, for that's what I think thank you.

Speaker 2:

Like um it is. It does look weird coming on the outside and like, uh, I totally appreciate that. And when the story happens of like where I used to work for a friend who was south asian that gave me a job, and like that kind of it makes sense how I got to this position. And, it's to be honest, I've run my business for four years now and it was maybe two years ago that I still was sitting on the fence about talking about some of these topics and one friend of mine who was like, look like, you're actually going to make an impact if you actually say what you say, what you're going to say. So it's like go all in, you're great at it, that's all you're doing. I just go all in, don't be sitting on the fence, because no one, you can't help people if you sit on the fence. So basically I just was like, well, fuck this, and then I'm gonna do it. And then it became a marmite and a love or love.

Speaker 3:

I hate situation, but the people that we work with that get so better results because we're all in on this one thing that leads quite nicely into my next question, which was could you profile the kind of person you work with, and how would it look like when someone starts working with you?

Speaker 2:

um, do you mean like the profile? Wise, like who? Who are these? Yeah?

Speaker 3:

what kind of person would come up to you and work with you, and what would the process be for getting them to start?

Speaker 2:

with you are south asian, either india, north pakistani, roughly that kind of are in the us, uk, any major city.

Speaker 2:

They say.

Speaker 2:

Wherever their communities are, they've got people there, are ready to go, um, and they're basically probably 30 to 50, uh, 50, 50 male or female uh, that have either let themselves go after marriage or they're trying to, like try for children, or they just want to get back in shape, for example, and they're kind of your usual, that kind of individuals who have been on diets before and they've tried all the stuff where it's the, they're eating mom's cooking, they don't know why they're not losing weight, or they've tried my fitness pal and they just don't want to do it forever and then they need something that's a little bit more culturally normal for them because they've been told that they can't have those food.

Speaker 2:

That would be generally our kind of profile of our individual and the way that we do it is that literally we design everything with them on a call, so everything's bespoke. So we sit with them and design homework, travel, social plans, as I explained before, design training programs, and then we actually speak to our clients every day via whatsapp to make sure they're being held accountable, supported, so we're quite like literally in their inbox every day put the cookies down.

Speaker 1:

I've got a question. I've stolen it from chris williamson's podcast. But um, if you could only do nine exercises for the rest of time, which nine would they be? He gives 10, but we're a little bit harder than modern wisdom here, so we're only giving you nine, that's good yeah, I love that with my kids rattle.

Speaker 2:

I love that my kids tell me, yeah, that's a good one, yeah, yeah. So what would I say? Um, I'd say some form. I do that. My knee replacement that I had.

Speaker 2:

I am less, more like leg heavy, so I'll give you all the base and most of the upper body stuff. So I would definitely obviously, if you're looking at the nice stuff, I'd look at an incline bicep curl with the arm is stretched behind the body so it's in a lengthened position. I'd do some sort of like cable extension, a crossover, like a skull crusher, but with a cable across the body. Yeah, and just because the profile allows you to, it gets stronger and then weaker so it drops off. So basically, the cable drops off as you get to this position where you're going to be weak and it allows it to match the profiles of your muscle and the cable. I love the biomechanics because I used to do that for a while. So those two are definitely incline bench press, something with a high incline, more like a 70-degree, especially for the South Asian community. They're not great. They're mechanics with the chest for a flat press with their small rib cages so large rib cage.

Speaker 1:

Dumbbell barbell.

Speaker 2:

Dumbbell just for preference of elbow position, so that you're not forced into positions you don't want to go into and then end up rupturing your pec. So that would be unuseful. Yeah, pull up. I think pull ups are great, just because A, even if it's not the most optimal exercise, it's his pursuit of strength and whether, just because a, even if it's not the most optimal exercise, it's his pursuit of strength, and whether you're a 50 kilo female or you're 100 kilo guy, doing a pull-up feels awesome if you've never done one for the first time. So I think that's a good like.

Speaker 2:

I guess, if you're gonna a 20 year goal or if you're 10, it's like pull-ups the great. Um, you might not build your massive back 100, but they'll give you something to work towards and when you do it you feel great and strong. Um, I think split squats or some type of like, uh, lunge pattern, split squats where the knee goes over the toe, I think has so much very. You have to have flexibility, you've got to be strong, you've got pain tolerance, uh, because that there's a stretch in the back leg that feels uncomfortable and it allows you to load the quads and the glutes pretty well over time.

