Mindset Meets Muscle
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Mindset Meets Muscle
#40 Reacting to Our Toxic Diet & Exercise Behaviours of the Past
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We have BEEN around the block and tried every toxic way to change our bodies so you do not have to!
Give this one a listen and we hope you find it useful and hopefully it has inspired you to take a more sustainable route with your transformation!
To listen to the Barbell Medicine Episode Tash mentioned click below here
https://open.spotify.com/episode/37NiPiww7xSetmrjxH0cfp?si=hXTdarvQTDK5qbgpN3sZ4w
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Welcome back to Mindset Meets Muscle. Today we're talking about toxic behaviors, and both Tash and myself have done many in the past, and that there are loads of women that are still doing them thinking that that is the answer to their dream physique. Not necessarily because they are obvious things either. We're talking about behaviors that can look really disciplined or so-called healthy, even maybe quite impressive from the outside. But underneath, they're often potentially ones that are keeping you stuck in a similar cycle.
SPEAKER_00If you are training all the time, if you're saying no to food, if you're doing fasting, if you're doing keto, if you're smashing high-intensity classes on top of that six times a week, and you're still not feeling confident in your body, might be time for us to debunk some of these toxic behaviors. There are so many of these behaviors out there that, as Emily said, we've fallen into the traps. And honestly, some of them I'm like, I can't quite believe that we used to think that that was effective, like that was gonna work. And there are so many things that, yeah, people are still doing. And I think it's really important for us to sort of go back and judge our past selves for what we did and give you all a sort of tangible, like no, let me say that again, and give you all the actual real solutions and what you should be doing that's actually going to work.
SPEAKER_01Shall we start with one of like the most common? And I think that most people still to this day believe that this is the answer to a dream physique, that they need to be absolutely fucking exhausted when they walk out of the gym and they need to be dripping in sweat for it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I used to fully believe in this, like the high-intensity classes, like a Barry's boot camp or the orange theory or anything that just literally makes you feel like you're gonna be physically sick. And I think that is fine, like if you're doing that maybe once a week, maximum of you're introducing a little bit, like a that should be sort of like a sprinkle into your training. That should not be something that you're doing six, seven days a week. Like, if you're going to Barry's every day, I'm sure you're probably still looking for that physique that you've that you assumed that you were gonna achieve from going to Barry's every single day. I remember when I did crazy HIIT workouts like that. I'm honestly sometimes I do them like twice a day. And I never looked the way I wanted to look. But also, you're so ravenous after something like that that it actually makes it then very hard for you to be able to control your caloric intake. So you might actually end up overall gaining more weight. You feel like you're in there to burn loads of calories, but you get so hungry afterwards that you then eat back all those calories. It puts you in a very negative cycle. And I never saw the body that I wanted to see when that was my only mode of training.
SPEAKER_01I am gonna do a little bit of a hate on something, which is actually not like me. Actually, that's the wrong word, not hate. Open and honest is the word, is the sentence I'm looking for. On high rocks, because I have quite a lot of clients that have come from high rocks backgrounds or that have started off their training in high rocks, and they can't keep in their calories. They literally struggle, so we have to obviously increase calories, but then even then, it's like when they have a really, really intense session, it kind of goes out the window. Like the hunger goes out of a deficit, right? So it goes out of a into a surplus. It's like if anyone's training for a marathon or training for a long distance run, you're not dieting. You absolutely are not dieting because you need the fuel within your day to get you through that training session and get you through those runs. And so the same thing kind of with the high-intensity element with the classes, but also I'm gonna say with the high-rox vibe that some people can be overdoing this and they are fucking knackered and they are reaching for the biscuit cover because they need energy and they need it quickly. So they can't adhere. And it's like even though they think, oh, it's just like a little bite here, that's the 100 calories, that's the 200 calories, then they're out of the deficit. And then they're like, why the fuck am I not seeing the results? But also, if we've got to look at we actually need some muscle, right? So if we're doing things like berries or five, you're training, you're changing exercises each and every week, yeah, and you are not seeing that progression for those specific exercises tailored to your specific body on the muscles that you need to be training and that you need more development in. So, therefore, that's gonna come from going to the gym, following the same program each and every week, specialized for your body and what you need to work on, and then looking at progression and overload. But you will not get that from a class itself. You're gonna be exhausted and feel like you have to do more on top of that in order to get that physique. If your goal is to look athletic and lean and toned and constantly chasing exhaustion, it can actually work against you.
