Why Everything You've Tried Has Failed (And It's Not Your Hormones)

She's tried the diets. She's done the programs. 

She's read the social media posts telling her it's her hormones, her perimenopause, her metabolism and some part of her almost wants it to be true.

 Because if it's that, at least it's not her.

But what if the real blocker isn't her body at all?

In this joint episode, Greg Fearon (The Identity Architect) and Ashley Beeman — fitness coachand four-time bodybuilding competitor with Hashimoto's and perimenopause  get into the conversations most coaches won't have in public.

What they cover:

• Why the women who fly aren't the ones with perfect weeks, they're the ones who show up anyway
• The identity trap: when your diagnosis becomes your personality
• Why calorie deficit isn't an attack on you and why it feels like one
• What dedication actually looks like (Ashley's been in prep since January. Three hours a day. Same food. The scale didn't move for 12 weeks.)
• GLP-1s, perimenopause, and the thing nobody wants to say out loud: none of it works without the boring basics
• The grieving process nobody tells you about when you start levelling up
• Why the women they both work with aren't coming to them for weight loss — even when that's how the conversation starts

The line that says it all:

"I don't really care about my clients' weight. I care about how they're showing up as the person they said they wanted to be."

If you're done fighting your body and ready to figure out what's actually in the way this one's for you.

You can Find Ashley by clicking here

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello and welcome. Today you have a special episode with myself Greg Fearon and Ashley Beaman. We're doing a special joint episode talking all things fitness, nutrition for women who want to level up their game. Hey Ashley, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:19

I'm good. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:21

I'm awesome. So I think we should tell people just very quickly how we met and then give people a little bit of your backstory, and then I'll do mine and then we'll go from there.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

I think that's a great idea. Yeah, definitely. So we've met on the app called Threads.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

It's the new hip app. I think I think everyone, that's where everyone is hanging out nowadays, right?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yeah, it's it's honestly kind of fun over there because it's really just like conversations rather than let's you know post flashy pictures and videos.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

Yeah, I love it. I love it. And just give people your background on what you do, who you help, and how you got to where you are now.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Yeah, so I'll give you the short version of the long story. So I stepped into the wellness space in 2011, but I was like on my own journey at that time and I was really struggling. So as I'm trying to help women, I can't even figure out my own journey. And it led me down like a yo-yo dieting path of 10 years. Eventually, I kind of decided to take a step back and do my own healing. At that time, I got certified as a life coach and was helping women with content and their business and stuff. And during that season of my life, I ended up finding macros and learning how to track macros. And I really worked on healing my relationship to food and myself and the scale. And I ended up losing 60 pounds. And I did it in a way that was very sustainable. So I knew I had to step back in and help women do this because I understand the frustration of yo-yo dieting. And I wanted to show them that they could actually lose the weight, keep it off, and live your life, not having to be obsessive over things. And what I really noticed also with my life coaching and content clients was that they were actually having better results in other areas of their life when they started taking care of themselves. So I started to put all of this together and I'm like, I have to step back in. So about three years ago, I started coaching women again on fitness and nutrition. I went all in, and I really just focus on helping women achieve the goals that they desire, the bodies that they want in a very sustainable way. So that's that's who I am, that's what I do. I would love to hear about how you got into what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Well, that is a beautiful story, and we're gonna have fun with your story as well. But so, as people can tell, I'm from England, sunny England. I live in Thailand now. So we moved here last September and it's been wild. So the short story is I grew up watching my mum and my sister struggle with obesity and their health. And the hardest thing about it was that they would never listen to me. They would always ask me a question and then and then go on to Google or AOL as it was back then and go, well, but this guy over here says this. And being in that family, I was quite a chubby kid as well. And about the age 12, I found sport, soccer or football for whoever's listening to it this right now, athletics, and I dropped a load of body weight. And then I got into fitness as a whole, started reading all the magazines like Flex and Women's Health, Men's Health, and all that stuff. Went to college, did biology, MPE, and stuff, and then went on to do a sports science degree. Then I went into like leadership management. So I went into running big teams. One point I was running a team of 300 people across two sites, it was a bit crazy. But that part helped me understand people because you have to coach and you have to lead. So that taught me people, which was awesome. And then for about eight years, I used to work in the UK health service. So I would do my personal training on the side in the morning, then run, then go to the day job and work in a hospital. At one point, I was running gynecology and maternity services for London's top hospital. I also ran endocrinology for them and did other things. But what it allowed me to do was uh spend time with some very, very smart people. And then when they worked out, I was a personal trainer. They said, Greg, can you help this patient lose weight? We fixed all her hormone stuff, and I would be like, Listen, it's not the hormones, it's totally something else. So I think 2016 I said, right, that's it. And then I went in to do my boot camps and personal training full-time, and then COVID happened and everything moved online, and I guess the rest is history. And I work with women who are generally high performance, successful, who have got most things figured out in their lives, but they just can't figure out the health side. So that's the work I do.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

I love that so much. I think we work with very similar women.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Oh, yeah, hell yeah, hell yeah. So, one of the things that I think almost attracted me to your content was that you've had some health problems in the past, and these were often the health problems that many women will say this is stopping me from losing weight. Do you want to talk a little bit about that and let's dispel some myths?

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Because yeah, absolutely. So back in 2016, I was diagnosed with hypothyroid and Hashimoto's. Actually, I was actually diagnosed with hypothyroid after I had my first son in 2011, but I kind of I kind of ignored it until about 2016, and that's when I got my diagnosis of Hashimoto's and hypothyroid. And for the longest time, I was like trying to search for like healing the Hashimoto's. And I was trying all of these crazy supplements, these crazy diets, all of these things, and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And really, and we're gonna talk about this, but I think a lot of that had to do with the stress that I had around food and my relationship with food and just like feeling so restricted. So it wasn't until I found macro counting and was able to lose 60 pounds. I actually did not restrict any foods, any ingredients, any anything. I just simply, you know, went into a fat loss phase and in a calorie deficit, which we're gonna talk about.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

You can't say calorie deficit.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

I know, and was able to lose that, was able to lose 60 pounds in that way. And then last year in January is when my labs showed that I was entering perimenopause. So I turned 40 last year and my labs were just very off. And but prior to it's funny because prior to so not only did I lose the 60 pounds with having those meetings, I didn't do anything special, just following the calorie deficit, lifting heavy, walking. When I was diagnosed with or when I my lab showed that I was entering perimenopause, I actually just had left a phase where I was building muscle. So I was building muscle with zero testosterone and my hormones all over the place. So I always, you know, it's I understand what it's like when you have those diagnoses and you can see people saying, Oh, it's so hard to lose weight, or it's so hard to gain muscle with these things. But the truth behind all of it is it really does come down to just our habits and what we're eating.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Yeah, and I know hormones is a very touchy subject, especially on threads, right? If you say anything to do with hormones, people get very upset. And I think a lot of it is that people make the condition their identity rather than I'm a person who has PCOS or PMOS, as they say now, or whatever. And I think that's a big problem. So that when they hear about calorie deficit and all this stuff from people like us, they're like, you're attacking my identity, not an objective situation that they can make some changes at at some level.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yeah, and absolutely, and that showed up when I was trying to heal my Hashimoto's. I I realized like I was identifying as a person that was healing, and if I kept identifying as I'm healing, I'm healing, I'm healing, I was never going to heal.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yes, I love that. So, what do you think keeps when we were talking about women because we both coach women, but what do you think keeps women in that mode of like stuck in this identification of the condition, not them as a person?

