Stop Giving Your Hormones The Credit For What Your Habits Are Doing

Alicia angelishfit back. And so is the nonsense.

Previous episodes are linked below

The banana smoothie debate has returned, cortisol is trending again, and the wellness grifters are getting more desperate by the week. In this episode, 

Greg and Alyssia do what they do best — cut through the noise, call out the patterns, and say the things that tend to get people on the internet very upset.

This one covers a lot of ground. GLP-1s and what they actually do (hint: it's not magic). The difference between a calorie deficit and starvation. Why women in their 40s and 50s are being told the things that worked in their 20s don't work anymore  and why that's a lie. 

What METROREXIA is and why optimising everything might be the new disordered eating.

And the moment Greg asks Alicia to choose between Clark Kent and Superman and what her answer reveals about every client who's ever said they can't change.

If you've ever caught yourself listing every reason why your body won't cooperate while avoiding the one question that matters this episode is for you.

What they get into:

• Why cortisol is the new insulin is the new inflammation — and who benefits from you believing that
• The 65-attempt statistic and what it tells you about who becomes successful in a body transformation.
• GLP-1s: who they're for, who's abusing them, and what happens when Canada gets generic versions
• Why calling a calorie deficit "disordered eating" is a marketing move, not a medical opinion
• The Delulu Zone 800 to 1,200 calories and why that gap is so hard to argue with
• Verdicts versus decisions, and how one of them shuts down every other possibility
• What a sink full of dishes has to do with self-love
• Why muscle is the only luxury item you genuinely cannot buy
• Alicia's 12 days in Madagascar and what it actually means to train for your life

The line that landed:

"Future me wouldn't want me to eat like an asshole today."

You can find Alicia here

https://www.angelishfit.com/

Previous Episodes

Menopause and Fat loss
Age is Just a Number
The Menopause Marketing Lie 

Meno and Perimenopause weightloss 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:02

Hello and welcome to the identity architect podcast with your host Greg Ferron. And guess who's back?

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Back again. Alyssia's back. Back again. Tell your friends.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Tell a friend.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Friend, yeah. I'm so happy to be back. It's been it's been what? Like a year? Almost?

SPEAKER_03 0:24

Has it been a year since we did a podcast? It can't be that long. Okay, I'm gonna have to link every episode we've done, I think, into the show notes so people can feel the vibe that we have. All of that.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

There's enough for a chain. There's enough for a chain if you're linking all those podcasts. It's a like, yeah, there's a lot.

SPEAKER_03 0:44

You could do 20, 30, 40,000 steps on those. So if if if you have a steps problem, listen to all of our podcasts that I'll link, and you'll have no problem getting your steps in, listening to us two random.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Chew them all up at once and just run it.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Yeah, that that that would that would be epic. Could sell that. Anyway, welcome back. Good to see you. What's been happening in your world?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Good to see you. I'm I'm happy to be back. I you know what's happening? Uh I mean, just keep on keeping on, you know what I'm saying? Like watching what's happening in the space and how quickly things change. And I think what's been most satisfying to watch is how desperate the grifters are getting.

SPEAKER_03 1:34

How desperate are they? Tell me. That always makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Oh, you know, like, you know, you can't put bananas in your smoothie because, you know, it's gonna take all the nutrients out of the blueberries.

SPEAKER_03 1:45

I saw that on a podcast on a on a reel today, and I was like, oh my god, we're back to bananas. This is this goes back to the 90s when there was Slimming World in the UK, and they said if you had a banana that was mashed up, it was more sins than if you ate a whole banana.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

More what?

SPEAKER_03 2:04

They had this thing called sins. So basically it was their way of calorie counting, but basically they allocated sins and you had a certain allowance of sins to go on every day, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Okay, oh, like the Weight Watchers.

SPEAKER_03 2:16

Um very similar, very similar thing. And so if you had a mashed banana or in a smooth, it was five sins, but if it wasn't, it was free. And I I've actually done a podcast on this, but I had a Weight Watcher uh Slimming World Consultant. I might link it as well to this. And then she she tried to explain it to me, and I was like, no, no, stop, just stop, just stop.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Make that make sense.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

I mean, I have teeth, right? So I'm mashing the banana anyway.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

You do have teeth, and you have hydrochloric acid in your stomach that's mashing the or mashing the banana, as you would say. Yeah, like what what you know? I don't know if you remember or even if you had this in the UK. Back in the 70s and 80s, we had a show called Teresa Company, and there was an actress on there that became super popular, uh, played the character of Chrissy, and she became like this, like probably one of the first like wellness grifters. And she wrote all these books on like food order, food ordering. Like it's like you can have you can have these kinds of foods together, but you can't have these foods together, and you can't have the you can't have this at the same time. Suzanne Summers, that was her name. Okay, and and it's like it's all going to the same place, ma'am. It's all going to the same place. This reminds me. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

No, I was gonna say this reminds me there was someone called Louise Hay who made a whole ton of money on this on food ordering. Now you said it, she had the same thing as food combining, so you couldn't have a fat with a carb and a protein, yeah. The whole thing, the whole nine yards. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Had us all eating lettuce cups and shit like that, which nothing wrong with lettuce cups, but not because you can't have carbohydrates and fats together. Like it was, it's it's just so wild. And so this reminds me like the older I get, and I am getting old, the the more cyclical this stuff is. Like it just it goes around, it comes around, it goes, they just repackage it. It's the same garbage information, garbage advice. Like, I think you and I are both fans of Dr. IDS.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Yes, we are indeed.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

And he did the debunking of the banana in your smoothie. And he was like, that's like arguing that you shouldn't have a stir fry because cooking the vegetables in the meat is some some of the some of the nutrients, right? And he's like, but they're discounting the fact that you're still eating a big ass bowl of vegetables.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Exactly. It's it is crazy, yeah. I think the one thing I've learned being a business owner is you're taught to create an enemy. That's the whole thing. And if anyone wants to listen to look out for this, it's um guy called something Blair. I'll post it maybe in the links, but he talked he has a 16-word persuasion template, and it's like create the enemy, throw rocks at the enemy, justify their fears, you know, confirm their suspicions. Literally, the same playbook that politicians use. So you take the same issue and you repackage it. Because this week, I all I'm seeing on my my friend's page is cortisol. Oh my god, again, again, and it's back. I mean, about two weeks ago it was insulin. But because, and maybe this could be a nice segue to GLPs, but now the carnivores can't really use insulin because GLPs increase insulin in the body, so it can't be insulin now that people are losing weight with GLPs. Exactly. So it's so funny, it's so so funny how this is happening. You just literally take the same thing you said before, add a kernel of truth, blow up to this big thing, and if you make someone feel heard and understood, hey Elizabeth, are your hormones playing up?