SPEAKER_00Do you know what I find interesting as well, especially when you bring up the high rock thing, is when we look at, say, for example, like the HyRox Elite 15, they look freaking phenomenal. Like they are stacked, they have got so much muscle. But a lot of these high roc athletes that we see that we probably look up to, that are ones that like doing the crazy times that are proper athletes, they've probably come from sort of like a CrossFit background or a strength background and moved into high rocks. Their bodies are already incredibly efficient because they have so much muscle mass that actually they can afford to be able to eat enough to fuel them properly to do high rox. But also, high rox doesn't make up like their whole week of training. Like they're not just doing high rox class. There's no progression in high rocks, you're always doing the same strength, you're always doing the same exercises, like it's the same thing. So if you're just going back and doing the same thing again and again, that's not going to build your body. The people that are elite are the ones that are lifting, they're getting stronger, they're doing their weight sessions as well as their HIROX training, and they are smart with their programming. They're not they're not going in and just doing like a random HIROX class here and there.
SPEAKER_01No, and that's exactly it. And if you look at someone like Lucy Davis, for example, she had I'm obsessed. It's getting to the point of being ridiculous now. Like I even follow her on Strava, and I'm like, oh, maybe I could beat her on. Absolutely not. What planet? If we look at her, for example, she's wasn't she like training at like 10, like she was doing some sort of swimming comp at like 10 years old. Like she was a fucking high athlete at a young age.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, she was gonna go to the Olympics.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, her resilience to training is fucking high, so she can adapt and obviously do train, she might train six times per week. In fact, I think she does train six times per week, which is a lot, but she's used to that volume. So if you're finding yourself trying to and also just for clarification, Lucy isn't in a deficit, right? She also isn't in a place of where she wants to potentially work on physique change, she's in a performance level, which is great, and I fucking love it, and we'll talk about that on another episode about how actually just training for performance is empowering as hell. But if you are looking at a goal for physique elements, that's the difference.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's so true. And I think as as we said, like she she's an athlete, she's got she has got an unbelievable amount of muscle on her frame, so that when she does go like need to fuel her session, like she has the ability to use all that food as fuel. Whereas if you are someone that is not an athlete, or even like take take myself, for example, if I go out on a run, like a 5K, I'm absolutely ravenous afterwards. It's just like it's I I always get too hungry. So it's just not something that I would choose to do in a deficit because it's actually moving me away from where I want to be, because your body needs more fuel when you're doing a lot of this thing, a lot of stress on the body, and if we're not fueling properly, you will fall into the trap of being in that low energy availability state. You will see detriment to your health, and it's just a really, a really hard hole to dig yourself out of, and you will not see the physique that you want to see, and you will just continue chasing that, you'll continue probably like trying to starve yourself and ending up binging, restricting, like it just is a whole catastrophe, basically.
SPEAKER_01I think also just a quick one on the the fueling situation. Like, if you've ever gone on a run, I'm sure most people listening have done this, they've gone on a run and they haven't fueled properly. You are fucked. Like you are beyond fucked. Like your legs feel like they weigh about 20 stone, you can't move, like you're literally, and that's then gonna lead to you going home and overeating because you think, oh, I was in a cantonary deficit, so I'm not gonna feel this 15k run. And ultimately, you just flat yourself in the face.
SPEAKER_00Bottom line is everyone, I feel like we'd we know this already, but lift your fucking weights. Like that is the best way to see a change in your composition. I genuinely think the fastest way to see a change in composition is by getting into the gym and lifting heavy weights. Faster than changing your diet, faster than being in a calorie deficit. Obviously, we want those things alongside if you want to lose fat. But if you want to gain more muscle and if you want to see your shape change, lift some freaking weights.
SPEAKER_01I feel like I'm a parrot. Like by now, I feel like we've got such heavy access to social media that you feel like sometimes they should sink into people. They are looking for a whole new answer every time, but like the simplicity element has been there the whole time that you probably need more muscle on your frame to look toned. And I don't understand why people can't get grasp it. They like the terrified of gaining a little bit of mass in order to see muscle, then lose fat.