SPEAKER_01 9:10

I think it's a it's kind of a comfort, and a lot of times we feel like we need to find like we feel like women feel like they're doing everything that they can. When in reality, if we take a look at the bigger picture, we're probably not. And when we feel attacked in that way, we you know the the identity is the comfort, it allows us to say, Well, I have this, so this isn't happening. And I see it in my client intake forms all the time. In fact, I just had an intake form where she's like, doctors have told me it's gonna be hard to lose weight. And I had to tell her, I'm like, if you want to continue to believe that it's going to be hard to lose weight. But I know from personal experience and working with hundreds of women that that doesn't have to be your case. And so digging in further, you can see like the habits aren't there. And almost like we use it as an excuse to kind of just like say we're doing all of the things, but we're not. And so the way that I like to frame it for women, I don't know about how you like to do it, but if you get to be part of the problem, you get to be part of the solution.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yep. Oh, I love that. Yeah, for me, I'm I I kind I try to screen those out before the client gets to me. I'm like, hey, listen, you're coming in to work with me because you already know that you can change, and you know that potentially you haven't been putting yourself first, that potentially what you think is right, you know inherently isn't right. So yeah, I I totally believe that any client I work with can get results. Some it might be slower, some it might be a little bit trickier, we might have to do some magical stuff, but we can get there as long as you're doing what your end of the bargain.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah, and that's one thing that I I like to talk about a lot too is I really can't stand when people say like the average is to lose one to two pounds a week. Well, maybe eventually we can get there. But what I have found is sometimes like all bodies just respond differently.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, if you felt yeah, I totally agree with you.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Yeah, carry on, yeah, carry on. Whereas like some women will respond right away, other women, it will take weeks of consistency for them to get there. So I kind of like to remove that like average out of our heads, you know, because it really depends. What were you doing three years ago? What were you doing three months ago? What were you doing three weeks ago?

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yeah. Is it that sometimes though on these social media posts, because a lot of us are talking to we're like, let's be honest, we're talking to potential clients. We're not talking to the people that don't think that they can be helped. So I think that's a big part of the issue is that people say, Well, we want more nuance in your content. And we're like, Yeah, but we're writing for the woman who's ready to move, not for the woman who's like, I'm stuck and nothing can work.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, I think that, well, nuance is hard on social media in general. I mean, you can't like you can't speak to every single person, and I think that that's hard. People feel attacked when they see something that maybe isn't, like you said, aligned with the way that their beliefs are at this moment, or they're just getting started and they don't think that they can, they're not, they haven't drawn that line in the sand yet.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Yeah, that makes total sense. I read somewhere that the average woman by the age of 45 has tried at least 60 attempts at trying to lose weight.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Wow, that I haven't heard that one, but that would make total sense for sure.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

So, really, the women that we work with are already experts in some way, shape, or form. They already know how to lose weight, is is what I come to my clients with. I'm like, let's be honest, I can show you the macros, but you know there's a re there's a deeper reason as to why you're not implementing, and that's what we need to explore. I don't know how you found out.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Absolutely. And that's you know, that's one thing that I always say, like, you know, everything happens for a reason. And I feel like I went through the that yo-yo dieting stage where I was losing and gaining the same weight for so long, and then I went and got my life coaching certification. So it taught me about human behavior, and that's what I where I find the missing link is is like uh we know what to do to lose the weight, but how do we implement it? And how do we take, like I was saying, like if you're a part of the problem, you're part of the solution. How do we accept that we are part of the problem without guilting and shaming ourselves for it?

SPEAKER_00 13:58

You know, I think the shame part of it is the massive bit that causes that cognitive dissonance when people feel attacked and that's shame and they feel that certain things are weaponized, but when they can take themselves out of that, they fly. It's what it's almost like you just go, here's your macros, and they just fly. And then they they end up like reporting back to you rather than you haven't you'd never chase them like, oh, this week I did this and I've dropped this, and then they're like, There you go, there you go, that's it. You're rocking it. Is that something you've seen?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Oh, yeah, for for sure. And you know, the the the women that check in, no matter like how their week was, those are the women that you see progress over and over and over again. The ones that aren't afraid to say, I wasn't perfect, this is what happened last week, but they can share with you like a win. A lot of times, sometimes I have to pull it out and be like, no, let me show you the bigger picture. This is what you actually did. But those women who just are committed to the process are the ones that will fly and do really well. I don't know if you see the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

I totally agree. The ones that show up for themselves, even if they don't have the best week, they might come to me and say, Hey Greg, look, I didn't, I wasn't able to really stick to my nutrition, I've been traveling or whatever. So elderly parents, all that. But I this is what I did do.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

And then you know, right, okay, cool. We can we can we can fix the situation for next time. So if that same situation happens in two weeks' time, what do we do differently? How do we behave differently? What tactics do we employ? But those women who show up regularly, no matter what, are the winners every damn time.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yes, yes, absolutely. And it's just stacking those little wins. I think, you know, we I don't know about you, but when we see on social media, it's like everyone's looking for this one thing, but it's not going to be this one thing, it's going to be these little simple things that we make tweaks along the way. We might take a step back and then, you know, like you said, we need to look and see how next time we can approach this to do better and keep going from there.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Yeah. I think there is a big thing where people like I feel like social media can be so negative against being in shape. Like, people will find a gazillion reasons as to why getting in shape is so hard. Like, they'll bring up a study from a rat study that some doctor pulled up that's trying to sell them a medication or a detox and be like, see, I told you, and you're like, okay, but talk to me about what you are doing. That that's the winner. I don't know if that's something you see a lot of as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Yeah, absolutely. We are wanting to fight for our excuses and not really look at what we can take control of. That's like what I try to show my clients. Like, hey, you know, yeah, maybe you are taking care of your elderly parents. I have a lot of women that act, that actually happens too. And I don't know if this happens to you, but do you ever have clients that sign up with you and they're really raring to go? And like two weeks in, life just happens. Like it's almost like this this trend where okay, she's committed, and now let's let's test her a little bit and see like if she's really committed to this process.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