Speaker 1:

Dumbbell barbell front rack.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely a dumbbell. Otherwise, I think people are going to be falling over left and center. I'm going to get the blame. I'm going to be paying people's insurance bills.

Speaker 1:

Overhead.

Speaker 2:

Jesus Christ. I remember when I tried that with a client and that'd say learning is bad so I was like put the bar here and then try and now do a lunge.

Speaker 2:

And he looked at me the ceo of a tech company. He's like what am I doing? Don't worry about it, just put them down. Use a dumbbell.

Speaker 2:

Um, I'd say um rdl, romanian deadlift, um, I think that's just a a from most people can do an rdl versus a conventional off the floor requires less flexibility if you're not going all the way down. Um, where are we at? Is that six? That's six, I think. A leg press variation if you've got a pendulum squat, that's more. That's one of my favorite exercises.

Speaker 2:

What's the machine? So the machine basically goes down like this it swoops you down and it's on like an favorite exercises. What's the machine? So the machine basically goes down like this it swoops you down and it's on like an axle and it just really takes out your ankle flexibility so you can go all the way down and it just it's a killer. We used to use it in gyms and have like grown men crying at the bottom of it, because you could really test people's intensity, but really stable. Um, yeah, you could literally pick grown men out of the bottom of it. I used to work at a company. Where that was it like? It was encouraged to basically trash people for like 12 weeks and like smash people you'd be. It's in central london, actually in near farrington, where you are. All right, it's up, don't go in noted don't go by, avoid yeah, throw you in um, yes, they're really cool.

Speaker 2:

But I like press variations, uh, or someone, I think, because of the way you can put your foot and the versatility of it, you could do single leg, you double leg, you do high foot, narrow crossover, if you really wanted to um. And then I think, uh, something like a hip thrust, I think has multiple functionalities, uh, for females and males, uh, performance everywhere, well-being in the bedroom, well-being in the gym.

Speaker 1:

So hip thrusts are fantastic, okay, yeah okay, important, we got the bedroom stuff in there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, last one wellness is uh globally right exactly, yeah no arguments. Yeah, last one, last but not least, let's um, let's finish off the body as a whole then so some sort of crunch. So let's go with like an anti-rotation, so let's go with a plank, a steady plank. I think most people if people do three minutes, then most people if they struggle to do that when they first start, and they can do three minutes after that and they'll use a performance metric.

Speaker 1:

On elbows or straight arm Elbows, elbows okay, nice, okay, nice, all right, good stuff andy taking notes, the um.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, mate, I've actually written all of those down because, yeah, I'm looking forward to the instagram content. If you try and do a pendulum squat as well, rich you know how competitive you are tomorrow you can't kill me the heaviest pendulum squat ever.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and I've ruined my uh. Yeah, I'm actually not training at the moment, nathan, because I just had a stem cell procedure so I'm going a little bit mad, can't work out for three months, um, but uh well, a bit of pt here and there to keep me going. Uh, pt, apparently. Actually I say pt. Pt in england means, uh, personal training, pt in america is physiotherapy, so it's not what you think. But on the subject of english pts, as england's number one personal trainer or london's personal trainer, what do you think it was that got you that, that accreditation? And like, if there are other aspiring personal trainers, what do you think they should be doing to maximize their careers?

Speaker 2:

that's a really good question, um, I think. So what got me that was uh, that award was, uh, the amount of changes before and after that I had with clients, like the dramatic changes that I had within one of the companies that I worked in. They were in the business of 12, 16 weeks. You come in central london, you pay 15 grand or something like that and then you get these amazing results. So during that process, when you were getting these amazing results, you learned a lot more about how to tap in psychology to individuals, how to get them, how to be on top of them.

