Train. Eat. Think. Episode 17 The "Beginning" Phase of a Cut

In this episode, Francis and Ben discuss the critical first four weeks of a dieting phase, focusing on setting expectations, training, nutrition, and mindset to ensure a successful cut. 

Join us as we share practical tips, mental models, and real world insights to help you optimise their fat loss journey.

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

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Drainy Tink, Episode 17. We're back today, and we're talking about the early stages of a cut. And we're going to have a deep dive into different stages of a diet phase. Now, this first episode of this one, we're going to talk mainly around weeks one to four, setting expectations up front, early doors in a cut. And this phase can make or break the cut, setting your rate of loss, setting your food. It's a very, very important sort of phase where we're at. A couple of weeks down the line, we're going to talk about maybe that sort of middle ground of a cut, and then we can get into the end of a cut. But we want to kick things off today, talking about uh basically which ones are for of a cut. And uh yeah, looking forward to getting into it, mate.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yeah, um really excited as always, mate. Um I think this is uh a good topic, it's one that we're very uh experienced in, and I think it's going to be important to give some hints and tips out there to you know, even have a little um insight into the mindset of of what a coach would think to help someone through that initial phase. You know, we're we're looking to start tidying things up, um, we're looking to possibly you know tighten up on some of the habits that might have slipped through improvement season, as much as we would try and have the the perfect you know improvement phase. I think it gets really uh challenging the more it goes on because everybody loves a cut. And and from what you see out there, a lot of people spend more time cutting than they do in the improvement phase. And hopefully, with this series, you know, this one in particular, we're going to talk about the early stages. But with these little uh episodes that we drop in, we'll get a flavour of of what it looks like for a for a really successful cut and deep dive into each one.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

And the star phase, mate, it's something that seems like an eternity away for me because uh obviously being you know close to like 19-20 reachions of prep, it's uh it seems a long time ago. But um in terms of starting a cut, I think one of the most important things that we've uh we've always got to look at up front is is to set the expectations right away, isn't it? It's you know what what is the reason behind the cut? You know, is it is there a powerful why behind why we're doing it? Because if someone doesn't have a powerful why and it's just some sort of nonsense like I'm going to I beat it in two weeks, mate. Uh I've actually had people message me. Uh funny enough, I've had people message me on Twitter saying, I'm going around all day in six weeks, mate. Can you get me in shape? I've had that, like honestly. Uh so it's just, you know, it's if if you're going into a cut with that sort of approach, you know, you're looking at sort of a uh a short-term, quick fix. You know, you've got to set the right expectations up front and get your time on right. And I think that is the that's the most important thing to set up front. Would you agree?

SPEAKER_00 3:04

I think that the biggest um thing I can say to that, Francis, in one of your sentences before you said you're 19 weeks in and you've still got a way to go. Granted, yes, you're in a competition prep phase at the moment. Um, for some of our listeners out there, they might never want to go to the stage, which again we'll we'll cover in in the fullness of time. But even if we talk about doing beach photo shoot type condition, you know, a lot of people come to us. I want the abs, I want the six pack, I want the striations. You're probably looking in fairness about eight to six weeks from stage. So you are setting, as you say, setting the expectation. This isn't a weight loss competition. Any successful cut that you do should come from trying to create an energy deficit, but holding on to muscle, holding on to performance. Because any successful cut should leave you at the end that when you want to exit it, you're exiting from a place of let's call it strength. You know, there is a battle for that strength, absolutely. But again, as you say, it's about setting and managing that expectation because you can lose and ruin a cut face by going, you know, leaving no stones unturned. I'm gonna do two hours cardio, I'm not gonna have any carbs, you'll feel okay for a couple of weeks, and then you'll crash and burn. So I think it's really important to get that across, and and you're absolutely right, Francis.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

I think people people need to be honest and realistic with the StarPoint as well. Now, this is a conversation I've had so many times with clients, and you will have had yourself is that people have got more body fat on them and less muscle tissue than they think. So, what their scale number is, you know, let's just say someone is 220 pounds, and they think, yeah, just 20 pounds off, and no, I'll be I'll be ready for the beach. And what happens is they go from to 220 and they they take off that 20 pounds and they get to 200, and then they realise and go, fuck, like I'm still nowhere near where I need to be. It's probably another 10-15 pounds to go. So, everybody you need to give yourself more time than you initially think. That that is something that I see uh a lot of the time, is that again, people have unrealistic expectations of where they're at. Again, I bet you've seen that countless times with people.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

I I think you're absolutely right, you know, normalise expectations, normalise the fact that it takes multiple weeks to cut. You aren't going to do it in 8, 12, it's gonna take a concerted period of time, and you're probably gonna have more body fat to lose than you actually realise. One of the great things we see out there in the social media space, and I'll be the first one to put my hands up. I actually hate body fat percentage, it just turns into this sort of contest about I'm 4% and I'm seven percent. Deep down you know that you're not four percent because there's very, very few people that do get to that sort of level, and if you are truly four percent, you would feel it, and I think that just becomes I think gets in the way, if I'm totally honest. And the real metric should be you know, how do you look in your pictures as it along the way to the goals that you want? That's the most important, rather than saying some sort of you know, level of percentage that is just so widely everybody looks at a picture and they decide a different uh different percentage, and and and I think that just needs given that sort of space where it's like you need to you need to understand that body fat percentage is this rather than some sort of picture that somebody wrongly um depicted for want of a better term.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

It makes sense, but yeah, you see everyone everyone loves to argue online about what body fat percentage is you, and it's just it's just all nonsense. But I think if you were to take a, you know, just uh let's say a a random, not random, a general population client, right? They come to you, you know, most people may don't have interest in stepping on stage, right? And I you know yourself, like that's sub 6% body fat. Most people have got no interest in in doing what I'm trying to do right now and what you've done multiple times. Most people don't care about that because it is extreme. Photo shoot leanness, you know. Obviously, you know, maybe you're you're you're getting to that sub 10%, so you're gonna get maybe around 8%-ish. You know, some people might choose to do that, but again, it's still gonna be quite rare. Most people, again, general population who are going to be listening to this, you know, that that's the bread and butter of a lot of our clients who we work with as well, mate, isn't it? It's people who want to you know might get a little bit leaner and look better for the beach, um, and then to be able to reverse out and start an improvement phase from a leaner body composition. So, what would you recommend to a lot of people? What what is a good sort of not not that we're aiming for body fat percentage, but in terms of a look and how they want to look and feel, we know the negatives of dipping below 10% body fat. Most people don't need to worry about that. They can get all the benefits of a good cut, health benefits, physique benefits, how they look, how they feel. They can get a lot of benefits from probably just just chipping away, chopping themselves down to around maybe 10, 11, 12, even 13, 14 for some people. You're gonna be in a nice healthy spot then to raise calories. So I think it's just setting expectations for you know the majority of the population when they go on a course, most don't need to be worried about getting stage late.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

