How to improve your dieting mindset

Today we're back with part 2 of this juicy mindset chat! Looking at a few things we can get stuck doing when we've been implementing a restrictive diet for too long 😣 often, people can think these things are "normal", because they do them every day, and have done for years... But are they actually causing a lot of restriction and negativity for you?!

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The Eat Like Ruby podcast is not a substitute for professional medical or dietary advice.
The advice given in this episode is general in nature and should not be used to treat any medical conditions, health conditions, illnesses, injuries and/or any nutrition related conditions, deficiencies or similar.
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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hello fam, welcome back to the pod. I am back today, literally just carrying the convo on from the very last episode that we did. So last episode we spoke about the maintenance and deficit gray area. And if you don't know what that means, you have to go back and listen to the last episode. I'm gonna summarize it so quickly here and then we're gonna continue that combo straight away. So I spoke in that last episode about people who go into a deficit on one intake and then they come out of that deficit and quote, go to maintenance, but their maintenance intake isn't much higher than their deficit intake. And they essentially play it really safe. They're quite scared to increase the intake too much, they don't want to risk it or push it too far or any of these things. But then what can happen is we find ourselves in a position where there's not much difference between our maintenance and our deficit. And then therefore, our body doesn't physically experience the benefits of either. Like when we go to maintenance, we don't really experience all those good benefits of maintenance because we're still kind of under-eating. And then when we go into the deficit, the body hasn't spent optimal time out of it to be able to operate really well when it's in it. And then we also have the mindset side of all of this as well. So if a person spends time in a low calorie deficit and then just bumps it up that tiny bit and essentially then hangs out at like a low calorie maintenance, when are we ever spending time away from low calories and experiencing the mindset and the mental relief and benefits that can come with that? So if you haven't listened to the last episode and you were picking up some of what I was putting down there, I would definitely go back and listen to that one. And now today I'm just gonna talk about some of the things that I have personally experienced in the last few months going into my surplus. Obviously, I've done about five intentional surpluses over the last decade. So that's really cool. I've learned a lot in those. So I'm gonna talk about some of the mindset things that pop up there, like the wind, but then also a lot of the benefits I've seen lately with my clients who are going through that process of moving away from the deficit, really finding out how much they can actually eat to fuel their training and their health, and experiencing not only the physical benefits of that, but then again, the mindset benefits that can come with being a woman who has spent most of their time eating really low calories, and now moving away from that and being like, wow, I didn't realize how negative some of my habits and my routines and my thoughts and everything were. So we're gonna look at some of that today, and just cool to see where or what might apply to you and what you might be able to take from this episode. So there is one huge obvious benefit that I experienced straight away when I moved into the surplus, and then I've seen a few clients benefit from this over the last few months. I've had a lot of clients that came to me at the start of the year and they might have dabbled in deficits over time. And for some of them, we put a deficit in place at the start of the year. For some of them, they wanted to move away from that straight away. But a lot of people are now in a position where they've spent time in a deficit of around like 17 or 1800 cows, and now we've been able to move them up to like 22, if not 23. For some girls, 2500, 2600, depending on their training volume and everything. But then as a result, I've seen them mention this and I've heard a lot of people mention this, and this is just such a big obvious benefit that comes in when we increase calories. And I think more so the thing I want to point out is if you're someone who's been on low calories for a while, you could be doing this so often, like daily, and not even realizing how painful it is. And what I'm talking about, these are the two notes that I had on it. I had two different notes. We'll read them out and then we'll break it down. The first note I had said, not feeling like I have to restrict or budget my meals throughout the day, and I don't have to push my meals back. That's a key thing. We're gonna come back to that. And the other note that I had is being okay with training and eating early and not, quote, saving calories. Let's look at those right there. If you're someone who has been on low calories for a long time, or even if you're someone who often goes back to low calories, just have a think. How hardwired are you to save calories or push meals back? I'm pausing to let the penny drop. I think for so many people, like I said, we are so hardwired to do this because we have just been doing this for so long that we have just normalized it. And I said that in the last episode. So many things people are doing that have just become the normal and not realizing, like, hey, this