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The Public Nuisance Podcast
Host Sean McComb interviews various guests
The Public Nuisance Podcast
The Public Nuisance Podcast #010 “The Master of Nutrition” with Stephen Floyd
Welcome to a new episode of The Public Nuisance Podcast with me, Sean McComb.
This week we welcome Performance Nutritionist, Stephen Floyd to the podcast
We cover John Moore University, Working with Everton, Youth Nutrition, Nutrition for Fighters, Boxing, Harry Kane, Cristiano Ronaldo, Dieting, Nutrition, Meal Plans, Weight Loss Strategies, Healthy Foods, Water Cuts and much more.
New episodes every Tuesday.
Sean McComb
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Killen Studios
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That Prize Guy
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Website: https://thatprizeguy.co.uk/
JFH Social
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Website: https://www.jfhsocial.com/
The Public News Ins, sean McCann. Welcome to this episode of the Public News Ins podcast, priorly sponsored by Killin' Studios. Right here where you can get all your content done, from photo shoots to podcasts, you name it, we've got it. Today we have Stephen Floyd, good friend of mine, nutritionist, master in nutrition, genius when it comes to food. What's happening, stephen? It's so mental.
Speaker 2:All good, All good mate. This is the first podcast appearance.
Speaker 1:Is it your first one? Is it a debut? No better podcast it's a debut.
Speaker 2:Maybe the first and last, depending on how this goes, Nah people always worry.
Speaker 1:People always get so worried about a podcast, but see, like after it's probably a wee bit easier because, like we're mates, we're friendly anyway and we're all about reach for. Like people worry about the cameras being on and all, but after a while of talking the conversation just slows and then you don't even realise that the camera's there.
Speaker 2:See, I don't even mind it as much because I'm used to speaking in front of people, used to going in and delivering workshops 100%%. But this is the first podcast, so I'm looking forward to it. He does.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to it. There's a whole lot to be touched on here in terms of nutrition. Where did your interest come from? My nutrition? Because even me as a boxer and having to make weight all the time, it wasn't an area that I was really interested in from a young, like from, a, say, a teenage age, or even like a late teenage age, like 18, 19. When you start to make that, you know what rule where you're going to go. Where did that come from? Because you were like the first person I've ever even heard of yeah, do you know what?
Speaker 2:I was always interested in sport, even in school, and then when I was going through a levels and a plan for university, I knew I wanted to do something sport related, but at the time you didn't really know what you wanted to do as a career. I wasn't really thinking about nutrition, and not a lot of people are at that age. I think university as well. It's about a social norm. People just expect you to finish school, go on to university, because that's what's required to get a really good job or be successful, and obviously that's not the case at all.
Speaker 2:There's loads of people not only didn't go to university, but dropped out of school and went on and opened up and ran successful businesses. Um, now, depending on the career that you want to go down, you may need to go to university. So, thankfully, when I made that decision to go and in the position I'm in now as a sport nutritionist, you need to go to university, to become qualified and to be accredited by what's called senr, sport and exercise nutrition register. So I always knew I wanted to do something sport related and then, when I was doing a sports science degree, again I wasn't really thinking about nutrition or career. You just apply to university because you want a delay going into the real world and you come over and visit a few times and nutrition wasn't on my mind then, but there are stories for not even all of it.
Speaker 1:Being Pat Nils for the first three years.
Speaker 2:Chewing on sandwiches for about three, four weeks in a row and then those noodles in a wrap.
Speaker 2:Me and Marty were living off scrap sand. But when I was doing a sports science degree, towards the end I took a real. I've always had an interest in nutrition, but it was towards the end of my degree I started taking a real interest in sport nutrition and then I applied for sport nutrition masters and that was the john moores university I went to and it's one of the best in uk, if not the best, so got accepted onto. And when you do sport nutrition as well, there's loads of different directions you can go with it. I mean you can work with different sports, different athletes. So you ask anyone that first week or two, what sport do you want to work in? They'll say the sport that they like or the sport that they play. So for me it was football and I was fortunate enough to do my placement at the Averton Academy.
Speaker 2:And then at the time in relation to the combat sport and boxing, growing up in West Belfast and Belfast boxing is massive and combat sport in general is massive. I mean every other person does some form of combat sport. You've got it was boxing, mma, muay Thai, bjj. So even when I was going through school my mates would have been sort of competing throughout the year and even when we were going out for lunch they would be restricting their food intake, fluid intake and you've seen the impact that had on their energy and mood. So I was always sort of surrounded by it. But even at the time I didn't make that link between nutrition and how that can help people make weight. In that last sort of couple of days I just thought it's an accepted practice. It's part of the sport. If you have to lose a couple of kilos in a few days, we are going to cut back on your food and fluid intake. At the time that didn't stop me from going and getting a chippy at lunch. I wasn't making weight.
Speaker 1:You're not practicing what you're preaching. If you get the freedom to do it, you should do it. It's not like, because I always like. Like. The rule of thumb would be like I always hear you, even in our gym. We would say like 80, 20. Like, you don't have to be fucking. Like you don't have to be first of all, like you're not a. You're not a late athlete.
Speaker 1:So you don't need to be fucking eating what we were doing, just because I feel it would be good for anyone to experience it to know what we go through, because it's so negative when we're making weight. We're the most negative people in the world. I'm like and I know I'm going to do it, but I'm just like, I still have doubt, always.
Speaker 2:I think it's just ingrained in the culture and it is just an accepted practice. And once you get into the sport, well, everyone else is doing it and a lot of it comes from the coaches as well. And, like at the time, even when I was doing sport and chasing masters, there wasn't a lot of research out at the time sort of highlighting the dangers that can come with the weight making process, um. But john moores is a bit of a hub for combat sport research. So I was fortunate enough to speak to the researchers and practitioners and learn off them. So the more I learned about it and the more I was speaking to them, I started to think I'm in a really good position to help my mates and starting off with my mates and then maybe extend out other boxers and then coaches as well and reach as many people as possible.
Speaker 2:And at the time you were actually turning professional when I was doing my sport nutrition masters, right, um. So it made sense for me to help you take what I was learning apply to help you make weight, but also for you to help me gain experience, um. So that's really where the interest came in sport nutrition and then it sort of delved into the football and then combat sport, and then after that they're really kind of dialed in on the combat sport because I I remember we were talking and then obviously you got a placement in Averton which was massive, and I think you finished top of your class or something as well, didn't you?
Speaker 2:So with the degree it was first class honours, so you can get a first or a 2-1, 2-2, and then I was fortunate to get a first, I remember I said to you what's it like?
Speaker 1:There were probably some kids there who were probably was it the youths you were looking after. Probably some kids are who are like probably was it the youth you were looking after and they're like, probably like superstar, potential superstars, and they're making footballers and egos like you don't even know, because they're like footballers, I feel are just different. They have a different, like different way of life with boxing. But nutrition is probably something that the youth neglect within football because it's like I ain't good at football, like it's not a one to one sport, it's not like you have a full team around you. You just need to do what you do well on a football pitch and then in the station. It's like I can imagine kids being like. I can even imagine like some adults a lot like.
Speaker 1:Only recent, I read something where Harry came and he got his first pro contract. I think it was Tim Sherwood gave him his first pro contract with Tottenham and he got 20 grand a week. The first thing he invested in was the chef with a nutrition background and it just brought his levels from here to here. But I feel like a lot, even if you look back. Wayne Rooney, it wasn't too long ago. I wouldn't say he was on the best of that, but he was just some smashing follower. But then if you look at Ronaldo, who probably was on a serious nutritional plan through his career and really dialed in on nutrition, look how long it's extended his career.