I think the um the the the mogging term is is really really popular. You know, some people want to do it to look good at the at the pool and on the beach and stuff like that. And I think that's perfectly valid. You know, everyone's got their drivers of of why they want to do the cut. You know, it could be they they've realized that their health markers are not quite quite where they want to be, they've got a high motivation coming into the cut because they have had a successful improvement phase, they've given everything to it and and the hope of you know growing, getting muscle tissue on. And the only way that we do see that is when when we start to cut down. So these are the things that you want, you know. We want to avoid it when it's really, really stressful times. Now we're not saying that you know people are going to be busy, we're we're all busy, we all have that. But when you start to get, and it's really funny actually, because there was a tweet on this today that I actually answered, you know, eight eight percent, ten percent body fat, fantastic, looks great. When you start going sub 10, life gets harder, it gets more challenging to train, you get less of a uh you get less errors, you need to be more accurate in everything that you do. And I think as well, a lot of people it would drive nuts that I mean you're literally, and and I share this as well. I I did it recently, you start to get to the point where 20 and 30 calories really count. So if you're doing four or five meals a day and you manage to shave 20, 30 calories off each one, that's you saved yourself 150 calories a day, a thousand for the week. And when it starts to get into that realm when you're already down, say close to let's just an arbitrary, let's just use an arbitrary number, around about 2,000 calories, it gets difficult, it gets challenging, and that can sometimes, I think, zap the fun out of it a little bit for a lot of people that have no interest in in doing in doing bodybuilding competitions.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

I'm smiling because that's exactly where I am right now. I was uh I was very happy with myself the other day because I I brought in pumpkin, swapped out some pumpkin for um for white potato, saved myself 30 calories per undergram. Ah, game changer, especially at this stage. So it's it's a little thing like that. But I think when you're saying they're about, you know, most people don't need to worry about getting to that stage. So once they set their sort of okay, I I I'm gonna get to you know, beach lean, you know, 10 to 12% body fat, that's gonna be good enough for me. This is this is where I am now. This is that's the aim. We're not gonna be trying to get shredded stage lean, okay. Just lean enough, I'm gonna be happy with the physique, how I look, how I feel, health mark has improved, and then we're gonna build back out. So initially, we'd have to talk about obviously setting your deficit, setting your calories because the first one to four weeks of a cut, but we've got to get into the deficit, we've got to plug and play and get into the game. So, what I always tend to like to do is you know, we your first one to two weeks, it there is a little bit of trial and error, right? You're not gonna be 100% bang on, maybe for your first one to two weeks. You'll you'll set some calories, you'll let things settle for seven to fourteen days, you'll get your steps in a decent spot, and you'll monitor your daily weighing, and you'll see where your scale weight is going to fluctuate. Now, you know yourself, mate, when when someone first enters a deficit, they're gonna pull off a lot of water weight and a lot of glycogen right away, especially if they're coming from being well fed and you know, fully stocked up. You know, hey, majority of people within that first week, I've seen it countless times. People can lose four to six pounds of uh glycogen water weight, uh stomach blows of content that's in the gut. Um, so always expect that within probably your first week of your cut, you're gonna drop off a big amount of scale weight right away, but a lot of it's gonna be glycogen. And then after that sort of first seven to fourteen days, you can make and make some tinkering adjustments to is this enough of a deficit? Am I too aggressive? Uh you will know after the first two weeks. So that's where you've got to set your stall out as bang. Let's let's set some calorie numbers, targets, and we let the data set up for the first seven to fourteen days, and then you can make some more tweaks if needed.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

Yeah, I think you're right there. Um, if someone's been working with you, uh you you probably get a little bit better of an idea of where they sit because you've been managing their output and their input, you know, over a period of time. A lot of times you'll get people just coming to you and they're like, I want to start the cut, and that's obviously where there's a little bit of coaches' intuition, isn't there? Not everybody starts on the same calories. You're looking at you know muscle mass, you're you're you're guessing what their activity levels are in terms of you know, do they have a manual job? Is it a a more sort of a desk chalky based job? Um, and you know, obviously that then looks different for different people. And the other thing is as well, I would say obviously, as you know yourself, Francis, there is a huge difference in people's calories, and it can just be that's it, genetics, muscle that they carry, just in general, some people diet on higher calories than um than others. Sometimes it can be very you know, it's good to ask people, you know, where are you at the moment just to try and find out, and again use that kind of coach's intuition to try and find out where their deficit would be. So you're trying to find obviously maintenance to try and get them under and that first week as well. Looking at things like using myself is the experience, stop eating the biscuits, stop having the wee packet of this or a wee nibble of that or whatever. And when you bring those things and you start tightening up your habits, maybe even weighing your food again, because one of the things I don't do, given my my relative experience, when I'm in an improvement phase, I can look at a plate of food and I know that I'm in the ballpark, and as long as I'm in that ballpark, I'm happy. So when you bring all that in, you're then in essence setting yourself on a and getting yourself a platform that you can move forward because that week one, you're probably gonna lose a few pounds anyway just by tightening things up. And again, what that's doing is giving you more time at a higher food level because that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to diet on the highest food possible, give ourselves some wiggle room in terms of what our output's gonna be, starting at the you know, getting the most from the least and getting the rewards without having to make 75 different changes in week one.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