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Do you feel like you're holding on to fat in your midsection just all of a sudden? And you've changed nothing. Don't listen to the gym bros, don't listen to the gym girls. It's your hormones.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Oh yeah. And my favorite one is I see this a lot from coaches in my niche. Our niche. You can't work out, you know, the things that you did that worked in your 20s don't work anymore. Oh my god. It never worked. Like, you know, smoking smoking cigarettes and barely eating didn't work for you then either.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

The boat could die.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

You know, like like being under muscled didn't work in your 20s. It still doesn't work. But like it's it's so crazy to me how people will just say that. Well, you can't, you know, you can't work out like you did in your 20s. You can't do the things that you did in your 20s and expect it to work in your 40s or your 50s. Bitch, it worked then if you would have done it then, it's gonna work now, it's gonna work five years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now. And the reason we know that is because now we have people into their 70s and 80s and 90s that are lifting and improving across the board.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

And it it's you know, and this is this is it's simultaneously infuriating and amusing watching them struggle, watching them struggle to come up with something more and more stupid to say. It's like it, it's like the pendulum is swinging so far to it's gone from the sublime to the ridiculous that eventually people are gonna say stuff that's so stupid where they go, uh okay, like maybe maybe we go back to making it a little bit simpler. And I I mean, it's it's funny, we're halfway across the world from each other, Mr. Ferron. And I all every time I open up threads, I see you there. I love threads, whether it's whether it's your own thread or a response or whatever, and we're always like got each other's back. Got each other's back. And the number of people that are still talking about oh, and I know you wanted to talk about GLP once, but we can this is also in our queue. That's okay. This is also in our queue. The number of people that are still talking about equating a calorie deficit with an eating disorder. Maybe you can speak to that a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

What's happening? What's happening over there? I mean, threads is generally a cool place, but every once in a while, some jackass slips through.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

No, it's daily. It's daily. I think it goes back to the marketing, right? Because if you let me take it back, plenty of the women that we've worked with have done the broccoli soup diet, the cayenne pepper diet, really low calorie stuff that makes you miserable, right? So they were starving themselves to lose weight. So what the grifters now do is say, Well, you tried a calorie deficit in your 20s. You remember the broccoli soup diet? So actually, a calorie deficit is disordered eating, or it's a really bad diet, because they know the audience doesn't like the word diet. They know the audience doesn't like calorie deficit. So that's the enemy. So it's like I can throw stones and say, well, calorie deficit, it's disordered eating, tracking your calories, disordered, don't do it. Because they know that people hate those words: calories in, calories out, calorie deficit, people, the cognitive dissonance of those words it causes on people is immense. And I think the frustration we see is that whatever diet method you try, whatever way you try, whether it goes clean eating, whole 30, reducing your inflammation, carnivore, keto, it's a calorie deficit.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

That's the reason it works.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

So this connotation that a calorie deficit is a diet, because people will then say, well, a calorie deficit didn't work for me, means that people think it's a diet, not a mechanism. And that's the issue, I think, is that we've now misappropriated words in the marketing to be able to create a story that makes these things the enemy. When ultimately, whatever you do to lose fat, you would have gone through you would be in a calorie deficit, which is a state of calories in, calories out, or energy balance. There's no getting around it. And I think the clashes that the professionals are saying, Well, you're not in a calorie deficit. The the person who's on the end of it is like, well, yeah, I was in a calorie deficit. And like it wasn't, I wasn't losing weight, so therefore it was my hormones, my metabolism, the sun was shining not the right way, the sky was pink, blue, whatever, whatever, because they feel it's an attack on them.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Yes, because there's no data. If they're not, if they're not tracking, if they're not observing, if they're not like what gets measured gets managed. And if you're not doing that, there's no way the first, like, when people go, oh, like I, you know, I had a potential client. We didn't end up working together because I don't think she liked what I had to say, but that's okay. That's self-selection is important. She said, I've been eating 800 calories a day for weeks and I haven't lost any weight. And I went like this. No, you haven't. No, you haven't. No, you haven't. There is absolutely no way, you know, this woman weighed over 200 pounds. There is absolutely no way in H E double hockey sticks that you were eating 800 calories a day and not losing any weight. There's no weight that's happening. It's just it it violates the laws of physics.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

I think go on, go, go, go, go, carry on, carry on, carry on.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Yeah, yeah. So and and it's just I think you're absolutely right. It's such a good point that you make that when people hear calorie deficit, they think three, four hundred calories a day. Cabbage soup diet, like prunes and and green lettuce. Like that's all they think of. There's no nuance to it, there's no science to it, there's no methodology to it. It's just eat as little as possible. Not to mention the fact that protein plays a massive role in calorie deficit. That that's not when we when we were all teenagers, all starving ourselves to be heroin chic skinny in the 90s.

unknown 13:39

Oh, kitten.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

For those watching on YouTube, the kitten has now entered the uh the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

