Train. Eat. Think. Episode 11 - Struggles During A Cut?

In this episode, Francis and Ben discuss the common struggles our clients and we have faced during a cutting phase. It can be a challenging part of your journey, filled with obstacles and confusion. 

Having walked the walk multiple times both as athletes and as coaches, you’ll learn how to manage things like hunger, meal timing, and decision fatigue effectively especially the leaner you get!

For online 121 coaching enquiries/information

Please contact Francis on X/Instagram @coachfhm or email fmeliacoaching@gmail.com 

Contact Ben on X/Instagram @benjaminyeezus or email ben@yeezuscrew.com  

Thanks for listening. See you next week :D 

Transcript

Introduction to Cutting Struggles

0:01

Today you need to think episode 11. Episode uh 11 already. And we're talking today about uh struggles on a cut or what do people struggle with the most now, especially after our podcast last week talking about the power of coaching? We're we're in a great spot to talk about you know what do people struggle with the most because we get questions daily from the people that we work with, we've been through multiple diet phases ourselves. So, what are the big pain points and the big struggles that people are dealing with daily on a cut? So this is gonna be uh a good one to chew on, mate, isn't it? Uh as always, uh been looking forward to this this all week. You know, we're recording as we do on a Monday night, um, been looking forward to it, mate, and really looking forward, as I say, to getting into the the meat and the veg on this one. Um, pardon the pun. Um veg. Is it time for another meal yet? Um something you know we we've been through, we understand the challenges that that come through. So we're just going to talk about you know being in the weeds and some of the things that we see from um not only our own perspective and our journeys, but for those um people that we're helping, you know, and uh in a coaching um aspect. Well, it's it's very fresh right now, you know. I'm 14 weeks into prep uh on the struggle bus, so to speak. You know, you've just finished your own cut a few weeks back. You got yourself in tremendous condition. So, you know, we're we we've been here, we're going through it. Uh so yeah, I think we we just we just kick things off, mate, and go, you know, what would you say is you know one of the biggest things, what do people struggle with? What would you say is that one of the number one things that you get questions off weekly from clients, yourself, what what would you what would you go with? I think one of the one of the great things, and as you know, Francis, we we have that little catch-up that we do before we before we start recording. And what's really great to hear is you're going through a journey at the moment where you're pushing yourself to a level that you've never been, and what you're starting to to see and and come through now is is really that you know that hunger and and how the the satiety is so important. I mean, these are things that you already know, but when you're starting to really live that you understand those little things that are coming in. So I think for me, one of the things that I really like to get across and and and hear from people is they get a little hungry when they're on diet. And one of the things that becomes really evident is you want to be getting high volume food in, you want to be timing your meals well, don't burn through all your meals too early in the morning. Make sure you're getting in um good food choices, things that are going to help you with hunger and satiety, things like potatoes

Hunger Management and Meal Timing

2:55

and that sort of thing. Because that what's what's coming through is the leaner that you're getting, hunger becomes it becomes your best friend. And one of the things I say to people is your favourite word will become no, because when you've got the goal, you really need to set that through, especially as you're pushing on. I think setting your diet up to eat the right the right foods right off the bat, that saves people a headache because people switch into a deficit, and all of a sudden, you know, they if your diet is full of hyperpalatable foods when you're in a deficit, you're gonna have a harder time because your body's gonna burn through the hyperpalatable foods, it's not gonna keep your satiety or signaling quite high. You're gonna struggle a lot more. So, right off the bat, if you can make a couple of smart, uh subtle changes to your diet in terms of what you're eating. I know we spoke about meal timing as well, very, very important, of course. Not to you know front load all your calories and you've got nothing left of the night. But what you what what you are eating is is very important. Simple things there, like as you just mentioned, taking maybe taking out white rice and swapping that for white potato, such a simple thing like that. But something like that stretches your your calories so much further, increases satiety. Things like maybe swapping out uh things like bananas and honey for maybe strawberries and blueberries, things like that. Very, very simple tweaks. Uh, if someone uh is again, if you if you if you like a good, if you do if you do like a good uh can of full sugar coke or whatever, things like that, a good old uh a good old diet coke here, you know, goes a long way. Small little tweaks like this, and I'll give you my own personal tweak that I never thought I'd have to make. You know what I mean? Um uh in Venezuela, plantains and eggs have been my breakfast for so long. I had to get rid of the plantains and bring in the porridge oats oatmeal because the plantains were digesting too fast, and I was just starving by the time the uh the saying session was coming around. So just a tweak like that, taking out plantains and bringing in the oatmeal, the oatmeal is like cement. If you're not having oatmeal when you're on a diet, you're missing out because it's like cement, it will stick in your stomach, and the satiety skilling from some oatmeal and some berries goes a long way. So there's things like that, just eating the right things and making a couple of simple tweaks up front, it sets the diet off and uh uh from good stead right up front. Yeah, I mean, even some of those things you're mentioning, I've got them in even now when when I'm back into an improvement phase. Good old rice cakes, um, decaf coffee, tea, green teas if you enjoy them. I don't know anybody why they would, but it's out there if somebody wants to try it. Again, I've still got the carbonated drinks in, sugar-free, low calorie or zero calorie, basically. Um, all of these things really help, frozen berries as

Decision Fatigue and Meal Organization

5:53

well. Um all things that even though I've shifted when you're in that that cut and and you want to get you know the maximum, basically you want to get the maximum food that you can in for the calories that you have, and try and avoid having zero carbs and like a hundred grams of protein and sixty grams of fat left for for like your last meal. So it's always important to try and get that structure laid out because it's something that's going to help you again. The deeper you're coming in, you'll probably have uh an element of decision fatigue, and you really don't want that, especially when you're dieting. And on other things as well, if you can keep it simple with the food choices that you're making, you can just repeat that, can't you? Well, the the the the decision fatigue mate, I think that is something that that that plagues a lot of people because they're chopping and changing the foods every day, and they're trying to, you know, that that that can sometimes be a problem with macros, is that people are trying to jigsaw macros together every day, and it creates a headache for them, which then causes them more stress, it causes more scale fluctuations, causes more digestive issues. So sometimes that decision fatigue creates more of a headache for people, but touching on decision fatigue, and we're talking about eating the right things as we know about the the meal time and eating the right things at the right time, we know how important that is, and I think there's there's always been a lot of the decision fatigue about what should I eat pre-work, how how should we go about that? Because I I've had it with many clients up front where you know there's a little bit of a teething process the first week or so, we're trying to piece together how much food works for them pre-training when they're in a diet phase, trying to get like get that spot on for them, and you want to make sure that you're eating enough carbohydrates before your training session. That's that's very, very important. Like if there's a time where you we we we want to maximize carbohydrate consumption in your diet phase and having enough energy for your training, it's making sure you prioritize that. Prioritize that sort of two to three hours before your training session. That's that's very, very, very important. And a lot of people they get that wrong and they start making mistakes, going into the gym, feeling fatigued, feeling lethargic, and they start blaming the deficit, start blaming the cut, but in reality, it's just their carbohydrate timing and their organization around the food, it's just a little bit off. So I know you can touch on that. Yeah, I think another thing that comes to the fore as well. One of the things obviously you want to do is if you can, in essence, live and look groundhoggy. I know that that's not going to be possible for absolutely everybody that's out there, but the closer you can get it to their. I use myself as an example. Uh, and this one, I've got my fitness pill was my choice. I'm waking up in the morning and four of my five meals are already decided for me. Um, you've said there, Francis, you know, you've been having plantains for so long,