is actually so restrictive. And I just want to point out, guys, I said it in the last episode, but it's worth saying it again right now. If you're someone who is either in a deficit right now or you've done them in the past and you've done them in a positive way, an intentional way, things are good. We obviously do have to implement some level of restriction. So you might be moving meals around and pushing calories back and pushing meals back and whatever. This is not always a bad thing. So I just really, really want to point out, you might be listening to this thinking, oh my god, I do that. But you also might be someone who is in a very intentional deficit right now and that just works as part of your plan and it's not too restrictive, it's not too negative. And you also know that you have really good habits and other things in place alongside it. So I'm not saying this is just straight up wrong. What I do want to point out is, are you someone who has been doing this so much for so often, nearly like on a daily basis, super consistent, like this is just how you operate on an ongoing basis. Come back to those notes. It's really about saving calories for later in the day and or pushing meals back. And the two notes that I had, the first one came from me. Like I noticed this as soon as I went to the surplus. I was just noticing, like in the mornings, I would go to eat my meals, and my default was like, well, if I eat that now, what is the rest of my day gonna look like? And then by going into my surplus, I pretty much brought in a whole nother meal or like a really decent sized snack. And that was the very first thing that would clock in my mind after having that thought. I was then like, no, you have a whole extra snack up your sleeve rips. Like, so you're able, like you can have this meal now. It's not gonna leave you in a position in the afternoon where you feel like you want to have something and you can't, or you're gonna have to go hours without food or anything like that. And so that was something that I noticed straight away, is like, wow, I'm just so conditioned to thinking strategically about timing these meals and saving things and restricting things. And like I spend most of my time out of the deficit. So I can't even imagine how gnarly this is for people that spend all their time in the deficit. And then it was the combo of me having that thought and then just a few conversations I'd had with clients where I was like, so many people are operating like this. So many people are pushing meals back. The amount of people I speak to that are like, yeah, I get to work and I want to have my morning tea, but I'm like, push it back till 9.30, push it back to 10, push it back to 10:30. Or on the flip side, people saying things like, My cows are so restrictive, my diet is so restrictive, I end up eating my lunch at 10:45. Right? Like, there's gonna be people listening who are having a bit of a laugh, but also being like, Yeah, shit, that's me. Like, have we got so much restriction in place that we're constantly thinking about strategizing how far can I push it back? If I don't eat it in the morning, I get to eat it in the afternoon. All of these things are a level of restriction. And like I said before, restriction isn't always bad. Like, we do have to have some level of restriction in place when we're trying to work towards certain goals, but it is a red flag if you've always got that in place. And then coming over to the flip side, like I said, the biggest, like literally the biggest benefit, I would say on the third day of my surplus, I wrote this note because I was just like, wow, it's actually so nice to know that I don't have to think like that because I do have a whole extra meal and a whole extra snack here. And I've had a lot of clients say similar things, and I've got one client in particular, I would say she's listening, you might know who you are, but also there's a lot of you in similar positions. But one particular client came to me early this year and she was on 1800 calories for her deficit, and she just had so much training volume and she had so much other cool shit to do. And she was also in a position where she was like, I do actually want to change my body composition. Like, it's not just about weight loss and fat loss. And we pretty much just came to the decision. I was like, I just personally think you could be eating so much more and fueling your training and maintaining your weight, but reaping the body composition changes over time because your training volume is so high. We can get so much more food in because of that volume and still have you maintaining, like, we're not gonna push you into a surplus, but we're gonna be fueling everything that you're doing. And if we can fuel everything that you're doing, we can really fall into that sweet spot of like sufficient energy coming in because that's what maintenance is. Maintenance is sufficient energy. We're giving the body the energy that it needs. If we give your body the energy that it needs and you go into all those sessions that you're doing and you're able to deliver better on those sessions and perform better, then we're gonna reap the benefits of that in terms of like muscle growth and shape and performance and all of these things. And then we've got sufficient energy coming in to fuel the recovery and we start to settle into that loop of like, I'm feeling good, I'm training good, I'm recovering good, I'm feeling good, I'm training good, I'm recovering good. The body composition starts to reap the benefits of that. So weight and numbers might not change much, but your body composition can change over time because it's settled into that real sweet spot. So a little bit of a side note, but