The kitten has entered the chat, yeah. I I can tell you from my disordered eating when I was in high school and when I was, you know, a young woman, I wasn't eating protein. Not even a little bit. Like it was maybe from the gravy that I had on the chips. That was it. That's it. You know, and I think structuring, structuring a proper calorie deficit, using the Harris Benedict equation, using, you know, like calculating and monitoring that is a massive difference. That's a that's completely a completely different concept to just eat as little as you possibly can. And it doesn't, and and don't worry about macros or or any of those things. Maintaining lean mass, like building lean mass, fat loss. It's just it's like it's like letting letting air out of a bag, out of a balloon, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:46

You just made such a great point. The conflation of that marketers use this is uh how the grifters use it. They say, Well, you know, those gym bros, people like me, apparently, and you, because you're gym girl, gym bro.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

I'm not a gym bro, I'm a gym bro.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Okay, sorry. I don't want to discriminate. Sorry, please forgive me. I would do I would do press up some burpees after this, but Jim Bro. But what they do is they go, the gym bros and the gym girls just told you to eat less. So what they do is they subtly use the psychology of we know that you tried all these bad diets. So when they say calorie deficit, it means just eat less. When actually a calorie deficit could be decreased calories in with more food, which is what we often do, it could be increased calories out, or it could be a mix of both. But because of the psychology behind it and the shame that people have around it, and I think this comes back into the identity piece we'll talk about later. The shame around it, people get very defensive, so they're not even open to hearing it. So you have to try and find all these fancy ways, but I'm done doing that. I just tell it as it is, and the right women will go, that makes total sense. I like precise terms, I understand it, and that's why you wouldn't work with that woman who said, Who's in the Dululu zone? That's why I heard someone call it the Dululu zone of 800 to 1200 calories is the zone where it's like it's not crazy enough for you to just laugh at them. It's just right to be able to try and defend the position. And I find people just go, oh, I was on 800 calories and not losing weight. And I'm like, okay, post all of your screenshots at the same time as that. No, how dare you, how dare you ask me all that private information? I'm like, hey, you just told us every disease you have right now. So don't, don't they will list I've got P PMOS, I've got this, I've got this, this, they'll tell us their medical history, and then you ask to see the tracking. Are you calling it?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

They can't show it to you because they haven't done it.

SPEAKER_03 16:59

But you're calling me a liar.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Yes, and and that's the thing. Is that and like you know, I think you're right. The longer that we're in this, the more selective you get about your clients. Because the reality is people don't need more information. They don't need more information, they have the information, it's all in the execution. And whether you're going to trust the process and actually follow through and be diligent with that, and and I think you know, this is this is where the identity piece comes in. And I find this, I find this especially becomes clear with respect to a couple of things alcohol and snacking. Those are the two things. Because I'm I'm a seafood lover. If I see food in my house, I'm gonna eat it. So I'm very careful about what I bring into the house. And when I want something amazing, I go out and get it. I don't keep it in my house. I don't keep ice cream in my house, I don't keep crisps in my house, I don't keep any of that in my house. Because it's like, you know what? I I want it to be an occasion. I want it to be, you know, kind of a fun, like it's hard for me, like, you know. It's like I gotta get out of the house every once in a while. Yeah. But I find, but I find that like with those two things, this is, I think, is where the kind of jumping off point for the identity piece becomes like comes in, where people go, well, I'm not gonna give up my snacks, and I'm not gonna give up going out, and I'm not gonna give up alcohol, and I'm not gonna track my food. And you go, or, or you know, like I'm not gonna give up my my sleeping in until like the last minute when I have to get up and go to work. And it's like, at some point you're going to have to decide who you want to be.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

The high fives are coming up.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

If we ended the podcast right there, if we ended the podcast right there, that'd be it. Who do you want to be? Carry on.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Right? I mean, it it's like if you want all of the benefits that come from prioritizing your health and fitness, your sleep, your rest, your recovery, your nutrition, your movement, all of those things. If you want to be that person that enjoys all of the benefits of that, then you're gonna have to sign up for all the things that you think are too unpleasant or too obsessive or too whatever. There's a huge continuum. There's there's a new term I've seen a couple of times now. I don't know if you've seen this term, and this is why we like to to free ball because shit comes up as we're talking. Of course. Have you heard of metrorexia?

SPEAKER_02 20:06

What?

SPEAKER_00 20:08

So this is like obsessive tracking of your of your bodily functions and like think like just and and I think one of the things that I like about the the content and stuff that I see from from where you guys are is that sort of lean towards health and like eating well and and rest and recovery and and and mindfulness and all that stuff, but it's not obsessive, it's still connected to joy and enjoying your life. And I feel like we've gotten, we've kind of lost the plot a little bit, where you were talking about there's no nuance, there's no stops on the continuum. It's either you eat intuitively and just like don't care about anything, or and that's right, intuitive eater people, I'm coming for you. Or on the on the other end, you're managing like there's absolutely no joy in your life because you're managing absolutely every metric and like you're letting the scale ruin your day, which we can circle back to. But I I I thought it was an interesting, an interesting term where we we've kind of lost lost a little bit of the joy of like, what is all of this for? And and that's because everything has been taken over by this marketing where it's all about like optimization. I, you know, where it's like maybe we need to bring the end of optimization and just be there in that middle space where you are, you know, mindful of. These different aspects and intentional about these different things without without letting it ruin your life. I don't know if you've found that sort of loss of nuance as well, where everybody's just, you know, they, they, they, they're not, they're not, you know, they're getting 45 grams of protein a day, but you know, they're tracking their sleep and their heart rate and their cortisol levels and their insulin levels, and they've got a CGM and they've got this and they got that. And it's like, have some vegetables and go to sleep before midnight. How's that? I know, boring.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

I think this is part of why we moved to Thailand, if I'm honest. This is a big part of it because the rat race of how we lived in the West. I mean, it was better when we were in Portugal, it was much better than London for sure. But we got to a point where I think we had to live somewhere that was aligned with what we wanted. Sun, safety, great food, access to beaches, the jungle, whatever environment, like we've got every environment and in between here, somewhere where I could do martial arts and work, and where we could be just actually be a human. So I think we've gone so far. And and I I remember last year we got rid of Whoop. So we both were using Whoop and we got rid of it. Because what we were finding was I'd wake up in the morning and my my HRV score was like red. I'd be like, I feel amazing. Or I'd wake up and it was green, and I'd be like, I had four hours sleep. This makes no sense. Like we've lost the ability to just go, how do I feel?