The most from the least, that's a that's a good point. That's exactly what you want to try and do. I think people are they're too aggressive a front army, do they wanna do they want to shave all the calories off, do you want to do all the cardio right away? And you want to get yourself into a spot where you are eating as much food as you possibly can and still in that sort of range of maybe pulling off 0.5 to 1% of body weight. If you can be there while eating as much food as you can, that's a fantastic spot to be in. And you touched on it there about the the difference in expenditure between the desk jockeys and someone who's you know a manual labourer or whatever, and it's so important, and this goes under the radar for people. People think dieting is just all about food, they just think calories that's it. Well, again, uh I can give you two client examples. I I've got a client there, he construction worker, literally 20,000 steps a day. He's just on his feet all day. He is a calorie burner furnace, right? And I've got people who they are you know the classic desk jockeys, and and and they they have to really fight to get above 5,000 steps a day. That is a difference. You know, you you you you pit those two people together, someone who gets 5,000 steps versus 20,000 steps, you know, that is a massive difference in caloric burn across the day, across the week. That will influence again how much food someone is going to eat. So that's why you have to plug and play, you get some numbers on board, you sync that up with someone's expenditure, you know, how much muscle tissue they've got as well. And that will dictate where the deficit can be. But yeah, again, it's it is it's it's different for everybody, mate, isn't it? You know, someone who's hasn't got a lot of experience who's a desk jockey versus someone who, you know, 10 years' experience are full of muscle tissue, they're a construction worker with 20,000 steps, like they're two different people who go who are gonna diet on different amounts of calories. So it's funny how the body uh is is different for everybody like that.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

That I mean, that's the other thing as well, mate. When you've got, you know, if you've got a five-foot female versus a gent that's six feet seven, you know, and that you again somebody the five-foot female might be working a desk job, really struggles to get the steps in, and you've got a guy at six, seven who's smashing rocks all day long. The the actual difference in the in the in the um caloric output is is massive, and save for being alive, you know, your your basal metabolic rate, which keeps you alive, output, non-exercise activity, thermogenesis, your neat is the next biggest thing that you've got. So that movement that you've got on a daily basis, whether that has intensity around it, being walking, fast walking, power walks, cardio, whatever it may be, that movement is one of the biggest levers that you can pull on. But again, what we're saying right out the gate is in order to set up a successful cut, don't just go from maybe you were only on 5,000 steps because you didn't really have that drive to 15 overnight because you you're giving yourself nowhere to turn again. And in this podcast, we're going to stay in the in the one to four weeks, and and we're going to bring that up gradually to the point where somebody has their max limits, you know. People that we work with, Francis, multiple jobs could be caregivers or whatever. So they've got a ceiling of where they can hit. Not everybody could do, for example, 20,000 steps. If they worked a desk job, it would take it would be challenging for them because that might be like two hours of movement. Some people might be able to do it, depends on the lifestyle. And again, what we always talk about, we we're meeting people where they are, and we're finding out one of the first questions that we'll ask is like how much how much maximum can you do? Because then that starts to feed your brain of where can I set calories here? Because if you know somebody like that's really active, really tall, a lot of muscle, mess, a lot of muscle tissue, moves a lot. We know that their starting calorie level is going to be a bit higher because we've got that output to try and meet. So it's it's all those things that come in, and it's obviously very individual, but those are the things that you want to do. Start start at the start, so to speak. Start with small steps and set that expectation that it's only week one, week two, week three, for example, and it's gonna be again like a kind of snowball effect. You know, it starts small and it's gonna start gathering up as you go.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

So once you once once we set our you know, our calorie numbers, this is where we're gonna be at. Uh, we get our steps and expenditure, you know, we we know where we're gonna be, you know, that the first one to two weeks, we've got our numbers, we're gonna let it sell. That's the stuff outside the gym. What about inside the gym? So we'll let's talk about touch on training for that sort of first one to four weeks, you know, maybe what to expect as you, you know, let's say you're someone who might have come from an improvement season and we're going right into a cut, what to expect? What should you do with your training? Should you make any tweaks, if at all? I think this is an important one, especially, you know, because as we know, the the driving force behind muscle retention, it's going to be the training stimulus, and we marry that with our nutrition, steps, expenditure, cardio, of course. But if we want, as you said before early on, mate, we want to get to the end of the cut with all of our muscle tissue intact and the body fat off, and training is the the match that sparks the signal for muscle retention. So, training-wise, I think one of the biggest first things, and I've always said this, is that when you go into a cut, going from an improvement season right into a cut, training shouldn't really change too much at all. It should stay identically the same. Don't be trying to chop and change your whole routine, your whole exercise selection. Start doing all bollocks, supersets, and high-rep stuff, and you know, taking out chin-ups for Keenan Flaps because Keenan Flaps are easy. They're back in again. You know, there's the same saying that you've had in for months and months on end that you're very familiar with, you're very skilled with the driving stimulus. That stays the same, uh, especially for the first ones or four weeks of the cut.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

I mean, Francis, if only there was a podcast that you know spoke about training, eating, and and thinking, so mindset. So what the way that is, yeah, I know. One of the things that's so important is your mindset, not just at the beginning of the cup, but as you go in deeper, you know, at the start, you're not going to notice, or you shouldn't really notice, a huge difference, certainly in your performance and your recovery. And one of the things as well that that comes back to is you you are what you think. You know, if you're going into the gym and you're going, Oh, that's me, I'm in a I'm in a deficit now when maybe you've only cut a couple of hundred calories or you know, cut the snacks out, or you know, you've been set or allocated at a caloric level. Is the framing's important. I get to eat so many meals, and even if you've got that from the start of the the the the prep the cut, sorry, if you've got that right from the start, and you've got that mindset of okay, this is this is what it is. I'm lucky that I get to do this, I'm lucky that I get to train five times a week or whatever it may be. And also, as you quite rightly say, about the stimulus, what built your muscle and your improvement phase is what's going to keep the muscle in the in the cut. So it's not high reps, it's no the the pink dumbbells for a thousand reps. Believe us, because otherwise we'd be doing it because you know it's easier and stuff like that. It's hard when you're in the cut, but it shouldn't be hard from week one. You shouldn't really notice much of a difference, I would say, certainly in the first four weeks.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