Speaker 1:Just longevity, longevity and just athleticism and just getting all that 1% that we always talk about. But like football feeling in the Everton, like what? What are they like? What are you? What are you touching on? What are you trying to teach them like? Are they just like?
Speaker 2:do you?
Speaker 1:think? Do you think they take it in as much as?
Speaker 2:some do and some don't. It's probably the same across all sports. You'll have athletes that are really bought in and you'll have athletes that don occur, especially when they're really good and they rely on talent and obviously to become a better athlete. It's not all down to nutrition, it's down to being consistent with your training and nutrition is just there to complement it. And it's good sort of having testimonials such as harry kane and you've got these high profile athletes speaking about the positive impact that nutrition has on their performance, because that's probably going to be more. It's going to resonate more with the younger athletes compared to maybe me as nutritionist from the OTA coming in, and it's actually a strategy to change behavior.
Speaker 2:It's called role modeling and I may be providing you with nutrition information around sort of how to make weight in the last couple of days, but it may be more powerful coming from someone who maybe you look up to, let's say, paddy Barnes Barnes for example, and I actually used to do that sort of in that final week when you were fighting on the same card and I would have maybe went through you to get the Paddy, because if I'm giving Paddy advice and information and he's getting it really tight that sometimes he dead in the lead in the not only did he not go back, he just used to read it and then not go back.
Speaker 2:And sometimes that's worse when you're left on blue ticks and you would have been with him and sometimes I would have been through you to get to him because he maybe would have listened to you more than me. So if you're sort of involved in that sport and you've been through that process, you're more than likely going to listen to that person as opposed to someone from the outside. But in relation to average. So I was under a guy called marcus hanlon and he was the academy nutritionist at the time. So I was only there doing my placement and really the focus there for him, because he was doing an applied phd, so he was working there as a practitioner but carrying out research and he was looking into the energy expenditure of youth players.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he was looking at under 12s to 13s, under 15s and under 18s because they were at different stages of their growth and development and he just wanted to see how many calories they're expending over the course of the day. So that research has been done on adult athletes and they were expending on average around 3,500 calories. And when he looked into the energy expenditure of the youth players. What he showed is that some of them are expending upwards of 000 calories. Even the under 12s, the 13s, they were actually expanding, some of them upwards of 4 000 calories. So they had real high energy demand. So at the younger age groups, the focus is all about getting them to actually eat more yeah, they're not only fuel for their training but fuel for growth and development.
Speaker 2:And when you looked at how many calories they were consuming, there was a mismatch.
Speaker 2:A lot of them were under eating, but they were under eating unintentionally, because a lot of them just weren't aware of how many calories they were burning.
Speaker 2:And see, when you looked at their schedule as well, they were at school all day, get picked up, went to the training ground, were there for a couple of hours and then home again, so they were so busy. So if you compare that to adults, not only are they training, expanding calories through that, but also growing, developing, and then when you think about their busy schedules, they have limited opportunities to eat. So that's difficult to get in that amount of calories over the course of the day. But even if you think about athletes and other sports that aren't part of a professional setup, they may be at school all day, participating in sports in school, after school, going home, going training. So they're so active throughout the day they're burning a lot of calories. So the focus of the young grades group is actually getting them to eat the fuel for training, for performance, recovery, but more importantly, growth and development, and I suppose that's where the interest came in relation to youth athletes who were involved in weight making sports.
Speaker 2:Because I was because I was looking at sort of the expenditure that the football players were their expenditure on a daily basis now how that was, looking at how many calories they were consuming and seeing there was a mismatch. And then when you look at other sports as well and looked at their energy expenditure, it was the same, like some sports like basketball, swimming had four or five thousand calories is their calorie expenditure.
Speaker 2:And when you look at their energy intake, there was a bit of a mismatch so because they were under eating in a lot of cases, on intensity, because they didn't have the knowledge. And also, when you think about parents as well, the financial constraints that come with that.
Speaker 1:It's difficult to keep on top of that amount of food, especially if you have a couple of kids. 100% like me, like we all boxed at that age, at youth age. We all boxed at youth age.
Speaker 2:So imagine her trying to keep up with fucking that but when you think about boxing as well and I was looking at those sports, looking at boxing thinking, well, they're probably expending similar, if not more, calories and they're actually trying to under eat. So what's the negative implications that can have on your growth, on growth and development.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm interrupting this show to tell you about my sponsors JFH Social, where you can get your haircut across four locations in the North Newcastle Lisburn Road, ormo Road, and coming to you very soon at the Davies Complex on E Road. Also, that praise guy doing great, great charity work across the world Fantastic praises at stake on their social media pages. Checking them out, that praise guy.
Speaker 2:Paddy Barnes. Paddy Barnes, he's fucking just from talking about it his bone marrow is like fucking it's because he's been holding it off the approaches over the years and that's the consequence.
Speaker 1:It probably comes from like obviously we were, we touched on it with him and he says that he's obviously been neglecting food and under eating, probably like there are probably no nutrients going into his body from like he was 17, yep, until he was 30 odds, but even before it it could have been developing from younger before it. Because you say like we underrate anyway. Yeah, so like probably a big percentage of the youth today that maybe aren't even involved in sport but they're still under eating, yep, just the out there everyday activity, going playing football, the remates, or else they're in the school all day or to go to youth club, everyone's so busy I'm going to feed that way, I know, and even speaking to that, but even speaking to coaches.
Speaker 1:I get him balking.
Speaker 2:But even speaking to coaches as well and parents and when they're speaking about their kids that are involved in boxing, there's disordered habits there which can then progress to eating disorders if they're restricting food intake and labeling food as bad as well, and at a young age. For me it shouldn't be about cutting weight. You're going to see a bigger return on actually just going into your sessions well-fueled, optimizing the recovery process, improving your relationship with food and also your body image. And when it comes to the training side of things, if you're going in well-fueled, you're able to get the most out of your session, You're able to focus on becoming a better athlete and focus on sort of the skill aspect development technically. And if you're going uncompromised, you're not able to get the most out of your session and the quality of the session can then suffer and you're just doing it to get a lower weight category, to gain an advantage over your opponent. But that doesn't mean you're actually going to be at an advantage exactly now in grappling based sports, when you're sort of you're leaning on someone.
Speaker 1:You need your weight, yeah and you're using your body weight to manipulate your opponent yeah, opponent yep and when you think about boxing it all depends on sort of the style that's why I can actually vouch for that, because when I always look back, someone stopped me. Some girl stopped me at the, the pumpkin patch. I was down at the pumpkin patch somewhere in Nary or something. She's like Sean. I just thought to myself talking to me and he's like can I get a photo with him? He's a wee boxer. I don't even know Simonicus or something he was from. I was like, of course, get a photo. He's going to box at 46, but he's 48. Let him grow. He's only a kid.
