Q&As with Dr P #1
Hello, everyone. We are back with a podcast now. We are changing things up. We've basically got Doctor. P coming in twice a week in the podcast.
Speaker 1:So instead of Wednesday evening, and you have to turn up live, basically you ask us questions, I'll ask Paul, I'll make sure he answers concisely as possible. We know his nuance and all this stuff, but we'll try and keep it short and sharp, but with enough information. How does that sound, Paul?
Speaker 2:That sounds absolutely perfect for me. Yeah, looking forward to being able to answer a few more questions and hopefully, access a few more people as well in terms of, you know, times and things like that. So, yeah, looking forward to it. So, yeah, not just having to monologue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, from down there for, I think the first thing to really start on is just to have the other side of the conversation with us. Maybe there is a lot of, it's quite, I don't know, researching women is relatively new. But the first question is can women carb load? And I want you to explain what carb load actually is.
Speaker 2:Okay. Can women carb load? So the answer to that is yes. There's enough evidence to suggest that regardless of gender, having periods of high carbohydrate intake before a specific types of sporting event are beneficial for performance. So this is that's what carb loading is basically.
Speaker 2:So carbohydrates, obviously, in getting the diet, and they're stored in the body, in the muscle, and the liver as glycogen. And this is important for sports performance because depending on the intensity of the sport, so if you're doing anything kind of over sixty minutes up to a few hours and you're working really hard, you know, like so someone's, like, having a good attempt at a marathon, tight distance, half marathon, marathon type distance would be a good example of that. Then wanna make sure sorry. Excuse me. One second, Scott.
Speaker 2:It's coming from a little cold. We wanna make sure that our glycogen stores are fully stocked. Now there's different there's different approaches to doing this. Some people will split their carb load over a few days beforehand, so they're not having to eat loads of carbs in one day. That's particularly important, like, if people get digestive stress and bloating and things like that.
Speaker 2:Some people will do it, you know, and reduce like fat intake and overall calorie intake. So you made sure that although they're getting the carbohydrates in there, their overall energy intake isn't super high. Some people just don't care because it's for a few days. So so what? There's usually a few other things that would accompany it.
Speaker 2:So for example, you know, in the few days before a run or a race, you would wanna, like, limit fiber intake a little bit just because you don't want too much fiber sat in your your stomach because that can cause irritability and, you know, you don't wanna be going to the bathroom ten minutes into a marathon. So, you know, I tend to with my athletes, male, female, whoever, I'll tend to reduce their fiber intake for a few days before an event. And that also just kind of helps with digestion and absorption of carbohydrates generally. Although we promote and advocate, you know, a diet that is high in, you know, whole grains, fruits, fibrous vegetables for satiety and, you know, and hopefully decent digestive system health and motes and, you know, go into the bathroom and digestive motility. Think it's the word I'm after there.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't I don't think that everybody has to carbohydrate load for a half marathon or a marathon. I think that those who train seriously, who know that they can run and perform at a certain pace and intensity for those durations, yes, it's definitely beneficial. If someone's just like a recreational runner who's trying to survive a half marathon or a marathon, they're not really bothered about pace and pushing themselves. They just wanna kinda get through it, then it's probably not something that's gonna have, like, a massive amount of benefit on performance as well. So, yes, yes, it is useful, but I would say that as with any any strategy of nutrition for performance, it's understanding, one, the demands of the event, and then secondly, the individual is to how we we take that approach.
Speaker 2:On my Instagram, recently, I did a a post on carb loading where it explains all of this stuff in a bit more detail, like how much you should carbohydrate load, when you should carbohydrate reload, food sources for carbohydrate loading, and even in terms of once you've loaded for an event, what kind of fuel sources and things that you should take on board during the event as well, depending on the duration and intensity of the event. So by intensity there, what I mean is like effort of maximum. So for example, if you imagine running like a park run or a five k, you're gonna be able to maintain a higher pace and a higher effort level for that duration of five k than you would be for like an ultra marathon, which is like 50 k because, you know, fatigue kicks in. So it's it's that side of it really where I think a lot of the confusion can kinda come in, you know, and one of the adages that I've always had as a as a sports scientist, sports nutritionist, performance nutritionist, whatever you wanna call me, is it's like you could but should you?