SPEAKER_00 23:51

And and that's really all that matters at the end of the day, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

How do you feel? What is your mood like? What is your energy like? How like what level of peace do you have today? What level of right? Like that's and I think that, you know, with all of these metrics, we're losing, we're losing that connection with ourselves. And I think what what I'm seeing from where you guys are is that reconnection and you're helping other people reconnect. And I I you know, I think, I think you're right. I think that, you know, especially over here in North America, it has gotten so out of hand. Like the the amount of stuff that I have to talk some of my clients out of, where it's like, you don't need that. You don't need that, you don't need that, you don't need that, you don't need that. And they're shocked. Like they think, oh, like you're not like a proponent of this. And it's like, no, no. It's and this is what I'm saying. People don't need more information, they need they need accountability, they need, you know, someone to witness and and be there and go, yeah, like this was good, this is not so good. You need to pay attention to this. And that person that like people perform better when they know they're being watched. That's just that's just psychology, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:12

I'm gonna say something very controversial though about accountability.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Oh, okay. I know you you that's that's a fraught word for you, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 25:21

Yeah, it's really interesting. It's only because when I look at accountability, there's normally like a consequence of something. So you you hold someone accountable to whatever they did. And I guess what I've seen a lot of in the past was people would come to me and go, Greg, I ring, I want accountability. When the accountability was offered, they disappeared. I'd be like, Hello, are you alive? I'd be like, Let me ring them. Like, do I need to stalk their husbands or something so I can find out if they're alive and whatever? And that's when I made switches in my business and who I work with, because I realized a lot of the women I work with are pretty accountable, like they're disciplined already, they just don't know how to translate into the stuff about them because they always get pushed to the bottom. And I find like 90% of my conversations are not even about nutrition. It's like for me, it's seeing the patterns between their health and how they show up at work, or how they're showing up in their relationships and how it's affecting their sleep. I just I just zoom out now and just go, the thing you're doing here, it's happening here. Fix this bit here, and the health bit will get easier. And I think, and I'm pretty sure that you would work the same way. That I think people think that coaches are gonna be the people that are gonna make them do stuff, and that's not the case. So I think, and I know this is how you work, you're the hey, I'm gonna call you out on your BS, because that's what it is. It's calling people out on the stuff that they said they wanted, and they're acting out of alignment with. And I think that's the magic. That's just my thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

I think I think you're you're up, yeah, you're absolutely right. And and it comes back to that identity piece where that like if if you if if this is who you want to be, these are the behaviors that align with who you say you want to be. And I think, you know, I I I understand your point. Your point is well taken about what accountability, what a lot of people think accountability is, but that that accountability piece is like you said you wanted this, but you're doing this. So where's the disconnect there? Why is that happening?

SPEAKER_03 27:41

Who who's the person showing up at that decision point? I always ask a qu I come. No, go, go, go.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

No, no, no. I no, I was just gonna say, I just sometimes I think, you know, what like when you were talking before about like people have like especially women, and I know that you've brought this up before. By the time a woman is in her like 40s or 50s, she's been on how many diets?

SPEAKER_03 28:03

Diets 65 attempts at dieting at weight loss. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

And so they're so like beaten and battered with that language and those concepts without understanding what those concepts actually mean. And when people talk about being motivated, right? Like, I'm not, you know, I just need somebody to motivate me. And it's like results are gonna motivate you when you do the things first, and then you start to experience some wins and notice some changes. You notice that you feel better when you wake up in the morning, you notice that your energy is longer lasting during the day. You have, you know, your mood is better, you feel more positive, you feel more confident, you walk differently, you talk differently, you show up differently, you and and that is when people go, Oh, that's when they make that connection. Like all these things that I'm doing makes everything in my life that much easier and more pleasant. And isn't that what it's about? It's about joy and enjoying your life. Like, you know, before we jumped on, I was telling you about my partner and I spent 12 days in Madagascar.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

A bucket list destination for a lot of people. And people go there for two things lemurs and bobab trees. They have a lot of endemic species, and you know what I mean? And it it is a developing country, and a lot of it is very rough. Like one of the one of the parks that national parks that we went to to see injuries and lemurs, it's it's an hour and a half up on roads that you're doing this the whole time, okay? In a four by four. They get 900 visitors a year. That's how tough it is to get there and be there. And I'm gonna be 55 next month, my partner's gonna be 49. And we were kind of like, it's kind of a flex for us to be here and doing this stuff. It was, you know, it was a lot of moving around. We were traveling by four by four, by plane, by boat, like there, it was a lot. And we spoke a lot about and marveled at at our age to be able to handle the travel, the moving around, the different challenges that were you know expected of us, the hiking, like it's it was it was rough. It was, you know, it was challenging. But it's like I can't even imagine, you know, the average person trying to do this. It would be impossible for them to do that. And it's like though these are the it's like, this is what you've been training for, right? Like this is this is what we're doing all this for. Even, and I realize everybody's different with this, even you know, there was a few few moments where my digestive system was fighting for its life. I won't go into detail, but it was you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

I know what you mean. Don't worry.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Yep, I know, but it's like imagine, imagine, and then but it's like it's like, but you know what to do. It's like, you know what? I think I'm gonna have bananas and Coca-Cola for dinner tonight because that will just fix everything. And it did. I slept all day, had bananas and Coca-Cola for dinner. Next morning, I was right as rain. This is what I'm saying is that you know, like you you build yourself up to be able to withstand what life is dishing out for you, God willing, right? And and so we were marveling at that. Like, this is this is why we do this, so that we can see these incredible things and go to these amazing places and experience what life has to offer that you know you just can't do when you're younger and you know, you either have no money or your kids are or whatever it is. You know, midlife is this incredible time for you to like expand yourself and expand your worldview, expand your experience. But if you've been abusing yourself all this time, eventually your luck is gonna run out and you're not gonna be able to do stuff.