worth mentioning. And this is what I said to this client like, I personally think with your goals, you've just been a little bit stuck in this mindset of thinking, like, I want to have a better body composition, so I have to lose weight. I don't think you need to lose weight. I think we need to slowly change that body composition over time. And this is a person who also like loves training, loves running, is prepping for high rocks, like doing different things. So we want to fuel all of those things and then, like I said in that last episode, really get you on that decent intake to reduce food focus, reduce hunger, reduce cravings, improve energy performance, recovery, all the shit I keep rattling off. So we've literally got this client now on 2200 calories a day with two days a week at 2600. This is a person who came to me at the start of the year on 1800 calories. She sits around the 65 to 66 kilo mark. Average height, pretty active, like gym most days and a few runs. And like I said, we've literally got her up. And by the time this episode comes out, we might even have her on more. Like I'm nudging this as much as I can. But it was so cool to have convos with her as we went through that process of increasing the intake. And she was just saying really similar stuff to what I just said, like, my food focus has just calmed down so much. I'm not strategizing my meals so much throughout the morning. I'm not pushing my meals back. I'm not trying to like get through as many hours as I can before having the next meal. All of that takes such a mental toll on somebody. And this is why, like, this is just another reason why I say things like the deficit should be short, sharp, and effective. We don't want to operate like that 365 days a year. You do not want to operate 52 weeks of the year in this mindset of trying to push my meals back, trying to save my calories. If I can make it to 10 o'clock before my next snack, that's gonna be a win. Should I try and push it to 10:30? If I don't have the snack in the morning, I could have it in the afternoon. If I don't have, I'm gonna come to this next point in a second, but if I don't have pre-training, could I have dessert? I'm pausing because I hate that one more than anything in the world. But that brings me back to that other note that we had. Being okay with training early and eating early, not feeling like you have to save calories. This is a big thing that I've seen. I saw this way back in the day. I remember someone making this comment to me so long ago, and I swear it has been like the catalyst for me for every rant that I've done about pre-training. If you're a regular listener, you'll know like pre-training nutrition is non-negotiable to me. And this is why I've had so many people say to me, I don't want to waste calories on pre-training nutrition. Essentially, like, I don't want to waste calories on eating before training. And I think this especially happens for people who train early. Because I think coming back to that last point we made, if you're trying to save calories and push things back in the day, well, if you have two or three hundred calories at 5 a.m., you're like, well shit, there's 300 calories gone. I want those in the afternoon, I want those at night. And again, this just kind of backs up everything we're saying here. Like, yes, when you go into an intentional deficit, you might have to restrict some of these things. Pre-training volume might have to come down a bit, and the amount of calories we put towards it might come down a bit. And we also might have to reduce the snack or remove the snack or the dessert to fit all this shit in. But again, this is why we don't want to do it 52 weeks a year. And this is why when a person spends majority of their time not doing these things, then when we come up to the window of going, okay, I'm going to do an intentional deficit. Again, like I've said about myself, I go into these intentional deficits and I say, I'm going to do this for 12 weeks, give or take, whatever it is. I know during this time pre-training volume is going to come down a little bit. And I also know I'm not going to have dessert. Because that's just what's required of me to achieve this goal at this time. And I'm happy to do that because it's short term. Because it's a smart decision, it's an intentional decision. I make it for that time. I say, like, this is just what I'm doing for 12 weeks. This is the best thing I can put in place for these 12 weeks. I can ramp up my pre-training on the other side of this. I can always have dessert on the other side of this. It's short, it's sharp, it's effective. I get in, I get the job done, and then I get to relieve all of those things the rest of the time. Can we see how every single thing that I've talked about on the podcast is tying into one combo here? And even everything we spoke about in that last episode. If you have not listened to that last episode, I would definitely do so. Because this is all really just tying in here. But when we take someone out of the deficit and we bring them up to a decent intake to fuel their training, whether that training is like lifting to build shape and strength, or whether it's more of a performance focus for sport and events, or a combo of both. But when we have flipped the switch of going, this is what I'm eating towards, right? Even think about that comment I made. I can't remember if it was last episode or the one before. They're all becoming a blur now. But I made that comment about the fact that so many people just think when they hear someone say, I'm on a diet, they make the connection straight away to weight loss. Oh, so that person's trying to lose weight. Just because someone is, quote, on a diet doesn't mean they're trying