SPEAKER_00And I like think you have to remember though that your algorithm is so designed for you. So you are seeing like all I see is people lifting, people looking phenomenal, doing crazy things, being super strong, fueling, doing all the right things. Whereas if I'm someone that doesn't even, I've never set foot in a gym, I don't give a shit about exercise, I don't really care. 40 years old, I want to decorate my home. This is what I'm gonna be seeing on social media. So I think this is where like we're so in it. So we can just think that we're saying this thing with like we sound like a broken record, but actually, who someone like Wendy, who's 40, might click into this conversation and be like, okay, this is the first time I've heard this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think most people now know what a calorie deficit is, though.
SPEAKER_00I think they do, but I think again, sometimes you need to hear something like 20 times until you decide to make a change, and it could just be I don't know, you and I having this conversation could be the spark that someone needs to be. But then you know.
SPEAKER_01But then I also think then you've got people that are challenging that theory, right? So, you know, if we look at obviously Pilates booming, and both of us are I um, you know, I teach Pilates, Tash, you know, is gonna be a Pilates instructor, and and we both love the industry, but also then we have women that are coming on to social media, which is in my algorithm because obviously there is a hell of heavy Pilates essence in my algorithm, which are like promoting not doing any weight training and only doing Pilates, and I'm fucks me off.
SPEAKER_00But you know, this is why I feel like Pilates needs more people like us to change that in the industry. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01We're doing God's work, but like I'm not doing the whole bullshit thing. Like, you ultimately, like, I can make money by selling you Pilates, right? I can't pass. I'm gonna tell you the fucking truth because at the end of the day, all I'm doing is watching people going, yeah, but you can build all this must fuck off. Like, literally, fuck off.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you can't, and what will happen is you will get osteoporosis. It's really sad. That's what will happen. So there, the ends. Someone, someone on my Pilates class, uh on my Pilates course, because as Em said, I'm getting my qualification, she was a little bit older, and she was very, like, very thin looking, and she was like, I love Pilates so much, I've been doing it for so long. I've only recently gotten to reformer because lifting weights is really important for your bones. And I was just there, like, okay. Do you know what? This is what people think, this is what the general population thinks that reforma Pilates is strength training.
SPEAKER_01In the defense of the fact that there is a resistance, there is some form of resistance to Pilates in a reformer. However, calisthenics, right, you can build muscle from doing loads of pull-ups, for example. Right. So there is an element of the fact that you can have a little bit of resistance on a reformer. But if you are looking at one, really nailing and training into certain muscle groups, two, you are also looking at the fact that you will only get to a level. If you're a right beginner, if you've literally never touched a dumbbell in your life, you've picked up a two pounds, then yeah, okay, fine. Reformer could help you do a little bit of a change. There is going to get to a level, and it's going to be pretty quickly that you just plateau. Yeah. Don't get me wrong, it's a great environment and it's a fucking cool vibe to be in, and it's a really good community, and I love it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But there is an element where you will plateau for a changing physique purposes on a reformer.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I agree. And yeah, as you say, like the ceiling is not very high for that. Like give it a few months and then you've probably got all you've got out of it. Really.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's like it's like bands, for example. Like, we know that but booty bands aren't gonna build your glutes, right? But if you've you're a very, you know, no muscle mass human being, then doing a few band exercises can really help, right? But there is gonna get to a point where you actually you need to transition from the bands, or you even need to change the bands, you know? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Agree. I completely agree. All right.
SPEAKER_01We've just gone on a big tangent there.
SPEAKER_00We have gone on a big tangent, but back to judging the toxic things that we used to do. This one I massively fell into was treating carbs as if they were an enemy. Keto, low-carb, extreme diets. I think we've probably all been here, we've all had our own version of fearing carbs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think I have been in a place where I've done a lot of diets. Keto's not been something that I've ever really gone heavy on, but there is a place where I think people will still to this day go into a low reduction of carbohydrates because they think that that's just the what causes weight loss, right? And they still haven't quite realized that it's just the calorie side of things. And ultimately, yes, we can see weight loss very quickly when we reduce carbs because you are just literally reducing an overall, maybe you are reducing your overall calorie intake, but you're also looking at the fact that carbs will hold that little bit of water and that your initial body weight that is dropping is your water retention.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that's where people think, oh my god, it's working. Like, yeah, I better keep the carbs out of my diet because we do see that quick instant gratification from what we're doing, and that is what what we buy into as humans. We want that instant gratification, which we obviously get when we drop carbs because we're losing a lot of water. Every one gram of carbohydrate we consume, we hold on to three grams of water. So you're naturally going to be losing more weight on the scale, but it is not necessarily body fat. It's not body fat, it's water. And that is only gonna happen up to a certain point in time. Then you will have rid all the water in your body because you don't have you don't have any more carbohydrates in the system. And then you're just gonna feel tired, your energy is gonna be very low. And honestly, it's really a dangerous place to be for women long term. And this is what I did personally, where I first saw my cycle disappear, suffer with HA, which led on to be honestly like a six-year thing. So please don't cut out your carbs, and especially if you are lifting, especially if you're training, so so important for your overall health.