Speaker 1:Don't be like, why, see, see, boxing, it's so like old school, like every coach, every boxing coach hasn't a fucking clue. That's a fact. I'm saying that because they know it. It's a fact. They don't know how to make weight, they do not know what the benefits are of growing. They don't know the benefit, they don't know the extremes. Like they don't know. It's just like they put plastic bags on you. Like people still do it. Yeah, it's insane, and I was. I had done it myself. Now Mickey Hawkins is really against chair protection and he's like nope, nope, nope, but I still done that myself because I seen the other ones doing it. Yep, and that's what you follow.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean so, yeah, a lot of it does come from that and when you look at the research that surveyed athletes, to survey athletes, and there's a question called the rapid weight loss questioner and it gathers information on the weight making practices of athletes from different combat sports and there's questions around who's influential when it comes to the weight making process and across the board, coaches are the most influential. Nutritionists are actually the least influential, but there's a number of reasons for that. Not everyone has access to nutritionists and they don't know who to go to for advice. So for me, it's not just educating the younger athletes, it's educating the coaches. That's a big part of what I do educating the coaches.
Speaker 1:That's going to have to be the new. Like me now, obviously, from coming up, I had access to nutritionists, obviously been on the Irish team and it wasn't all the time, but like we had access to the nutritions but it was we weren't, we weren't educated on it. You were told maybe this, maybe that, and I was going, but like like there was no education involved until I met you. You see, now I feel like very confident that I can give like advice to anyone. Yeah, based on nutrition, just based on like what I've learned off you. Yeah, which is not a fraction of what you know, and I still feel like I can go and make weight on my own now, exactly the same math as you've taught me. Yep, I've done so, but I would still need to check on me just to get that reassurance. That's all it is.
Speaker 2:I need that 100 and you're right. It's good that you're in a position now where you know exactly what you need to do and then you can use your platform as well, speaking to the younger athletes and educating them as well, and educating the coaches that you're speaking to, because I hear about coaches giving advice to younger fighters and it can be detrimental to their not just performance but their health as well. But I'm empathetic because the coaches aren't doing it to harm the fighter, they're. They want the best for the fighter, they want them to win and perform. So for me it's it's a lack of education and I think like organizations and even clubs, if they have the funding for it, to reach out the nutritionists and come in and speak to the fighters and not everyone has the luxury of working with a nutritionist on a one-to-one basis. So it's good as well to when I'm speaking to the coaches, to be able to educate them so they can reinforce that and relay that information back to the fighters.
Speaker 2:And even when I'm doing workshops, I would always show the slides from sort of the data. Basically, on the slides from Everton we're looking into the energy expenditure and then also the weight as well of the athletes as they progress from under 12s to 18s. And it's just looking at their weight. They're the average weight of each age group and between 14 and 16 they put on on average 16 kg. And I always show that just, it's just basic information, just their weight.
Speaker 2:And the reason why I show that is because that's them going through what's called peak height velocity, so that most rapid period of growth. And I'll be speaking to the coaches and athletes and parents and say the reason why I'm showing that is because if you have a fighter that's used to fighting at a certain weight category, all of a sudden their weight starts to increase. It's easy to think they need to exercise more or reduce their food intake, but that's just a natural part of growth and development. So it's important to actually go with it and if you fight against it it can stunt growth, it can delay puberty, it can have a negative impact on bone health for females, it can prevent them getting their period, so it can have a whole host of negative consequences, not just in performance but health as well yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:Because like, like obviously I imagine I've learned what I've learned from you is like how to make weight, how I make weight as a professional and I know like it's like there's so much elements that I never took into consideration that would help me lose weight. And even like cutting out the favor and stuff like what's the difference between like? So that's me as a professional. What about an amateur? What way? Because I can cut out, say like fit week, we usually cut out favor. Two, three days for the weigh in. We cut out carbs, we drop carbs, like 50 grams of carbs Per day. Four days, say something like that, which holds all the water. We start dropping water, we start dropping Good content and then Everything starts to flow easier and I have confidence In that now, whereas before I never did, now I can fully Just do that.
Speaker 1:What way is that like? And I can weigh in, say, on the friday. I have 36 hours again before I fight on the saturday, which means I can eat and recover and carb load and do what I want and then I don't need to weigh in again, so I can do what I need to do. What ways it work for an amateur that would you do? They still go through the same process of cutting weight, or what way would you? Yeah, what's the difference?
Speaker 2:yeah, and sort of to provide a bit of context then. So I even run through sort of the dangers that are associated with the weight making process and then the differences between the strategies and, depending on the sport you're in, will dictate what strategy you use. So when it comes to the weight making process, it can be really broken down into two main phases. You've got the chronic phase and then you've got the acute phase. So the chronic phase would be the months and weeks in the lead into the weigh-in. You've got the acute phase, which would be sort of that final week, the days and hours in the lead into the weigh-in. So the goals of the chronic phase in relation to body composition would be to reduce body fat, hold on to muscle mass. In some cases fighters may need to lose some muscle mass to get to their weight category, or they just lose muscle mass as a byproduct of being really restrictive. But that's the goal of the chronic phase. When it comes to the acute phase, as you touched on a couple of strategies there, the goal isn't to reduce body fat, it's to reduce weight from gut contents, stored water and also glycogen, which is stored carbohydrates, because when you carbs it holds on to water. So if you reduce that, that can result in weight loss. Now, when it comes to both phases, if fighters get their nutrition strategies wrong in the chronic phase and also the acute phase, that can lead to a number of consequences on their performance and health. Now some of the consequences may overlap, but I'll just separate into two phases just for simplicity.
Speaker 2:So when it comes to the, the chronic phase, a big mistake a lot of fighters make is that they leave it late. They give themselves a lot of weight to cut in a short space of time. They then have to be really restrictive with their nutrition. And when you're really restrictive with your nutrition and you're cutting back on your calories, you're not providing your body with enough calories not only to support training but to support health, basic bodily functions. So we think about the total amount of calories you burn in a day made up of a number of different components. You've got the energy you would expand through training, through day to day activities, and then also your rest of metabolic rate, which is the amount of calories someone would burn just if they lay in bed all day. So that's to support basic bodily functions. And you've had those tests done, because that really forms a baseline then, and then we can factor in the energy you expend on top of that to get an estimate of your total energy expenditure and then set a calorie target that's good.
Speaker 1:You know what? 100%. I would recommend that to anyone if they can find out or get access to getting their their RMR, like, do it because that's like for me. I always remember going like that gave me a big understanding. Yeah, that just gave me like that's the minimum. Yeah, that minimum, that's the minimum I should be eating. And I was like what All this time I've been eating like? When I was a kid I was eating below it. Some days I was eating like getting up in the morning having an apple, drinking water and having like two eggs, a bit of toast, and then not eating again the next day. That's insane, I know.
Speaker 1:And that's why I have not objected, objectively seen that I was losing weight, but like that's rapid and like it's just not sustainable at all. Yeah, so like if anyone can get access to that RMR, then no, at the minimum you should be eating, and any less than that it's not good yeah.
Speaker 2:It would be one of the beginning of the camp, as well as the body composition assessment, to see whether it's actually feasible to make a weight category. And you're 100% right. Rmrs allow you to estimate total energy expenditure if you factor in training, but also making sure that someone doesn't consume a calorie intake that's below that. Because, if you think about it, if your rest and metabolic rate is 1600 calories, that's the amount of calories you need to support basic bodily functions, because you had mentioned, if you're eating 1400 calories, that means you're not even providing your body with enough calories to support those functions, and then that's when they can suffer. So not only does the training suffer, if you're consuming a really low calorie intake so strength power, your overall fitness you don't have the energy to go in and sustain the intensity of the session. You can lose muscle mass, but if you're consuming a really low calorie intake and a lot of fighters do do that and what I mean by low is below the rest of metabolic rate, you can start to run into some problems because your body will say right, let's stop putting so much energy towards supporting immune function. Immune function can then become compromised, so you're more susceptible to getting sick. Same with bone health. You're more susceptible to picking up stress fractures, bone breaks, men, stress fractures, bone breaks, menstrual function in females they can lose their period and then for the younger athletes, growth and development. So that's the consequences that come with sort of the chronic phase.