100%. And it's just it's it's funny now because obviously I'm deeper into prep, and you do notice. We we will touch on that, obviously, and that's that's the coming later podcasts, but that's sort of weeks, weeks one to four. You you don't really notice much, and uh you you're right in the the mindset, don't nocebo yourself into coming in. As we always say, you know, training like a fanny, you do not want to do that because that is what will open up the door for muscle tissue loss. Well, we we we have to look at the the the mechanisms of you know hypertrophy, what builds muscle tissue and what retains muscle tissue. We know the last couple of reps before failure, they're the ones that we want, they're the ones that drive all the mechanical tensions of the muscle, that's what we're after. So, you know, if you're if you can do a set of 12 that's failure for you, that that 12th rep is you know, that's a that's the ball buster rep. There's nothing else there. If you're so used to doing all your sets and you're you push all your sets to that point, the ball buster reps, then all of a sudden you start coming in on a cut and you put that you put that leg press or hack swat down at rep 9 where you could have done another three, you are shortchanging the stimulus that you can provide for muscle retention. So, this is where the log put comes in, even more important, and it keeps you accountable in that transition phase from the end of your improvement season to your your diet phase. You've got your logbook numbers because there will be days you'll walk in and you might feel tired and you might not fancy it. You've got to tell your mind to shut the fuck up when you get in there and you look at your logbook and go, right, this is what I've done, this is what I'm capable of. Let's attack it with full effort. Don't be leaving reps in the tank, don't be getting sloppy with execution just to get the set done. This is where, again, you've got to hold your nerve and focus on putting the most accurate stimulus and tension where we can put it for the muscle retention piece, very, very important.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Again, the framing comes into it where it's literally don't waste a rep. You've had all this hard work. I if we're if we're assuming that someone's coming out of an improvement phase, let's just say, and even if they haven't, don't let it slide because every rep that you do is super important. Because every rep you do now, especially the money reps, don't I don't know where I saw that, but especially the money reps, um those are the ones that Francis is saying that stimulate muscle to grow, muscle to stay around. Now you you might hear me say muscle to grow in a deficit. Technically, you do grow muscle in a deficit, it's just that breakdown is so fast that it ends up there's so much contest in there that in essence you're literally fighting to keep what you've got because as much as you would be in synthesis, there'll be equal amounts of breakdown when you start to get to the point where you've got low energy availability, which shouldn't happen again, and this is part of what to think when you're gonna for the first few weeks of the cut, fight literally fight with everything you've got. Francis says about how important the logbook is. You'll hear me speak and tweet often. I'm such a fan of logbooks because they take a little bit of emotion away, they keep you competitive against yourself, and it's just a good thing to go. You said it perfectly, Francis. This is what I'm capable of. Is it gonna be hard? Yes. Is it gonna get harder? Yes, but when you're using that framing about literally winning every single rep that you go in to do, that might sound silly right at the beginning, but that is gonna have a it's gonna have a knock-on effect that further down the line and in the cut that you go, you're gonna have your strength kept, you're gonna see that the the muscle tissue coming through because all you're taking away is body fat because the stimulus is there and you're signalling to the body, give up body fat. Obviously, you're getting on your protein from your nutrition, you're having your recovery days, so you've got your time away from the gym. But when you're in that gym, you're gonna, as I say, with that framing, that mindset, I'm literally gonna claw and fight my way here for every single rep. Again, maybe not as important in week one to four, but you can see how that again has got that kind of knock on.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Well, I I think in weeks one to four, mate, uh, especially the early parts, especially if someone's got a little bit more body fat on them. There is a feasibility that they still might be able to build a little bit of muscle tissue. Now, we're not talking like you know, anything drastic, you know, as much as you would be in a surplus, you know, where you really are or cover them well. But someone who's got you know a fair amount of body fat on in in stages week one to four. If you're 19, 20 weeks into contest prep where I am, you're not building muscle tissue here. Like it's just not happening. But when you've got a high amount of body fat, weeks one to four, it's feasible. You know, it's it's not gonna be a lot, but it's definitely feasible. And I I had this conversation with a client this week. I I had to sort of call him out on it. Um, you know, not in not in a negative or aggressive fashion, but you know, a couple of weeks into a cut, and he was like, Yeah, well, I'm feasibly not going to be building any muscle tissue in this phase. And I said, Let me stop you right there. That mindset is that will hold you back at these early stages of the cut. You want to go in and train as if you you can still build muscle, but you feasibly still could. So if you go in with that mindset of, oh, I'm in a cut, I'm not building any muscle tissue right now. Well, what do you think is going to happen? Right, versus whereas if you you just drop your food and you don't even acknowledge it, and you go in the gym and go, like, right, let's fucking go. Another good session on the booksy, let's get after it. I can still build a little bit of muscle tissue here. Let's let's go. You've you pit those two individuals together. Who's got a a better, better chance of having a better which ones are for of a cut? It's the person who's framing it, like, yeah, that can still build a little bit of muscle tissue here. Let's go. And that's what again, early doors of a cut, you still want to be cultivating that mindset uh because that will that will only serve you uh to your benefit as you get deeper into the cut as well. So we're setting the stage early doors, we're setting our our mindset and our approach to how we're approaching training early doors that will have a knock-on effect as you do get into that grind it out phase in the middle of a cut as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

It's a salient point, mate, and and very well made. I must say, you know, it's absolutely feasible. And even if it's not happening in reality, it's certainly something to think about and try and make it happen, try and buck the trend. Now, we obviously know that you know, caloric surplus to create muscle tissue, apart from maybe being new to lifting, all of the things we've covered before. But I I totally agree with you 100%. And again, even if it doesn't happen, if you're thinking about it and you're trying to make it happen, then it's a shite sight better than you know the alternative. One of the things I would say as well is it would show very, very early. We've spoken about we want this cut to last 20 plus weeks, maybe 24, maybe even 26. There's nothing wrong with that. Um, especially if it's fat loss that you want, and you're trying to keep as much muscle as you can, and you don't want to run out of tools, you know, there's no point. And one of the biggest mistakes that you see is people go, right? That's me transitioning to the cut, um, multiple hours of of cardio. Um, I'm gonna drop all my my carb, sorry, my carbs down, and I'm gonna take fats as low as I can get them. So, what happens then in week eight, or or where do you go? You know, you've got to leave yourself somewhere to progress. And a really good um analogy, I think, for this is when you get paid, you know, at the end of the month, and you go out on the first day of the new month and you spend everything that you've you've earned. Well, dieting works the same. You know, we're looking for the minimum effective dose that's gonna let us chip at the body fat, uh release them, get the muscle out so that it's shown, but not cause ridiculous levels of of fatigue, especially like that early, so that you've got nowhere to go as as you extend the phase on.