to lose weight. We can diet towards so many things. So we need to open our minds to this hugely. But coming back to my point, when we flip that switch of, okay, I'm no longer eating towards weight loss and fat loss, and therefore I'm no longer operating in this restrictive banking calories, saving calories, pushing things back, trying to be really strategic with my day. When we shift away from that and we come over to I'm eating to fuel my training, fuel my performance, fuel my events, fuel my lifts, whatever it is for you personally. But when you literally flip that switch and go, this is what I'm eating towards, you start to operate in a completely different way. And I'm the most perfect example of this right now. The thought never, ever, ever crosses my mind of have I eaten too much? Should I not eat that? Should I not eat before the gym? I'm literally before my leg days, I'm doing two bagels and gym. It's 118 grams of carbs and about 600 calories before gym. And on Saturdays, I usually go and train legs at like 6 a.m. So I'm throwing back 600 calories before 6 a.m. No way are people on 1600 calories a day doing that because straight away they think, oh my god, I'm not spending all my calories before 6 a.m. So this is where we can just see such a cool mindset shift of like my mind just goes, my number one priority is fueling that session. My number one priority is fueling that session. So no way would I choose to save calories over fuel the session. And it's just such a cool thing to experience. And I know that not everyone is going to that extreme of like the surplus, and like my mindset is literally I would rather eat more than eat less. I would rather overconsume than underconsume. That is 100% my mindset right now. And I know that that's not everyone's mindset. Like not everyone is pushing to that extreme of the surplus and overconsumption and everything. And that's totally fine, but there's still so much middle ground. And I think that transition from the deficit up to maintenance is where we can just experience so many of those mindset shifts of being like, I don't have to think about my nutrition as restricting it and budgeting it. I can think about like how else can I use this? How do I want to use this for the goals that I have? And when the goal is not fat loss, I don't have to use it in a restrictive way. And come back to what I said again, I can't even remember what episode. I think it was the last one, about the fact that moving away from the deficit and spending intentional positive time at maintenance can be life-changing. This is another perfect example of that. When our brain can stop operating in this way of like nutrition has to be budgeted, nutrition has to be limited, food has to be limited, food has to be restricted over to food can be used in so many different ways, and how do I want to use it right now for the goals that I have? Look me in the eye and tell me that's not life-changing. I will fight you to the death if you want to tell me that that shit ain't life-changing. You and I just aren't gonna get along if you don't agree with that. So before we move on to some of the other notes, like I said before, the cool thing I want people to do is just have a little think. If I either have or am currently spending time away for the deficit, where is that shit sitting with me? Like, am I operating in a cool place with allocating nutrition towards pre-training? Am I okay with eating bigger meals throughout the day, not feeling like I have to save them and push them back? Because the other little thing that can be happening here is like we can have gone up to higher calories, but we can be carrying all those shitty habits with us, right? And no shame, no disrespect. We're here to help. But clock that as well. If you're someone who has gone to the maintenance intake, but is still carrying out deficit habits, really think about that. And I'm just gonna side note here as well, because I think a few people can relate to this. We see this happen with people where let's say, like, we move a client up to two and a half thousand calories and they're so used to being on 1800 and they're so used to pushing meals back and restricting and everything, and then they keep doing that with the two and a half thousand calories. So they really limit their intake through the morning, they really budget things through the morning, and then you get to the afternoon and you go, I've got to have three 600-calorie meals in a four-hour window. I've personally experienced this and I've seen clients experience this, and you find yourself in a position where you're like, I can't break this old habit. Like I'm so used to doing this. But when I'm actually doing it, it's such a shitty position to be in. When you get to three o'clock in the afternoon and you go, I've got to have a 600-calorie meal now, then I'm gonna have 600-calorie meal at five, and then a 600-calorie meal at seven. It's uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable. Yet we're stuck in this position of being like, I don't want to eat these earlier in the day, I want to save them. And then when I do save them, it's uncomfortable AF. If you can relate to that, you're definitely not alone, but it's something to clock and it's something to think about. Or the alternative, I know I'm going all over the place here, but for some people, they do this well when they come out of that lower intake, they go to the higher one. And then it's like, yeah, wow, now I'm not pushing meals back as much. I am allowing myself to have more food at different times of the day. Just a cool thing to clock and just be like, yeah, well, am I actually experiencing the benefits of this? It's really cool if you are. And then the last little thing