Speaker 2:And then when you get into the acute phase, when people think about the dangers that are associated with the weight making process, it typically is in that sort of final week and the days and hours and lanes away, and where a lot of fighters push it to the extremes and then they rely on those strategies that you touched on and, as I mentioned, the goal here is to reduce water, weight, gut contents and glycogen, stored carbohydrates, and a lot of fighters make the mistake of attempting to lose a lot of weight using these methods. So you can use some of those methods and lose weight safely, but the problem is that fighters will rely on these methods to cut large amounts of weight and then they can run into some problems. So there's two real dangers in that acute phase it's dehydration and then overheating. So if you're cutting large amounts of weight using like a hot bath, a sauna, exercising in layers, your core temperature will increase and if that increases at a greater rate than what you're losing heat via sweat. That can increase the risk of things like heat illness and it can be fatal in in some cases, and that has happened.
Speaker 2:Mma wrestling muay thai. So that's just the reality of it, and you also run the risk then of suffering health implications as a result of becoming dehydrated. And the study I always refer back to is one from john moore's university and I think I've touched on it a few times with you in 2019 where they followed an mma fighter over the course of an eight-week camp and he was attempting to lose I think it was around 14 and a half kilo, and the mma fighter was patty the body and that's widely known because he spoke about it in a lot of interviews and press conferences and it was called an observational study, so they were just sitting back and observing. They were carrying it interfere yeah, they weren't.
Speaker 2:It wasn't an intervention, because if you went to a university or an ethics committee and said this is the study, that I want to carry it wouldn't get approved because of the dangers that are associated, but it's good to have that because 100%, I know.
Speaker 2:And if you're guiding someone through that weight cut and you know that it has real negative health implications, so that's the dangers that come with it. So you wouldn't get that approved. And they were carrying out key assessments throughout the eight weeks. They were looking at his VO2 max, his marker of overall fitness, rmr, bloods, kidney function, and so in the first seven weeks, when they looked at his VO2 max at the start, and then one week out when you're supposed to be peaking, the score actually got worse just because he was so depleted he was unable. They looked at his rest of metabolic rate. Is RMR actually reduced by 300 calories? If you think about it, if you're burning 2,300 calories and you eat 2,000, you'll lose weight because you're in a deficit. But then after seven weeks of dieting, if your rest of metabolic rate reduces by 300, well, all of a sudden you're burning 2,000 and eating 2,000, weight loss can stall. So in order to lose weight you would need to lower the calories even further.
Speaker 2:So when they looked at sort of that final week, that's when you really see negative health implications. So I think he had seven kilos to lose. In the last it was sort of 20 hours or so 16 to 20 hours. And when they looked at his kidney function they showed he had acute kidney injury. And those type of weight cuts continue, like people can lose kidneys as a result of that. And then also when you're sweating. So to put it into context, when you sweat you're losing mostly fluid but you're losing some electrolytes and that can cause an imbalance in the body.
Speaker 2:And when they looked at a sodium concentration, which is an electrolyte, basically his was 148 millimoles per liter. Hyper Hypernatremia can occur at 145. Death can occur at 150. So he was really really really fortunate. So they're the dangers that are associated with the weight making process. And then if we think about sort of professionals then and amateurs. So professionals, the main difference there is got longer time to recover. As you mentioned, you've 24 to 36 hours, so you can lose a lot more weight on that final week and you have enough time to actually fully recover, refuel and rehydrate. And if you think about amateurs, then they could be weighing in and fighting 3 hours later. In some cases they could be fighting 12 hours later, but they may weigh in and then fight 3 hours. It happened to.
Speaker 1:Paddy in the Rio, in Rio de Janeiro, he drew, he drew Spain, and his fate was three hours after winning and he was absolutely exhausted.
Speaker 2:He lost, see the letter we had to get you after you know he lost.
Speaker 1:He lost his first fate, but now some say he should have won it. Like it was a close fate. But like I, fully recovered Paddy Barnes with a bice time up and like it just he was exhausted. He gassed after the second round. He was just gassed because he didn't have enough recovery in him and then if he had won he'd have to do it again 100%, and this is the thing as well.
Speaker 2:You make it through the first fight, but it's the second fight, it's the second fight, it's a third fight as well. So amateurs make the mistake of looking to the pros and look at the strategies they're adapting and saying right, I'll do that. So carbohydrates, for example. Carbohydrates are your body's main fuel source to support moderate to high intensity work and for every gram of carb you eat, it holds on to three grams of water. So you can use that as a weight loss strategy, reducing the amount of carbs you're consuming, and you'll reduce weight. That comes with that. And in that final week all the hard training is done.
Speaker 2:So professionals can reduce the amount of carbs they're consuming as a way to reduce weight and you could lose the four percent of your body weight. And it depends really how much grams of carbs you consume. Going into fit week, that will dictate how much you actually lose, because you're going depleted. You're not going to lose much through yeah, through reducing your carb rates, but because faders, professionals, have 24 to 36 hours that's a lot of time to refill the fuel tank and replenish. Amateurs don't have that, so they shouldn't use that strategy now. What they can do is sort of a last resort, is reduce carbs slightly a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not major, not like the way we would take if we drop down to like 50 grams and sometimes, in some cases, like barely any carbs, like zero carbs, yep, and just focus on the high fats and the protein, yep, but in their case, because like they needed to fight, like they're not getting as much recovery for us as us first of all, and then, second of all, they're back in again the next day. Potentially they'll be fighting a day or two later and do it all again 100, so like it's.
Speaker 2:You've got the money and the weight on top of that, yeah, and that's why, as well that you you don't want to deplete because it's going to be difficult to sustain that throughout the competition. So that's a strategy that they should avoid. But if they consume like a high carb diet throughout their training camp and then they reduce it down slightly but reduce the level and still allow them to perform and recover, that's perfectly fine. So that's the main difference in a strategy that professionals can use but amateurs shouldn't use. And then you've got the dehydration as well, so you can get away with losing a bit more without dehydration compared to amateurs. And when you think about the strategies then exercising the layers, hot baths, saunas there's some difference as well between those strategies in terms of who can use what. So if we think about, then, losing weight through dehydration, amateurs shouldn't be aiming to lose any more than two percent of their body through dehydration, because more than two percent, you can start to run into some problems in terms of your performance. Cognitive function is usually the first thing to go. This is you make in concentration, alertness, and that's if you're competing or training dehydrated, but because you've got a couple of hours, you're able to replace that and you'll be able to go in well hydrated. But if you're really pushing that three, four percent, you just don't have enough time to rehydrate. Then with the professionals they could push it a bit higher than that. You don't really want to go more than five percent dehydrated just because you start to run into not only problems in terms of your performance but your health as well. So fetters amateur fetters can lose some weight through dehydration, but the magnitude is the is the main difference and then in terms of the strategies to lose weight, there's going to be differences there. So you've got basically active, sweating, and then passive. So active is exercising some layers, passive is sitting in a hot bath and sauna amateur fighters. If they are losing that last bit of weight, I would encourage and recommend that they do active. So just incorporate into their weight management session or even their warm-up a few layers. The reason why is because that maintains the fluid in the blood to a better degree compared to hot baths and saunas. Fluid in the blood to a better degree compared to hot baths and saunas. Fluid in the blood is important to regulate body temperature, but also to carry nutrients to different parts of the body and it can take a longer time to recover if you're losing a lot of fluid from the blood, and that's what occurs when you're dehydrating via a hot bath or a sauna.