SPEAKER_01 31:42

One of the most important things of any successful cuff phase, mate, it's it's it's maintaining saying performance, right? As much as you possibly can for as long as you possibly can. We know as you get you know really, really lean, there's gonna be some little drops off in performance. But if you're coming in week one to four and you're slashing carb calories excessively, your carbs are just dropped down excessively, as you say, you're tank fat. If you're performing if you feel like shit in the gym in that week one to four, then you shouldn't feel like shit. You you you'll feel lighter on your feet. Uh if anything, sometimes you can feel a little bit more energetic in that first one to four weeks because you're not as sluggish, your body fat's dropping off already, you're not full of food. You you do feel lighter on your feet. Some people do call being more energetic that first one to four weeks, but it's paramount to maintain performance, to maintain muscle tissue. And you're right in what you say, but we're looking for that sort of minimum effective dose. We want to try and keep food as high as we can. Ideally, we want to try and keep cardio as low and steps as low as you feasibly could to maintain energy while still getting it in that sort of 0.5 to 1% of body weight coming off per week. But yeah, people people really, very miss the boat on what's important on a cut, and they really do they put training performance that slips down the hierarchy. People are more interested in scale weight and abs and veins, and no, like you've got to you. I think one of your number one focuses should be your training performance holding steady because that's what will keep the muscle tissue and chip away the body fat. So if you're too aggressive with calorie drops and carb drops and again cardio excessive, it takes away from the big overarching goal.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Yeah, I mean, when you when you lose that performance in the gym, especially if if you've gone too fast at it, all that time that you've spent, again, if we're making the assumption that it's been off the back of an improvement phase, you're then sacrificing a lot of the time and the money and the effort and all the rewards that you got from that improvement phase because the body's clever. The body's very clever that it's always looking for homeostasis, and unfortunately, it's always looking to give up muscle tissue. As much as we hate it, our bodies are designed to keep us alive in in times of of famine that we we don't really experience here, you know, in the kind of the first world anymore. But those mechanisms are still there. It's why we need to manipulate our protein to make sure that the signal's there to try and avoid breakdown as much as we can. But again, as as we're saying in in this particular spot of the podcast, um in this week's episode, that stimulus comes from training, comes from good training, making sure that you're getting close to the reps that you did in your improvement phase. It's not just an excuse to let things completely slide. And if it does, something's off, something's wrong, especially that early. So if you find yourself in a spot of constant exhaustion and you're dreading training and even mood changes that early, or you're you're looking at pictures of brownie cakes, or you're asking for a refeed already, for example, something's far, far wrong that to be honest, we would probably start digging into anyway, wouldn't we?

SPEAKER_01 35:10

Yeah. Yeah, it shouldn't be like that, um, which ones are for no way. But I think uh a big reason people do that again is because they they are too aggressive with calorie drops. And I think a big one that we I know we've touched on previously would be carbohydrates and carb time and pre-training. I think people get this wrong quite a lot. You know, we've we've we've said before that you're probably your biggest carb meal when you are on a cut, the biggest carb meal of the day, you probably want that pre-training because that is the fuel for performance. That's that's when you need it most. I've always said this like if you're gonna train mid-afternoon, you don't need 150 grams of carbs sitting on your ass at night watching the telly. You know, you need it before the gym. You know, that's just obvious. So I think what a lot of people tend to do, they go down rabbit holes of they go in the gym underfed. They have you know a little 30-40 gram hits of carbs and they try and save calories for the night. You don't need 150 grams of carbs at 9 pm at night. You would be better switching those meals around instead of having your little 40 grams pre-training and going in underfed, switch those around, put that 150 grams of carbs pre-training, 40 grams at night, which you're going to utilise it a lot better. So it's it's the timing of your carbohydrates and making sure you're fuelled up as much as possible going in for your training on a course. And if anything, mate, you know, on a going from an improvement phase to a diet phase, I keep my pre-workout the same. That doesn't get touched at all. The the carbohydrate drops, they all come from meals throughout the throughout the rest of the day. But that pre-work out mirror is protected.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

I'm I'm exactly the same, and I think you make a great point, Francis. You know, when we start to talk about food around training, it's probably a little less important in your improvement phase because there's an abundance of food, your glycogen stores are pretty well topped off anyway. So even if, for example, you missed one or two, your performance isn't gonna be affected too much. But now what we're talking about, you know, again, longevity, multiple weeks, habits. It's probably a good idea to get into that habit of where you place your carbs because you you're gonna need them at that point, and the more you can keep the stimulus, keep the energy, keep the performance, and keep the mindset in the training. One thing I I like to do is is grazing, and that's something I find myself doing. So I I split my carbs up into sort of equal portions, but like that, the first place I'll go to will be like evening meal, and the the majority I come in, I I'm a 5 pm trainer, so the majority of my food's already in, and I've got one small meal, which is like a half bag of rice with some chicken, for example, and I have my yogurt, as everybody knows, before I go to bed, my yogurt and my berries. So, you know, probably 65, maybe 70% of my food in terms of my calories, certainly my carbs, are already done by the time dinner time comes, which for me is around about 7, 7 pm, I would say. Um so yeah, it's it's definitely a it's definitely a good thing to look at. One thing I was gonna ask you, mate, was um so let's say if we if we talk about you know the weeks one to four and somebody's moving through the cut and they get to a point where they stall, would you increase activity or would you lower their calories at that point? What where do you where do you go first?

SPEAKER_01 38:50

I think it it depends on the individual who's in front of you because some people can easily increase steps, no problem. It's not a problem for them at all. You know, you you you could be working with a a single fella, doesn't have kids or a lot of responsibilities. He can go out and take his steps from 10,000 to maybe 12,000. That's not a problem for him. I would ideally I would always go the expenditure route first if I could, because I I'd like to keep people on as high as calories as we possibly can. I just think the more food coming in, just the more anabolic and general is, and plus, who doesn't want more food coming in? I think it just helps with um the adherence and commitment with a cut if you can keep food as high as possible and bump up expenditure. But there's some people, mate, and as you know, like you know, if you tell them, look, we need 10,000 steps a day here, they they could be um uh a busy dad or a busy mum, three or four kids really busy and and and struggling to get that that 10,000 steps, that is a big struggle for them as it is, and you know, the feasibility of getting 11,000, 12,000 or trying to bump those up, it's just gonna cause more stress, which is we don't want that. So maybe for these types of people, just you know, having a little sort of nibble away at 100,000, 150 calories, maybe pulling some carbs, I'd go down that route for them. But ideally, I would favour if someone stalls, I'd favor bumping up expenditure and trying to keep calories the same. What would you do?