Understanding Scale Fluctuations

8:51

you switched out to the oatmeal, but you're going to run that now for the next, let's say, four months. It's probably not going to change too much because again, you're drilling into the satiety. And once you find that flow, and you don't need to have exactly the same meals, you can rotate maybe your your carbohydrate source or your your salad and veggies and stuff like that if you want or need to, absolutely. You probably want to do that from a micro-nutrient, not just the macro but the micronutrient um element. But again, the more that you can sort of set yourself up for success and the less decisions that you can sort of take, you you've got guardrails almost built in there because there's there's no decision to make, and when you take that away, and again, I'm not saying that everybody will be able to do this because there are some people out there that like to have variety, they like to have different things, and that can absolutely work. But one of the ways that will make it easier for you and easier as well, so like when you're going to the shops, some people shop online, you've got the same basket, you're buying the same foods pretty much every week. Again, maybe just rotate some veggies or salad out, whatever it may be. But with that, it's making it so easy. You're gonna go shopping anyway, so you might as well go shopping for things that are gonna help you hit your goals, and if you're doing that, it actually doesn't take up that much more time, and it's giving you that best possible chance to make that run sort of down that road, so to speak. Uh, people do struggle with that, people really do struggle with the organization around eating similar things daily. Um, I find a lot of people they and it's it's kind of counter counterintuitive on a cut, they they try to make food as tasty as possible. Now, I'm not saying that we, you know, we just go we just eat shite, and I'm not saying that obviously our food our food and meals need to be palatable, but people who are always trying to find sources and these condiments to go on everything and make every meal as tasty as possible, that can actually work against you in a cut because you you you you're making yourself more hungrier. Sometimes eating more bland or all plainer foods to a degree, it can't keep your satiety in check because if if if you're eating super, super tasty, hyper palatable foods with all these sauces and dressings on, again, it can it can just drive hunger through the roof. So, this is this is definitely something to touch on. I'm sure you've seen this yourself. One of the things that it automatically links me back to Francis when when we're talking about that, the the the leaner you're getting, you know, if we if we use that sort of mark of 10-12%, which is going to be where we're gonna be sort of aiming in this podcast, it's like the the the wine connoisseur when you see them on the television and they've got the glass of wine and and and you start going, oh, in this food that I can taste, let's say you put a little bit of butter because you've you've maybe got some macros to play

The Importance of Patience in Fat Loss

11:46

with. If you're using small amounts of things, I don't have any issues with that. If you're putting 50 grams of butter onto your baked potato, you maybe, you know, you're maybe going to struggle to get your your your um caloric deficit that you're aiming for. But one of the good things that we've got is we've got more choice now than basically ever. There's so many sauces out there, especially here in the UK. You know, we've got Nando's, for example, around the world, you've got things like Frank's hot sauce, uh, Tabasco, and all that sort of good stuff. So you can even get that taste. And if you lean towards a kind of spicy palate, if you want to say that for want of a better term, you can get things like sriracha, all of those sort of things for very, very low to the point where you don't even need to count them on your My Fitness Pile. You know, a little sprinkle. I I I think I'm kind of lucky. I don't like my food as like soup. I I really don't. I like a little bit of sauce on the side where I can sort of dip into, and then I know that I can control if I want to. So if I'm if I'm doing a meal, there's a bee uh splash of sauce at the side that I can sort of dip into, and I prefer it like that. And if you're using those sort of you know shortcuts or hacks, if you want to call them, you're gonna get a lot more from your food, and it doesn't need to be you know dry looking, bland. I posted one the other day that was potatoes and turnip and chicken breast, and I just put a wee sprinkle of brown sauce on the top of it. Job was a good one. Satiety on that absolutely through the roof. I think that this this this is a good segue into the scale weight from some of these uh condiments that you can use on some of your your foods as well. This is people struggle with this. People struggle with the scale weight bouncing up and down from again the lack of organization and structure around the meals each day. If if it's a you're opening up a can of worms every day when you wake up, you don't know what you're eating, there's gonna be a lot of fluctuations on the scale up and down. Now, if you're that way inclined, and again, I've had clients like this, they're very emotional and very responsive to the scale. You know, we're all human, we we we we all like to see the scale going down, you know, we all do, but it it that doesn't mean progress. So, what we need to look at if you're if you're one of these people who does, you know, have maybe a little bit more of an emotional attachment to the scale, if you are that way inclined, you need to understand what you're eating daily and the sources that you put on things, the veggies or the quantities of things that you're eating, if that's changing a lot daily, there is going to be more fluctuation, so that's gonna be more stressful for you. So the clients who are that way inclined, you have to have that conversation with them. So, again, that's where it pulls back into keeping meals pretty similar, pretty repeatable. Any sort of salts and condiments and sauces that you use, try and use the similar amounts each day, don't be changing everything because that can, you know, that can easily skew the scale, two, three pounds a day. And if you're that way inclined where that causes you excessive stress, you just can't eat like that. You have to be more simple, strategic, same four or five meals every day, not a lot of variability because you you you keep it consistent, and then then the outcomes will be a little bit more consistent on the scale. So I think that's a nice, a nice dilemma to touch into the the mindset behind the scale for some clients as well and how they respond to it.

Mindset and Emotional Resilience During a Cut

15:13

Yeah, it's solid points. I mean, you're you're talking now like different levels of food volume that could require different levels of digestion. We know that some people get sleep affected the the leaner that they get. So all of these things can factor in, and I think it is one of the things that you know we we do work on to try and help people not be so focused on a couple of numbers or three numbers at the end of a week or the day or whatever. Um that you know, follow follow the process and and and try and enjoy the process as much as you can because what can happen, and as we spoke about offer, Francis, and and I know from from myself in the last I want to say 10-11 weeks of my own journey that I've just used to get lean, my skills didn't go down. I actually went up four pounds, but again, as as we were speaking about, you know inside yourself, people will be taking pictures of themselves, will be using non-scale victories as well. Your pants are feeling looser, you've maybe got a little bit more you know, bicep vein appearing, you can see the body fat coming down off different places, you've gone down a belt notch, all of these things factor into the progress that you're making rather than it just being those numbers on the scale. But I think you're absolutely right there. The again, the the more um the more kind of I use the word stringent, it's probably just the more focused and and repeatable you make things, then the better. Yeah, it's it's just for the people who do who do struggle with the scale, because as I say, you you've you've seen it yourself, mate. You've worked with plenty of people, there's a lot of people who can be a lot more hyper-focused on the scale, and you'd have to have these conversations with them that it is only a number, but the more organized you can be with your food, your hydration, and keeping it similar, it's gonna keep it a little bit more repeatable. Whereas if these these people are just going crazy every day, changing everything, it's there's gonna be you're opening up a can of worms in terms of readings, but it is just a number. There is a lot of factors that can uh influence it, and your whole progress on a fat loss phase is not just like your progress for one week, just because your average body weight isn't down what you expected, that doesn't mean you you have made no progress. Again, this is something a lot of people struggle with. I have to have this conversation all the time with everybody. It's not just about scale numbers, as you mentioned. There we said off air for me. My last week, uh my scale weight didn't drop at all, but I'm leaner, visually leaner. Checked in with me coach photos. Yeah, we look harder this week, we look leaner this week, we look grainier in certain areas. Physique's changed, but body weights have stayed the same. So again, it just goes to show that you don't just put your whole success of a diet just on the scale alone, and that is something a lot of people struggle with, and we have to educate them on.