That's happened to me a few times. And what I say to clients is like, you because you're leveling up, you a new level creates a new devil. Yes. So now you're leveling up, it's like the old problems have gone away, you've got new problems, and this is your test to show how you respond to those. Because if you want to be at that level, big things are gonna happen. Yeah, and you get to choose how you respond. They can be emotional, they can be big issues, you could have death in the family, all sorts of stuff. How you respond to those for me is gonna decide how you live your life. And something you said earlier was that when because you've done life coaching, I've done leadership type coaching, so very similar, right? What my clients often see is when they start to look after their health and they start setting certain standards with their health, they start to realize hold on, the same pattern is happening in my relationship, the same pattern that I've been doing with my health is in my career, the same pattern in my friendships is happening, and then they start to go, oh, hang on a minute. This was never about my diet or exercise, it was about the standards I hold for myself, just something I see.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Yes, absolutely. And and that was what actually pushed me back into coaching, fitness, and nutrition was because I would work with these women who are growing brands on social media and you know, creating content, they would get really stuck up in creativity. And then I would be like, Okay, well, what are we doing with our fitness? What are we doing with our nutrition? It was just an automatic thing to go back. And once they started to set standards in that area of their life, they started to become more creative. Their content started to become better, they started to make more money. And I'm like, oh, okay, you know, health and the way that we show up for ourselves, and and the word health is very nuanced, you know, but the way that we show up for ourselves creates this self-trust within us, and then it ripples into every other area. So I like to say, like, it's literally the foundation to your entire life is the way that you show up for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

It's everything, everything. I I can't, yeah, you nailed it. We can finish the podcast right there and be like, yeah, that's it. That's it, that's the message. Go away with that, people. So you've done some shows, bodybuilding shows, etc. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? Because I think it'll be good for the listeners to hear that how what the dedication looks like from just your average going to the gym, want to get in shape type person. Talk us through that.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Yeah, yeah, for sure. So I have always been interested in competing. And back, I think it was in 2017, I was gonna do my first show. I'm so glad that I did not do it though, because I was not in a good space. I was not a good space with food, I was not in a good space with my body and body image and all of these different things. And so I kind of just pushed that aside. But after I had lost the 60 pounds, and I really had very a good relationship with food, the scale, and my habits. Like I was just living a life that was automatic, but everything that I was doing, I hadn't yo-yo dieted. I'm like, okay, it's time. I want to check this off my bucket list. And so I found a coach who aligned with everything that I wanted. There are, I have some non-negotiables. Like, I'm not willing to do anything to get on stage. My health is a top priority for me. So that means it includes my mind, my body, and my soul. So if I'm like off, like we're not doing it because I'm I'm not willing to sacrifice all of that in order to just get on stage. But I found a coach that was very willing to do this approach with me. And I did my first show, and what was supposed to be a bucket list item became something that I really, really enjoyed. And it really wasn't about necessarily the body. The body is cool, but the process that you go through when you go into a prep because you do have to be dedicated, you do have to be a hundred percent on hitting your macros. And we do go into lower calories, that's uh is very demonized on social media. And we do we do go to the extreme, but you have to, you know, luckily, I this is my fourth season of competing, and I haven't had any bad effects from anything or like body image issues or anything like that. But I do think it was because I spent so much time healing all of those things before I got into it. So that's kind of a little bit of a recap of that.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Awesome. So something you said about dedication, macros, and low calories, just expand a little bit more on what does the dedication actually look like?

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yeah, so the dedication will look like for right now, I'm about eight weeks out from my next show. Right now, my calories are actually at a good level for me. So I'm I'm eating around 1500 calories. I will go down to 1200, but I won't go any lower than that.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

Oh my god, oh no, the dreaded 1200 calories.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

This is one thing that I see like online is it's like calorie wars, I feel like. And I I've even gotten stuck in it as well as like how high can I get my calories? But even going like there doesn't need to be a war, it's all relative at the end of the day. Somebody that's eating, you know, 3,000 calories that goes down to 2,000 is gonna be the same as somebody who was eating 2,000 calories that goes down to 1200 calories. We're both gonna feel the same way.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Exactly. Yeah, it does get crazy when it's like, oh well, my clients eat 2,000 gazillion calories, and you're like, hmm. And on the other side, you get it's really weird. It's like you you get what I call the calorie dulu zone, where it's like I'm on 800 to 1200 calories and I'm not losing weight, but I'm 200 pounds plus, yeah. So, okay, back to your story. Just that's a an aside. I think we should come back to that. But so dedicated to you when you say extreme, talk me through that. Talk me through like a typical week or day so people can really understand what you do. Because I think people think it's easy, people think, oh, coaches just get on stage and it's just easy.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

No, so I this prep has been very interesting because I have been in prep since January and the scale did not move for 12 weeks. And I was I know I was 100% on. I did not have a meal out, I did not deviate from my macros. I was doing my cardio, but at this point in time, so it looks like I am lifting heavy five days a week. So that's anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes in the gym. And then for cardio, I only do walking. I don't do any high-intensity cardio or anything like that. I prefer it that way, but I do 90 minutes of walking, so that's on top of my hour, hour and 20 minutes at the gym, just depending.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

So about three hours a day is exercise, basically.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yes. And then as far as food goes, you're eating the same thing day in and day out. Sometimes I will get a free meal, but at like this point, not necessarily. I do have a few days where I'll get a bump in carbs around we kind of carb cycle or I like to call it calorie cycling around leg days just to kind of give me that little extra oomph. And then if I need to, if I can fit something in that I'm like craving, I will do that. But I don't follow a meal plan. I do follow macro ceramic prep. I know some people do follow a meal plan for me. It feels a little, even though I end up eating on a meal plan because let's it's just easier for me to eat the same thing day in and day out. I feel restricted on a meal plan. So it's all a mental game, and that's the same thing with our with you know, with clients too, is kind of finding some approaches will work for some people and some approaches will work different. At the end of the day, we're all doing the same thing, but so same thing with prep, it's just like taking lifestyle to a next level.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

Got it, and then just talk about your training a little bit because I think that's a really important part. The training when you're going to physique or bodybuilding shows is actually a bit of another level than just general three days a week in the gym kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

So, yeah, for sure. So we're really trying to build certain areas, and when we get on stage, they're looking, you know, we have different criteria, and we have to fit into that criteria. So at first we're kind of building all over. Last year I did a well, the year prior, I did a very intense build phase. So lifting very heavy. Most women are not lifting heavy enough, period, anyways. And they're afraid to because they're afraid to get sulky or they're afraid they're going to hurt themselves. Um, and I was even the same way until I met my last coach, and she actually chat, she let me do my first week of workouts. And she looked at him, she's like, I think you can go heavier. And she really taught me how to push in the gym and not be afraid of picking up a weight and maybe not even be able to do three reps and putting it down. So at that time, I was doing two leg days, two shoulder days, a back day, and probably yeah, I think that was about it. But now I'm at the point where I've felt my shoulders. So most of my training is lower. Most of my training is at this point lower body and then a little bit of upper body. Like I'm not pushing too hard in the upper body because we don't want to grow anymore up there. So it's very strategic as far as that goes. Whereas like my clients that I have in the gym three days a week, where I I'm teaching them progressive overload, but it's not like they're working everything.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Yeah, that makes sense. So what's your favorite leg exercise? I just I this is a random question, but I have to ask it.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

I my favorite is the on like the reverse V squat when you're kind of doing like good mornings.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

It's called the reverse hack squat all the time. Yeah, but it's really a B squat. And so I can go super heavy on that. Like, I think my highest was like 510 pounds, and so it just makes you feel like you're yeah, I can do anything. What about yours?