SPEAKER_00 40:19

One of the things as well, I always ask in that at that time, especially so early, is just to check on the accuracy of what they're doing. Are you are you starting to weigh your meals? Uh we we know how powerful portion control is. Some people will weigh, you know. I've I've got clients like that, you will have yourself weigh every single meal that they do. Other people are doing a little bit more, you know, eyeballing and stuff like that. Again, we're not talking about going to stage here, so that there is validity and in both. I I do it myself, but when you really want to sharpen, you know, sharpen the the knife in terms of what you're doing, pardon that's a terrible pun, I didn't mean that. Um you know, it's just sharpen what's happening. However, we look at the maybe even doing a food diary for 72 hours. One thing that does happen, and I get kind of angry at this online where it's just like people are made out to be liars, people lie, people are lazy. No, sometimes people just make mistakes because they don't count milk in the cereal, milk in your tea, and it's multiple cups per day. Now I'm not saying that you don't have milk, I'm not saying that milk's bad, but all I'm saying is when you're coming into a deficit and you want to be sure that you're in that deficit, everything sort of counts, especially things I would say that are 50 calories and up. Now you're gonna get away with a little bit of nando sauce, a weed sludge of nando sauce on your dinner. Nobody's expecting anyone, and nobody should have to eat like bland, boring food all the time. But don't get caught out and things that are carbohydrates with energy, so starchy carbohydrates or sugary ones, not your green veggies and stuff. But you maybe want to just sharpen and make sure that you are getting close to the intake that you're looking at on paper, and it's not because that you're lying or lazy, it's it's really easy to make mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

A big one that creeps up away, mate, and these are my three big culprits that I see with a lot of people. I've touched on them before. It would be number one, would be like oils and butter in the pan. So people don't realise again. This is again, we're not calling people liars, but people genuinely they don't realise. So let's say if they're they're cooking in the skillet or the pan twice a day, you know, they lob some butter in, or do you lob some olive oil in the pan, and they're cooking a chicken breast or a piece of steak or whatever it is in that. That adds a hundred calories to the meal, and they don't know that that's coming in. That's that's that's one area. A second one, very, very common, and I've had this happen so many times, it's cuts of meat. So people think what they think is 95-5% lean ground beef actually ends up being maybe closer to 85-15. And they don't know that. You know, they might source it locally from a butcher or whatever, and they're told that it's X amount of fat, and it's it's actually not so that can pull them off, you know, per 200 gram portion of meat. Well, you could be off by 150 calories, you add that twice a day, they're 300 calories off across a week, seven days, over 2,000 calories off. People don't realise it. So, butter, oils, meat. Uh I'd also have a big one is it I like to call it the dad tax, is where you know people have got kids and they have little uh little bite to the plate. You know, uh the kids got a little bit of uh food left over, they just have a little bit of a nibble of it because you don't want to throw it away. A little bit of a nibble here or there. I'm not gonna track that. Again, 100, 200 calories every day. You do that every day. There's over a thousand calories. Oh, that loves. That I got old swirl. But uh yeah, like you know, all that sort of stuff, it all adds up. It's got me hungry, that made old twirl.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

But but you're absolutely right. I mean, these are small, like incidental things, but it's the incidental things that really add up. I mean, 2100 calories, you don't think that, and it's only when and I think one thing is really important to to mention nutrition's just a big maths test, and it's about trying to pass the test. You don't need to get 100%. I'm just gonna chuck that in there. But you know, if you're getting a good a good percentage, especially when you're a lifestyle client that's looking to do do this kind of thing. I just remembered a programme that used to be on Channel 4. I don't know if you would have seen it, Francis, before you moved to Venezuela, and it was people and they looked at their dietary habits, they followed them around for 24 hours. Literally anything that they ate was recorded, down to like people sneaking off to KFC at 10 o'clock at night, then being asked about it the next day, and genuinely not lying, they just didn't remember. And these things happen. But again, as you said, about um you know, mums and dads forgetting there was this one mum, and she was on a calorie-controlled diet, and she's like, I can't lose weight, and they filmed her. So, what they done when they were filming, they would add up how many calories you thought you ate in a day, so you're like, Oh, yeah, I eat 1500 calories. Then they would show them because they had a 24-hour film, people following you around of what they ate in a day, and that woman in particular, she used to eat a dinner before she would serve it, so she'd be tasting out of the pot and also having a glass of wine, but the glass of wine quickly became two glasses, so she's drinking two glasses of wine, eating her dinner before she's serving the dinner. And I know that that's a it's a maybe an extreme kind of example, but as an example, and it just shows you that when you take the focus and the mindset away from you're just doing something like that. Woman was making dinner, you you quickly lose sight, and there's also a study kicking about out there where they they questioned nutritionists to do a food recall for a week, and when they got to the end of the study, they nutritionists failed to recall by 456 calories per day. So you might have put that by seven, that's pretty much a weekly deficit.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

Well, if a film crew follow me around for 24 hours, mate, they just they get sick of eating frozen strawberries. So I don't think there'd be much to show there, but but you're absolutely right there. And what you're saying is that people what they think they're eating again. Is it you know the calories in versus calories out deniers out there who say oh calories don't work, it's all bullshit. No, it's not, it's probably just your your accuracy of tracking uh is is massively off. And I think you are right there. And you know, if someone's keeping a food diary for a week, I'm being 100% totally honest, you know, that is what someone could do for that first one to four weeks. If a cut, keep a consistent food diary. If you're someone who's notoriously struggled with dropping body fat, what's going in? Everything, everything you eat, everything you drink, you know, uh even things like chewing gum, just small little things that you think wouldn't count, just track absolutely everything and get a good bird's eye view on look, this is what I'm eating, this is where calories are actually at, and just be 100% honest with yourself because at the end of the day, if you don't do that, well you're only cheating yourself, you're only lying to yourself. So it's better. Let's get it sorted right away so then we can move forward.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

I mean, like, but but what did you what did you say there? I feel like you've had a wee bit of a brain bump there, Francis. Where where did we finish on that one? Sorry, where did you finish on that? So I was thinking about the next question.