Navigating Social Situations and Food Temptations

18:01

I've even had journeys with clients where I just pull the scales out. I I get to know them, we maybe use it for a couple of weeks. Again, with our experience, Francis, you'll know yourself. You can you can kind of look at somebody, and you've just got like a coach's instinct or eye, whatever you want to call it, you know where they're gonna sit calorically in terms of like adherence levels, assuming all of that that's the same. And one of my clients that I've just shared very recently, um, we took the scales away from him for nearly I wanna let's say six months, five months, six months. He's down 20 kilos from the first time he stepped on the scales, but we've been using non-scale victories, and the reason for that was at the beginning, he wanted to really see them come down quickly. Um can I do more? I I want to do more, I feel good, and I think this is going to uh link very nicely um into what we were talking about, um, aggressive type diets, um, aggressive deficits and the sort of pitfalls there. So, what what I'm trying to do is trying to hold them and say, you know, we've got a long journey in front of us here. There's no point in jumping off the cliff, and then we don't have anywhere to push because we've played all the cards, all the cards have been played. You you can't and you can't go back. The only thing you could do then obviously start looking at things like a diet break, uh back to maintenance for a while, all these sort of things. But I think it gives us a good segue into being too aggressive out the out the gate. Yeah, and that's that's that's a big thing that people struggle with, mate, isn't it? It's uh again, it's all the uh it's the attachment to again, there's a scale number, they want to see that coming down as fast as possible, they want to be dropping body fat as fast as possible, and uh, of course, we we wanna we want to be seeing changes for our efforts, of course, but there is a there is a middle ground that you'd have to strike. I had this conversation recently with a client about 10 days ago, it was he came to me and said, I feel like uh I feel I can go faster, I feel I can I can increase the deficit even more, I feel I can up my steps, and he was already he was he was losing body fat at a good rate, his visuals were changing. We were just in that sort of sweet spot, the the strike zone where I like to keep people, we were exactly where we needed to be. Now I had to explain to him that look, if we we could we could drop your calories right now, and we could increase your steps, your expenditure, your cardio, but likely we'd start to dig a recovery hole that would be even deeper, and we'd need to fill that at some point. So you're just gonna crash and burn. Whereas right now, we're in that sweet spot, we can get an extra 10, 11, 12 weeks of consistent fat loss here. Whereas you could push harder for maybe the next four weeks, but then you crash and burn, you'd end up having to take D-Loads and diet breaks anyway, so then you're just back to square one. Whereas if you just hold your nerve, you just keep being patient, keep doing what you're doing. People don't want to hear that. But fat loss is a patience game. Once you're

