Beating Fear + Handling Holidays
Good morning, Scott Michael Phelps Fleer is checking in. Did my first snorkel. First ever snorkel. Think about it. Where have I been?
Speaker 1:In the coal mines. Where have I been snorkeling for the first time in my life? Was done yesterday and it was great. I loved it underwater. Was very peaceful as well and I kind of swam out.
Speaker 1:With a snorkel, I'm a right jump and it's the breathing it is because I got a fear of swimming. It goes way back, way back. Things happen as a kid. Still influencing me when I go in the water. Yeah?
Speaker 1:And I was like, fear. When we say just do it, stop thinking about it. What we're saying is we need to stop thinking because thinking and fear are heavily linked. Thinking is fear because fear is a learned thing. The more we think about it, the bigger the fear gets.
Speaker 1:Can we speak away fear? Is the question. Can I talk myself out of fear? I think you can talk it down, but the only real way for it to completely disappear is to just do it, get in, and then you're in the moment and it goes. And that happened to me, I was in the moment loving it, you know.
Speaker 1:Terrible, terrible noise of water, I was like, you know, gracefully going through it and then I get to the really deep end and I was like, oh my gosh, like three meters deep. And then I noticed, when I thought that, the fear came in again and my breaths going 'I had to get close to the rock, get close to the rock, get close to the rock' I was like 'Ah, see how quick it can happen' because like, you know, fear can come really quick and it can change things and that's because I let thought come in I should have just been relaxing and I kept the relaxation going. So it's a very good practice for me because I say to you guys the fear and all this stuff, I talk about this stuff and really we've all got these fears and we all experience them in essentially the same way. There's a thing that causes us to think about something and we then go through our learned experience, our past and then it creeps in and then it kind of paralyses us then we get scared and we don't know, like I can't move, why can't I do it, why?
Speaker 1:It's very, very interesting actually so it's been useful to of realise this this time around and it's actually helped tremendously actually Like the notice of my thoughts are just like these fraudulent things from the past and they don't actually have to influence me right now. Anyway, that's my spiel about snorkeling and I'm gonna try and do it with turtles today now. I think there's turtles on the harbour and you hunt them down. Not really hunt them, I'd shake their arm and tick their belly. Hello, boy.
Speaker 1:How you doing? I saw cousin and Nathan the other day. Saw two of them actually. One was in Yagora, one was in Aristotle's Lyceum. Those are the wise ones, are they?
Speaker 1:You're Gonna go and get taught by them soon. So that's the plan today. But what I wanna talk about as well is like I've been away now for sixteen days or over two weeks and my diet's not been the best compared to back home. My protein intake is probably half of what it is back home. I'm not panicking about this.
Speaker 1:I look in the mirror, I'm not really looking like, I'm changing every day. I'm looking at my body and it's not really changing, it's the same. If anything, I look slightly better because I'm eating lots more veggies, a lot of healthy oils, lot of things I know make me feel full. For example, when I went to Lebanon back in the day to meet my designer Shadi for rugby warfare, we had a week doing all these new designs and stuff and he took me around all the best places in Beirut and all the foods were so they were veg heavy, but all these amazing oils and all this stuff, right? And I remember going to the gym over there and I was like, I feel pumped.
Speaker 1:Like, these are the best pumps I've ever had. I'm altering it again in Greece because I'm getting a lot of these nice veggie foods, good oils and all that stuff but my protein's not there and there's nothing much I can do about it It's so easy to get protein in The UK guys, it's so easy I went to a shop, Said Protein Bar, I thought yes Protein bars, finally, let me have a look 15% protein he said Okay, you're tricking me 15% protein Let me What was the actual protein in taking a sparmed Went in the back of the bar, looked at the nutritionals. Guess how many grams of protein were in this bar, guys? Guess how many grams of protein were in this bar called Protein Bar. Five.
Speaker 1:I think there's more protein in a Mars bar. I think there's more protein in this bar. I was disgusted. Disgusted but I just walked out, stopped, tamping. Wishing I had clear away with me.
Speaker 1:Wishing I had turtle clear away. But I couldn't take turtle clear away with me because it looks like it's a bag of cocaine, doesn't it? It just does. I'm gonna put on my suitcase to get pulled. Where you guys?
Speaker 1:Where you going there, boy? I'll clear your waist. Well done. Alright. But, yeah, if you're gone, guys, please, you know, if you wanna make it easy to clear your way with you, put in the water, two scoops a day, 40 grams of protein.
Speaker 1:Happy days. If I had that, happy days. I'll be there. Protein intake would be nearly double what it is. I'm probably hitting forty, fifty grams.
Speaker 1:Anyway, here's a few things I've learned that can help. One, ask them to add protein to your meals. I know it sounds ridiculously stupid or simple, but I went to a really nice coffee place yesterday and I was like, there's no matcha. You do salads here, there's protein salads, there's and egg, whatever. Quinoa, whatever it's called.
Speaker 1:I used to call it quinoa as a proper Welsh man. Can I have some quinoa, please? Some quinoa. And I was like, can I can I just add a can you add a chicken breast to this? And she's like, oh, yeah, Lask.