SPEAKER_01 47:59

I was just just saying about like where people are they that they eat more than what they actually think and they benefit from you know actually grabbing a good food diary first, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:10

That's exactly what I was gonna say next, mate. Even a food diary for like 72 hours, because what happens is the accuracy starts to drop off after about three days, um, it becomes too much logging. But you'll see you'll see where your gaps are, you'll see where you're where you're overcooking it. Pardon the pun. Oh my god, my puns are terrible tonight. Um, you'll see where you're you're getting it wrong and potentially having too much what where it shouldn't. One of the things I wanted to ask, and this is what I was uh I was gonna go with the old cheat meals, yeah. Get the quotes out. The old cheat meals, Francis. What where do you stand on cheat meals, especially you know, that early in this sort of phase that we're talking about? Because it's a really popular thing, I guess. People have got families, you know, happy wife, happy life, and things like that. What where do you stand on them?

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Cheap meals. Well, you know, I I like to be totally honest, mate, and I think if someone's got too much body fat, you've already had too many cheap meals over the last five, six, seven years. Let's let's be honest, and that is not to be discouraging to someone, but this is why we're in this situation now, okay? Like, stop thinking about cheap meals. The job needs to be done here. We're entering a cut first one to four weeks. You've already had too many of these over the you know the amount of time. Let's let's start to really sort our diet out now, right? Let's cheap meals, let's put them on the back burner. That doesn't mean that you can't enjoy things, right? We're not saying that. We've never we've never ever said on this podcast that you're you're never ever going to be able to have a you know a burger and chips ever again. But if we're cup, we're settling into a cut now. Let's be totally honest. Once or for the first one to four weeks, we're unhappy where our composition is. Don't be thinking about cheap meals. We need to get our diet nailed, you know, is something that we can be quite adherent to. Maybe down the line, you know, as we start to get into the cut, especially as coaches as well, we can educate people on how you can maybe have a meal out, but not turn it into a cheap meal, right? This is the difference. It's not the all or nothing approach. I want to get people away from, yeah, cheap meal, I'm just gonna go and nail a big, full, massive family-sized margarita pizza. No. But maybe you know, six, seven, eight weeks into a cut, could you go out and maybe have a slice or two of pizza and work that into your diet? Yes, you could. That's it's getting someone out of that mindset of cheap meal, big pizzas, cakes, five thousand calories, let's go. It's it's it's getting someone. No, you've just been too much of that, and we're just being totally honest, you know. You could a good coach can be honest with you as well, and they've got to be uh tell you where your blind spots are, and you've got to be honest with people. We can bring things in that you can enjoy, but we have to moderate it. We can't have that sort of all or nothing approach with it.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

I totally agree, and sometimes as well, that can set people off when they they start going down that road of hyper-palatable food, can end up looking at things like that on a sort of daily basis and thinking that they really miss it. When again, we we talk about framing. What one of the things I would try and advise is you know, we we've said it in the past, can you get a look at the menu? Can you control where you're going, all of that sort of good stuff? Can you try and keep it relatively in line with the calories that you've got for a day? Just trying to stay away from you know poor nutrition, uh nutritious type choices, and always having that focus on nutrient-dense food. So even if you are going out, could it be steak and a baked potato, things like that? So rather than I I mean, I'll be honest, I think the word cheat meal just needs to go in a corner somewhere and just I don't know, just disappear. I'm not a big fan of the term, and I think when again, when you look at it in terms of your overall picture, when you change the terminology that you use and the approach to some foods, I think that gives you what we're looking for to come out of these types of cuts, which are sustainable habits and things that you can carry on. It's more a lifestyle than just a diet at that point.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

I think a good point with this cheap meal one might as well, and this is something that I've dealt with recently. And again, I have to be I have to be honest with the client is adherents really struggled to stick with the diet. There was constant cheap meals, there was constant just blows up on calories. And you try and delve into it, and at some point, you know, you you have to you have to be honest and you have to call a person out and go, what what is what is the goal here? How much do you not not how bad do you want it, bro? It's not that, but what is the goal here? You you're consistently blowing up and eating out and you're not even making an attempt to save calories or track calories, you're just you're just going over completely. So then you've you've got to ask the client and go, you're making that conscious decision here. You're making we all we've all got a choice. We've all got a choice when we're going out to these restaurants. You can, as you say, get a look at the menu, pick the best option. If you're constantly just blowing up on food, uh again, you I think a lot of it does come down to I think people don't have a strong enough why or a strong enough goal or motivation behind the cut. And if that's not fair, if you if you don't have a strong enough why and a real legitimate reason, if your goal is just, yeah, I just want to get a little bit leaner to see what happens, bro. That's not that that's not strong. That's not gonna that's not gonna pull on you in those tough moments where you are presented with a big load of uh pizza or whatever, wings, whatever it is that you want to eat. If you've got a strong enough why, like we spoke about before, like you you your expectations up front, I need to get I need to drop 30 pounds of body fat for my kids. I need to drop this body fat because I I've set a I've set a data, I'm gonna do a photo shoot, you put yourself out there. You know, there needs to be some strong why's set up front with the cut. I really do think that that helps with this cheap meal of framing around these as well.

SPEAKER_00 54:19

I think that's so important as well, especially in these early stages that we're talking about, you know, week ones through four or five, six or whatever. The more control that you can start to exert now, you make a fantastic point. You know, somebody might have for many years been eating the hyper-palatable food. Um, it's now time to have a focus on trying to change that habit, change the mindset, and be as well trying to make it easier in the long term because ironically, the more nutrient-dense food that you can eat, and especially in this phase, when calories are probably going to be at their highest, um, again, using the um example that we've been through this podcast that we've maybe been working with somebody in an improvement phase. So we built their metabolism up, we've got them in a really good spot in terms of a bit more muscle on their frame because every time you get more muscle on, you're going to be able to diet on higher calories. And I remember myself having once had had to diet on like 1500, whereas my last diet I was closer to 3200. So that that really pays for doing well in your improvement phase, which means if you can bring that into week one through four, these early spots, you've got that control, you're building it in, and what you're doing is you're making it so much easier for yourself in the long term because you're making good choices, and then you're not having to chase it because again, you blew out so early, and it might be as well. And I don't know how you feel about this, mate, but you might have had some people that started on that journey, and maybe they're just not ready for it at that point in time.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

And sometimes, as a good as a good coach, mate, you're uh you do have to have the honest conversation with people. Some people aren't ready for it, you know. If they are going through, you know, maybe a little bit more turmoil in the in their life, you know, it it could be whether someone I'm not saying that someone can't do it, but if someone's going through a divorce or there's a lot of stress, I've had people going through court cases as well, and I've had I've had that in the past, and you know, you've got to meet the client where they're at. Um, otherwise, you know, you you're gonna set yourself up to fail from the start. But I've got a good question I'd like to like to throw over to you, mate, about again, especially this this first once or four weeks. What would you say? What what would you say is your number one habit that someone could bring in to make the biggest dent, the biggest change on the whole lifestyle and the success of the cut? What's that one thing that you would say this is gonna be this is the biggest lever that we can pull right away here to start start the cut the way as we mean to go on? What would be your the biggest lever?