The Role of Gratitude in the Cutting Process

20:58

set, once you've got your deficit set, you're eating your same foods daily, you've got your cardio and your output where it needs to be. You just sit there, you just settle, and you just execute seven days a week, and it just all adds up. But it's not fancy telling people that. But sometimes you've got to get people out the out their own way, that's as you spoke about last week as well. Two birds are used, there, Francis. Fat loss. Fat loss is very, very, very different from weight loss. We could take 10-14 pounds off someone in in a in a week, two weeks, but just don't eat any carbs. You'll feel good for seven days, maybe. And then again, as you've if you have oh excuse me, as you've absolutely said, you crash and burn. So those low calories are going to eventually amplify hunger. They're gonna give you the cravings, which puts you potentially at a binge risk. It's not long term sustainable and it's it's that. It's all the things of weight loss. Again, exactly as you said, the the game here is fat loss, which is a very different game. You want to fuel the performance, which includes your training. And by in by fueling that performance, you're chipping away at the body fat. And one thing as well to remember, it took a long time, most likely years, multiple months to maybe accrue the body fat that left you in a spot where I'm unhappy or I need to do something about this. You need to give your body the same time and patience to bring the body fat back down. And again, that comes from the training that you'll do, the steps that you'll do, the cardio that's probably in there as well. But it becomes, as I say, about fat loss, and it's very, very different. And you quite rightly say, mate, patient, a patient journey for fat loss, weight loss is different. Any anybody can, you know, just take take a macro off you and say, do two hours of cardio a day. Again, people they're just so hyper focused on maybe a scale number coming down or getting leaner, they're so interested in it's just it's fat loss, leaner, getting shredded, like it they're just interested in that. But they forget about the other side of it, which is holding on to good training performance. If we want to protect muscle tissue, you you've got to hold on to your training performance as much as you can. You've got to fight tooth and nail for that. So that's where we've got to find that sweet spot and sort of rate of loss. Because if you're too aggressive, your training is going to start to feel like absolute shit. The likelihood that you lose muscle tissue goes through the roof. We don't want that, we want to protect everything with our training. Vitally, vitally important. And as you say, it's not weight loss, it's fat loss and muscle retention. That's the key. That's what gets you to the end of the diet phase with all your muscle intact and all the fat off the body. But muscle, the muscle tissue has to stay there. You've got to give it a reason to stick around, and that's why we've got to fuel performance, get ourselves in just enough of a deficit to take care of the business. But again, it's not too aggressive, so you don't jump off that cliff and fuck yourself up. You know, this is this is the um this is what you see, and it's no, it's no dissimilar from doing uh a diet where you don't focus on the fat loss aspect, it's just how low can I get my calories, uh, how high can I get my output? And again, you're just burning through at that point muscle at a rate of knots. And I use the term azempic face because everybody will know what I'm talking about. It's no different from doing uh a diet uh for a certain period of time and having no resistance training inside that diet. 40% or up to 40% of the weight that you would lose comes from lean muscle, uh sorry, lean mass, which includes muscle tissue. And that's again not where you want to be. Um you want it to be as much as much of a deficit so that you can feel your performance, your training, and try and get stronger. I mean, at the end of the day, just because you're in a deficit doesn't mean um you can't get stronger. And I think that is going to take us nicely into the sort of next point I wanted to make, which is that kind of mindset and framing about um uh a deficit, you know, rather than being like, oh, you know, I'm on 1800 calories, I'm on 1500 calories, whatever it might be. Flip that on its head and be like, I've got five opportunities to eat today. We mentioned right off the the top of the show today, getting the satiety high with um foods that make make you feel fuller for longer, give you more food volume. If you're getting, for example, 1800 calories, you could get a lot of food with that, and it doesn't then need to feel like you know, like a sort of prison sentence. But if you're going down harible, hyper palatable type route, and that's not to demonize haribo, I eat them myself, but I'm just saying if you're on fairly low calories to that degree, you don't really have room for harible, in all honesty. It is about it's it's it's the it's the attitude and the mindset that you that you have to be in on a cut as well, mate. As we're we're big on it's it's it's the whole gratitude piece that again, you if you're if you're dieting on 2,000 calories, you get to the 2,000 calories, you get to spread that between four or five meals. You you're not starving. You could go and end the cut at any point. And it is good to always have that mindset and that sort of mind frame where you're like, you're choosing to do this, no one's got you at gunpoint. You know, you you're you you've got the the funds and the means to have your fridge and cupboards fully stocked with food. There is people who are legitimately starving who can't afford any of the food that you've got. So you're choosing to do this, you're choosing to you know empower yourself and move your life forward by dropping some body fat. And you've always got to pull it back to uh to gratitude. Now, I'll give you the great story and I don't the personal anecdote from last week. I I was in the gym, and you know, there was there was a blind girl, there was a blind girl getting chauffeured around the gym by one of the PTs in there. She must have been about 21, 22. She was blind, obviously, couldn't see nothing. She was having to be chauffeured around the gym. And on this, in this particular day, you know, I was straining the legs and I was I was I was knackered, I'll be honest. I was in there, you know, deep into the cut, and I was blowing and I seen her walking too. I was like, fucking hell, mate. Like I've got nothing to complain about here. Like, I'm on a yeah, I'm I'm in the middle of prep. I get I choose to do this, I choose to diet. I can come in the gym here and get stuck in. I've got all my senses, I've got functioning body, functioning limbs. So it was just it was a nice sort of smack in the face, and I think every now and then it's it's it's nice to get those reminders and just always pull it back to gratitude that we we get to do this stuff, and it's it's it's a genuine blessing, it really is. It reminds me once of a I always struggle between memes and infographics, but it was like this particular meme. It was a man in the street, and he sees the man on the bike, and he's like, Oh, I wish I had a bike, and the man on the bike sees the man in the Lamborghini, and he's like, Oh, I wish I had a Lamborghini. Yadda yadda yadda. And sometimes it just leads you back to you know that gratitude that you have of you know, we we we're choosing to do this, we're learning things about ourself, we can stop it at any point, but that's the fun part, you know, where you're sort of starting to set and find new limits of yourself because it's very, very easy to just be like, I give up. That's that's easy, you just stop, you don't have to do anything, but carrying on and learning and seeing where you're at is one of the best things on a particular journey for for fat loss to like a very decent level. I think that's where people a lot of people do struggle, me, with just it's it's dealing with those emotions on a cut, dealing with the the tiredness, the hunger, maybe some of the irritability that comes. They struggle with dealing with that, and they they just they start complaining, they start being an asshole to the family, and it's just it cascades. It's as soon as it starts to creep in, it just gets worse, and you've got to cut that negativity out from the get-go, cut it out from the from the core and go, look, ultimately again, it's a choice. You're choosing to do this, don't take it out on other people, don't take it out on your wife, your kids, whoever it may be, your co-workers, just because you're maybe a little bit tired or a little bit hungry, you know, you're choosing to do this, and I think this is this is this is a nice segue into dealing with that with family members, and you know, ultimately, yeah, it is a choice. But I'd say this this is definitely one of the biggest struggles that that clients have and people have is dealing with the emotions that come from you know going through the ring of touches you are getting leaner because it ultimately happens to all of us. Yeah, I remember it well when I used to I used to work in the office and I used to get do you know get fed up eating chicken and whatever? And I was like, yeah, not until you mentioned it. Um and and and people would come in, you know. My particular favourite was like Tuesday afternoon, must have been buy one black pudding supper, get one free, because this gent would come in with two black pudding suppers, and the smell of the salt and vinegar was just like, oh my god, and I remember, you know, obviously you're on prep, smells like that, but you're you're just knuckling down. It's it's one of those things, again, like you say, uh, you're choosing to do this, and you you can't then force that on other people to make or even understand the the choices that you've made because you want this because you've identified you aren't happy at the point where you are, or you want something better, you want to create something, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that if that's your choice, but you can't then beat somebody up that maybe wants to eat a burger in front of you, you've just got to take that on the chin, unfortunately, and and enjoy your chicken and rice because you know you either you either want the goal. Um, I I can't remember I think I was talking to my sister and she said, I I saw something and it says uh you can have results or you can have excuses, uh, you can't have both, and and that it just fits perfectly. Um you can have the result, which is obviously you stay in the staying the the path, the goal that you set many months ago. Uh keep doing it after you've said it. You know, because six weeks or twelve weeks has passed, but like yourself, Francis, you know, you're however many weeks, 14 weeks down the line, you don't you're not giving up. You won't see you you'll see it through to the end, another 15 weeks to go, another 17 weeks to go. Um you're gonna see this through to the end. And I think it's uh in those tough moments, you know, it happens to all of us. Like you can't take it out on your family members, then they're not dying. That that's on you. You can't make them not suffer, not suffering, you know, make it sound like it's something like horrendous happening because you're you're within a little bit of a calorie deficit. But if you've got your meals and calories that you're eating and you and your family isn't, you know, they're not having the same thing as you. And again, I have a lot of clients who they've got kids, got a wife. I'm the same. I can give you my own example. A couple of weeks ago, you know, the my my wife's dad owns a pizza restaurant, so they routinely they they like to have pizza. You know, I've got the little man in there who's just over two, and he wanted to have a nice little pizza with his mum. So they had a they ordered a takeaway pizza about two weeks ago. I'm sitting there having my own dinner, just my my normal uh my my uh I make my own tortillas with uh with lean uh lean beef and my little salad to the side. I had my own meal. They they enjoyed pizza, they enjoyed the nice pepperoni pizza and margarita pizza, little man enjoyed his pizza. I'm not gonna sit there and go, you can't have that. I'm in prep. Oh no, we can't do that. The smell of the pizza was glorious. There's nothing, there was nothing more that I would have loved to have done than just grabbed that pizza and inhaled it. But I've got my goal, I know what I'm doing. I stick to my plan, I stick to my plan, don't stick to my feelings or my emotions. Just just crack on, let the family enjoy their pizza. Happy days. You don't need to make a big song and dance over it because that's that's that's the thing. People will make a big song and dance over it. They start having arguments with the spouse and the family. You can't have pizza, I'm on, I'm on prep, I'm dieting. You can't be selfish like that, you can't do that, you know. And I I think a lot of people do struggle with that. I think as well, what feeds into pardon the pun, oh, it's a terrible pun. It feeds into a little bit of what becomes almost a food obsession. You know, it is hard, mentioned in the past, where don't think about the white polar bear, you think about the white polar bear. But what you want to do is unfollow these food pages that you maybe come across on social media. If it comes onto your feet, get rid of it, start, you know, because looking at that type of food content, looking at desserts, cheat meals, pages in restaurant, you're just um you're torturing yourself in essence, you know, uh for for for no gain. You know, I made the mistake, and this is something that I've always sort of maintained. This was before I was a coach myself, and I fell foul of the social media, get a hamper's worth of Pop Tarts and Cocoa Pops and