Speaker 2:And then, if you think about the saunas and hot baths, in order to sweat you just need your core temperature to be slightly above what's normal. So let's say 37, 37 and a half. If you get to 38, 38 and a half, you'll sweat, start sweating. Yeah, but see, a sauna, it could be double that. And it's just, it's so warm, you're sitting on a warm seat, you're sitting beside someone who's warm and the it's not actually evaporating. So the sweat needs to evaporate to cool you down, so it just drips onto the ground and then you actually heat up at a really quick rate and then that can cause a lot of stress on the cardiovascular system and it can take a long time to recover. Whereas the hot bath, at least you can be in control of the temperature of the water, you can keep your feet out, you can keep your head out, but that would be through active sweating. But professionals can use any one of those, just depending on what they can tolerate.
Speaker 2:And then, as you touched on, the low-fever diet is going to be the big one, because that's called a low-risk strategy, and what I mean by low-risk is that you don't need to replace fever after the weigh-in, so you don't run the risk then of your performance suffering if you reduce fever and fever suffering if you reduce favour.
Speaker 2:And favour is going to be important for gut health.
Speaker 2:It's going to be important for cholesterol, blood pressure and when faters are making weight, favour can help keep you full for long periods, so it's beneficial.
Speaker 2:But one thing about favour is it draws water into the gut and it take a couple of days for you to pass that out. So if you reduce favour three days before the weigh in, that will allow time for the favour in the system to be passed out without adding any extra favour back in, and as a result of that you can lose some weight. So that would be the sort of the main differences. So if I was working with an amateur and they were losing that last bit of weight in the final week so I wouldn't recommend they attempt to lose any more than three percent on that final week it would be from reducing fiber, adopting a low fiber diet and then losing some weight via dehydration. So no more than 2%, but that would be the main differences. But a big mistake that a lot of amateur fighters do is look into the professionals and adopting the strategies that they're adopting and then implementing it, and then their performance suffers and they're wondering why yeah, it comes from that thing I was touching on earlier.
Speaker 1:You look up to you, know 100%, like you see, like if I was in Holy Trinity and the kids look up to me and they ask me what I'm going to do. Look enough, I'm educated enough now, through you, to say like no, don't be doing that. Um, but the first thing they will do is do that. Even on a corner. He doesn't even compete at that level, but yeah, he was still. I mean like I'll do it, but it doesn't work like it's, because it's two different sports. I actually had a conversation with someone.
Speaker 2:It was last year and they had said the same and they referred you and they said about the strategies that you were using and they were an amateur and they were adopting similar strategies.
Speaker 2:But it's just a lack of education as well, and I think a lot of the younger fighters, when they're coming through, even when they're training, they're putting on layers and even sweatsuits and they don't even have a fake coming up.
Speaker 2:There's no reason for it. Yeah, it's different if you're really even as close to the weigh-in as possible and you're keeping the weight off. But even with youth athletes, the dangers as well of putting on layers and sweatsuits and they're assessing is that, in order for us to get rid of heat, the main way we do that is through sweating. But but youth athletes actually don't have the same sweating capabilities as adults because they're not fully mature, so they're not able to dissipate heat as well as us, so they run the risk of seeing their core temperature increase, which can then have a negative impact on not just performance but health. And you think about youth athletes going in training in layers? All they're doing is compromising their training because the first thing to go, even when you're dehydrated, is cognitive function compromising their training, because the first thing to go, even when you're dehydrated, is cognitive function.
Speaker 2:So if you think about on the pads or in sparring, that can impact decision making, reaction time, alertness, and then it can have a negative impact obviously on brain health as well, and it's a big mistake that I see a lot of UFA athletes do is that they wear these layers and these sweatsuits and the belief that that it is helping them lose weight, which is water weight, and then after once you drink, you just put that back in again yeah and it's all to get the lowest weight class possible most people do that like I don't know.
Speaker 1:For years I just I would have like stuck a sweatshirt on like trained, like like absolutely exhausted no oxygen, and I was just like like like a tablet here got the stuff to see get the sweats off best feeling over here, just become like a new man, get an oxygen back in there, back in their muscles and just back in there, just like.
Speaker 1:And then I put down the strip of street and drink a ton of coke zero, or drink a ton of that straight away, just like I don't just have that kind of coke zero like and see when you started boxing who was influential when it came to?
Speaker 2:there was a few, like a cook zero, and see when you started boxing. Who was influential when it came to weight training?
Speaker 1:there was a few, like I'll just say you would have had people look up to you. I had Brian McKee in our gym, damien Kelly, brian Gillan, who was like Brian Gillan would have lost 8 kilos in sweat and I'd never faced him. Whatever way he done. I don't know, but I was used to brother D, like there was loads of people I'd look up to, she and her boxers and they had a worst bad suit and it was just the way to do it and I remember like there was a photo of me in the gym and I think I was fighting. Remember that it was boy three, I was 13, and there was a photo of me in the gym.
Speaker 1:And well, it's not in the gym because he says, if it was up in the, of me sitting with a full silver summer suit on, just sitting with my hat on, like ready to go, like absolutely just depleted, as a kid 13 year old kid just sitting there and he was like a photo of a fucking balder. It's just a wee. He's got a print, he's got like a it was just a digital camera.
Speaker 1:It's a bal, I'd be done with television or something, but that's just the old methods of like he just followed what he knew and there was none of this. There was no nutrition advice, like even when I I always talk about this like when we were on the Irish team, like the international fucking Olympic boxing team, and there was no real end-to-end nutritional advice. Yes, you got like advice and I mean advice as in like Eat this or maybe eat this, but I never even knew what a calorie deficit was when I was on the Irish team, and I don't think anyone did. Yeah, so what the fuck's that? Tell you At an elite level, like I would say, we were just so far Behind the English team.
Speaker 1:They had. They had a method when, like you weren't allowed to go Like More. They had a method where, like you weren't allowed to go like more than you weren't allowed to go back to sheffield and be more than two or three kilos above your body weight. Yeah, otherwise you were made to move up. Yeah, I don't agree with that in certain ways, but the success they had fucking showed that it worked.
Speaker 2:So like sometimes people can be too conservative with sort of weight targets, but it is good to have targets to work off. It is highly individual, but you don't want to come back way overweight as an amateur when you're fighting so many times throughout the year the competitions are frequent you want to be in a position where you can make weight within four or five weeks. But obviously, being realistic as well, not everyone's going to walk around at their fight weight. There's no issue with making weight. That'll never go away. As long as someone has the body fat to lose first of all and it doesn't have a negative impact on their performance and they give themselves enough time to do that, it's perfectly safe and fine to lose weight.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's just an accepted practice, it's ingrained in the culture when you get into the sport. It's just what's done. So it's what fellow boxers do, it's what coaches do, it's what everyone above you does. So it's just passed down. And nutritionist, especially 10, 15, 20 years ago might not have been as accessible as what they are today. And it's it's difficult as well because, as I mentioned at the beginning, not everyone has the luxury of working with nutritionists on a one-to-one basis, so they rely on their coaches. So I think the coach education is a it's a massive one yeah, and you're with Full Star High Performance.