SPEAKER_00 57:08

The biggest lever talking from a coaching perspective is probably to be coachable and come in and be ready with with what's gonna happen on the journey. Now, obviously, a lot of people have seen and heard and and obviously are probably seen some of like the transformations that you've had before, and the one thing that you want ultimately is success for your client. You know, we get a buzz from that, we get as much energy from somebody succeeding as probably they do. So, one of the things I would say is come in, be ready, soak up what's going to be asked, and and the goal that you've set yourself. So if you've got the right mindset, we've spoken about that in this podcast, the right framing, and you're ready to give it the best. One of the things we get often is I want to be in the shape of my life, and I absolutely love delivering those types of transformations. I think that's probably what I would say, mate, would be the I I guess it's not like a single habit in itself, but it's something to bring to the table that's going to help deliver the the best um the best result for the client.

SPEAKER_01 58:17

So you you sort of mean that commitment to the cause, ready to do we're all in here. Like there's no sort of like just dipping the toe in, like someone is all in.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

You you you lead I'll follow something that happened myself, you know. When I was coached, it was literally I'm here. You tell me what to do, you tell me to eat 200 grams of sweet potato, I'll eat 200 grams of sweet potato, not 199, not 201, um, I'll eat 200 to the letter. And and and that's when you see the changes coming, and when those changes start coming very quickly, even in the first few weeks that we've mentioned, because of your adherence, because of um you're ready to go, you you're listening and your ears are open and you're actioning, there's just a pathway there that you know it's just a matter of when and and not if.

SPEAKER_01 59:11

100%, mate. I think I'd follow on from that and say that commitment to the cause bumps down to then organisation. I think organisation, everything comes from that. If you want a successful cut, organisation around your foods, your training time and sleep and wait times as much as possible. I think you set yourself up for success with that. If you're waking up and you know what your meals are gonna be for the day, I've had clients who even track in my fitness pal or a calorie track on that, what they're gonna eat before the day's even out. They know what's coming, everything's prepped, everything's good to go. If you can do that and you do that for a week, you know what's coming, you know when you're gonna train. I'm training four days a week, I'm training at 4 pm every day. I've got my training programme, I know what I'm gonna be doing when I walk in the gym, I know what what times I'm gonna be getting my steps. Organisation and just following it to a T. If you're one of these people who wakes up and you don't know what you're gonna be doing every day, it's just an absolute mess. You don't know what your food's gonna be, you don't know when you're training, you don't know when you're gonna get your steps. That again, from what I've seen with clients over the years, that tends to there's more struggles there, there's more decision fatigue, there's more barriers that come in the way versus someone who's just like I like to call them the robot, and I know not everyone is gonna be the robot, I get that, yeah, but you want to try and lean more towards being the robot than this person who's just so so unorganised because you do get them, and there will be people who are unorganized who get results, you know. There's anomalies out there, of course, but if we're looking at the majority and given a high percentage, what's the chances of someone being successful on a cutting phase? What's a big lever for me? It's organization, and I I put my hat on that organisation as number one.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

It's it's almost like automation, you know. You you mentioned decision fatigue in there as well, Francis. All fantastic things, and that's seven days a week. Just because it gets to the weekend, you I understand people get time off work and and things like that, but you increase and sharpen your chances of success the more you can live, and I mean this positively on a groundhog day. Now that that that's not I don't want anybody to take a negative connotation from that. I'm just like you wake up at half past six, you drink your coffee, you have your breakfast, for example. It's funny, I made a tweet yesterday. I eat 35 meals a week, 28 of them are in my fitness pile, but it takes me 12 seconds in the morning to copy what I ate yesterday into today, and the only difference being maybe like my salad and my vegetables and my my meal at night time. Everything else now basically runs on autopilot, which means I buy the same foods, I rotate my micronutrients from my salad and my veggies and stuff like that, sometimes my protein sources. But when we're talking early doors, we're we're we're trying to forge that and form that, and and that just sets you basically sets you in stone. So I think it's I think it's a fantastic point that you make.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:24

That's all my uh my fitness palette, mate. Copy and paste, copy and paste, frozen strawberries just everywhere. You want to see the freezer, mate? It's just it's packed full of frozen berries. Like honestly, you know, if you if some random fella came into my freezer, you'd think he's a nutter. He's he's got a fetish for frozen fruit. But yeah, we've uh we've we've done it again, mate. That was a that was a great episode that really, really good.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:58

And I think you know, if if people are going to take one thing away from from tonight's episode, you know, the the first few weeks are about proving um not proving how hard that you can diet, just setting yourself up for consistency, having changes in there, the smallest changes that you're gonna be able to tweak for the next you know 20 plus weeks. I think that's so important to get out there. Stop looking at six week and eight week weight losses, weight loss, not fat loss. Sorry, I'm getting on my box here. You know, you can start slow, you don't need to go all in. Patience, let the process work for you, don't don't force it. And that would be my advice for anyone.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:39

Yeah, this is it it is a process, it's not something that will happen overnight. You know, you sign yourself up for it, understand that it's gonna To do anything worthwhile takes time, takes the adherence to it, being process oriented. Nothing worthwhile comes fast, it really doesn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:57

So four words, mate. Fat loss and muscle retention, that's what I cut as well. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

There we go. We'll we'll we'll we'll finish it on that. But Dan the big shiny, shiny, uh, shiny letters. But right here, if anybody is interested in coaching and working with either of us, we can message Benjamin at Benjamin Jesus on Twitter or X. I'm at coach FHM. As always, give us a message, we'll be happy to chat. But again, as always, everybody, we uh we really appreciate the support. And uh we will speak to you next week, all right.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:30

Thanks everyone. Jetson.