Navigating Social Media and Food Focus

35:00

whatever P28, peanut butter, whatever it would be, and uh seven Oreos. We spoke about that. Um and and like I fell foul of it. I I managed to blow my condition in in 14 days, so I'm really, really big on that, and I think that comes from blocking out that noise and understanding that you know the the leaner that you get, you will become a bit more food focused, and it will challenge you, it will challenge everyone to different degrees. But one of the things you can do is just try and stay away from that type of content. Yeah, I think you're you're fighting or losing battle there. If you if you're sitting there on Instagram and you you you're scrolling all these dessert pages and burger pages, like just get rid of that. Like that that makes that that's just mental torture. Why, why, why are you doing that anyway? Like that just that just makes no sense. That's just making life hard for yourself. Makes no sense. Well, yeah, I I think I I I think with that mate, I I think and another thing which when you're talking about the topic of social media in a dire phase, could be comparing yourself to other people, comparing yourself to other people who are further along the journey than you, who might be you know, have 10 more years of experience on you. I've had this before with clients where they've sent me pictures of fitness influencers or certain people, and they've went, Do you think I can look like this? Do you think I can do this? That's another big one that people struggle with, and again, it comes back to not comparing yourself with others and genuinely staying in your own lane and focusing on your own process. And on diet faces, especially, I people do struggle with this because they're seeing, you know, you know, yourself made a lot of these sort of photo shoot and some of the photos they've got the perfect lighting, the perfect angles. The see people are seeing all this on social media. Social media is a highlight reel, as we spoke about before, and you've got to be careful of that of comparing yourself and pitting yourself against other people. You've got to just stay in your own line and focus on your own journey. Yeah, the good one I like on that is don't compare your week you know 15 to somebody else's week 150. You can only be people probably kind of laugh and say it's cliche or whatever. You can literally only be the best version of you if you know that you've given it your all and you've tried to the best of your ability with with anything that might be going on in life, as long as you've given it your all, and you can wake up in the morning and look at yourself and go, I tried my best, and that's basically the best that I can be. There's absolutely no shame in that. Other people, something I've had to accept as well. You know, there's people out there that are bigger than me, that are stronger than me. I've got clients that I know can make progress, they can do in six months what would what would take me 10 years, and I'm not even exaggerating, and I'm and I know that, but that's just unfortunately part of the genetic card that we can be dealt. But you you work hard

The Importance of Enjoying the Process

38:00

and you internalise it and you say I'm gonna be the best that I can be. If that takes me 10 years, which it did, or takes me, you know, 15 years or whatever, the only thing that you can say is it's it's worth it. It's enjoying the process. I think that's that people don't think about that on on diet phases, especially if it's your first big one. If you're someone who if you've never if you've never been anywhere close to 10% body fat, if you've never been down there, you're gonna change as a person, you're gonna you're gonna develop a totally new mindset, resilience and thought processes. As you're coming all the way down there, it's not the physique that changes, it's the whole mindset. You've got to again be one with with enjoying that process because if you don't enjoy the process, you or think about what you're becoming on this process, you're losing out on so much of the journey. It's not just about a physique and 10% body fat, that's it. What are you what what what what person are you becoming to make that happen? That is that that is so so valuable because that has a that has a knock-on effect on every other area of your life that we spoke about. So,

Staying Busy and Managing Distractions

39:11

yeah, again, it is staying in your own lane, staying in your own process, and just enjoying that. It's it's so valuable. I think something worth mentioning as well that's just come to my mind, Francis, is staying busy. You know, it's so easy to get drawn in, and you've got your goals. That are one of probably many things that are happening in your life alongside work and family and responsibilities or whatever. But the busier that you can stay, have your framework, have your as we're talking about, your repetitiveness, call it boredom, call it repetition, call it whatever you want. You know, that that sort of framework sits there. You know that you're getting up at X time, you eat at Y and Z, you train, and then if you're busy the rest of the time, you know, don't let the fact that you're a bit tired take you away from getting those steps in that you need to get. You know, your body is at a point going to want to reduce your output outside the gym. And this is part of what we're talking about when we're saying about learning and pushing. You need to find those new limits because you might be tired, but that's what your body's trying to do to you, and that's where you need to sharpen the mind to say, Yeah, I'm I'm gonna push because I want the goal more than I want. So do do those things that are um spontaneous, you know. If if you've got family or friends, jump out and get a coffee, make it a walking coffee, for example. Maybe plan, I don't know, a hill walk, something that something that you enjoy that maybe doesn't need to be the gym or or around that sort of um sphere, if you like. And the more that you can then try to think of the best way to put this, the more you can sort of zoom out, and you've got other things going on and another part, you've still got your V sphere, you come in it, you know, you've got your training, you've got your meals, but the more you've got going on around here, the more it'll keep you away from social media and uh and those cake videos. But staying busy, mate, you're you're so right there. The worst thing you can do, uh I've been there, mate, and I know you have like you're sitting there and you're sitting in the house, you're clock watching, you've got nothing to do, and you and you're sitting there counting the the the clock hand coming down for your next meal because you're that hungry and you're just so food focused. But whereas if if you're if you're focused on a different task, whether that be you know your business, uh you're with the family, or as you say, going out for a coffee, very, very simple things like that. It just it takes your mind, it preoccupies you from just just focusing on the next meal, uh, what I'm gonna eat. I I had the same thing of late mate, like literally with with the little fella and and the um and the missus, we we we we went out for a coffee, went out for a coffee, we went to like the local mall and we put the baby in one of those uh you know, the little cars that you walk around with, they got the handle on. So we were walking around the mall just looking around some of the shops and

Understanding the Reality of Dieting

42:11

that. By the time I looked at my watch and my phone, it was it was close to five o'clock and come back, and I'd missed me sort of meal time by like 30 minutes because I was that distracted. And that doesn't normally happen. Uh so come home, had my food, but I was just it it it burned through a couple of hours on one of my best days versus instead of just sitting in the house and looking at the uh looking at the clock and going, oh fucking hungry, yeah. Because that that that that makes it worse. But yeah, we've we've all we've all been there, haven't we? But trying to stay as busy as you can. And yeah, there will uh there will be some of those tough days where you you know your your energy level is uh the battery is uh is running on red, so to speak. I need to share a probably like a personal gripe of mine. And this is I look I look flat, and you the the way that you've come to the end of your sentence there is absolutely perfect for this, Francis. You should look flat, you should be glycogen depleted, you are gonna potentially look worse, certainly at a point before you look better, and you are gonna be flat. You can't be popping full and be definitely losing body fat. We'd all love that, and this fits into the perfect uh scenario of you know, I can get muscle tissue on and stay shredded year round by by main gaining. There is no there is no magic. You're gonna get flat because you aren't replenishing the glycogen fully. Your deficit needs to come from somewhere, which will come from carbohydrates and uh dietary fats, because that's where most of your energy is gonna come from. We're looking to protect obviously muscle tissue, as we've mentioned, with protein in the diet, positive. Hydrogen balance, all that good stuff, but you are gonna look flat, and that one sort of grinds my gear a little bit because you can't be popping full and and looking as if you have no fatigue on your physique all the way through. My favourite saying for this mate, you've you've you've got to look flat to drop the body fat. It's as simple as that. And again, you know, as you say, you're not gonna be coming in feeling uh popping full when you're when you're just when you're in the midst of a of a deficit and you you are taking off that body fat, it's just uh it's just impossible. Like obviously, we we can we can tarm our carbs as much as we can pre-training. You know, if if people like to use pre-warehouse like pump enhancers with with chicken mallet and things like that,