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Your favorite, like you're you're gonna you're gonna look at me as if I'm like an alien after I say this. Bulgarian split squats.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

I knew that was what you're gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

You you knew as soon as I did the the the justification, you knew I was gonna say Bulgarians. Yeah, I I don't know what it is about single leg work. I think maybe it's because I'm a martial artist, so I don't know anything that looks like it needs skill as well as strength. I'm I'm all for it. So Bulgarians are my favorite extra. Although I'll be honest with you, if push came to shove, I would rather go and do some mutai or Kung Fu than go to the gym.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Oh hell yeah, anytime. But I've I've obviously been in gyms and done personal training, etc., for years. So but for me personally, give me martial arts over the gym. Yeah, but I still show up because I know that the gym is important and I can't not do it. Whereas I think often people would be like, I don't really want to do it. I'm like, if you want it, you gotta do it. Simple as that.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

And it probably helps you with your martial arts.

SPEAKER_00 29:55

Yeah, there's tons of crossover between the two, you know, my power training and all that stuff. Oh, definitely crossover. There's always going to be a benefit to getting in the gym, for sure. For sure. So what would you say are the biggest challenges for most of your clients when they come to work with you or the the biggest right issues that you see that they need to work around or work on?

SPEAKER_01 30:19

For me, it's it's it's really a lot of just consistency, just you know, learning to regulate when when things go off track. It's it's not necessarily the perfect macro split or the workouts. It's just like, how can you get yourself, okay? You know, I I had the donut with the kids or whatever it may be, or I skipped the gym, but how can you pick yourself back up and just keep moving forward rather than like starting and stopping, starting and stopping, starting and stopping? It's just let's keep going. And that was part of my story that I kind of bluffed out was when I committed to losing the 60 pounds, I told myself, okay, we're committing for an entire year because we've done the eight weeks, we've done the 12 weeks, we've done, you know, these these challenges where you can I I could be on point. You know, I did a program one time where I was 100% on for 93 days, and then I gained a ton of weight after that.

SPEAKER_02 31:12

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

So I promised myself, I said, let's show up for 365 days. It doesn't matter if you had a bad day or whatever, just pick yourself back up. And by the end of that 365 days, I'd lost 25 pounds. That doesn't sound like a lot for a year for a lot of people, but I was blown away because I kept that weight off and I wasn't like going through this yo-yo cycle, and it was simply just because I stayed committed.

SPEAKER_00 31:38

And that is the word you stay committed to yourself. Love it. Yeah, there was a time when I think I used to sell, you know, lose 25 pounds in 90 days, and that was so easy. But then I'd go, I'd see the client, you know, three months later, and it'd be like, that 25 pounds is now 28 pounds. What happened? And I think you're right. I'm in that era myself now where every client, I'm like, we're gonna work together for at least a year. At least a yeah. But I think the hardest from my point of view is and I think you're right, falling off the wagon, as it were. But it's the when things become boring, it's like a little kid with a toy, right? So you get the you get a new toy, you've got kids, right? You get they get a new toy and they carry it everywhere for the first few weeks, then all of a sudden you start noticing it gets dropped a little bit, and then all of a sudden the that toy is just over there, and the kid is playing with the brand new toy. So it's that moment where I see my clients kind of go active, active, act start to dip, that's it. When it's no longer new, when it's no longer sexy, that's the bit I think is the is the real the real killer point for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

And how do you help them through that? Because yeah, that's definitely I call it the boring middle.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Yeah, it's just the boring, it's the boring basics, right? Let me let me I took tell you my process or for the Americans, my process. I have American clients, right? So they tease me all the time about my accent. So when my clients come in, like I create, we I help them create what they're what I call their dream architecture. So it's like, what are their real big dreams? And their dream, if they tell me, Greg, I want to lose weight, I will I I visibly yawned in a client on boarding one day. I was like, this is the most boring thing I've ever heard. Everyone says it. What do you really want? And then they start talking about things that they probably buried, you know, like making a certain amount of money, living certain place of life. So it's not about weight loss, it's it's about the life you actually really wanted. Then we do something called a superhero identity. That's the next piece. Yeah, do that first. Those two without those two bits, I'm not giving you a macro, I'm not writing a training plan, nothing. Until you go away, write it, come back to me. We go through it, I question it, you probably do another iteration. We are not moving forward until it's done. So, what that is is this I say to my clients often, who would you choose to save the world, Clark, Kent, or Superman? And of course, they always go, Superman. I'm like, okay, but Clark Kent is the same person. So basically, what I'm showing them is that they are the superhero. And that superhero has a list of behaviors and standards that they keep, and that becomes a manifesto. So when they start to get a little bit, uh I should go, when was the last time you read your superhero identity document? When was the last time you read a dream architecture? Is it time that we have to refresh it? Because people change as well. Once they they start to get a bit more audacious, so maybe it's not aligned anymore. So we go back to that and say, right, it's time to revisit that to see what's happened so that you can find the next goal or find the next bit of verb or or vibe to move you forward again. That's how I do it.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

I love that so much. And and once they get that, you know, where they're quote unquote bored, then okay, well, you can now focus on other things in your life that are exciting.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, one of my clients just actually this weekend, she just performed in the Hyrux. I know Hyrox gets lots of hate, by the way, in social media. The Hyrox World Championships just this weekend. And she's only started it about two years ago.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

That's so awesome.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

And for me, that was beautiful because it was about two months into working together, she said, I've seen this thing, Hyrux. I want to try it. And I said, Okay, cool. But before you do that, are you an athlete? I remember asking her that question, and she visibly was like, she went red. She was like, she couldn't say it. And I went, Okay, in our next call, you need to come back and tell me you're an athlete. Because until you accept that, you won't be able to do this high rock thing. She came back, she said it. I made her recite it like 10 times, I think, that call.

SPEAKER_02 36:21

So I love that.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

And I said, and then we created her superior identity and we called it Hyrox Helen.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

So now everyone calls her Hyrox Helen. She's like, everyone calls me that. But I said, yes, because you now act as that person that you said you wanted to be. And then just this weekend, she represented Great Britain at the world champs. So please for her.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

That is so amazing. I love that so much. And I love that you're focused on not just being like, okay, let's do this in like four weeks or eight weeks or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

I think we've all been there, right? Like you said, we've all done the six-week shred and the get ready for summer. And I think after a while, as a coach, you get a bit like this is a bit meaningless. You're just churning people through a system that you actually hated in the first place. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Just me.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Absolutely. I actually started working with athletes that are going to stage this year. And I require them to work with me at least, I would prefer an entire year, but we have to work together for three or four months first before I'll even consider putting them into any kind of prep because it is very, you know, extreme. And we have to be dialed in. And if you're just not there yet, it's usually a lot of mindset work that needs to happen prior.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

What so this is a really good point. Because I think there's a lot of women who are kind of getting through menopause, perimenopause, and they're like, I want to get on stage. I or I want to get a stage, stage-ish, I won't stay maybe stage, but that really lean body. What would you advise? What would you advise? Someone just turned up and said, Hey, Ashley, I want to become, you know, I'm maybe about 40, 35% body fat, and now I want to get to 20%. How long is it going to take me? What do I need to do to make that happen? And I'm 55 or so, I don't know. What would you what would you say to that woman?