Speaker 2:You know? And I would advise if people haven't carb loaded before, they don't know what fuel sources they get on with very well or carb sources they get on with very well, then, you know, don't just try it randomly before a big event if you've trained really hard for it. Stick with the nutrition that has been good for you. Yes, maybe look at reducing fiber a little bit, but if you've got a good nutrition strategy that's worked well for your training up until an event, don't then get overly excited at what I'm saying now or maybe what you read and start taking advice from me or anybody else unless they have a deep insight into what you've done already. So for example, you know, don't start if you hear there's some, like, super duper elixir to take during an event, and you've not used that before.
Speaker 2:It's probably not a good idea to start shoveling different brands, different foods, whatever it is down your throat midway through something where your digestive system might not be trained, and you can train your digestive system, might not be trained to do that. So I think that explains what what carb loading is. And yeah. So, yes, it is a benefit. Should you do it?
Speaker 2:It depends. And, again, if anyone's got any specific questions or wants to reach out to me, you know, through the messages on on Mighty Networks or whatever, I'm always happy to try and answer those as best I can with a little bit more information.
Speaker 1:Happy days. Nice one you covered that. Any interesting research studies or anything that's really made you rethink something you firmly believed in this last year maybe?
Speaker 2:In the last year?
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you've read this gone, that's interesting. Maybe not as fixed as we thought.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's some interesting things coming in and around now. I think in terms of nutrition for performance, there's some really niche areas, but there's nothing been massively groundbreaking in terms of our understanding of kind of metabolic pathways and physiology and nutrition. As such, nothing that's what I would say is, you know, like paradigm shifting anyway. I think there's some really interesting research coming out now more in the sort of strength training aspect of things in terms of mechanisms for muscle adaptations.
Speaker 2:And there was the whole ideas around progressive overload and all of that stuff, which sort of holds true, but there's there's more nuance coming in and around that now as well in terms of not just the amount of volume that we're training, but the relative intensities at which we're training. So, yeah, there's some really interesting things around that. And not going too much in the strength and conditioning world because it's probably not massively applicable to most of our audience, but there's some really interesting things about kind of how we can train for multiple modalities at once and some of the understanding of, like, what causes fatigue during resistance training, how we can manage that fatigue, and and, like, different approaches which, you know, which can maximize performance, which are not they're not paradoxical. So not like the opposite of what we would expect, but they're definitely mechanistically starting to discover some things that, you know, we we we held to be fairly straightforward when actually, you know, it's not necessarily the case, I e, more volume is better. It's something which in the last year or so has become increasingly questioned.
Speaker 2:But again, you know, trying to understand that the nuances of that isn't my really my wheelhouse. But in terms of nutrition science, nothing too really nothing too much really. I think there's some really interesting stuff on nootropics that's happening and research into things that improve cognitive performance and things like that. But nothing's nothing's at a point yet where I would be, you know, in terms of my recommended supplement list or nutrition list at the moment, there's nothing where I would say, I can't believe we've been missing this for so long. So as boring an answer as that might sound, it's actually quite reassuring in one sense that, you know, the things that we hold to be true in terms of metabolism, how our body processes foods, and all of the stuff that that we we base our approaches off is still fairly firmly fixed, you know, and there are some slight variations on a theme.
Speaker 2:But but, yeah, nothing nothing too dramatic has has occurred in the last twelve months, really, last couple of years that I can think of. But, actually, I'll probably finish this little podcast episode and something will pop into my head. So, yeah, let me ponder that one and I'll see if anything else jumps up at me. But right now, nothing really major comes to mind.
Speaker 1:Happy days, happy days. Why don't people end with this progressive overload, why don't they just have, Why can't it be this simple? Or is it as simple? I did 10 reps and 100 kilograms today in bench press, next week I'll do 11 reps, the week after I'll do 12 reps.