SPEAKER_01If we look at the word tone, so we know now that tone means muscle mass with minimal fat mass on top, right? In order for us to head into the gym and train hard, that's how we will produce muscle, right? We don't go into the gym and just literally pick up a 4kg dumbbell and be doing like endless amounts of reps. Like you're gonna find that e-plateau on a 4kg dumbbell if you're doing, I don't know, fucking squat, for example. Most women can lift a little bit more than 4kg. And so if you're doing that because your energy is so low, you're not gonna get toned, right? You, your body's main energy source is from carbohydrates. So that energy that you find in your carbs is going to fuel your training, which is going to produce you a toned physique. It's that circle. If you don't connect the dots, you won't get to the goal.
SPEAKER_00And I think a lot of women are still in this place where they fear carbs, and it's a shame, especially I think girls with PCOS that have been told, Oh yeah, oh, your insulin, now PMOS, sorry, have been told all your insulin resistant, like you need to avoid carbohydrate. That is just not true. And I was actually listening to Jordan Barber Medicines podcast the other day. Dr. Jordan, we love him, he came on the show, and he was debunking the insulin stores fat myth. And actually he said, which I didn't know, I thought this is really interesting, that the main property in a GLP medication is that it actually increases the level of insulin in the body, and it reduces your hunger signals. That's all that is that is as much as I can say on it because I'm gonna butcher it if I say any more. But go and listen to his episode, I'll link it in the show notes because it actually was really good. And he debunks a lot of fat loss or like, why can't I not lose weight myths in his recent episode? And it just goes to show that actually he explains it as in fat and insulin are in the same car, but fat is the driver, insulin is the passenger. Insulin has nothing to do with the direction you're going or where you're going, it's just along for the ride, but there is no correlation between the amount of insulin that you have or don't have and your ability to lose weight or gain weight, which I just thought was really, really interesting, and it's such a good way to debunk that because a lot of people fear carbs because of insulin, and actually that's got nothing to do with weight loss, and just don't fear your carbs, ladies. Please don't fear your carbs.
SPEAKER_01I think also like when they do reintroduce carbs, because you will, there will be a time where you have the carbs, and then you're like, oh, fuck it, I've put all the weight back on. So then you're thinking actually that's the carbs, and then it literally you just you've just had the water. It's just the carbs with the water. That is what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if you've had if you've had 100 grams of carbs, you're gonna put 300 grams of uh water on the scale, and if you then weigh yourself, you're gonna you'll be up 0.4 kilos because you've had the carbs and the water. It's just literally it's just maths, it's just your body storing water. And we're made up of like an 80-90% water anyway. So what's a little bit more? What's your fucking more hydrated?
SPEAKER_01I wanna I wanna touch base on like obviously the food situation and like fasting because I have definitely been there. My background, if you don't know, was very much a restrictive not eat for multiple days, really, um, and then overconsume, and then I was very underweight, and I lived on celery and apples for many years. It was very, very unhealthy. It's definitely made me a really good coach in the fact that I've got a really well-knowledgeable understanding on sort of traits with disordered eating. But fasting is something that I used to do that I understand gets this reputation of being sexy and kind of, oh, it's really beneficial for your body, and you know, it's really it's it's gonna like detoxify you and stuff. And I get that where people are coming from in the essence, but it can be really toxic for people that are going through this absolute deprivation, don't eat anything, and then they really are overconsuming because all you are doing is a cycle of restrict and then overconsumption and it's like a never-ending loop. And I think that in actual fact can be more toxic mentally than anything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I agree. And I also don't, I just don't know if the data that we have around fasting and the benefits of fasting is that strong or that reliable. No. I don't know. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01I don't I don't think so. I I don't believe in it, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_00No, I just yeah, I don't know. I just think that it's not our bodies are not designed to fast for like days at a time. It just is I don't know.
SPEAKER_01I I also look at when we talk about food, and I will talk about food as fuel, and I will talk about it as to fuel and help with your training and your cognitive function and your vitamins, and then you're taking that away. For me, that makes no sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you're just gonna be in a very disrupted, tired, chronically stressed body for like the whole time that you're fasting. Yeah, it it's stress.