to clock there is like I keep saying, if you're someone who has been quite restrictive for a long time, are you constantly doing these things? Are you constantly saving calories, pushing meals back, trying to get through as many hours as you can before you have that next meal? Because that's where you would want to consider like, do I need to entertain the thoughts of increasing my intake, moving away from that deficit mindset, moving away from the restrictive mindset? Because those things take a toll on you. Doing that for a long time takes a toll on somebody. And this is where I think people have normalized feeling that way. And then when you come out of it and you go to the higher intake and you're like, wow, this is actually so refreshing. I didn't realize how restrictive I was being because that had just become my normal. And the other really cool thing that I am personally experiencing, and I just think this is a cool one for people to think about, is scale weight. Like we didn't talk about scale weight for a second here. And obviously, I'm in the surplus, I'm trying to gradually get my weight to go up, which I just find so refreshing. Spending time, and that's what I want to talk about, spending time, actively trying to increase my weight. And like I keep saying, I know I'm in quite a niche category. Not everyone or not many people are out here actively trying to increase your weight. If you are, awesome, slay, I love it, go off. You're in good company. But I know most people aren't. But even when we look at someone who is maintaining, it still relates to this thing that I want to look at here. The note that I had, I'll read out the note and then we can break it down. I said, when you're not in a deficit, seeing 100 gram increases on the scale isn't a big deal. When you're in a deficit, air quotes success with the scale is only when it goes down. When you're not in a deficit, seeing 100 gram increases on the scale isn't a big deal. This is so underrated. Because if we look at that next part, when you're in a deficit, Success with the scale is only when it goes down. And I think so many people are going to be able to relate to this. Getting into the deficit, whether you're going into one positively, negatively, so many things to look at there. But regardless, when we go into the deficit, if we're using scale weight as part of the assessment for that deficit, and I think we can use scale weight in a strategic way, but I think most people don't. And I think most people have heard me talk about this, but they still do not use scale weight in a strategic way when they're in a deficit. But think about the fact that if you go into a deficit, if you see a 100 gram increase on the scale from one day to the next, in your mind straight away, that's essentially a fail or a waste of a day. If I'm in a deficit and I've decided that I want to see this scale drop really rapidly, which most people have, which is what I think is not very smart or strategic, but most people get in that deficit and they're thinking, I want to see this shit move as quickly as possible. Which, side note, is not a good reflection of fat loss at all. It's actually a pretty shitty thing to do if you've got genuine body composition goals, but we'll talk about that another day. We've talked about that before. But if you are in that mindset of like, I just want to see this shit drop, right? Then think about the fact that if you get on one day and you see a hundred gram increase from the day before, your mind is instantly gonna go, well, that's a fail, that's gone backwards, or this is just a waste of a day. Can't wait to see what it is tomorrow. Can we just actually clock that right there? If you are hanging so much on the scale that you take it, let's say you take it on a Monday morning and you've had a hundred gram increase from the day before, and then your mind instantly goes, I can't wait to see what it does tomorrow. You got one life, and what you can't wait for is to see what the number on the scale is tomorrow. There's so much we could say about that, but if we bring it back to the actual point here, spending time out of the deficit can help you break that cycle. Because for me right now, if I see a hundred gram increase, even if I see a three or four hundred gram increase, I'm like, yeah, cool, I'm I'm basically hanging at maintenance. It's only when I see that continuous trend up that I'm like, yep, okay, cool, this is a surplus. And for me, that's what I want, right? Like, I want to see that continuous trend up. But even if someone is at maintenance, like let's say I was aiming to maintain right now, if I get on and see a 300 gram increase from one day to the next, I don't think twice about that. I'm like, yes, sweet, that's maintenance. It'll be interesting to see what it does over the next few days. And that is the beginning and the end of my thoughts on that. Come back to a person who's seen a hundred gram increase and literally goes, I cannot wait to see what it does tomorrow. Again, look me in the eye and tell me that's not a shit position to be in. Again, I will fight you if you disagree because that's wild. But then if we come back to the note, and my point here is when we spend time either at maintenance or in the surplus, and we spend time taking weight, and side note, we've said this on the podcast before, but we can take weight at times or we can benefit from not taking weight at times. I'm not gonna get into that today because I think both can be beneficial at different times for different people. But I think there can be a benefit to someone who has maybe not had the best relationship with the scale to then have a positive experience of going through this maintenance process and seeing things