SPEAKER_03 32:23

And everything you said there is perfect. And some people will hear, oh, you know, she's saying I didn't put the effort in, I didn't do the work. Ultimately, the body keeps score. Your body will tell you what you've been doing, and even if you get ill, because that's the other thing that happens, right? It's like, oh, well, I had this condition, great. But your body will recover better if you're trained, well-nourished, etc. So, whatever, whatever way you look at it, saying, I deserve, I deserve to have a pretty accurate understanding of what goes in in my body, a pretty accurate understanding of how what my body can do. Because a lot of these women will do it for their work. And I catch people, I catch these women all the time. They're like, Yeah, great. I'm like, how's the week? Just you know the beginning, and they'll tell me every little bit of office drama, project drama, and I'm like, great. Now give me the same detail around your nutrition this week. Well, I think on Wednesday I did the uh I'm like, okay, but do you see what we did there? Tell me the reason why this gets so much attention and detail, and your body doesn't. Let's work through that.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yeah, absolutely. I you know, and this is the thing this is a shift that I think is very, very important. They don't need us. Like people think, oh, I'm I'm I need I'm gonna lose weight, I need a coach. People don't need coaches to lose weight anymore. We have GLP1s now. That's you want to lose weight, that you simply want to lose weight, you can get a prescription, all done. You don't have to, you don't have to worry about any of it. However, if you want to change who you are and how you show up for yourself and give yourself the best outcome on these medications, that's where we come in. Because and and I'm not one of these people that think GLP1s are cheating. Like, I don't, I don't think that's no, like it's if you need these medications, these medications are life-saving, life-changing for the people that need it. However, it is even more important that it is done in tandem with these identity shifts and lifestyle changes and sustainable lifestyle changes that you know it's it's it's unfortunate to see how many people are just like, oh, this is all I need now. And it's like, no, all that's done is like remove this like obsession you have with the scale and can shift your focus. If you're if you're like losing losing weight without with barely any effort because of these medications, that frees bandwidth up to focus on these other things instead of being obsessed with the scale, which that's that's one of the first things that I have to wean my clients off of is letting the scale ruin their day. Like, do you do you find that do I don't know if you have any clients that are on GLP ones or if or if you're noticing that you have to you really have to force that scale out of their out of their mind, like just try it out, like how Yeah, you will not take my scale away out of my cold dead hands.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

Yes, exactly. So anyway, you're gonna get out. I've got what three or four clients who take in GLPs right now.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

And it was interesting because it all came to me when like I'm considering a GLP, and I'm like, yeah, take it. They're like, what? I'm like, yeah, if the doctor's happy, I will support you in it, and I will help you work out whatever the doctor recommends, we'll we'll get it done. And what I've had to do is still get them used to the scale is gonna fluctuate. And that not everyone loses 20 pounds in two weeks, like every like they see on the internet. And I think that's the that's one of the challenges with GLPs right now. They're great. I don't think you know people shouldn't have them. If you need it, your doctor says you need it, take it. Where I think it can be a problem is the abuse of it. Skinny talk is a big one. I think you mentioned Hollywood, you can talk about that in a second. And also the outsourcing of the result. Because here's what I find if you say a GLP helps you lose weight because it helps you to get into a calorie deficit and stay there, people lose their shit.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

That's right.

SPEAKER_03 37:26

They're like, no, it's it's got rid of my inflammation, it's done all, and I'm like, yeah, everything that it's doing is to help you modify your behavior. No, no, and I'm like, you're outsourcing everything that you you're now doing to this medication. Why? And I think that's the problem. It's the over-prescribing, there's everyone their dog is now a peptide expert, and I'm offering lifestyle medication and obesity medicine because people have realized they can catch on, it's a very easy way to get money, but they're not a doctor. But it's the outsourcing of agency, which I find is a big problem.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

Agency is this this concept of high agency, low agency, I've really leaned into with my clients because there is a lot of low agency people running around where like you you talk about everything gets outsourced. And then and and there's just so many reasons why, you know, I can't lose weight because of my hormones, I can't do this because of this, I have this condition, I have that, I have this, I have that, I have this. And it's like, well, but then you take this medication and it's doing all the things that you said you couldn't do because of all these reasons. These reasons haven't changed. This is the only thing that's changed. And this and and the high agency individual, that's where this identity shift that we've been talking about comes in. Where it's like you have decided that you are there are absolutely there are things you can't control, a hundred percent. But there are also a lot of things that you can, and that sweet spot is understanding what is within your like you know, that mastery that comes with being a high agency individual is that everything that is within your control is under control.

SPEAKER_03 39:36

Love that, right?

SPEAKER_00 39:38

That I mean, that's and and and the joy fills in the gaps, right? Where it's like, it's like you know, I people are like, oh, do you take pre-workout? No, I take this because pre-workout makes my ears itch. And do you take peptides? Fuck to the no. Absolutely not. No for what? For what? And you know, you kind of brought up Hollywood. It's it's ghastly what's happening. Like to watch people and and and I'm not really sure. I don't know if you have any theories. I'm not really sure why it's happening, why we're being primed with these ultra thin bodies again with the like the giant lollipop head. I'm not sure what that's about. There's been a couple, I've seen a couple of TikToks that are theorizing it's like, well, it's just priming, you know, Americans for the food shortages and everything that's to come because nobody can afford food. And it's like, maybe it, I don't know, it kind of violates Occam's razor for me a little bit. But but it's like, what is this? Is everything just that cyclical where you know we haven't seen thin bodies like this since like the late 90s, early aughts? Like every 20 years it seems to come back again. And now that it's like it, it's it's attainable for everyone. Somebody was saying, like, just wait until like everybody can get GLP ones, generic GLP ones or whatever, and then the the the beauty ideal is gonna change to something else that's expensive or hard to get. And it's like, when is muscle gonna be the luxury item? You know what I mean? Like, when is that? Because that's that's how I feel. I feel like muscle is the ultimate luxury item because it's like there you cannot buy it. I did a post a couple weeks ago, I think, where it's like you can fake a lot of things in this world. You cannot fake cap delts, you just can't.