Speaker 1:do you feel like, do you feel that there's there's a trust issue between boxers and like, following your methods, do you know? Do you know what there's or is there? Is it just like some people take it on, some people don't? You will get that, because people always revert back to what they know 100%, no matter what you tell them. It took me a while you know what I mean. It was like I'll do it, but I would say, going on a national team or whatever it is, a high performance team, telling them something, it's like for them to put that trust in you. It's like for them to put that trust in you. It's like, oh fuck, I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2:but you have to get that buy in. You do and there's a term called in group bias and it's when people just take advice from people that are within their circle. So boxers take advice from fellow boxers or coaches. But because I've worked in combat, I love the sport. You box, a lot of mates box, sort of surrounded by it. I think getting that buy-in then was a bit easier compared to maybe other sports, because some of the athletes may have known that I've had experience working in combat sports and I'd be close with you and a few other boxers they'd be familiar with, like the Paddy Barnes and stuff. So I think getting that buy-in with a lot of athletes was a bit easier compared to other sports.
Speaker 2:But you're always going to get other boxers that maybe don't care, but I don't expect them to change their habits all at once. Me coming in and delivering a workshop isn't going to cut it. Me having a one-off conversation isn't going to cut it. It is going to take time and you have to be in and around the athletes, take an interest in them, take an interest in boxing and because I love boxing and I'm passionate about it, you're able to have those conversations. It's not all just nutrition and not just coming in and telling people you shouldn't be eating this, you should be eating that, because there will be sort of a standoff if you're not going to take your advice on board, if they think that you're just there to judge and you're just there to tell them.
Speaker 1:You're doing this, you're doing that. It's almost like you need to have a relationship with someone to be like, oh f**k god, you need to near enough, enjoy someone's company, enjoy the conversations with people, and it's like you say it. You're not there to judge them and you shouldn't be eating that. Because there was a time on the Irish team when our physio was like you shouldn't be f**king eating this. Lads like is there eating chippers? You don't see the Kazakh boxers eating chippers. Or you don't see the kazakh, the kazakh boxers eating chippers. Or you don't need to see the ukrainian. I think so. They probably don't have a chippy in ukraine we're nowhere near camp.
Speaker 1:We're only in a pre-camp here. This is like we're nowhere near a major tournament. Yeah, but it's not gonna like this stage isn't gonna affect our performances and your europeans. Four months now you let us have a chip you definitely have to find that balance.
Speaker 2:I mean, coming in expecting people to be perfect with their nutrition again, you'll lose athletes right away. Yeah, you have to have that flexibility with your nutrition and that's what I try and encourage the all my athletes and clients to have flexibility, but making sure that the majority of your diet comes from nutrient dense foods. But you're right, there's athletes there that might not have bought into what I was saying, and trying to pin them down even for a conversation was difficult and they weren't implementing. But it can just take one wee small change and they see the results of it and then all of a sudden they become engaged and I had that with an athlete in particular that his post-weigh-in nutrition consisted of a fry and a lot of amateur boxers.
Speaker 1:They all done it, yeah they all done that part, done that Part of it went in. Yeah, went in straight there for a fry and it's just a lack of education.
Speaker 2:And when you look at the research that surveyed amateur boxers and asked them do you know the importance of post-weigh-in nutrition the majority would say yes. But when you look at their nutrition post weigh-in nutrition and I hadn't really had much conversations with that athlete and it was a couple of weeks later that he came up to me and said he felt a massive difference when it came to his performance, because he always suffered, just when it came to his energy during fights, and because he changed from focusing on a fry, which is going to be high fat, high protein, going for the carbohydrates, easily digested carbohydrates, which is going to provide you with the fuel that you need to perform. And I know you actually touched on this with your podcast with Garrett about reducing the meat with the pasta because the protein you want to reduce it because it's slow to digest. You need it, yeah, and prioritize carbs, and a lot of people make the mistake going for a fry or even a nando's snap here's another, here's another a porter yeast snap 100%, prioritizing the big, massive chicken
Speaker 1:the big chicken and then they can't really. But I've just I've Just experimenting near enough myself, like, obviously, like you always say, the priority is carbs, but obviously it's nicer to eat fucking like a big plate of pasta with like chicken on it. I love it, like it's the easiest chicken pasta I used to get, and I was like, no, I'm just going to get the meat out of it and just eat a vegetarian option, like an arrabbiata pasta, and I've just been eating that and eat that and then eat some chips and have a fucking glass of Coke I'm like, fuck me. Or even a glass of full fat Coke, because it has sugar in it. It's going to hold on to more, it's going to help for a reason and I'm like, fuck this, this is well better, whereas before I used to go and get like, say, like a pizza with chicken on it or a pasta with chicken on it and I was busted just just after that and then go and try and eat like donuts because I had that in my head, the whole thing.
Speaker 1:I want donuts. I'm only eating the donuts because I had it in my head and I've bought them before the weigh in and I'm eating them busted and I'm like, oh, I'm not even enjoying them. I feel like shit the rest of the day and then I can't get a second meal in. But I need to go and get a second meal. So I'm refueling for tomorrow, but I haven't got the fucking space because I've just had a little chicken. So now that I've took away all the meat, I'm able to go and eat a donut and actually enjoy it for a cup of tea and then go and get a second meal because you want to be hungry like the foods that's required to refill that fuel tank and you want to go for easy digestive carbs that aren't hand fever and you want to minimize protein and minimize fat.
Speaker 2:So when you eat those foods you're hungry again a couple of hours later and it's not impacting your ability to get in the recommended amount of carbs that you require, as opposed to eating something post-weigh and being busted the rest of the day because then it'll impact your energy levels the next day, especially if you've reduced carbs on fight week. You need that 24 hours to really maximise the glycogen replenishment process to ensure that you enter a fight day well fuelled and well hydrated because it's back up.
Speaker 1:Your belly shrank for the last course of like four days, whatever it is, and you're just like busted 24-7. But I just feel now I've got to go and I it may not have anything to do with it, but obviously from like I'm performing better because I'm able to move my feet for longer I'm able to. I don't feel I've never felt sick anymore like you always feel. You've got sick in the ring. You get wee fucking poking the body and you're like I haven't felt like that in ages and it's probably shown on my performance. From when I started doing it, my last five fights four or five fights have been have been good like in well, I think so I think that people be able to judge that?
Speaker 1:no, but you definitely have I just feel like and just more like I'm not more fluid in my feet and more fluid in my movement. There's no breaks in between where I go in and let my feet settle or anything, and just constantly can just stay tipped away, and it's because I'm not just carrying a big fucking gut full of fucking protein.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean no, and you're 100% right to think as well.
Speaker 2:Full of beetroot the fact that you're able to sustain the intensity of the fight as well, because you think about your style and a lot of that comes down to your weight as well and being able to manage it and not having to cut a large amount of weight over the course of a camp. So you have the energy, and this is what people need to weigh up when they're thinking about getting to a lower weight category, because even if you do the baseline assessments and you've got you do a DEXA scan, as you've done a dexascan before, and we looked at right body fat, muscle mass is it feasible to get a certain weight category? Just because you can't doesn't mean you should.