maintain over time, like seeing these day-to-day fluctuations, if it does go up by 400 grams and it drops by 200 and it goes up by 100 and then it drops by 300, and we see these go up and down. But then, like I always say, we step back and we look over a month or two months and it's maintaining. That can be so beneficial for someone to see because it can break that cycle of just thinking, anytime I do not see this drop, it's a fail or it's a waste of a day. How many people are stuck in that mentality? Like literally hanging their hopes on what is this scale gonna do today? And if it doesn't drop, if it does anything besides drop, and even then we could go further and people are like, oh, well, it only dropped 200 grams. What the hell do you want? Side note. But I'm in too many side notes here. I've got to bring myself back. If the only experience we've had with the scale is deeming it successful only when it drops, that's a very shitty total experience to have. If you've never had a time of watching your weight maintain or watching what your weight does without hopping on and hoping it goes down, we can see why people do have such a shitty relationship with the scale. And for me, I am absolutely experiencing the benefits of this right now. I would say, hands down, hands down, right this very second, is the best place I have ever been in mentally with scale weight. And I've never really been in bad places with scale weight, but even to the extent, and this is like probably a whole nother combo for one of my surplus episodes, but even to the extent where when I'm thinking about my fat loss, like eventually doing a fat loss phase, my mindset is like I do not want to see the scale drop too much. Like my eventual goal with going through my surplus and then doing a fat loss phase on the other side of it is I would love to be as lean as I want to get to, but as heavy as I can be. I would love to hold on to weight, but get leaner over time. And I've never ever felt like that in my life. Usually, like I've done really positive, had really positive experiences with surplus interdeficits, but usually it's like I'm happy to put on this weight because I'm gonna get it off. And something has just shifted in my mindset. Like I've spoken about the fact that I want to build muscle, I've never built, I want to have shape, I've never had, all of these things. And something has just flicked in my mind where I'm just like that shape and that body that you want is heavier than a body you've ever had, ropes. So your goal, like your goal is just not weight loss anymore. Even when you want to drop body fat, even when you want to get leaner, you do not have weight loss goals at all. So, like I said, that's a whole nother topic. It's getting into a whole nother thing. But if we really bring it back to the point here, one of the biggest benefits I see by far when someone moves away from the deficit is going through that process of watching their weight maintain over time. Because I think a couple of things happen. We understand that day-to-day fluctuations can happen, but when we step back overall, we are maintaining. So we learn to detach from those fluctuations. We do actually see, like, hey, yeah, shit moves up and down and it ebbs and flows, but overall I'm not gaining weight. And then this ties back to again, can't remember if I said it in this episode or the last one, but this is where people can gather the evidence themselves about how well they can maintain on certain intakes, and then they can start to trust those intakes. I think I that could have been in the last episode, but I spoke about the fact that people do say going through a successful maintenance phase was life-changing. I think this is a huge part of it. Because, like I said in that other episode, it's one thing to hear me rant and rave about all of this stuff, but it is a whole nother thing to actually experience it. Watch how your body personally responds to it, gather that evidence, and then build the trust with it. If a person moves through that process of finding the high end of their maintenance intake or finding how much they can essentially eat while maintaining, we go through that process of like nudging up the calories, seeing how the body responds, nudging again if we can. At the same time, if we're taking weight during that process and we're also doing things like pictures or measurements or anything else, there's so many different ways we can navigate this. But if we are taking weight at that time, again, this person can see those fluctuations, but then they can also see like, hey, I spent four weeks on 2100 calories and things maintained overall. Yes, I had day-to-day fluctuations, but my weight did not continuously trend up. And then we spend a few weeks on 2200 calories and we see the same thing. And we spend a few weeks on 2300 calories and we see the same thing. This is what's life-changing because the person can see I've eaten XYZ intake and my weight has maintained. So there's so many benefits to that. Like, firstly, like I keep saying, we build trust in the fact that we don't have to live on low calorie diets because we've experienced and seen for ourselves that our body can handle higher calories. We've learned to sit with those day-to-day fluctuations and understand that they are fluctuations, they are not a continuous trend in a direction that we don't want to go. And then while doing that, we start to create the habit and then therefore break the old habit and break the mindset and that mentality of hopping on the scale and thinking, if I see anything besides a drop today, it's a fail. Really think about that. And again, if you're someone who's done a successful maintenance period, clock the fact that you've probably