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Well, first and foremost, I would say that it's absolutely possible because I think that there's this thing on social media where it's like, want the body, don't like you, you shouldn't want this body, you shouldn't want that. That everybody has an opinion about what you should and shouldn't do with your body. So if that's what you want to do, great. But we need to understand that this isn't going to be an overnight process and it's going to really require you to dial in. Like we are going to get to a point where you're going to have to sacrifice things. There's not going to be balance in order to get, you know, shredded in a in a sense that you want to. And, you know, sometimes I find women that we they'll they'll commit to the the process and they'll get to a point where I'm like, okay, if we want to dial in and lose that last 10 pounds, you you really have to be committed. And so is it actually worth it for you to do that? Is the sacrifice worth just your body looking a certain way, or are you pretty happy? In fact, I just had a conversation with a client I've been working with for two years, and she's like, I just feel like I can't get this last 10 pounds off. And we started to talk about it. And at the end of the conversation, she's like, It's just not worth it to me. And I said, That's okay. Like, let's sit if you have maintained, I think she's lost 50 pounds. I said, You've maintained this for a really long time, you're in a beautiful spot. Let's start moving to being like, we're moving her away from macro tracking now. Like we're moving into like, let's eat intentionally. So you'll have both sides of the coin. Maybe it is important to you to see what you can do and push your body to those limits, like it was for me. Or for the other client, maybe you know what? No, I'm I'm actually pretty happy here and I'm not willing to sacrifice some of the things that I would need to, you know, bringing your food while your family eats at a restaurant. I can't tell you how many times I've done that. Or we just went away for like a 24-hour trip, and I have to bring a whole cooler full of everything.

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Full of your own food, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Yeah, it makes my life easier, but some people aren't willing to do that, and that's okay too.

SPEAKER_00 40:28

Is that a big fundamental question? No matter what stage of weight or health you're at, isn't that the fundamental question? Is what are you willing to do to get the result that you say that you want?

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Yeah, I I think it that it definitely is. And I think you know, another thing that's said on social media is like balance and moderation, but I think we end up using that as an excuse to not actually have balance and moderation. Do you find that?

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Yeah, I think a lot of this, and this is gonna be a very deep segue. I think there's a lot of handed down stories, as I call them. So a lot of my clients had mums who or moms for the Americans um who uh did terrible diets, like they did the the cat the cabbage soup dial, the broccoli soup diet, they've they did everything slim in world, slim fast, you name it, they did it. And I think a lot of people, a lot of women, especially a lot of women, have trauma and uh un unhealed uh thoughts about what happened to them. So then when they hear you say, I'm on 1200 calories, they're like, Oh my god, I'm gonna have to relive what happened then, and I didn't lose the weight because obviously they couldn't sustain it. So I think that's the nuance, and I think that's the challenge for a lot of people is is actually saying, Hey, I don't think you're ready for this yet. I think maybe you need some therapy to go and deal with those bigger stories that you've got around food. Because if you're if the word diet triggers you, that tells me there's a part of you that's not quite ready. And it means you'll also block the things that you have to actually do to get the result because you as soon as I say, Hey, eat more vegetables, you know that that's a diet. So if you haven't healed that part of yourself, you're gonna have problems.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

Yeah, uh absolutely. And that's why I pointed out in my story of competing that I was at a point where I felt neutral towards food. And I, you know, either way, if I had something that was from a fast food place, I'm okay with it. If I, you know, was eating whole nutrient-in dense foods, I'm okay with that as well. And you will see a lot in the bodybuilding world that people will point their finger at bodybuilding. Well, it ruin my relationship with food. It sent me into an eating disorder. And yes, you know, we do go to the extreme, but also we have to take responsibility for the actions that we took and the way that we approached it, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:19

Yep. For those of you who can't see this, I'm doing like a dance because this is the perfect Ashley. You're dropping bombs. Sorry, Carol.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

That's why I want to work with somebody a little bit beforehand before we do that, or before we, you know, go a little bit extreme. It's not that you can't do it, it's just like, what is your intention behind it? What is your approach? And this is a big one is what is your plan afterwards? Because a lot of programs are selling you a fat less phase as a lifestyle, and it's not a lifestyle. You're not meant to stay in there. Like, we need to look at the bigger picture, and that's the cool thing about working with a coach is the coach can always bring you back and say, like, hey, this is the Bigger picture, what we're focusing on. Um, like I did with my client last week. I said, you know, what what is the bigger picture here? Do you just want to continue to try to shrink yourself? Or are you at a point where you're you can you can always go back to weight loss? You can always go, you know, back to that. But how how are we gonna get out of this? So a lot of times I'll see people ask like about 75 hard. And I used to be very, very against 75 hard. And for the most part, I mean I am as well. But if you're not thinking about how you're getting out of those 75 days, like what's their biggest tip for 75 hard? My biggest tip is what's your plan afterwards?

SPEAKER_00 44:35

Yep. I think there is 75 hard, actually, I don't have a major problem with because if we're honest, people aren't as active as they say they are.

SPEAKER_02 44:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

And if it helps someone get them into a good groove, I'm all for it. But like you said, it's what are you gonna do afterwards when that commitment's over? What's the plan to keep it sustainable, be able to live your life in the way that you say you want it? But you may you raise a really good point, and I which I think does not get said enough on social media, so I'm expecting to see lots of posts on this. We do not take responsibility for our actions, like we are grown-ass adults now, and we're like, oh, but diet culture, oh, but someone wrote a post on social media. Like, what the hell? Like, take it. I think one of the big things, and this is going to be very controversial, is that the move of obesity to a disease has almost robbed people of agency. So, like, don't get me wrong, I understand I was a hundred odd pounds overweight myself at one point. I've seen my parents suffer. The black community, especially I lived in, loads of people had health problems. Totally understand it. But it removes the way that it's told is it removes any kind of agency from people. It's like, hey, you could go and do 5,000 steps and maybe add some more vegetables to your plate. Oh, but I'm obese and it's a lifestyle. It's a you know, you're like, okay, stop, stop. Diet culture made me do this. Yeah, so I think that's a that's a really big part. Yeah, talk about that some more because that that was that was power.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

I mean, what brings like what I can see as a parallel. Part of my story I didn't share was I was addicted to stimulants for a really long time. And so if we look at that, if I were to say the stimulant was the issue, people would come after me and be like, Well, you're the one who took it, and you need to take responsibility for your addiction. So I, you know, and people see addiction as a disease. So kind of very, very similar. And I know that'll be controversial as well. But I had to, yeah, that was part of the problem. But also, what I decided to do, and I decided to take more than I was prescribed, that was I did that. And until I was willing to take responsibility for that, was I not I I couldn't come out of it until I said, okay, I'm part of the problem. Now I get to be part of the solution. And it's the same thing with obesity, but I agree we we want to be left off the hook. We want to think that we could just, you know, it's kind of funny though. I don't know if you feel this way, because it's like we're uncomfortable in our bodies and being overweight, but we don't want to get uncomfortable to solve the solution. So we're just staying uncomfortably uncomfortable when we got to get uncomfortable anyways.