Speaker 1:And he's like, yeah, they can have chicken breast. Said, okay. Just put extra. I'll have a chicken breast. Cut it up.
Speaker 1:Boom. So I had a salad then just added chicken breast. Did it a few days ago. It like, was like, you add, like, three eggs to this? They were like, oh, weird.
Speaker 1:I was like, that's not weird, is it? Just wants three eggs, isn't it? Simple. Just add three eggs. Just make the salad.
Speaker 1:You've all the different salads there. One of them's got egg. I just want three eggs in that one. And you're yeah. Can we do it?
Speaker 1:This is just simple. Just ask, know, see what's on the menu. Just add it to your meals. Don't know. Happy days.
Speaker 1:Boost my protein when I can. Second, don't beat yourself up if you can't get anything that's not not that much protein. Many nights here, I've had the intention of going out, have a high protein meal if I can, still enjoy it because like just because I pick something high protein doesn't mean I'm not gonna enjoy your meal. I'm going out to a restaurant, they're cooking food for me, it's gonna be nice. Surely, I've had some terrible meals, but they should be nice But I've never beat myself up Once me and my friend were like, right, had a good workout today, had an active day, we want to feel good and feeling on top of things Let's get a good high protein meal Went there, ended up having just cheese pasties, cheese pies, pies these fried things because they had literally nothing apart from that.
Speaker 1:And I didn't beat myself up over it. And that's a big part of this game. If you beat yourself up over it after this happened the next day, you're gonna cause stress. You are gonna create conflict and psychological stress. When you create psychological stress, it's the same stress as a physical stress of the body.
Speaker 1:The brain doesn't know the difference. So you will react in a stress response. The more your stress response is on, we know causes water retention, causes impulsive decision making, right? It causes all sorts of problems. So we need to reduce our stress levels because that can help us reduce water retention.
Speaker 1:It can make us feel better than ourselves. It can reduce our appetite because if you are chronically stressed, which is, you know, if we think about intermittent stress, five, six, seven times a day turning it on just because you're thinking about food or thinking about worrying about food, guess what's gonna happen? Your appetite's gonna go up. That's what happens. That's what the science says about stress.
Speaker 1:So the most important factor this entire journey for me is not to be stressed about food. Not to make food my enemy, not to make food a problem. And you might say, Scott, I don't wanna think about food all the time. You think about food all the time anyway. Don't lie to me.
Speaker 1:Like, I don't wanna think about food. You will think about food. So when it comes to thinking about food, let's not make it an automatic negative thing. We're thinking of, should I be, should I have that, should I have this? We say, I'll try my best.
Speaker 1:I know what a moderate diet looks like. I know what eating in moderation is. I know that I eat too far and I regret it afterwards. Right? So what happens when we eat too much?
Speaker 1:We tend to eat too fast. I'm massively blimsy. I do this all time. Eat too fast. Comes to it, you're not feeling satisfied because you've eaten too fast.
Speaker 1:Then it comes dessert time and you feel hungry still. Instead of giving yourself and your body a few minutes, have a bit of water, we impulsely make it and say, yeah, I'll have a dessert. You have the dessert, you're still not satisfied. Right? You're still still not satisfied from the food.
Speaker 1:The desire keeps going. You want more. You walk down the shop, you see an ice cream shop, you get more ice cream, still not satisfied. Later on, desire for eating goes down a bit. You haven't thought about it for a bit.
Speaker 1:And you think back, wow, I ate all. I wasn't full. That's my story. Happened to me the other night. Right?
Speaker 1:Ate food too fast. Eating more. I love dessert. Baklava. Happy days.
Speaker 1:Cheers, boy. Really nice. Baklava. Still hungry. Walk into the car.
Speaker 1:Ice cream thing on the side. I'll to get us three scoops of Bueno and Ferrero Rocher ice cream, please. Hand out amazing, still not full. I was like, wow. See how fast that happened?
Speaker 1:Didn't even think in terms of rationally. I just impulsively made the decisions. And for me to rectify that, I've just been more aware and let myself digest the thoughts, digest the food, let myself settle for a bit. That's the answer there. And since noticing that, you know, I've done a lot better.
Speaker 1:I haven't been throwing myself at desserts and going for ice cream and stuff. I've been eating slowly. That's my main thing on this trip is eat more slowly, eat mindfully, drink more water. It's made a huge difference to how much food I'm eating because I eat so fast. I inhale food.
Speaker 1:I don't chew. I'm trying you know, that's because I'm not just I don't know why it is. Maybe it's because when you're younger, just eat food fast and no one steals it. I think one thing that really comes in actually is I don't know if any of you had this. It was really terrible thing that used to happen back in the village I'm from or the villages.
Speaker 1:If you had a drink, yeah, it's horrible. Or food it turned into as well. If you had a drink, right, say you had a Coca Cola and you went to the park and someone shouted 'Bones!' right? That means that that person gets the last quarter of your drink. No questions asked.
Speaker 1:You have to give them the last quarter unless you say no bones. So every time you buy something you gotta say no bones before someone says bones. And if someone says bones, you have to give them a quarter, then they turn into food as well. They want to get bones of the food, so they want their quarter of it. I remember once two boys had a fight over my bones.