SPEAKER_01It's stress on the body. I don't get that. And it's not positive stress.
SPEAKER_00No, it doesn't make it doesn't make much sense to me. And I just think that whenever people talk about fasting, they talk about how good it is for your metabolism or for fat loss, and I just there's been too much evidence if you're looking at the evidence-based community to suggest that there makes no difference whether you fast or not. It just comes down to the amount of calories that you're consuming. So I think why put yourself in that state when you don't need to? And honestly, like the thought of going an entire day without food to me sounds like absolute torture. Like, I would hate that. I love that.
SPEAKER_01I I don't think I could probably function. I like in terms of like having comms, I think I'd be very, very subdued. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think so now. I do remember I have done this like maybe once or twice before. Like, as you say, like you've gone days without food. I think the longest I've done is like 24 hours. And I just I didn't feel I didn't feel re-energized, I didn't feel refreshed. I felt like absolute shit the next day. I honestly just felt like my body was breaking down. It was horrible.
SPEAKER_01I didn't train to the level that I train now when I was very young, obviously. I did do a lot of cardio, but I didn't train to the level that I do with weights and um intensity, so maybe the situation would be different. But it was it was a very dark place, and I think most of the time I actually, if I'm honest, I slept. So I'd sleep till like three o'clock in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And that would be serving me because I wouldn't be eating.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which is fucked. I'm missing out on life, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, 100%. And it just, I mean, as you say, took for some. Someone that maybe already has a bit of a negative relationship with their body and a uh fragile relationship with food. I really do think that fast get fasting can exacerbate this. We just want to avoid that at all costs. I think we should be approaching building a body and building your healthier self as building that relationship with yourself and coming from a place of love and and doing everything that we can to improve the relationship with yourself and relationship with food. And I think anything that is going to put that at risk, we need to freaking avoid with a barge pole.
SPEAKER_01I had a conversation with a guy in the gym and he said to me that he is fasting for basically he will eat between the hours of 5 pm and 7 pm. That's the only hours he'll eat, right? And he he he's a bigger bloke, so he's got his calories would be really high. In essence, they would be definitely higher than mine, and he's eating around a thousand uh calories in that window, right? So he's in an incredibly aggressive diet, like very, very low. And he said to me, Yeah, but I've done it before and it's worked. And I said, But babe, it hasn't. It hasn't worked. You know the reason for that? And it was I was blunt because I I do really like him. But I said, But you're still in the same position. So it's not working for him as a diet, because if he was if it was working for him, he wouldn't have to continuously do this diet because he'd already be in the physique. So I challenge your thought process. If you think it's working for you, why are you not already there?
SPEAKER_00Do you know what I think is interesting though is what people's definition of oh it's worked for me is as well. People think, oh, it worked for me if I lost five kg, 10 kg. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But actually, I think you should challenge yourself. If you're someone that thinks that, you're like, oh yeah, that's how I feel. Challenge yourself to change that. If is it working for you if you have to do it again and again and again? It's not. Because surely if it's worked for you, it should have worked the first time. And you shouldn't need to do it again, and you should still be there. And if you're not, it wasn't sustainable, and you need to find a different approach.
SPEAKER_01If you're eating back all your calories after if you're living in extremes, at the end of the day, it's an extreme, right? And extremes don't really fucking work to that level to be long sustainable. They're not, it's not you that's broken, it's the fucking, it's the plan, right? Yeah, the plan doesn't last for longevity. You can't fast forever, you can't, you know, live a lifestyle like that. And so you're going to extremes, and then you think that it has to be all in or all out, and that's where that toxic kind of mindset is, where you're not actually using this as a lifestyle approach, you're using it as a one extreme to another.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Do you know what I do actually enjoy though? And I wouldn't even I wouldn't really call this fasting, but I love to have my last meal at like 4 p.m. I mean that is that is fasting as as such, I guess.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00Like that's when I'll like eat my that's when I'll eat my dinner, like around 4 or 5 pm. But ideally for me it's four. Also because I go to bed at 8.
SPEAKER_01Well, this is it, though. Actually, your is it's probably in alignment with your bedtime.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I like to have I like to be fully digested before I go to bed. I feel like I sleep so much better if I have my last meal at like four or five. And I start eating probably at like five 5 30am the next day because I'm hungry as soon as I wake up.