SPEAKER_00 47:44

It's because the new uncomfortable is scary. And I also think that if you especially if you kind of if you identify as like I'm just gonna, and people will come for me. I say this, but if you are if you identify as the kind of menopause feminists, uh you know the ones I'm talking about who are like, and they're in a tribe, so the minute that they do anything that says, Well, I'm gonna actually do something healthy, all of a sudden they're no longer in that tribe, they will lose friends, people will look at them differently. There may be a history of like abuse of with men and stuff, so they've eaten to kind of make themselves invisible. Totally appreciate that, but you've got then choose your hard. And if your hard is I'm happy to stay as I am, no problem, your body, your choice. But don't come after people who are willing to make their own choices. That's the bit I don't understand. That's the weird bit. I can't, I don't, I can't understand that. If you're if you're happy, just stay happy. I don't know, but obviously you're not, which is why, and that's the cognitive dissonance that happens when people are triggered, and that's the problem.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

Yes, yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think well, social media plays unfortunately a huge role because those things without the nuance is what gets attention, and unfortunately, we can't make every single post have you know all the nuance in the world.

SPEAKER_00 49:21

Yeah, but Ashley, what about me? But Ashley, what about my situation? No, no, no, but your post doesn't have enough nuance. And these people never write content, by the way. It's it's draining. You go to their page and they haven't written anything, you go to the replies, and they literally all they do is spend their life chasing personal trainers and fitness coaches and saying you don't have enough nuance when we're never writing a post. You're like, come on, it's crazy. It's crazy. I and there was something you said earlier as well. I think you're right. I what I think people don't understand is social media is meant for attention, and if you can write a post in a way that validates people, people will love you. If you don't validate people, you get absolutely hung drawn and quartered on social media. And yeah, there are health professionals, especially, I find, that take advantage of that as well. Doctors who spread misinformation, so they use a grain of truth, carb spike insulin as an example, and then they'll be like, Oh, yeah, and if you're in perimenopause, you're broken, you're insulin resistant, therefore you can't lose weight, you must take do my detox or whatever, whatever, or buy my diet book, and you're just like it's selling the same thing in just a different format, and that's what makes me listen to human psychology is amazing. I don't know your thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 51:01

It it is for sure, and I think perimenopause and menopause is a huge conversation right now, and there's a trend where women are saying, Well, my grandmother said she didn't have any perimenopause symptoms, and I can't help but think the reason why the grandmother would say that is because she just didn't know that they were symptoms, so it's so much in our face that any anything we feel tired one day, we feel this one day, whatever the perimenopause symptoms may be, but it's so thrown at us all of the time that we're just like, oh my gosh, yes, that that has me. And and now this is my life, and I'm gonna struggle and and all these things. But I have proof like in the bodybuilding community, a lot of women are in period. There's a lot of women that compete don't compete until they're in their 40s or their 50s. Some of them don't choose to do HRT, some of them do choose to do that. That's a whole nother nuanced topic as well. Um, but but it and HRT doesn't, you know, solve the issue the your habits, just like this, this all of these things they're gonna require you to you know be at the at the basics, boring basics. I mean, we could end the podcast there, but then it wouldn't get any attention.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

So I um I was you just brought me onto a subject that I think that's massively important. Let's to let's just touch on the GLP thing. Have you got thoughts about it?

SPEAKER_01 52:33

Yeah, it's super nuanced, in my opinion. As somebody who was addicted to stimulants because it didn't make me hungry, I was very, very weary of it at the beginning. It's probably not something that I would ever do. I have no reason to do it. But for instance, I think that we get to a point where we want to eliminate our hunger because we don't know what to choose to eat. And so I see that as a big, a big issue when we're completely eliminating the hunger. And it's just makes it easier, it makes our decision making easier and things. And so the women who use it as magic are either gonna be on it for the rest of their life or they're gonna come off of it and lose their weight, lose or gain the weight back, excuse me. Yeah, but I have also seen people use it as a tool, you know, and it be very successful with it and come off of it. So I think there it's just a it's very nuanced. I think it's a great tool for some people. However, I think that a lot of people are now running to it and with it being sold on social media and influencers talking about it and people using it who don't need to use it, don't have a plan of what they're gonna do afterwards. Um and and not to throw in supplements onto this conversation, but I I think that you know we just over-supplement and we over we look we just look for these things that are gonna do the work for us. In reality, nothing is going to do the work for us. We need to do it. How do you feel about it?

SPEAKER_00 54:12

So I've got currently one, two, three clients who are using it. Two one that I recommended, I said, I think it would help you for sure. Go do it. I think as with anything, the marketing around it has been very suspect. So you've got the people who have a clinical need, the men and women who have a clinical need for it. I think it's awesome. With as of anything, people have got hold of it and they're like, Yeah, I I've I've actually heard people lie. So in the UK, you can get it online, but they check, they want to know your BMI before, and people have lied, they've like doctored photos and stuff because you have to upload photos and stuff as well. They've doctored photos to get it, and those people are gonna and are the ones that often over dose up too much, have problems, or like you said, have to stay stuck on it, then they run out of money eventually when actually I don't think they actually ever spent the time to say, let me actually do this properly. Like, my life's important. People will give it all for their careers, they'll be meticulous about it, they'll invest in it. We don't invest in health, and I think that's the big issue because, like you say, we'll just try and find the easiest way. That's how the human brain works. It's like, what's the fastest way from A to Z if I can just do that? And I don't have to think people use it. So great tool, often being used by the wrong people, and the marketing around it. And some of the conversations are a little bit misguided. So I'm gonna say this, I'm gonna say the horror word that no one wants to hear. GLPs help you stay in a calorie deficit. Like I know that they are finding other issues like metabolic uh improvements, etc. But ultimately, the biggest thing that they do is they help keep you satisfied to suppress appetite so that you can stay in the calorie deficit. 100% people are gonna people will come for you if you say that. People will be like, yeah, but it's I took it and it's now fixed me. I was eating perfectly before. That's all I see all the time. I'm like, Are you sure? And when you bring up the amount of how people like it's funny, I I begin I just started a fat loss phase. I'm like, right, time to shed some weight. I've I'm settled in Thailand, I need to stop eating so much pat Thai.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