SPEAKER_03 41:49

And that's funny because we take a very different approach to steroids and GLPs. It's so funny. Oh, we take such a so uh people will be like, oh, but check her or check him, you know, they're on steroids, I'm like, yeah, but they still got to lift the weights the same way as you have to study protein, walk, all the rest of it with your GLP. So why do we have a standard here and not here? Because if you're saying that steroids are cheating, then you're saying GLPs are cheating. Oh, but it's different, and we apply this societal difference as it fits the narrative and story that you have in you about you. That's it. And do you know what?

SPEAKER_00 42:32

I think I sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 42:33

No, I was gonna say so. Muscle for me is the ultimate luxury. I think if you it's it's the one thing that nobody can you have to hit the gym and you gotta do the work. There's there's no there's not there's nothing else.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

There's no way, there's no way around it.

SPEAKER_03 42:50

You could take a steroid, but and there's a study somewhere where they still increase lean mass, blah blah blah. But they're not gonna they're not look they're not gonna like Arnie just from sitting there and injecting themselves with steroids. It's not how it works. No, or bedtime, yeah. Muscle is gonna be the is the ultimate luxury and until science, and like you say, until when GLPs become generic, because there'll be the new one, they're already looking at Rheta. There'll be a new one, a GLP 4, whatever it is, and it will just keep going. But it's interesting to look at the dropout rates of GLP because of money, side effects. It dropped after about two years, I think, as a high, high dropout rate. So there's lots of people going, I'm gonna do it for life, I'm gonna do it for life. But when you look at the trend, actually, people drop out after two years, mainly because of affordability.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

Well, it's it's interesting because I just read something yesterday that Canada is a very unique case with the GLP ones, because somebody over at Naughty, whatever, whoever owns the patent did not did not maintain the patent for Canada. So Canada is actually, yeah, some somebody's gonna lose their job, somebody's gonna be unemployed. And so Canada is basically the first country that has is going to the market is about to be flooded with generic GLP1. So it's going to become very, very, very affordable for people in this country to get a hold of those medications. So I'm very interested to see what the dropout rate is once once that those generic versions appear on the market, what what that does. I understand, I get what you're saying about the side effects. I I know some people have very unpleasant side effects. And and you know, you know, people like, oh, well, you know, when you stop taking them, all the weight comes back. Yeah, if you stop doing anything, it's gonna come back. Like, and and that that's to me, that's just another argument for you know, using that time that you're on. If you don't want to be on these medications forever, it's the perfect time to make that identity shift and to make those behavior changes so that when you do decide to stop using these medications, you're still doing the behaviors that are that are advantageous to you.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

And and give you a favorable composition and make you feel good and all of those things. It's gonna mitigate that effect of stopping the medication. But I I I don't understand, like the microdosing is what bothers me. Like when people have 10 or 15 pounds to lose or think they have 10 or 15 pounds to lose, and they go on these medications for that. It's like, and that's what I'm seeing in Hollywood. Like, people that did not need to get smaller are getting smaller, and it's terrifying to watch. Like it's it's really, and I'm worried about the trajectory and where it's heading. Like, who's going to have to die before people go, oh, maybe this, maybe this isn't such a good idea? Because like there's there are some celebrities, I don't even want to name, I don't even want to throw names out there, but like frightfully, frightfully thin, and not just not just thinness, but like frail looking.

SPEAKER_03 46:33

I think it's in it's interesting. I saw a a lady post about how she had a really bad reaction to a GLP, ended up in hospital. We don't know if if everything was true, hey, it's but it was really interesting to see the response of people. People were like, Well, that's your fault. You took the wrong dose, user error. It was awful, and I've seen this a few times now, and you know, this girl lady, she she did, I don't think she did it for her doctor, so everyone's like, Well, it's your fault, you know, user error. And it makes me realize that actually people are very selfish, simple as that. They found something that they feel saves them. You cannot ever speak ill if or it's your fault, which is ironic because the same thing they accuse the fitness industry of saying, hey, it's your fault, you know, you're lazy, all the rest of it. They now they don't see it, but they now do the same when something goes against the GLP. So it's really interesting to see. Like, I'm geeking out on human behavior and psychology. That like literally, I think that's why I like Fred's. I just read, I'm like, okay, I can see the logical fallacy, survivorship bias, appeal to authority. I can see fallacy. Yeah, I I can see it all the cognitive dissonance, the the bias, the way the rhetoric, the arguments framed. I just sit there and just read. Yeah, I can see that now. And people will only do things when the pain for them feels enough. That's the problem. It's human nature. I don't think we'll ever change it. As much as people are trying to do good work in many things, until the pain's enough, people don't change.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