Speaker 2:

I think most of the stuff comes down to wanting the result more than the client wants it, so forcing the issue. My girlfriend at the time used to hate it, but I was messaging all my clients every single day before bed to make sure that they'd not been out for the extra glass of wine or they didn't go out for that extra line in Canary Wharf and ended up having their session at 4am in the morning. I was doing these things that created some support and accountability so that they felt that they were on track during that time period and I felt that was probably one of the biggest strengths to an aspiring PT and everywhere that I've been, or every coach that I know and I know a lot of really good ones is that they had the same ethos where it's like I'm gonna show you a level that I can work towards with you and I'm gonna continually raise the bar and I'm gonna hold you to the standards that you desire for yourself. And that was one of the biggest things and always making it your responsibility. I know it's probably it's a great like a I am good enough type of vibe when it comes to psychology and limiting beliefs, but like having the ability to always think it's your responsibility to help people make change.

Speaker 2:

I always had that kind of. I always had that internal view that okay, if they didn't follow their diet, what could I have done differently? How could I have said things? How could I have changed things? What kind of flexibility could I have said things? How could I have changed things? What kind of flexibility could I give them? What accountability support should I give them? I think that's a really useful trait if you don't take it to the sphere with it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so it sounds like documenting your progress, having testimonials before and after, was really important, and then having those high standards. I think it's quite hard sometimes having high standards and trying to force those on other people. But yeah, it sounds like you took on a lot of responsibility for your clients as well. But do you think there's a sort of a sweet spot between taking on too much responsibility and taking your clients to home, figuratively, keeping you up at night and things like that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think so. I think when you first learn in the craft, like I think you gotta make a lot of mistakes very fast and like the best way to do that is go all in on it and maybe reduce backwards a lot of people, they dip their toes in personal training or being a great coach and they'd never really jump in with two feet, whereas I'm like a two feet then take one out type of vibe. So I do. I think when you learn, I guess, the behavior side of things, you learn how much you can really change with people, because you can't.

Speaker 2:

There's still a 50, 50 you still they've got to put the fork up to their mouth or away from their mouth. They still have to show to those sessions, they still have to put effort in. But if you've covered your 50 and you're like, hey, I've done as much as I could do with the knowledge I know right now and I've been there every step of the way, then I've got my 50 percent done. I think that's a useful strategy. Um, I had to learn that because I used to just be 100 me and zero them and then take all the self-blame. And now I'm like that you still ate the food. You still had the cheesecake. It wasn't me, yeah controlling the controllables.

Speaker 3:

In some ways, absolutely, it sounds like a really yeah, really difficult balance as well as keeping that personal tailored approach whilst also having quite a large client base, by the sound of it.

Speaker 2:

But it sounds like you're uh, you're doing a great job of it and it becomes a lot more about systems as well like uh, everything's a system, everything's like uh. We didn't have automations back in that time, or ai, but it was just more of a case of that. You'd literally sit there on what's happened, just check in with everybody to make sure that they're okay and make sure that they're moving in the right direction. So it was a good like the good old days. One of those ones, yeah.

Speaker 3:

So, nathan, where do people find you?

Speaker 2:

They find me at Nathanautonomy on Instagram and then on YouTube. It's just johnson. Uh, there's probably a few of them, but you'll have to look hard for me on youtube, but instagram is the best place where's the handsome one?

Speaker 1:

oh yeah, where does um autonomy? Come from?

Speaker 2:

uh, it's my belief that everyone should have their control with their health and fitness. They should have your decisions. You should have control. Uh, a lot of people think that they're out of control with their decision, but once you know the positives and negatives of every decision, you've got your own version of control. So that's what I want to give to everybody that works with us is like their ability to own it, control it, manage it and be responsible for it. So I guess that's where it came from okay, nice, that's, that's good, that's a nice place to finish.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, where do they find us?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they'll find you at Andy. Have you changed everything?

Speaker 3:

to Dr Rich Blake.

Speaker 1:

Well, this is what I'm thinking. I'm trying to think what's my next name going to be. Maybe Dr Breath Geek May just go to Dr Richard L Blake. I'm workshopping.

Speaker 3:

Any ideas from anyone? I've got a few ideas, but they're not suitable. Thanks so much for coming on, Nathan. It's been awesome to speak to you and good on you for trying to make so many people more healthy in the world. It's a great pursuit.

Speaker 2:

Thank you Really appreciate your time, guys. It's really fun. Yeah, all right. Until next your time, guys. It's really fun. Yeah, all right. Cheers Until next time then Cheers.

Speaker 3:

See you later. Bye.

Speaker 1:

Cheers, listener, bye-bye, bye.