Sound so good, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:02

Don't come here, you'll get you will get fat. Do not come here, the food is so good, you will get fat. But I thought I was eating, I've got a good knowledge of food. I mean I know food inside out. When I started to track again and weigh, I was I've been I was like off by at least 700 calories, at least I reckon. Because you get calorie creep, right? It just yeah, I'll just have that. Well, I mean, oh yeah, I'll just taste a bit of that. Oh while me and the missus are cooking, let's just before you know it, you're 700, a thousand calories over. Oh, that's why I've put on some weight, and people really don't like the word calorie deficit, they hate calories in, calories out. I think it's miss, I think it's a term that's been misused and misappropriated, but it's just a basic physiological term.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Yes, and and that's one of the reasons why like we can just say calorie deficits on threads and kind of go go viral. I mean for the wrong reasons and all in all, you know, bringing it back for me. One of the biggest things that shifted was actually understanding these things because for so long I was looking for this quick fix, but not willing to understand. So I always like judged what I didn't understand. I never wanted to count my calories or macros because I thought it was obsessive. Yet I was reading every ingredient label and avoiding X, Y, and Z and all of these things, and then feeling guilt and shame. And I was obsessive over what I was doing. And when I went to track my food and understand a protein, a carb and a fat and a calorie and what an actual calorie deficit actually is, then I was able to make decisions that felt better. And all of a sudden I'm like, oh, this is actually kind of simple and it's really actually freeing when I can say, Oh, you know, I yeah, maybe I do want to indulge in that cookie that's 700 calories, and and maybe I don't, you know, but having the to be able to say, like, okay, I know what's in that, and the decisions just became easier. But when I finally explain to people that a calorie deficit isn't something that you decide, it's not a number, it's not even a number that I give you, right? Like I can give you a number, but until your body starts releasing that weight, we don't know when you're gonna be in a calorie deficit. So people don't like it when I say that, but the body is the one that decides when the calorie deficit, when we're in that calorie deficit.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

Yeah, I think what happens is when people hear calories in, calories out, or calorie deficit, they take it as judgment.

SPEAKER_02 59:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

And I had a very interesting conversation with a lady who said, it's not that these women think they're above the law of thermodynamics, it's the strategy they used didn't work for them. And I said, Great, then they should say that, not misappropriate the term. But I get it because there's lots of marketing to say, hey, Ashley, it's not your fault. Those calories in calories in outbros, they don't understand your hormones. It wasn't about calories, it's about your hormones. So I can sell you my hormonal reset thingy, me, Bobby, whatever. So I can understand why there is this reaction. We talked about the stories that people have, and I think that's what happens. They see the word calorie deficit and they feel it's judgment. They feel that because let's be honest, on social media, no one's gonna write a long, nuanced response. If you put on social media, hey, I'm really struggling to lose weight, and you know, Joe or whatever is on his train journey to work, you know, he's he's gonna say, Hey, the reason is you're not in a calorie deficit. He's not gonna write a whole long thing about your BMR and your hormones. He's not gonna do that. Nobody's gonna do that, but people expect that response, and that's where all of this problem comes in because then people get angry. Just my thoughts. What do you see?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

Yeah, yeah, they take it as a personal attack. Well, I know I'm eating this much, or I know that I'm eating 800 calories, and it's always 800 to 1200.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

It's always that 400 calorie gap. But yeah, sorry, Carrie.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

I can tell you if you were eating 800 calories for a while, like it's yeah, you would not feel like you would not feel good. And so, yeah, but it they do, they do. They they take it as a personal attack that you're calling them a liar, or you know, that something must be wrong with their body, and it's it's really it's not, it's just it's the way that that loss works, and that's it, people.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

That is it. Like, we can, you know, I'm sure that you've done every type of diet in the past carnivore, keto, atkins, paleo, and then there was the keto for a long, long time. I did Atkins, yeah, and I did the uh paleo, and then I gained weight, and I was like, why? And it was because I was slamming salmon, avocado, nuts. Like, I can eat cashew nuts and thousand calories gone. No, not even a thought about it. But I thought that the diet was gonna do something magical when actually it was as simple as I was absorbing too many calories for this for the energy my body needed to function every day, and that included if you have conditions and you know, like PM PCOS or POMOS is another one is that gets talked about a lot. That's what it is, is that that's simple. And when you and actually, when you know that, then the power's in your hands. That's the crazy bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:21

I agree a thousand percent. When yeah, when you start understanding how it works, then you do have the power to make the changes, and you don't have to blame something that you can't control.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:36

And I think that's it. I think what the women I think we work with are generally have accepted that actually there are there are things in their control and they're willing to own those things rather than not.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:50

Which is why we probably get amazing people that come and work with us who are like, hey Ashley, I I messed up last week, and it's an easy conversation. Whereas if people don't have that, you're gonna have problems.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

Yes, absolutely. It's it's uncomfortable, but it's what's gonna get you to where you want to be.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:14

Well, I think for the woman who's probably listening to this podcast, she's likely to be someone who's like, Do you know what? Enough's enough. Like, I want to be able to show up in my career, I want to be able to make more money, I want to, I've probably got some big goals I've never told anyone. Like she's got it in a journal somewhere or some note on her phone from when she had an iPhone 1 that she wanted to achieve this thing, but she probably realizes that it was her health, and the way she treated herself was the blocker to everything else, which is why they come and work with people like us, and these women are ready to go, like, hey, I'm ready to put down some investment in this and do it properly. And I think that's the beauty of the work we do is that the women that we work with come away and they go, Hey, Greg, I've got four promotions since I've been working with you. And that means I don't I don't care about my clients' weight, really. Like that's the honest truth. I care about how they're showing up as the person they said they wanted to be. It's a very big difference. You must feel the same about your clients in some way.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:24

A hundred percent. I have had clients that have gone that started on their journey, and then they're like speaking on stages and and doing just these really cool things in their life, or my marriage got so much better once I started taking care of myself, my relationship with my kids, all of these things. And, you know, unfortunately, the weight is what draws them in. And then they realize that it's so much deeper and it creates so much more of a ripple effect in their life. And that's that's what I love about doing what I do.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:55

Yeah, it's the it's when they when I get messages that are like my daughter now. Sees me in a different way and stuff, I'm like, my work is done. This is it. Relax. Yeah. I'm gonna go do some, I'm gonna go do leg day now and and smile and smile when I'm doing Bulgarians. So if a woman's listening to this and she's like doing very well in her career, and you know, she's probably got she's probably organized things like her HRT, she's probably getting those things all sorted. What would be the four bits of advice you would give her to really optimize her health?