I totally agree. I totally agree. And that's yeah, I mean, that's that's just human behavior, right? It's it's it's you know, when we talk about the motivational triad, you know, we are we are wired to go towards things we perceive as pleasant, away from things we perceive as unpleasant, like making this kind of behavior change. And the only the only thing that will drive us in this direction is like you were saying, if the pain of avoiding it becomes more intense than doing it. Like when you used to leave your term paper until the night before, right? It's like, bro, if I don't start this now, like tomorrow's gonna be painful. And so then, and then you do it and you're like, why did I do this? Why did I live? That's the way we're that's the way we're made. But if you can override that that sort of the id of like last minute.com just being yeah, just being this person that's like avoiding all the unpleasant things. I I actually saw I saw something yesterday on TikTok that you know how you see something sometimes and you just go this woman was talking about loving yourself, and she's like, I I kind of had this concept of what it means, and sort of like just accepting yourself as you are and all that kind of stuff. And she's like, I think there's a bigger thing here. So she was saying, let's say, for example, I have a sink full of dishes and I don't want to do the dishes. But it's like if I think about tomorrow morning, me that gets up in the morning and the kitchen is clean and there's no dishes to do and there's nothing to do. Like, if I do these dishes now, I am loving my future morning self enough to do these dishes now, so that when I get up in the morning, I can be like, oh my God, this is amazing. The kitchen's clean, everything's done, I don't have anything to do. I can just sit and enjoy my coffee or my morning or whatever. And I was like, wow, like that is something that people that have their wheels on the road and to have that, you know, like when we talk about it all the time, the things that we just do because we know what the payoff is going to be, we know what the benefits are going to be, like that sort, that that kind of self-love is like elite level, right? Where you're like, where you can say, I don't feel like eating like this, I don't feel like doing this, I don't feel like doing that, I don't feel like going to bed now, I'd rather scroll on my phone. But how is tomorrow me gonna feel if I get my exercise, if I get my training in today, if I eat mindfully, if I go to bed early? Like, and I think I think for people like you and I that have been doing this, and I'm not saying like we're better than everybody, but maybe. But like yourself. That's something that we just that's the way we've lived for so long. It's like, yeah, if I do the everything that you do is an investment in, it's like a love letter to your future self. And it and people don't think of it like that. People don't they just think, I don't want to go to the gym today. That's all that that's and and it just stops right there. Or I don't, I feel like I feel like eating a giant bag of crisps today. That's where it ends. And it's like, well, every day. But if you can like when you when you when you switch that concept of self-love, of loving yourself, it's like future me wouldn't want me to eat like an asshole today. Future me doesn't want to feel like shit. Future me doesn't want to wake up hung over because I decided to drink half a bottle of wine, right? It's it's and it was such a cool concept of like thinking about yourself in those terms. Like, what does future me want to feel like? What does future me want to be able to do? What does tomorrow me want to be able to feel like? Right? I thought that was such a cool like reframe of loving yourself, you know?

SPEAKER_03 52:47

Well, let me ask you a question. You'll probably get this right. If you had to choose someone to save the world between Clark Kent and Superman, who would you choose?

SPEAKER_00 52:58

To save the world?

SPEAKER_03 53:00

Yeah, would you choose Clark Kent or Superman?

SPEAKER_00 53:03

I mean, probably Superman. Is that the wrong answer?

SPEAKER_03 53:07

It's the answer everyone gives me because they're like, hold on, is this a trick question?

SPEAKER_00 53:11

It is a trick question, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:13

It is because Clark Kent is Superman.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

So it's the same person. Okay, got it, got it, got it, got it.

SPEAKER_03 53:20

So it's like everyone has that superhero inside of them, and they can decide in an instant, like Superman does, to go into the phone box. We know he does it, he goes into this dock room or wherever he does, sure, you know, does the whole thing, or Wonder Woman back in the day, where she used to look around and go, no one's around, and she'd do her spin thing. Yep, that's it. And and I and that's what I'm trying to get over to clients more and more. I'm like, hey, let me ask you the question: who are you being in this moment? Are you being the person that's been performing for the rest of the world who's always working late, you know, always stressed, always attending every meeting, trying to help everybody all the time. Or are you being the person who at some point in your life you said you want to be this person? So I call that the superhero identity because I'm such a superhero geek. That's how I came about it. And it was the super it was when I looked at the Superman Clark Kent thing. I was like, oh, hold on a minute. It's there, it's already there. It's it's making that conscious decision every time to say, actually, who am I acting as? The person, as you said, who loves themselves, or the person who's gonna be stressed out, tired, not show up for their sons and daughters, family. Because they can see that, they can see you, they are watching you do everything. And you know, I asked a client once I said, Let me ask you the question Would you do that? Would you tell your daughter to do that same behavior you just did? And she went, No. And she went, and then and then it kind of then the penny dropped. She's like, Oh, and like, there you go. So not to catch them out, it's to show them the spotlight on the things that we do. We we well, I have a thing called a verdict, and I know we've got 10 minutes. We have we have this thing called a verdict, right? This is what we do classic verdict. You know what? I can't lose weight because of menopause. Verdict. Because all it does is it shuts down you looking at every other potential thing that you can do, and that's what we do to ourselves every day. I'm not disciplined, I'm not motivated, PCOS, POS, hyperfirealism, blah blah blah, everything to shut down actually exploring what's possible because we're scared. Because if I have to change my life, I can't maybe go to the wine club on a Wednesday night. I won't be seen as the fun one anymore. I won't be seen as the bubbly one, maybe whatever it is. It means I have to shift. But there's a part of you that's been going for years, this is the person I want to be. Like, can we do this now?

SPEAKER_00 56:05

Yeah. I like I I love that like that verdict of like you're right, it just shuts down every other possibility. And and for me, you know, I like to think of all of this as like levers to pull. Like you once you understand what levers to pull and what and how nothing is a permanent state of being anymore. You can choose, you know, the there's that idea of that high agency individual again where it's like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. I'll give you a perfect example. I, you know, everybody thinks like, you know, well, once I get to this goal, then I don't have to do anything anymore. And what you realize the longer you're in this is that your goals change, your aspirations change, your focus changes. There's all kinds of things that are happening. And and then, you know, you do a little experiment or you do a little challenge where I'm like, you know what? I feel like I feel like my legs are lagging behind my upper body a little bit. So for eight or 12 weeks, I'm gonna shift my training to add some more, like an extra leg day. Yeah. My my my upper body is good for right now. I'm gonna do like a hard upper body day and then do this and just see if I can bring my legs up a little bit and then go back to what I was doing before. And it's such a powerful concept of like, well, I can just pull this lever and see what happens. And and when people realize how much is really within their control, once they stop identifying with that verdict, with all those reasons why they can't, it's really quite something what's what's possible for them, right? And and when they realize that they can pull those levers and that nothing is a state is a permanent state of being, sometimes life, life is always lifing. People are gonna drift sometimes. And it's like, you know what? But now I can bring myself back because I have these tools and I have these levers that I can pull and refocus. And it's and instead of shaming yourself or like, oh, you know, I looked better last year or I looked better, like, no, no, no. You're always, you know, just in this space, and there's different different things happening and different things to adapt to, and so and and different focuses, different things in your life that you're focusing on. So I but I think that that's really, really powerful once you stop identifying with all the reasons you can't do something.