Training Adjustments During a Cut

44:48

it works to a point. But once when when you're in the the depths of a diet phase, you're not gonna be coming in like you're you know, your peak building phase and you're full of carbs and you're just well fed and you're you you're bursting out of your uh your top. It's not gonna be like that in a diet phase. And I think a lot of people uh they chase that feeling, and that can sometimes change the training as well because people then start to try and chase a pump, they try and chase that fullness, start changing the training, they start, you know, they start doing all of this this fucking nonsense that we we want to avoid, you know. So it's just again it that's a big mistake that people make, isn't it? Again, they're chasing that pump, chasing that fullness, just keep your training the same as it has been all the way throughout. I'm smiling because you've done it again, you read my mind. I I don't know how you do it, but you you manage to do it every single week. Exactly that you know, you you are unfortunately gonna notice, and again, this is where mindset comes in. We we're not saying just give up and and assume that you're because you're in a deficit, that everything's gonna go to the way. You're in, I don't like saying the I don't like saying the word war or whatever, but you're in you're in a real spot here where you need to fight for everything down to every single rep. We we've touched on in an earlier podcast about how you should approach your training sessions, how you should approach your reps and sets, and unfortunately it comes to the fore here because it's so important. Your performance is going to drop off at a point, but what you want to do is try and make that last as long as you can. Now, it doesn't mean again that that's the same for everybody, some people will still get stronger, and that's where you need to put your mind because even though you might have a recovery decline because your calories are down, maybe sleep's not great, your terms of the quality, there's a bit of stress going on in life. It's about literally fighting for everything that you've got, and the other thing that it might need as well, or might identify, and this is another thing that people really struggle with, Francis, especially in a deficit, which is having more rest days and reducing the training volume, which is exactly as you ended your your last sentence. You know, don't go and do more again. We've touched on in earlier podcasts what builds muscle, keeps muscle. You're not gonna need to do five sets or 50 reps because you weren't a wee pumper or you read on somewhere that that's what creates you know um psychoplasmic hypertrophy. I'm not interested in that, but you are gonna need a point to to conserve and have a bit of rest. Because as we said in the last point, you're not replenishing the glycogen, which means you're not giving the energy back. So there needs to be there needs to be trade trade-offs. Definitely on a on a diet phase. This this is not a time to be adding more training days or adding more training volume. That is that is a 100% a no-no. There is there's no scenario where you're gonna be wanting to add training volume through a cut. Your big focus is is as we've said, mate, it's coming in and keeping that set quality high, keeping the stimulus as high as we can get it, and fighting tooth and nail for making every set count uh to go towards the the stimulus and muscle retention because that's what's gonna keep the muscle tissue hanging around. It's those the hard, the heavy, the accurate sets. And we're not just gonna come in and just start fanning around with adding extra volume and chasing the pump because we have we've we've never done that, so why are we gonna start doing that now in a cut? Because you're feeling a little bit flatter and you're trying to chase a pump. Your training should just stay the same again. If anything, training volume at some point can be reduced to touch. And and this this doesn't mean completely half on your training volume, it could be a simple thing as I've done it before with clients that they let's say someone is doing three sets of squats, you bring it down to two. You know, someone's doing three sets of leg extension, you bring it down to two. It's that's it's that simple if they need to do that. Of course, we're not coming in and going, right, you've got you're doing a 15-set leg warehouse, we're just gonna bring that down to four sets now. We're not talking about that drastic amount of volume drops, little tinkers here and there where you might need it just to help you fill that recovery hole or that recovery depth that you're gonna create. That's all it is, just small subtle tweaks, but it's definitely not a time for right. I'm gonna start pushing my volume to the max now and start doing just all crazy nonsense that you haven't been doing. It just makes no sense. Yeah, it definitely doesn't, you know. And we're speaking about, you know, we need the stimulus we should stimulate and not be looking to annihilate. I think that thought can be out there that more is more, and the longer you go on a diet phase, the less it becomes more, you know, you can't just keep pushing and pushing and giving more. Let's be honest, some people will, some people will get away with it, but the vast majority are going to come a cropper, whether that'll be potential injury risk, you know, your your tendons are getting loaded, your ligaments you as you're reducing in body fat, you've got less protection around things like um tendonitis and those sort of things, and we really want to be protecting against them because, in my opinion and experience, and I'm not saying that nobody will ever get tendinitis, but what I'm saying is as long as you're not going in and off the deep end, there's a good chance you won't experience any of that because you haven't changed, so to speak, what you're doing in the deficit from a training perspective. Yes, you've dropped your calories, there's a bit more activity in terms of maybe doing cardio, doing a bit more steps, but you need to be or be thinking of an element of protecting your body to get you through that phase as opposed to just throwing more and more because it's finite, we are finite, different people's finite will look different. We've got different fuel tanks in us just as as a as a sort of natural selection thing, um, and it's one of the things you know that's really important to get out there.