SPEAKER_01So for someone that goes to bed at say 10 o'clock and they were eating at 7, that's the same sort of concept.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, actually it's true. And I just think it's we we do, I think it is good to have at least 12 hours where you're not eating to give your digestive system a time to rest. Obviously, the rest of the time. And digest. So if you're constantly grazing, that's not great either. I do think having sort of like four meals throughout the day and then having a nice gap where you digest your food, you go to sleep, and then you break your fast first thing when you wake up. Like that, I do think is a good thing to be doing, but that's the extent that I would take it. And that is just more so like eating within a routine with your body.
SPEAKER_01I also think that like in terms of if we look at fat loss and the evidence that we you mentioned it earlier, but the evidence purely goes against that it doesn't make any difference.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If you have, you know, most people will consume the same amount of calories in the shortened window. If the shortened window works for you and you find your energy is great and you can sustain that for a long time, well done. Good for you, that works. Cool. I have clients that don't have if you know, they don't get up straight away and eat. I don't just get up straight away and eat. You know, that's for me. Like, I don't do it either. I definitely have coffee on an empty stomach. And what you're gonna sue me.
SPEAKER_00I know that I do that. I have coffee and then I have crumpets.
SPEAKER_01There's there's a but my point is that there's always gonna be someone that doesn't agree with with you, and you've got to do what feels great for you, but at the end of the day, if it didn't work before, probably won't work again. And at the end of the day, it comes down to calorie deficit. So you need to challenge your thought process. Something that also we can interlace this with is the fact that most people, or not most people, a lot of people that don't really succeed in their dieting is the fact that they'll undereat obviously all through the week, and then come the weekend they go into a surplus and actually undo all of the calorie deficit they've had throughout the rest of the week.
SPEAKER_00Um this sort of under-eating and then overdoing it again, overdoing it at the weekend and then thinking, oh well, fuck it, like I'll just start on Monday and like I may as well just continue to consume whatever over the weekend is something that we see a lot. And almost it almost is like people going into that routine and you thinking like Monday to Thursday, I can be a savage and I can slash my calories and I can eat super, super low, but then I can't sustain that for any longer. So I will then binge, and then you get stuck in that cycle, and it's like that's kind of what your body gets used to. And I almost think that you it almost becomes what I think it almost becomes well. This is definitely what happened to me in the past because this is one that I've obviously fallen into as well, particularly at uni when you're drinking and you're eating loads and you takeaways on the weekend and it all gets a bit wild, and then you just like eat nothing during the week. But what I would always tell myself was, I've been so good, I've eaten nothing, I can afford to go out and eat whatever I want. When of course you can't afford that. We can't out cheat our body. And even if you're eating 500 calories a day Monday to Thursday, but you're having 4,000 calories a day, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, they're not free calories. Like you're going to be accumulating this debt and you're gonna be stuck in that net negative, and you're just gonna slowly continue to increase weight. And that's what I think is really important for people to remember is like say just because you say I start again Monday, I'm gonna start on Monday, you kind of get into that habit of thinking, oh, I'm just kind of comforting myself that I've got a free ride, that I'm I'm actually enabling this behavior that I'm about to do, so I don't feel guilty about it. Because come Monday, I'm gonna restrict. That's actually a really negative, really toxic place to be because you're just putting yourself into more and more calorie debt, you're getting further and further away from your goal and you're justifying self-sabotage.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and there's also I guess an element of people going, I deserve it because I've I've done so well. Like your body isn't stupid. If you're underfueling it trying to survive on salads and coffee throughout the week and you're training hard, and then you're telling yourself, like, I can't have anything until the weekend, and eventually your hunger is actually just gonna catch up with you, and you're gonna make decisions when you're at the weekend because you're out of a routine. You've got to remember, if you're in that loop, it's almost become like a little habit. It's like you habitually, without thinking, restrict your calories very, very low through the week, and then you know in your head, I'm gonna have those extra calories on the weekend. And that's why I really hate the whole concept of like this cheat meal idea. Because actually, why is that why is that a thing? Like, who are you cheating? You're like, you can't cheat yourself. Like, it doesn't work like that. It just you then think that it's oh you're kind of okay because you're you're having that weekend because you've had so for such a good amount throughout the week, but ultimately that's gonna take you out of your calorie range, then make you feel shit because you've not seen the progress that you want to do. So actually, you're just setting yourself up to overconsume. You've actually set yourself up to consume more calories.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you fall into that, like, I yeah, this, I I want this, I deserve this. You're actually, as you say, like you're almost pre-planning. I'm gonna binge, I'm gonna eat shit shit, so I'm gonna do this restriction, so I can do that, and I can afford that, I can deserve that. But you like you don't like it's like I could slip and fall into Zara and spend £3,000 without even looking at anything, like it's so easily done. But it takes a long time to make three grand, like that would take me fucking ages. It's the same I could easily spend £3,000 in Zara. I mean, anyone could honestly. And Zara's like cheap clothes, but it's easy, but it's hard, it takes a long time to to earn that, and I think it's exactly the same with your calories. You can so easily overconsume, but it's gonna take you a long time to to burn that off. If we're not, we don't even want to be looking at I need to do certain things to burn my calories off. We don't want to be looking at food like that anyway, and I think it's just really important to to break out of this because I think it is it's a really negative cycle, it's really toxic, and actually, success leaves clues. And I think if you look at all the people that you maybe look up to in their physique, are they absolutely blowing out every single weekend? The answer is probably no. The answer is definitely no.