Speaker 2:Okay, so there's two things within that. One is that the progressive overload really has to be thought about in terms of the mechanical tension that is placed on the muscle, because it's the mechanical tension that drives the adaptation, which is muscle growth or strength development. Is that simply adding reps without a measure of the internal muscle stress or strain, if you want to call it that, is challenging. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't measure it and we shouldn't monitor it. Of course we should.
Speaker 2:It's because the chances are that if our technique is fairly rigid, if is, if all our numbers are heading in the right direction, the chances are that we are getting the right stimulus. It's more to do with the fact that there are, like for example, you could not just because you're not progressing with your loads or your reps or your set doesn't mean that you're not building muscle. It's trying to remember that progressive overload is an outcome of adaptations. It's not the thing that drives the adaptation, it's the thing that's an outcome of the adaptation, which is mechanical stress. So you can lift the same weight for five or six weeks, the same amount of reps, the same amount of sets, but then all of a sudden you will just get stronger.
Speaker 2:Well, you haven't progressed the load have you? But your ability to move that load has improved because you've just been in this kind of gray area training wise where you've not trained your reps, you've not trained your sets, you've not changed the load, and then all of a sudden in a few weeks time you come back and then you can do more reps or you can do more load. Well, you've not been progressing the load during that period. Progressive overload isn't just about the volume and training volume is important. It's about trying to remind ourselves that progressive overload is a result of the adaptations that we get from training.
Speaker 2:It's not necessarily the thing that drives the adaptation itself. You know? And, yeah, we can't just stand still forever. And if we are standing still forever, then that's something that we need to assess as to why we're standing still, but that's a slightly slightly different slightly different argument, I would guess. And and that's what we find really is that, you know, it's quite common for especially trained and experienced lifters to stagnate what we would say is plateau and stagnate for several weeks.
Speaker 2:And then all of a sudden after a break or for whatever reason, then all of a sudden they'll get these like little incremental jumps in load, which is why it's important to not just simply chase the numbers and then get frustrated if your strength hasn't gone up in a few weeks for example. You know, that's still normal. The adaptation will occur as long as we are hitting the right rep ranges, eating the right kind of nutrition, and getting enough, you know, rest and recovery in there. So that's what I would always say is if people aren't hitting their numbers for a few weeks, it's probably not a case of necessarily, yeah, you can have an extra set, you can lower the weight to do more reps, you can micro load your weights if you want, so you've got really smaller increments that you can handle. Do all of that stuff and it's fine.
Speaker 2:But that also means that if we do hit a plateau at some point, what we perceive as being a plateau, it still doesn't mean that we're not driving the adaptation. And that's something where I think my thinking has moved around a little bit in terms of how I would try and progress an athlete. Whereas before, I might worry that they're hitting the same weight for a number of weeks for the same reps or same sets and then start trying to find ways to increase the volume of training. Whereas now I'm quite happy to just stick and say, well, we'll just keep things where they are. And then in a few weeks time, what you will find if you monitor things like their relative effort or if you monitor things like, you know, reps in reserve, how many more they feel they've got in a tank, then you'll see that those the perception of the effort will reduce and then use that as a vehicle to to increase load rather than necessarily having to feel like, well, I've done a 100 kilos this week.
Speaker 2:Next week, I need to do a 102. Next week, a 104 or or whatever it might be. So I think that that's that also ties in with, you know, people who start off chasing progressive overload and a lot training volume initially. It's this idea of, like, doing too much work, too much volume, and then all of a sudden they get into this this kind of training no man's land where they can't do any more training because the volumes they're doing because they're really fatigued and they can't recover. And then it's almost like you kinda have to resensitize yourself.