experienced this benefit and you might have just not really sat with it for a second and been like, hell yeah, I have actually experienced this. But if you are in a position or you've been in a position before where you get on the scale, you see a number that's a couple hundred grams higher than yesterday, and you're like, yes, wait. That shit is life-changing compared to a person, like I said, who deems anything but a drop a fail. And if we piece a lot of this together with what we spoke about in the last episode, where people kind of hang in that gray area of moderate deficit, moderate maintenance, never really experience the benefits of either, then we come over here and we look at a person who, like I said, has gone through that process, seeing that they can actually maintain on a higher calorie intake and they don't have to live on low calories, seeing that day-to-day fluctuations do not result in weight gain, and experience the benefit and the mindset shift of seeing their weight maintain and not seeing that as a bad thing. And really the deeper part of that is not thinking that the only quote good thing that can happen on the scale is seeing it go down. When you have a goal to maintain weight, when you see your weight maintain, that is success. If a person has never spent time actively working towards maintenance, they've never experienced that benefit. So they think the only good thing that can happen on the scale is that it goes down. And this is where so many females have so much conditioning to this, and like always, we're not shaming, we're not judging. This is the most common friggin' thing that females have lived through for the last 50 plus years. But that just comes back to why I want to do episodes like this and why I want to talk about all of this stuff, and why I love to coach people on this, and it's my favorite thing because when I see someone who goes through all of that and gets to this point of like, I can eat higher calories than I thought, I can live with day-to-day fluctuations easily, they don't bother me anymore. I'm happy to maintain my weight. That is such a win. And then, like I said before, I am nearly finished. Come back to that last episode we did about people who hang in that gray area of the moderate deficit, moderate maintenance, and then don't really experience the benefits of either. All of these things we've just spoken about is why. I think when you slightly increase your intake and just hang at this low end of maintenance, you're still saving calories in a way. You're still pushing meals back, you're still being strategic, and then therefore you still have this overall restriction in place. You're still most likely hopping on the scale and thinking, oh, wouldn't it be a quote bonus if it went down? Even though your goal is to maintain. If your goal is to maintain and you see scale drops as a quote bonus, I would argue, are you really that keen on maintaining? Is your goal really maintenance? And if it's not, that's where we then clock the fact of like you're still in a deficit mindset, even though you're technically or just saying or whatever, even though you're saying you're at maintenance, you're still in this deficit mindset. And then come back to what I said in that last episode. If when you're at maintenance, you're still in a deficit mindset, that can still take such a toll on you. And then when you do come back to a deficit, you're already exhausted. Because you're like, yeah, technically I've been at maintenance or I've been telling myself I'm at maintenance, but I'm still implementing so much of the restriction and then so many of the habits, and then therefore dealing with so much of the mindset and the mentality that comes with being in a deficit. So I'm never really relieving that. And that's what we said in that last episode. If when you go to maintenance, you don't actually go to a decent maintenance intake, then you don't relieve the things that physically cop the hit in the deficit, like hunger, energy, cravings, training, performance, recovery, all of that. But you also don't give yourself the mindset or the mental relief that we can experience when we go to a decent maintenance intake. So then you are just hanging in this gray area. It's like, yeah, when I'm in a deficit, I'm hungry and I've got cravings and I've got food focus and I've got restrictive habits. And then when I go to maintenance, I'm still hungry and I've got cravings and I've got food focus and I've still got restrictive habits. So it's such a gray area. They're so similar and then therefore neither are optimized. We have come full circle back to the start of that last episode, but that's good because a few times there I didn't know where I was going, but we got there. But really, we come back to that point I wanted to make overall of if you don't have a clear defit between your deficit and your maintenance, it's important to clock that and think: is that stopping me from optimizing both of those things? Am I really getting the benefits of the deficit when I go into it? Or am I already pretty tired, pretty fatigued, pretty mentally cooked, and physically cooked because my maintenance isn't providing me much relief physically or mentally. And then therefore, the deficit's not as effective as I want it to be, and maintenance isn't as enjoyable as I want it to be, or I think it's gonna be. I think that is all for me today, but I definitely think there's plenty more things swirling around in my head, and I think I'm gonna listen to these back and be like, wow, I have so many more tangents to go on. So I'm sure this is something we will revisit over the next few weeks. But if you're still here after all these rants, thank you so much. I will be back very soon.