SPEAKER_011000% no. They have a similar routine to they have in the week, in the weekend. And I'm gonna be really honest with you, and I'm gonna say that if you look on social media when you have people that go out every weekend and they have very lavish meals, they haven't got there in a deficit. And I be I mean that, like, yes, you can absolutely go out for meals in a deficit and you can still get your goals, but like there is gonna have to be some sort of like restriction element where you're gonna have to pull back somewhere or have some sort of balance that you are compromising on in order to get there, but it's not to not have anything through that week and not eat and just you know think the weekend is a free-for-all. You will have to have some element of balance where you might have lower calories through the week if you're going out for a meal on the weekend. But if you're going that way and thinking, fuck it, well, I've eaten nothing, so I get to eat everything, you you just you just undo it at all. And that is the classic. I'll start again on Monday.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. You just think, oh fuck it. And then again, it's like you're giving, you're giving yourself a free pass, but it's not actually a free pass. You've taken a loan from the loan shark. What I find interesting is my cravings for like certain foods, like say cheap, classic cheap meal things like burgers, pizzas, ice cream, desserts, they are less when I feel myself more and I give my body what it needs day to day. Like the last thing if I was gonna order a delivery, the last thing I would want to choose is pizza because that's too much and it would make me feel unwell. I can't think of anything better than like having a poke ball or like a little bit of sushi. Like these are, I think it's really important to note that if you are someone that is always thinking about fast food or like very calorically dense food and you really struggle to say no to those sorts of things, I would ask yourself, are you fueling yourself enough during the week? And sometimes, again, we're trapped in that cycle. We feel afraid to fuel ourselves enough during the week because we are giving ourselves this free pass on the weekend. Sometimes we have to actually bring the food up first and fuel ourselves more during the week and trust your butt, trust your body, trust yourself that it will balance itself out. And actually, because you're fueled, you won't crave as much as you did when you were restricted.
SPEAKER_01I also think the craving element comes down to what you consume on regularity. So, like if I like ate loads of processed foods, I feel like majority of people then want more processed foods. Do you know what I mean? Like, I don't crave a takeaway, but I used to have things like McDonald's on a regular. I would hate if I'm open and honest, I'd hate to have a McDonald's.
SPEAKER_00Like it wouldn't taste good. It doesn't taste good.
SPEAKER_01But I think the oil would sit in my mouth, like it wouldn't be something that's like feeling refreshing and nice and whole foody, just doesn't do it for me. But I used to eat McDonald's probably like twice a week. So it's wild, isn't it? It is wild, right? Because that that to me now actually kind of almost like no, like opposite spectrum.
SPEAKER_00Our gut craves what we feed it a lot, and this weekend and last weekend I had my hendus, and I don't think I ate a vegetable for three days. Did you need to be? And I honestly, all I craved when I got home was literally a bowl of broccoli. I was like, nothing sounds better than a bowl of broccoli. I haven't eaten a vegetable and I need one.