Managing Fear of Muscle Loss

51:02

Touching on the fuel tank there, mate. I think I've got a nice question for you here when it comes to training uh on a cut. Now, obviously, we we don't want to change it too much, as we've just said, for all the reasons, but we're trying to we're trying to protect as much muscle tissue as we can, and we we're coming in the gym, and you know, we we don't tell ourselves this, but we're coming in on limited fuel, we're not well fed, we know that with but we don't tell ourselves that and play into those games. But there can be, you know, where you make some smart speaks with dropping some volume. Where do you stand on rep ranges when it comes to okay? We're coming in the gym, we've got a lower carbohydrate availability than we normally have. Would you be a little bit more cautious with too many high rep sets because you burn through a lot more carbohydrates with maybe sets of 15 to 20 versus maybe six to eight? I know this this is a nuanced question, and we know all rep ranges work and all rep ranges are great, but maybe avoiding too many high rep sets, you know. As an example, you do a set of 20 on a hack squat versus a set of 10. If you do two sets of 20 versus two sets of 10, there's there's a lot more fuel that you're burning through there. So it's just it's these are just small little things to be thinking of with your rep ranges with the with your training when you're on the deeper ends of a cut. What would you think on that? Yeah, I I think you're absolutely right. I mean, there is no denying that when you're doing the higher end of the rep ranges, that there is more fatigue because you are taking longer to get there. You know, we're not arguing against the hypertrophy there because we know it happens across a range as long as it's your proximity to failure and your mechanical tension, but you're absolutely right. It's why I am a fan in that sort of 8 to 12 range, and I don't really unless it's a intermediate to the end of intermediate coming into advanced, where I would do things like intensity amplifiers. So if it was a client like that, you know, I'd be looking at the intensity amplifiers, things like rest pause sets, maybe even like a muscle round, I must admit, and and starting to bring those down and out, maybe replacing them with straight sets of 8 to 12 so that you're not pushing on again how much you're you're burning in the session, but from a from an overall um load point and let's say the last eight, ten weeks of dieting, again, you're just protecting from digging into too much of a hole. And that that's exactly it. It's that it's that whole recovery death that we we don't want to create that's too deep that you can't recover from it. We know that's important anyway, even when you're well fed, we want to be able to recover from our trainer, but even more in the deficit, you don't want to be doing anything in the gym that you don't really have to do. We want to get in there, get the stimulus, and get the fuck out. Start recovering and start getting yourself ready to come back again. Just digging that recovery hole deeper and deeper and deeper, doing drop sets, you know, because John Meadows done drop sets, nothing against John Meadows. John Meadows is a legend, by the way, an absolute legend. But people will look at stuff like this and and think, I need to do this, I need to do that because he does this, he done that. You've got to look at it and go, okay, well, is that gonna make my recovery hole even worse and then take away from the next session? Or am I just better going with, as an example, straight and tense accurate sets, ticking the box, getting the job done, and getting out and recovering, and then one eye on the next session because that's what it's all about. It's not just this session in isolation, especially in a cup where you're trying to string together 20 24 weeks of a cut on a diet phase. It's not going to be what you're gonna do today on Monday. Well, what are you gonna be able to do on Thursday? What's coming on Saturday? You've got to have one eye on this. I've got another um another challenge, let's just call it, and it's the uh the fear of losing muscle. Now I see this often when people are are in a dieting phase and they say, you know, well, I feel like I've lost a lot of muscle in this cut, you know. And one of the things obviously we've said is we're we're trying to protect people from being too aggressive. And the thing being there is if you've got your protein at a good level, you haven't pushed your calories too low or your energy availability, you will protect the muscle tissue that you have. Now, one thing that can be a kind of stark wake-up call, and something I've had myself, I didn't have quite as much muscle, or I had areas, and I still do have areas for development. You know, I certainly don't think I'm perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I've got a lot of work still to do, even though I'm many years in. But that fear of losing muscle is a real one. And would you say that fear of losing muscle that stops people from pushing where they actually need to go with you know, on some of these tough days where fatigue is high, you know, the hunger is high, they start thinking, I'm losing muscle here. They win the gym one day and then they're feeling more lethargic than normal. This is where you've got to dig, this is where you've got to grit your teeth. This is this is it's game on now. This is this is this is where the cut starts, this is the fun.

Dealing with Diet Breaks and Setbacks

56:10

I sound like a psychopath, but this it's this sort of mindset now. Okay, this is where this is where we go, this is where we've got to you know, attack the challenge head on, and people will get to this phase of a cut and and they back away and and and they and they don't push where they need to. I I think that's a fantastic point, you know. The the fear of losing muscle, if that drives you into the mindset where you're not, and then adds even more cortisol to what what you're experiencing, you're actually creating that scenario out of having the fear in the first place. So I think again it feeds into what we've sort of came again from the top of the episode. You know, it's about how we approach it, how we look at it, and making sure that we see it through not just the day-to-day that we're doing when we're in it and and we're in everything that needs to be done, it's that zooming out and looking at the entire journey in itself. And I know that that's where obviously as coaches, you know, we can come in and we're helping to manage that. We're empowering people and saying, but remember this, or or look at that, and and we're trying to sort of package it all up so that people understand maybe where they've been, where they're at, and and certainly where they're going. Um another one I wanted to touch on was um let's just say, because it happens to the best of us, I'll I'll admit that it's happened to me. I've broke my diet, you know. I've come through so many weeks of dieting. I've been absolutely great to the point I've been, you know, to the gram. If it's a hundred grams of chicken, you know, hundred grams of chicken on the scale, but there comes to a point where you break diet, you know, and it's maybe I've had something I shouldn't have. Let's just say it was a wimpy. Let's say it was a wimpy because it was a wimpy. Um I was working away. Um I was up nice and early, it was like four in the morning, and I was in a meeting. And could I get the hunger to go? No. I was drinking, you know, the Sports Direct mugs that are about that size full of black coffee. It was that bad, and I'm trying to drink them as much as I can to get the hunger to go. Anyway, on that particular day, I managed to I broke my diet, I went to Wimpey. I did confess about it, I'll be honest. You know, I fessed up, and all I did was confessed about it and basically just got myself right back to it. Um, so I just wanted to touch on that point, you know, that sort of all or nothing thinking. Oh, I've had one meal off, that's it, you know, throw everything in the air, yeah, and that's it. I'm I'm done, just cancel it. Well, I I think you know what obviously with the with the clients that we work with, mate, this this happens inevitably, you know. Uh if if it's it's even laughing for yourself, there, you know, it's it every now and then it's gonna happen. Obviously, we want to avoid it as much as possible, but how do we deal with it? Again, how do you respond to it? That's that's always the key. And it's always again, right? I've used this analogy before. It's the it's it's the pen in men in black where he holds it up and he forget about it. It's it's that sort of scenario. You've got the pen there, hold it up, just it off. It is what it is, right back onto your sort of diet and you're like your eating plan the next day. Don't turn it into okay, you uh I I've I've had two, three thousand calories over on Saturday night. I'm gonna wake up on Sunday and think I'm bollocks to it. I'm gonna do the same again, I'm gonna go absolutely nuts, and before you know it, you've got to Tuesday, Wednesday, and you're four or five days of just chaos. That's the worst thing you can do. If you've over at you've had a bad day of your eating, it's one day, 365 days in the year, get yourself back on the horse the next day. It's as simple as that. You choose your response and you don't want to make it what you don't turn one bad day into you know uh a month of uh chaos. I I think is is very valid. You know, one of the ones I really like is if you've made a mistake or you've something's happened, don't double it, just try and get right back to what you're doing. And that's always something, anyway, that I've carried, you know, mistakes happened, none of us are perfect, we don't need to be, in all honesty. You know, we want to be as close to it, we definitely want a high level of adherence where we can, but perfection doesn't exist, and we don't beat ourselves up by having something like that, you know. As I say, on multiple preps that I've done, I've broken once at some point, and then it's like, okay, that's happened. I'm maybe ahead of the curve anyway, or whatever. Um, and I'm I'm just straight back to it the next day. There's no punishment cardio, there's no, oh, I'm gonna take it from this meal and that meal. It just happened for me. It happened. We go over the bump and and we just carry on, sort of regardless. Um,