SPEAKER_03 58:36

Oh yes. I had a random question for you. It was a fan asked this question, by the way, and they wanted to ask you specifically.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

A fan of yours or a fan of mine?

SPEAKER_03 58:44

Fan of yours. A fan of mine.

SPEAKER_00 58:46

Oh, yeah. These are all my favorite questions.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

This person was asking if they had some kind of surgery, is that cheating? Is that seen as not as good? Should should they should no one have any kind of cosmetic surgery? Like cosmetic surgery, yeah, to improve their body, their look. Is that a bad thing in your eyes?

SPEAKER_00 59:11

You know what? Look, I I I feel like the motivation for it is is the important thing to look at. I think that I think that everybody should be free to do whatever they want to do to their own body. That's that is their right to do whatever they want to do. And and I know we're close to the time, but this was something that I keep seeing, and I wanted to kind of bring it up. There are quite a few influencers in the midlife space who are really coming hard at people that choose to do cosmetic surgery, choose to do injectables, choose to do whatever, whatever they want to do, even color their hair and be like, you know, don't be afraid to age. Like, this is just you're just being manipulated by you know the beauty industry and all that kind of stuff. And it's like like, you know, I don't, I still don't think it's a wonderful idea for women to pit themselves against each other. Like there's enough shit going on that you know, outside that we don't need to be going against each other because this one decides to let their hair grow great and this one decides to have a deep plain facelift. Like, whatever you want to do, that's up to you. However, I do I do understand that if and if it it's gonna make you feel more confident, if it's is something that it's always bothered you and you want to take and you want to do something, that's great. But I'm also very aware of like at a certain age, like age, like time is gonna make hamburger of all of us. That's just that's just the way it is. You can you you can't outrun it, really. Yeah, you can only do the best with what you've got, right? And I think sometimes people fall down into a rabbit hole where they fix one thing and then they see something else, and then they see something else, and then they see something else, and they're just chasing, they're just chasing this ideal that doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:12

Is that when is that when they end up on that program?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:15

Is it botched or something where the two surgeons get I'm I'm obsessed? I'm obsessed, and you know what? Like, I I know that that's like it's it's such a crazy show, but and I only get to see it when I'm in a hotel somewhere because that's what's got E.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:32

I don't get I don't get E.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:33

And you get all the trash TV, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

You get all the oh it's fantastic, but uh, but I always find you know, I like the doctors because they're this perfect mix of like kind and and reality check, where it's like, listen, we can do this, but then this is gonna happen, you know? And I think you know, chasing things around is like becomes this like, and and again, it comes back to this is I think a nice way to kind of wrap this up. It comes back to enjoying your life. Like it comes back to like, how much are you gonna be obsessed with not aging or looking a certain way or whatever? You know, I was having my my oldest son is 27 now, and I decided to be vulnerable and I shared something with him that I'm unhappy with and like, should I change it or whatever? And he was like, Like, I don't know anybody that's your age that's in the shape that you're in. I don't know anybody that's capable of the things that you're capable of. You know, I'm starting to think about like having my own family and stuff like that. I'm just happy that you're here and healthy and able to like, you know, do what I'm in an arm bar and break his neck, kind of thing. Yeah, you know what I mean. So I think I think there needs to be that balance there of what's gonna make you feel good and confident and falling down that rabbit hole of trying to chase an aesthetic that number one is created, and two just may not be realistic, you know what I mean? So, but like I said, I I do think that everybody should have the right to do whatever they want to do to their when people go, ew, that's girl. Good, it's not for you. That's fine.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:17

Like it they're your body, your choice, right? That's isn't that what you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:23

Don't combat people for choosing to do things that make them feel good and make them feel confident, like and then and then post a reel with you doing like a fashion shoot or something, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:32

Like, you know, yeah. Irony, the irony, you can't abuse people for their changing their look and then and then go.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:41

I feel like you and I are talking about the same person.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:44

I don't even know, but I've probably seen it.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

Oh, you don't know?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:47

Okay, you yeah, I've probably seen the whole I'll send it to you. Okay, cool. I look forward to it. Just before you go, awesome conversation as ever. What's one message you want to leave people with?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:59

Ugh, so much pressure. Don't forget to live. Don't forget to live your life. Don't forget why you're doing this. Don't forget why you're doing all of this. I think a lot of our conversation has been about people losing sight of what is important and why. Don't lose sight of your why. Make sure it's make sure it's powerful. Because that's that's what you'll come back to again and again and again, I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:30

Perfect ending. Ladies and gentlemen, are we flexing today? Oh, yeah, of course, of course. We need to uh see that's why I wore this pop today, you see, because I had to make sure that same yeah, because you have to strip everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:45

You ready?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:46

Ready, three, two, front, front double bye? Yeah, yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:50

Let's go. Nice, very nice. Always a always a pleasure, my friend.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:56

Always a awesome conversation with you. And I don't know, I think it's gonna be like number six when we do the next one, but yeah, we'll be in touch and we'll talk about it to the ladies and the gents who listen to this podcast all over the world. Thank you for listening. Go and follow. Alysia, drop a review and share this podcast with as many people as possible.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:19

Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Greg. It was great to talk to you.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:22

As ever. Beat you soon. Bye for now.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

Bye.