Speaker 2:And even with the dexascan, we showed that you can get the, the lightweight, but that may not have been the best approach for you because your stale is movement and you're allowing that and you have that energy to sustain the intensity of the fight, whether it's a six round or right through to 12 round and people need to weigh that up as well and think about managing their weight correctly to make sure that they do have that energy to sustain and also getting, obviously, the post weigh-in nutrition rate as well, because fights can't be sort of won and lost in that post weigh-in period, because a lot of people think, job done, the weigh-in, and it's like right, I'll go and just have whatever I want, but you still need to think about right, making the right choices that are going to support your performance goals and recovery goals that's me and gert were talking about as well like being disciplined after you weigh in, because as far as you just go wagging but I want, and, and it's the wrong approach, especially when you've worked so hard to get that point you still need to stay disciplined until you win, otherwise it's all for fucking nothing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then you let the hair down after 100%.
Speaker 2:Sometimes people let the hair down too much after I know too soon, and then it makes the next camp even more difficult.
Speaker 1:There's a thing I hear this all the time. Obviously we have our own gym and even with General Pop, everyone has this thing where it's like it's so hard to lose weight when you get older or when you're getting older it's. I don't believe it. Maybe you slow down in terms of your activity, but I don't think you slow down like I don't because I'm getting older. I know that right, but I am later now than I ever am in between camps ever. I just have a good balance and I just when I boxed at lightweight that time I went up to 73 kilos. I haven't 73 kilos again from it. I wear it.
Speaker 1:I come back from Paris. I was in Paris for in Disneyland for Christmas we're carvering it in Derby. I was on the gargle all over Christmas. It was eating flat to the mat. I weighed myself the other day. I was 70.4 kilos. So I've never been anywhere near 73 again and that's coming from a later weight because I indulged, which was when I was younger as well. It was about three years ago. Now I don't indulge like that. I've just got a good balance because I'm not restricting myself as much and I'm eating at a good balance between camp and in camp and I'm not neglecting anything and I'm not neglecting anything and I'm enjoying camp and I'm enjoying my food. I just feel like it's nothing to do with getting older, it's just having a good balance, a better balance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're actually 100% right. And when you think about not just boxers but general public, when they're embarking on a fat loss journey and a mistake that they make is being really restrictive with their nutrition, they can't sustain it. And then the rebound and you think about fighters as well going through a camp when they're losing large amounts of weight, you're basically in debt over the course of six, eight weeks of a camp in terms of a calorie deficit. So I actually done a study a couple years ago to john moore's and they calculated the energy deficit that someone was in over the course of eight weeks and he was in energy deficit of 105 000 calories. So it makes sense after a fight to want to get that back.
Speaker 2:The more restrictive you are, the bigger the deficit. That's going to increase the chance of you rebounding. And then people rebound but they end up gaining more body fat than what they started with. And the thing is, is that because the RMR drops, so that can contribute towards it. So when people go through a fat loss phase, rmr can slow down because it's your body's way of holding on the energy and then it's easier for people to rebound because the calories they were on at the beginning is lower, which was putting them into deficit.
Speaker 2:It's now probably putting them into a surplus, so it's easier for them to gain weight and then, when it comes to the boxers through camp, they'll lose body fat, but they can lose muscle mass if they're really restrictive. Then after the camp they'll regain all that weight. Sometimes they gain more body fat than what they started with, but they'll not gain the muscle mass back because they're not engaged in weight training and protein and what you find is that they can start to camp then with more body fat, less muscle mass, and that can happen over the course of their career. So your body composition actually gets worse. But yeah, when you think about general public going through a fat loss phase and being really restrictive, a lot of people have good intentions and say, right, I'm not gonna have any sweets, chocolates, takeaways. But it's a big mistake a lot of people make is that they go from eating, let's say, five takeaways a week to none at all, eating chocolate every day to none at all. It's important to actually start small with your nutrition and just work on one to two things at a time until that becomes a habit and then build on the diet over time, although it seems small and insignificant, but those small habits over the course of a number of months will result in big changes.
Speaker 2:And if someone is restricting foods and calories and if they're restricting their takeaways and chocolates no one being good, you often hear not having it are they able to sustain that for the rest of their life? Are you going to go without takeaway, sweets, chocolates for the rest of your life? The answer is more than likely going to be no. So why not learn to factor those foods and learn to get results while still eating those foods? Because it will come a point where you'll get the six weeks in, eight weeks in, and you'll you'll be depleted, your energies will suffer if you're really restrictive but it's just not sustainable and you're not enjoying the process. And then, when it comes to social accusing, you'll end up overeating and then that can maybe snowball two, three days. And because you hated the process and it was really restrictive, the last thing that you want to do is actually get back to that, and that's why people go through that vicious cycle losing weight, regaining weight. Losing weight, regaining weight is because their approach just try too much, too soon they're just in a hurry.
Speaker 1:They're in a hurry to get the weight off. I feel like, especially women just in a hurry to get like social media, and it's good and it's bad. It's good that you can get the message out and let them know what you think, but it's bad because, like, there's still people out there like through social media and like I was asked me and Pete Taylor were in, we were talking about this just in the airport like women, like how many people had this concept that you like don't eat bread? It's a big one like don't eat bread. And your wee man, sean Casey, done the thing during lockdown, where he had bread every day for a week and lost like six pounds or five pounds or something. And everyone was like, oh, and now he's got like two million followers and he, like it just goes to show you not to.
Speaker 1:As I said, I didn't even know what a calorie deficit was. Yep, when I was in, when I was on the Irish team that's me, on an elite Irish team. So that means that no one, like, let's say, a big percentage of general population, do not know what a calorie deficit is and they don't know what their calories should be. They don't know what to consume. So I feel like you can eat whatever you want within them calories, as long as you stay within them calories and exercise and your body composition will change and and you'll look better and feel better for it. But obviously, if you eat, say, for example, your calories should be sat at 2 000 calories and you do 2 000 calories a day, which works you're going to. Your body composition is going to be shit, yeah you lose weight, but you lose muscle mass.
Speaker 2:You'll sag, you'll.
Speaker 1:You lose muscle mass and you'll sag and you'll not be toned and you'll not look as well as you want to look. Yep, although the ultimate goal is I want to lose weight. That's what they always say. But they don't do. They want to look good. Now we had a girl in our gym. We have the, the embody machine, as you know, and it tells you, it gives you the full run down of his body index. And she was, she was, she got her, she was checking her weight in the chemist. So I says she checked her body weight, she done the thing in the chemist and she phoned me. It was a Saturday morning and she was like a burr. I fuck. I checked my weight in the scales and the chemist. I've put on a fucking six pound and I was like what the fuck? I was like relax, set the hair could be, muscle could be anything no like she was going mad and I was like I'm in the gym here.
Speaker 1:I'm going to be here for half an hour. I'll call up quick and we'll do it. On my body, she put like she put. She dropped body fat like from the last body she'd given us.
Speaker 2:She's put two kilos of muscle on and she's actually lost inches, and she left our gym buzzing, even though she was six pound heavier is the math, though, like how people can caught up on the number that they see on the scales and that's just.
Speaker 1:That's like. It's like gospel, like that's it. But the main thing you need to look at is like what you look like and what you feel like now. She probably felt like shit when she checked her weight it. But the main thing you need to look at is like what you look like and what you feel like now. She probably felt like when she checked us or wait and she was in a bad mood. But as soon as she contacted the goddamn body results and I gave her a full run there, she left she was skipping the origin and I was like that's the, that's, that's what you're looking for.