unknown 1:06:38

The poor bits.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:40

First and foremost, I would say, like, let's commit to this. So we're not we're committing for a long period of time. I don't like to create codependent clients. I want to create dependent clients, but it's gonna take a little while. Like we're like you said, we're probably gonna have to work together for a year or two. Like most of my clients stick with me for a while and then they fly and they're great. So the commitment, first and foremost. And secondly, like who you've touched on this a lot, but like who do you want to be when you get to that point? Let's think about that first. What does her life look like? What is she doing on a daily basis? What are the things that you know you're doing now that she's no longer doing? Let's sit down and decide that. And then it's just it's it's really, really simple. It's just having awareness around the things that you're actually doing and taking personal responsibility. So let's start maybe tracking your food. We're not working on a macro split or anything like that. Let's just see what you're doing at this moment, what you're actually consuming. Because until you have the awareness, you can't really make the change. And then how can we start moving your body some more? It doesn't have to look, I think we think that we have to go all in and have the schedule that I talked about, that I'm working out three and a half hours a day or whatever it may be. I didn't start there. I started, you know, lifting two times a week, walking three times a week, and that's where we get to start. It doesn't have to be all in, it gets to be these small little tweaks. So really just looking at what you know, that wasn't really four.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:12

I kind of went on eight tangents, but I'd said about 13 to 14 there myself.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:22

So, you know, it's it's just it's committing, it's deciding who you want to be in the in the bigger picture and having the awareness around the things that you're doing right now, and then making the small tweaks.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:37

Got it. Beautiful. I would say my four. This is gonna be like copycat now. I need to be I need to be different. I need to be different now to make sure that it sounds different.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:48

But no, I think number one is not that prove something.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:53

We sing from the same hymn sheet for sure. I would say, yeah, you need to decide who's that person that you buried some point. Are you ready to dig up those goals and go, like, I really want to be that person? Number two, the same standards that you show in your career need to be applied to your to your body. Because I know that you will open your laptop at 11 o'clock to finish that one email for the board meeting tomorrow. You will do whatever it takes to, you know, but would you hold the same standard for your body when no one's looking? Because that's the that's the bit. It's when it's not when they're on a call with us, it's in that moment when someone says, Hey, let's get let's get the chocolate out while we watch Netflix and all those things. It's those moments. Three, I would say sleep. Because if you're not sleeping, you're gonna be weeping. And that right. But I think uh sleep is probably the the foundation of a lot of things for people if they don't sleep, and I know especially for ladies in perimenopause and menopause, that sleep can be disrupted. Totally agree. My question is always are you doing everything in your power to get as much sleep as possible? Routine, environment, like your bedroom should only be for two things, by the way, sleep, and the other one is sex. That's it, nothing else. If your bedroom if you've got TVs and everything, no, no, no, no. So sleep, and then I would say get ready for grief. And when I say that is get ready to grieve the person that you may have been who has got you to where you are, but now you need to show up as this new as the person you're rediscovering. There's gonna be some time where you're gonna be grieving, and often that's when people plateau. It's because they can feel that tension between the old and the new. Yeah. Those would be my thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:05

Those are great. And you got me on the sleep because that is a huge, huge one. That's one that I will have my clients make sure they have under control before we start to move into a fat loss phase.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:19

And yeah, if you I think it's like anything that we said before, if you accept that you cannot sleep, then you'll never do anything enough to actually get to sleep. And but sleep is boring. Sleep is like, you know, I'm not doing I'm not sweating. I I need to sweat, kind of thing. But I think that's because a lot of these women are trapped in this performance arena. Their value has always been get a gold star, ace the test, get the degree, be the great daughter who's academic and who works really hard, not the woman who's rested and can show up properly. Like I find a lot of these women are like, if we take the army, this is my analogy. You've got the sniper who takes one shot and does magic. But you've got the infantry who's like, shoot everything, lots of casualties. A lot of women are acting as the infantry when their skill levels, their knowledge, their experience should be sniper. So I'm like, we don't want you to spray and pray everywhere, we want you to be sniper. Why I I I've looked through clients' calendars before. I'm like, bring your calendar up, get it up. And she's like, What do you mean? I'm like, I want to see how many meetings you go into a week. And I will I'll sit there and go, What's this meeting? Give me your job description. Is this is this is this meeting aligned to that? No, it's not, right? Who are you gonna delegate this to next week? And when they start to see that, then they're like, I'm like, Yeah, you've been showing up for everyone else all the time, leaving you on empty. That's just my thought.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:59

Yes, you gotta move yourself from the bottom of that list to the top, yeah, or to at least the same level.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:05

Because even that I think can be hard. People are like, I don't, I'm not allowed to be top because I feel like I'm being too much or whatever, when there's no reason why you shouldn't be at the top.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:21

100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:22

Yeah, I feel like we can talk all night. Yeah, I know, I know. All morning for you anyway. So, is there anything particular you would like if someone's listening to this, a woman who's listening to this, who's like, enough's enough. Greg or Ashley is the kind of people I want to work with, what would your message be to her?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:47

My message would be is you you have the control. You you can make the change. And hiring someone to guide you through that process, like myself or Greg can't do the work for you. We can absolutely help you for your blind spots and show you what you can see or you can't see and and guide you along the way. But ultimately, it's you. You have the power, you have the control. And once you can harness that and really learn to trust yourself, it the possibilities are endless, really. This this journey is something that's just the beginning of, like we've talked about through this entire podcast, creating so many ripples in your life and being able to accomplish things that you never thought possible, but it starts with you, and you do have the control. And so, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:36

So many things. I would say, I think I say this: I say, inside of you is the superhero, and it's time to bring that superhero out. So the power is all yours. You can make or break this, it doesn't have to be super difficult. And someone like me or Ashley can help you see all those blind spots, navigate the tricky parts with a guide, you're the hero. And if you're looking to level up yourself in any way, shape, or form, you've got to level up your health. Because how you level up and treat yourself in one arena is gonna show up everywhere else. And I know deep down, you know this to be true too. Simple as that. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:24

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:26

So, where can people come and find you if they want to stalk you, they want to understand what you're about, they're looking to maybe work with you, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:37

I'm all over social media. It just Ashley Beaman. So you can find me on any platform that you consume content on. I'm probably there.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:45

Um how about you?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:48

So you can generally find me on threads and LinkedIn and Instagram and TikTok. Oh yeah, so yeah. I should get back to Facebook at some point. So, yeah, that for sure, or my website, gregfiron.co.uk. Yeah, or my podcast, The Identity Architect. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:08

Um, this was really fun. I appreciate coming on and you coming on mine.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:13

Yeah, this has been fun. We might have to do a part two, I think, at like a maybe a dedicated one. Maybe we'll comb social media and hit a particular topic. Or if you're a woman listen to this, message us and say, Hey, I'd love you to talk about this or that. I think we'd be happy to talk about that for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:34

Absolutely. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:36

So if you're a woman who's wanting to get their ac together and like, yes, it's time, leave a review on either mine or Ashley's podcast. Share this podcast with another woman who's looking to do the same so that you can all become the superheroes in your own life. We'll talk to you soon. See you on the other side. Bye.