Speaker 2:And actually, that's something that's popped into my head is that there's some really novel research coming out at the moment around this idea of resensitization to training. So there might be benefits of taking time away from periods of resistance training, not just to recover from hard training bouts, but there's like almost like a resensitization to the pathways that develop muscle growth. So again, that's very formative research, and I wouldn't say it was paradigm shifting at this point, but it's fascinating that a lot of the kind of go hard or go home old school approaches are definitely workable because, you know, old school bodybuilders were still jacked and strong. But if you look at how a lot of those bodybuilders were trained, they would still have periods of time after a big show where they might take a month or two months out of the gym. Know, and take it even yeah.
Speaker 2:So like yeah. So idea of like resensitization is something which is quite interesting. But I so that's why I always think like, you know, people who when they first start training, it's like, do the minimum amount of work to get the maximum amount of benefit. Don't start spending three hours in the gym because you'll grow quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Exactly. That's it. You've got to give yourself somewhere to go. And I think as I've got older and a bit more banged up and broken, like it's the time out of the gym, which is more important to me now rather than the time I spend in it.
Speaker 2:Like, you know, been there, seen it, done it, got the t shirt for hammering myself. Now it's right. Okay. Well, how can I minimize my training volume to maximum effect? Which means that yes, the sessions have to be harder, I guess, in some senses, but recovery is so much more important now to my progression than spending six days a week in the gym.
Speaker 2:And I think that's something where, yeah, a lot of a lot of our members maybe struggle initially if they're feeling like they've got, you know, the New Year's resolution of mentality of having to go to the gym six, seven days a week to feel like they've gotta be successful. Quite often, if people especially if they're concerned with muscle growth or just getting stronger, it's like just bat things away. Do start with just two full body sessions a week. You know, don't feel like if you consume your strength training, don't feel like you've got to, you know, pick up some bro magazine and start training six, seven days a week. Exactly.
Speaker 1:Start twice, three times max. I think for this podcast, I'll let you finish on this topic you're going to. So when it comes to I lost the question. What did I say? Nutrition.
Speaker 1:So I'm gonna ask very important topic, Very important. There's a lot of chat. There's a lot of chat now. Some people are coming to maintenance and maybe there's more people on maintenance. But on top of first is like, people I speak to people who've been in deficits or perceived to be in a deficit for a while.
Speaker 1:And try and reinforce that in a deficit for a long, long time, you are going to have maybe you come adaptation or different hormones going to go up and down. And they might not know, like, oh, my hunger is going up because of the hormones out of whack or whatever leptin and you can talk about that in a minute. So would you say the most people will eventually the normal person, maybe just the average normal person, maybe one of the church members, would you say that they will just be going into a maintenance weekend or days automatically just from life? Or would you say that they might need to actually establish a maintenance week or maintenance few days planned?
Speaker 2:So this is something where there's a recent study on at the moment talking about this idea of diet breaks, which is something that we talk about a lot. I've never been entirely, are you talking about so someone's lost weight and they've plateaued, taking them out of a deficit for a while first or doing on a weekly basis?
Speaker 1:I'm actually talking even ahead of even Gantas stage where they've tried to lose weight for a while, maybe it's up and down, but yeah, there's resistance to it.
Speaker 2:So there's a resistance to it. So this idea of diet breaks for me is something that I've always kind of, it's something that I don't have a problem with. I don't necessarily, I think some people go too far. It's like a metabolic adaptation stuff, how much the metabolism adapts to fat loss. I think there's evidence and truth to it.
Speaker 2:I just think some people take it to an extreme.
Speaker 1:What you think? My theory is that most people will have a maintenance day anyway, because they will go out and they will have weekend slacking.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Is that
Speaker 1:point worrying about it or is that?
Speaker 2:Whether people take diet breaks or not, the thing that tends to be the biggest benefit. And by diet break, I don't necessarily mean taking weeks off dieting. I mean, having an odd day here or a weekend there or using a carb, like a calorie cycling approach, if that's what someone wants to do. However you do it, when you have a day or more every week or few weeks at somewhere near maintenance is probably more, I think unless someone's doing something really aggressive is probably more psychological. Now I think if someone's doing really aggressive deficits for long periods of time, then yes, I think diet breaks are probably gonna be more useful because it's actually more about getting someone healthier again, rather than it's about healthy fat loss.