Eating Out While on a Diet

1:00:58

we are coming up in the hour, and there was there was just two more. I wanted two more points. Yeah, well let's let's let's dive into them, mate. Let's go for it. I think we've got to we've definitely got to touch on uh meals out because that I think that that's a big one that people struggle with on a diet phase, especially you know, with people who've got families, they've got obligations, like work commitments. You know, people are invited to these dinners and they're they're working with potential clients or colleagues, they're going out for dinner. People can't just sit in the house and eat chicken and rice out of a tupperware, and you know, we know that I think a lot of people struggle with this, and they have the anxiety around uh eating out and going out to restaurants and managing that. So I think we've uh we've we've we've got to touch on that in terms of like well, what can we do? You know, you're you you you're going out for a you've got a birthday meal, you're in the midst of a diet, you're uh you're a business owner and you're you're being invited out to lunch with clients. What do you do? Is it deer in the headlights or can we do something? Yeah, I mean that there's obviously like a few approaches that you can take there. One of the things is can you get a look at the menu before you go? Could you build that into your day? You know, so for example, could you get some high protein in in the morning, you know, and and backload what you're going to eat so it kind of makes up your calories? Yes, it's going to be a kind of finger in the air guess, because you won't know how they're cooking your food potentially. It could be a good place that they've chosen that's like baked potato and chicken breast or baked potato and steak, and then you've knocked it off with some uh vegetables on the side. It could be that they've chosen you know, dirty, greasy burger joint, and you've not really got any choice there. Sometimes societal pressures can be there, especially if it's somebody maybe working in like a sales type environment. You know, there's a big culture of going out and drinking, and for those people, it's just unfortunately take that one on the chin, and and as we've spoken about, you know, there will be times where you can't be perfect, but you just carry on regardless, because it doesn't mean if you've been doing something for 12 weeks or 16 weeks, however many weeks you are deep into the cut, one meal when you zoom out again and look at that as a percentage of everything that you do, it's such a small percentage that in a year's time you won't even remember it. So those are some of the things that you can do, you know. You can make room for it early in the week, you could make room for it later in the week, or you could front load some protein, for example, and and be in control of what your food you're gonna order ahead of time. I always like to give people just it's it's it's the confidence that they can pick the right things. You've got a choice. You every restaurant is always gonna have better choices than others. Doesn't matter what restaurant you go to, you can know you can always pick something that's gonna be a little bit better. You know, as you say, you went to a greasy burger junk there, as you're saying, you can you could you could hold the burger and take away the bun and just have the meat. If you really wanted to, you could just have the meat and the salad. You know, if you really wanted to and you really wanted to make it work. Every restaurant you can go to, there's always a lean protein source, uh, a chicken breast, uh a fillet steak and some potatoes, an example, with a salad. You've always got a choice. Grilled fish, that's another classic. You've always got something that you you can stay within lines or within limits with. Is it going to be 100% accurate? No. Does it have to be? No. Again, what uh what I've had with a lot of other clients as well. I mean, people have um people, you know, obviously the the the developments of AI, people use the phone, you can take a photo of the meal, and you can use Chat GPT to calculate some macros. I know it's not 100% accurate, but it if it makes someone feel mentally better that they've okay, this might be 85% accurate. I'm gonna log that. And even if it is a little bit of variance, that's better than going out and just going A-Wall and having 2,000 calories over. So if you can take a picture of something and try and work it in, that's gonna be better than just blowing over completely. I have to credit Dean on this one, but he uses like a I think it's a 1.5 multiplier. I think that's that's a very, very good one. So if on the restaurant um uh menu it says you know a thousand calories, multiply it by 1.5, so blog it's 1500. Yeah, and you've got a like a little margin there for error because we know when we go places they're cooking in the oils and getting the butter and the creme fraîche in there, which is why it always tastes so good when you go out. But I think one one great point as well, Francis, is that nowadays every restaurant or anywhere that you go to, airports, things like that, they've got the options that when I started my own journey 13 years ago, I had to make my own um protein yogurt by getting the fage and putting away protein in it, which obviously I still do to this day. But you've got those choices out there that you you you've got more than ever that you can have a choice, so you don't need to always default to to whatever it is, and you can stay close enough to to your goals. Again, mate, I think it ties back to avoiding the sort of all or nothing approach. You don't have to go. out to a restaurant and order a a starter, a main course, a dessert, and a bottle of wine. It doesn't have to be that. You can go out and enjoy your time with the family. Maybe a small a small starter that has something protein dominant, uh a decent protein dominant main meal, maybe you skip dessert and you don't have a drink. There you go. Happy days. You go out, spend your time with the family. You don't blow your diet and you make it about the the events and the people that you're spending the time with and not just about inhaling food. There you go. Job done memories over macros I like to call it you know if if we're talking about people on just long journeys in general not just being you know deficit specific those times that you get with family are so important that I would never want to tell anybody you know you better get the Tupperware out and you know if you're going to a wedding you better jump outside and get a quick meal. That's maybe okay if you're like like an IFBB pro that's a few weeks out from from going to to the to the show you know you're going to get by let's be honest you're going to get by on some occasions by just having that and having that time and it's not the best way to say it but earning earning that you know you do a lot of work you do a lot of hard work we're we're normal human beings we do work hard and there's a points where you know you need to take the man button down and let your hair down a little bit that's it mate it it's the education piece around it it's to empower people to make the right decisions around these events and you you know you're not pressuring people into you've got to take top of wear and eat chicken and rice outside the wedding never ever going to do that. Doesn't make any sense but it's empowering and educating people to make the right choices there's always an option you know you you you can you the more you do this the longer you do it you get better at eyeballing foods even though you've got chat GPT food to to help you out now you just get better at eyeballing stuff. You pick the right choices and the more of these events you go to and the more times you go to them and you don't blow your diet the better you get at it and you just build your skill set up you build your arsenal up at doing this and it it's just it it's it's like water off a duck's back it's not even an issue anymore and that's that's the place that you want to get to I think we could probably go for a another hour on this one mate if you want to it's a yeah it's it's it is it's a it's a good topic mate isn't it but we'll uh we'll have to wrap it up there otherwise we'll go all night no one else another good one mate another good one in the bag um if if anybody is interested in coaching or working with either of us directly message you at coach Benjamin Jesus on X or Twitter and I'm at CoachFHM and just give us a message and uh we'll we can have a chat absolutely and as always you know thanks everyone for the support and Francis and I we're we're we're counting the we the we barriers that we sort of break through on a weekly basis we we love doing the podcasts we we really get buzzing we speak through the week about what we're going to talk about and how excited we are and hopefully that comes across you know and some of the points that we're making we love what we do we we really we really enjoy it we enjoy talking all things um training eating and and thinking so yeah we're looking forward to next week already mate we just want to say a big thank you we crossed over a thousand downloads on from Spotify and Apple we want to say a big thank you for the support you know we're 11 episodes in now after this one well over a thousand downloads and yeah we're just gonna keep them coming so as we say we we love doing it we genuinely get a buzz out of coming on Zoone's every Monday night getting it all posted up on Tuesday so yeah we're gonna keep them coming we just just we just appreciate the support from everyone it's uh it doesn't go unnoticed so you know thank you very much thanks everyone see you later