SPEAKER_01I get that, I get that. Um right, guys. So one of the biggest without fail mistakes that myself and Tash have absolutely made is constantly changing the fucking plan. And I'm actually talking about the training plan. So this is where I'm coming from. You might add up to this. But I think that a huge mistake I did at the beginning of my journey was thinking that I needed to do every single fucking exercise under the sun, doing random exercises in random orders with no kind of concept of understanding why I'm doing them, and then just winging it as I go and then doing something completely different the next week, and then expecting to see results with that. Kind of goes into lacing with like the whole Barry's thing and the classes, but I thought that I needed to be excited in order to get results.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think people are always searching for a more exciting answer. Like we think that if it's not exciting, if it's not new, if it's not shiny, it's like shiny object syndrome, right? Then it's not working. But actually, have you just given yourself enough time? Like we always say this people can overestimate, people will overestimate what they can do in a month. They will highly underestimate what they can do in a year. And actually, if you stuck with a consistent plan that was sustainable and you followed for a year and you really didn't change a whole lot, you would probably see incredible results. But guess what? That is bloody boring. But it is boring. Real sustainable results are boring. And I always like, I love the analogy of like, if you wanted to learn Italian, you wouldn't try and learn French one week, Japanese the next, Italian then the week after, then go back to French, then go back into Italian. Like, no, you would just if your goal was to learn Italian, you would only focus on learning Italian. You'd get there so much slower if you tried to learn all of these different languages. And I think seeing our results is very similar to that. Like, if you want to see body composition results, you need to lift weights and you need to track your nutrition, weigh your food and eat enough protein and whole foods and fibre. I think if you add in one week you're doing yoga, the next week you're going rock climbing. The week after that, you take up tennis. Like you're never gonna get anywhere.
SPEAKER_01But also, even in the fact of just lifting weights, yeah, definitely. You've got to lift weights, right? But you've got to follow a plan of lifting weights. It's no good going into a gym. Okay, that's actually a lie. But there's no progression in going to a gym and just doing one exercise one week. Maybe I work chest for one week or do a chest press on the machine, and then I decide that I'm gonna do um squat, and then I'm gonna do what's next, what's free, and then I'm gonna do oh, there's a hamstring curl free. Okay, I'm gonna go to that. Now, don't get me wrong, you are using those muscles, right? And that's really, really good. That fail. But you want to do the same thing again next week, and you want to make sure you're hitting all your muscle groups as well. And I think that's something that people forget when they do their own programming or they just wing a thing together, they do what they feel like doing. And okay, that's great to an extent, but also if you really do want to see your body change, you need to be following something that is hitting areas of your body you need to work on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think that's a big one because people will just go in and do whatever's free and they'll just think, they'll just go, like, leg press is free, I'm gonna use that. Oh, hip induction. Let me sit on that and just like scroll on my phone. And I also think that your level of intensity with that is never gonna be good enough. If you're just going in willy-nilly and thinking, oh, like that machine's free, I'll just go and try all that. Like it's never going to be enough. And you need to be able to look up what you did the week before. You need to be able to look up what you did three, four weeks before and think, my weights are going up, my reps are going up, I'm progressing in the right direction. If you don't have that data, if you're not tracking that and being consistent with that and doing the same thing, how the hell do you know that if you're getting stronger? And obviously, if we don't know whether we're getting stronger, we don't know whether we're building muscle. All right, guys, moral of the story is you must train with intention. You must focus on getting stronger, you must track your lifts, you must eat enough protein and fiber, and you must do that every single week on repeat. It's not flashy, but I promise you this is what is going to be effective and get you results. So if you feel like you're always trying, but you're never quite getting to where you want to be, it might not be because you need to push harder.
SPEAKER_01You may actually need to stop doing the things that are making your process harder. The extreme restriction, the punishment, the all or nothing, the fucking binge restrict, the fasting, you name it. If you're constantly trying to earn your food, your dream physique isn't built through that suffering element. Your dream physique is built through routine, it's built through basics, it's built through habits that you can repeat over and over in busy weeks, when you're away on holiday, when you're around social plans, even when your motivation is actually in the bin.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think what is so what I really want to remind you guys of is that both Emily and myself have been there. We've tried all of these things. We have never been as happy in our physiques and the progress that we've seen as we are right now, but also we've never been so obsessed with what we're doing as we are right now. Like we freaking love this process. It's so sustainable, it's so achievable for us, and we couldn't ever see ourselves doing anything else. And that is what I want to just remind you guys like you can, you can fall in love with the process, and you should fall in love with the process, and just keep it basic. Less drama, be consistent.
SPEAKER_01Guys, thank you so much for joining us at Mindset Meets Muscle. We are your hosts and Tash, and we will see you again soon.
SPEAKER_00Hi.