Speaker 2:Because again, that's the approach that most people take. So when people use a lot of the research on this or they try and apply whatever little bits of research there are on this subject, they're thinking more about bodybuilders and physique competitors that have got very low levels of body fat. Yeah. And their body's pushing back. If you're someone who's just trying to get to a healthy range of body fat, so between say 1015% for men and probably 20 to 25% for women is healthy, 15 to 20% for women is like what you would find most female athletes would have a body fat percentage of, okay?
Speaker 2:I mean, I've got clients I work with who've got body fat percentages of eighteen, seventeen, 18% by a DEXA and other methods who are still convinced they've got body fat to lose. And I'm like, you've got the body fat percentage of an athlete. So where is this mentality and this perception coming from? Because this is the point this is the point at which you're gonna push back. And a lot of those people are in this this stuck in this paradox between knowing they can't keep eating 1,300, 1,400 calories a day and training hard, which by the way I don't advocate and it's not something I push towards, but it's what they've done, particularly when I'm trying to fix people, guess is the simplest way of putting it.
Speaker 2:But the fear then is that actually these people do need to take some stress off the body because they probably have adapted in the sense that they're probably still training quite hard, but they probably do have some reductions in metabolism in terms of both their basal metabolic rate, again probably not as significant as people would think, but they also probably just have reductions in their total daily energy expenditure, you know, activity, less less less output in their training even if they perceive themselves as training hard, less daily steps, less, you know, activities of daily living, know, like walk less, not walking the dog, being less fidgety, being less energized at work, you know, all that kind of stuff. So I don't think that I I I just think that, like, for the for the wider audience, now I've talked way too much length of that. I think for the wider audience, so excuse me, that that will probably benefit most from this. It's like don't worry about having one or two days a week where you're at maintenance. It will probably do you a lot of psychological good.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. In theory, it will delay the the time it takes to get you to whatever your perceived, you know, end point is. But ultimately, does that really matter if we're gonna look at this and preach the gospel.
Speaker 1:At the same time, will it? Maybe it'll make it quicker because you've got more sentimental pricks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, I guess that depends on, again, that's what I'm saying. It's like, it's in the essence of sustainability is kind of the kind of end point to that is like, we're gonna look at this through a lens of sustainability, having one or two day weeks where you accept you're gonna have a few more calories means that mentally you feel refreshed, you don't feel like your overly restriction is less likely than gonna lead to what you would call catastrophic dietary failure. So yes, it will get you results quicker. Would it get you as quicker if you didn't have those days? Well, by the laws of thermodynamics, probably not.
Speaker 2:Again, under the caveat that we're not using stupidly aggressive deficits, but how much quicker is it gonna get you if you've got say 30 or 40 pounds of body fat to lose? Like not that much quicker, right? Not worth worrying about levels of quickness because again, if we're gonna commit to this process, the whole reason we're turtle, right, is because it's the slow to steady, smooth vibe. So it's about committing to living a healthier lifestyle that we can then get to a goal and then maintain it rather than just getting there as quickly as possible. So I always try and think like, if you're gonna be, don't worry so much about maintenance days and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:It's like, am I living my life on a daily basis in a way that's gonna A, help me achieve my goal, but B most importantly, when I get there, can I maintain it? Well, that's
Speaker 1:the important part is like, a lot of people listening here and this is one of the problems I do see is like a lot of people will see, oh, well, she's on 1,500 calories and like, okay, She's five foot, you're five foot five, you have a different calories. Okay, yeah. So don't worry about other people's stats, just focus on yours. Is yours sustainable? And if you find it a little bit difficult to lose weight, or losing fat, and the deficits we put people in are never extreme, they're like moderately sized deficit could be less.
Speaker 1:If you're finding it difficult, you're hungry and all that, then you will have slightly hungry days in a deficit. But you're not going to be those for life, you're going to be at maintenance, which will be significantly higher. But people don't can't see beyond that they think I have to be on this, these calories forever. No, you have to transition to maintenance properly. And then you'd be on much higher calories, which is probably the toughest part because, you know well, there's a lot of misinformation about reverse diet is one thing like I think Lane came out and said the other day that he originally said that reverse diet and improved increased your BMR.