Speaker 1:You're looking for what you look like in the mirror. So go and like, go and take clothes off and look at yourself and I bet you look better than what you did when you started here it's.
Speaker 2:It's one way to assess progress. It's how you fit in clothes, progress photos if you're taking measurements, and energy, mood, sleep, performance in the gym. But all those things can be flan. Someone steps on the scale and sees a number that they don't like and then they could call up on that number and think that they have made a progress, even though that their energy, mood, sleep, everything is improving and people just get so caught up on that number. And it's one of the reasons why people feel, when it comes to actually starting out on a fat loss journey, is scale, with seeing the number that they don't like and then reverting back to old habits because I think, well, I'm doing everything and I'm not seeing.
Speaker 2:If you get more carbs the day before, that can cause water retention. If you eat more febrile the day before, drink more fluid, menstrual function can play a role. Stress, sleep there's so many things. So it's important to educate people around that. But even I found sometimes, when you do educate people, they know that and they still step on the scales, and you've probably been the same, I've been the same step on the scales even though you know there's so many things that can impact it. The scale, weight goes up and then sometimes you can get a bit demotivated. So for me, when it comes to scale weight, I would always encourage people. If they are relying on that as a way to assess progress is take it a couple of times per week and then take the average that accounts for the other and you can fluctuate with water.
Speaker 2:Next day you're down and it's why people are tend to be heavier on monday after a weekend, because they've had a bit more yeah, and then it's when they do that, so someone's doing it monday to monday, you might not see change. The scale can be the exact same every monday you're wearing and you're happy, but you're actually changing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're changing, but if you do it every, say once, or Thursday, yep, you're probably later than what you're going to be on a Monday you give you a better idea, and you touched on as well about other ways to assess progress, whether it is the in-body scanner photos, how they fit and close, to get a more of a complete picture, as opposed to just relying on the number that you see on the scale. Yeah, because people can't get caught up on the number, and the number was up.
Speaker 1:I hear about it because when there's a number or like because there's enough, because we have to, you need to make, we have to make that number, yep. And when we go we're getting that way, we're like, say the number, say at 140, for me like 140 pounds or 63.5 kilos, and then I'm 67, 68, and then I come back a Monday and I'm 69.
Speaker 1:I go, fuck, I know especially when you're close to the whale, I know, and I'm like fuck, but then you can't get fatter within them three. You can't put on a kilo of fat in fucking them two days with what you've had. It's impossible. So that's another thing that I've learned to trust. Like it's. I'd say that to my like my wife and I say that to people now in the gym you're not fatter. But I was 60 or I was 64 last last Wednesday or last Saturday. Now I'm 66. Like hang on, you cannot get fatter. You've been tracking, you've been writing in the art group check your food. I've seen what you've been eating. You're not fatter. So just relax.
Speaker 2:We'll do an embody and then get the embody and they're all happy again and they're like fuck me, just relax but you'll always get it as much as you preach it as a coach, as me as a nutritionist, even though people will understand the things that still get caught up on it. I know you always do and as you say, like boxers can be worse because they need to make a specific number on the scale, so when it goes up. Yeah, you hear about it.
Speaker 2:When the message came through yeah, when the message came through, first, pop in the morning on that name. Many names Trust the process. I'm saying to myself it's just water we're going for.
Speaker 1:It's like fuck, that's the worst feeling in the world Like and I did like you were, because at the start, when we only started, you were doing like one, you were doing one-to-one coaching and all like with the nutrition. And obviously you've went to Ulster High Performance and you're like working up with Emmons now, but are you back doing one-to-one coaching?
Speaker 2:as well. Yeah, I still do one-to-one coaching.
Speaker 1:Still, the answers are yeah yeah, yeah, is that male and female?
Speaker 2:Male, female. Yeah, and it's not just athletes as well, it's members of the general public, just general public. Yeah, so we do that outside of the work that I do with the Institute, as well as delivering sort of workshops and talks to the sports teams, gyms, organisations as well because you used to like.
Speaker 1:You used to do loads on your social media because that's all you've done before. You applied for the Ulster Hair Reformer show. So a lot of people would know that they can approach you and like, obviously be coached for your nutrition to help them on their fitness journey. So they just go. It's something they need to get back to the.
Speaker 2:Instagram. Yeah, because it was.
Speaker 1:It was because it was, people loved it like people loved the car was consistent with the content like, obviously it's time consuming when you've got another job, yep, but um, it's so beneficial, like we in our gym, like all our missile members. They know of you through our gym but and they still often ask and that the foreign they've worked out only so. We need to get that sorted. But it's just like a breath a fresh air that people know that they're not doing as wrong as they think, like people think like they're doing. Oh, I need to get back. I need to get back. Like they're just panicked. People are in the panic mode and like it's refreshing to hear you reassure them that it's like it's just normal because sometimes it's more powerful coming from someone else, when you've been preaching the same message over and over again.
Speaker 2:And even if I come in and deliver the same messages, sometimes I go. I didn't realise that, even though you've been preaching it to them for weeks or months beforehand. So, and social media as well, it can be difficult to navigate if you're the member of the general public that isn't really into nutrition.
Speaker 2:It's easy to come across something, especially if it's a quick fix and people just believe it, whether it's tiktok or instagram, so it's difficult to weed through the noise and a lot of people get caught up on those fads and quick fixes.
Speaker 2:And I found that instagram is a good platform and just to create awareness around it and put out sort of educational videos and you mentioned like sean casey, who's really good as well, um, but you also get a lot of noise alongside that. So a big part of what I do is sort of weeding through that and trying to keep up to date with the fads as well. Um, because a lot of athletes will come to you and whether it's a latest supplement or a diet that's advertised or promoted as the best diet to lose body fat, I sort of have to deal with that and sort of break it down. But I need to get back to the content on Instagram because it was consistent there for a while but, as you'd mentioned, it's time consuming, especially when you're doing videos and it doesn't always go as planned, and then you're re-recording as well.
Speaker 1:Take two take three.
Speaker 2:I know, do you know what? So sometimes you're your own worst critic when you're creating videos and putting it out there Like when we slip up. I'll do it again instead of just banging it out because you're not going to stand up and deliver a workshop and go. Sorry, I'm going to start again after being 20 minutes in.
Speaker 1:So no, I need had a break there and I was like they're a bling on the turkey. We had a game fixed, they're alright. I just went fuck it. I know one's really batting an eyelid.
Speaker 2:You're the worst critic. It's because you're looking at yourself. You're looking at yourself every single day and you're picking out these wee flaws, but no one else is as deathly.
Speaker 1:I was like relax.
Speaker 2:I broke a flight.
Speaker 1:Next week podcast sitting with Fulhiller full bonnet veneers the lad, I guess I'll get the works done we'll go sit there all time eating straight, eating all the things out there. Fucking love my life. So if anyone wants to sign up, do they reach out to you on social media yeah, so Instagram is probably the best way to contact me.
Speaker 2:So if you go to the Instagram page sfloydnutrition, you can reach out and just enquire and, like I said, offer one to one coaching and sports teams.
Speaker 1:Organisation sports teams one to one coaching anything you want, it works you've got it. You hear it steven sfloydnutrition. Give the man a follow. Bang bang, I'll reach out cheers.