Speaker 1:They said bones and they said I bought a drink with Pepsi Max or whatever it was into the park with football and boys like you got bones and I said oh and someone else said no I called bones before you and they're like no I called bones and they just literally had a fight swinging punches over bones. So I don't know if anyone has played it, maybe it's just a weird thing back in my back where I'm from. But, you know, that's that kind of gives it to me. You you eat fast, don't you don't want anyone to have your food. And I think a lot of people have especially bigger families, you go through it.
Speaker 1:But it's the awareness of it that makes a difference, not letting yourself act like an animal basically. And then, yeah, so really it's try your best with protein, you can ask for more protein. I know it sounds obvious, but just do it. The menu, they're there. They're serving you.
Speaker 1:So you can ask for, you know, extra bit of portion of protein. Two, take away if you can. Right? Because it's gonna help you massively. I wish I had it on me.
Speaker 1:It's helping massively. Three, it's the stress that's most important of all of this. If you can manage our stress levels away, not make food about enemy, we'll have a much better time, we'll react better when we eat food and we won't overeat. Four, being aware of when we do tend to overeat and really bringing our mind into the now so that you don't act impulsively like I did one night. And you might do it.
Speaker 1:Might do one night, it might happen, but at least you don't turn it into something all the time. At least you're aware of it. Right? And that's it. And this applies for holidays and weekends.
Speaker 1:Right? It does. And I just don't know why we make such a big deal of it. Who like, who really who is who are we trying to impress? Who are we trying to look tupons like to fall?
Speaker 1:We just wanna feel that we surely, it's just that we wanna feel. We wanna feel better. That's the like, we wanna feel good in holiday. We wanna feel good in general. To feel good, we need low stress levels.
Speaker 1:To feel good, we need to stop fighting ourselves. Right? Those are the main things. You can can feel good. Your stress levels can be low.
Speaker 1:You can be eaten moderately. Right? You can feel good. And then someone does a comment about what you look like. And this can trigger a lot of things.
Speaker 1:This can trigger self doubt. Oh my god. Actually, do I look terrible? Oh my god. I do.
Speaker 1:I was feeling good though. Feel I felt like I looked okay, but obviously not. And then you can let that take us they can make its own within world out of all of those comments. So that's something to look out for. But I think in general, we need to focus on feeling good in the moment, feeling good with ourselves, not fighting ourselves all the time, trying to make bad decisions.
Speaker 1:We are gonna slip up. Happy days though. You know, it's gonna happen. Don't wanna say about it. Just accept it and move on.
Speaker 1:Move on. Life isn't here to be fighting yourself over food. You're nearly 75 years old going, oh my god. I wish I fought myself more over food. I wish I actually ruined more holidays thinking of my food.
Speaker 1:That's what I wish I did. Wish went in every holiday and mourned over food all the time and made it made it terrible. I imagine that's gonna be us if we don't watch out. This is I am you know, Ebony's a Scrooge as the three ghosts telling him that you gotta change his ways, so he's gonna die early and he needs to be stop stop being a greedy guy. This is me, one of the ghosts here who's saying, making food, it's a problem all the time because when you get older, the time you squandered fighting about food you're gonna regret because they contain holidays and cause arguments, cause you feel terrible, cause you're not to make the most of weekends, holidays, days in general.
Speaker 1:So don't this is the warning. We need to stop fighting ourselves over food. We're gonna start being in the present moment. Cliche though, isn't it? It's cliche.
Speaker 1:Being in the present moment. Being what does that mean? What does it mean? So our thoughts will create the past and future. So our thoughts will create the past and create the future.
Speaker 1:That's how it works. So if we're always thinking, chances are these not automatic thoughts are always trying to push us into worrying about what's happened before, worrying about future events. And then our story about those thoughts causes more thoughts and more fighting. So can we see the absurdity of all of it? That's what we need to do.
Speaker 1:And that's what awareness does is that it's like a shining light on all that nonsense and going, wow. You are a you are a bunch. You are wanna swear on this podcast. Need to cut it down. Just a complete mess.
Speaker 1:Shine a torch, you know, boom. What a mess that is. Oh my gosh. Unbelievable. Let's leave it alone.
Speaker 1:That's really what we're doing. Boom. Okay. That's a mess. Let's walk away.
Speaker 1:That's what do with all these thoughts we get. Always fighting and stuff. We go, oh, boy. It's messy over there. And you can walk away in a sense and not even get sucked into it.
Speaker 1:And that's your duty today. Don't get sucked into these vortex of poop, cock, thoughts. And on that note, I'm off, but this is your chance to think about what your one big thing is. Track your macros maybe, go for a go for a walk, batch cook some meals, write in the daily diary, message someone that you appreciate them. I don't know, whatever it is, just get it done right now in this moment, in this actions, go and do it.
Speaker 1:Stop messing about, gruff your bed, wipe your eyes long, tired, get up. Get up. I go for a walk or something and start your day with some energy, with some vigor, and it'll make a difference. But guys, I'm off to see some turtles. Happy days.
Speaker 1:You soon. Ta da.