Speaker 1:And now he's saying no, actually from meat increase that the reverse dieting works. Yeah, no shit. So what you're saying was the more carbs you're putting, the more you're to get a bit more activity out of that body. Yeah, obviously. I mean, there's nothing special to
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's a really important point as well. And if I was gonna, again, it's a bit of a double edged sword, right? Because in some senses it's easier and if we're accurate with our food tracking, for example, it's easier to have confidence that if we're trying to adjust our calories downwards it's sort of easier to assume that our general day to day activity and exercise stays fairly consistent. It's easy to assume that we get the same commute to work every day, we do the same walking of the dog every day, we might do the same workouts in the gym if we've got good exercise habits the same amount of times per week. It might adjust slightly but all in all it means that nutrition is usually the more I use the word 'usually' tentatively there Usually the more accurate way of getting a determinant of where we're adjusting things nutritionally to create a deficit or a surplus, albeit maintenance.
Speaker 2:Right? Because everything else in our life tends to be fairly consistent. It might shift between different seasons or, you know, if you've changed the job or something dramatic happened in your life. But typically speaking, if we're talking about what's in our sort of lifestyle homeostasis, if we wanna think of it that way. But the reality is that actually, if you're not losing weight or not losing weight at the rate that you would desire, a, well, let's reset the expectation around that and play the long game is the first thing I would say if we can.
Speaker 2:But the second thing would be like the one thing that is probably the hardest to do in time because it doesn't necessarily maximize calorie burn. But I think in terms of the overall benefits for a lot of people, it's trying to say, okay, we can't be as accurate with it because it's just quite difficult to measure accurately. But it's those increases in expenditure. Like if you're just as an example, it's much easier to create a 500 calorie deficit if you're burning 2,500 calories a day and eating 2,000 than it is if you're burning 1,500 calories a day and needing to eat a thousand calories. So I'm always a big advocate in terms of maximizing expenditure.
Speaker 2:That doesn't mean working out like a maniac. It is those little things over the course of the day, like that extra ten minutes walk here, that extra five minutes at lunch, making that little bit of extra effort across the course of a day. If you can add that up to like an extra hours walking or an hour and a half walking a day, could be like two, well, depending on the size of person, maybe 200 to 500 calories, if they're doing that at a reasonable pace. So that's that in terms of if people are wanting to accelerate their fat loss is something that this idea of metabolic flux is something I'm a big believer in. And think because if all else, even if it doesn't reduce metabolic adaptation, even if it doesn't have any other effects than it would do in a similar calorie deficit, the fact of the matter is that more calories or keeping your calories as high as possible whilst maximizing your expenditure is how I would probably phrase it better, is It's not gonna allow you more food, which is gonna allow you more variety, which is gonna allow you more opportunities to a, have a sustainable diet and b, b, get more vitamins and minerals and healthy stuff in your diet.
Speaker 1:It's mad. When I was doing meal prepping as a day and I was adding in the meal prep meals, I was shocked how much food I was actually getting for a low amount of calories. I had three meals for ten fifty calories. That was protein and oats. That was chicken and Mediterranean veg recipe.
Speaker 1:And it was I think it was the chicken pesto pasta, the risotto. I was like, you know what, like, once you can eat anything you want, and that is what we say, and eat what you like to start with get into the rhythm over time, you do actually want to start eating more nutrient dense foods, because you will get more bang for your buck.
Speaker 2:What I think as well as an evolution of what we would hopefully preach and practice towards. And I think we are both our journeys could probably, although maybe from a different starting point to many of the members is that there's always something else to learn or something else you can try and improve on. Like, I've just come off the back of three months of a lot of travel and you know, hotel food, you know, just been in Italy, which basically have been off pasta and bruschetta for like a week, which was great, pasta pizza and bruschetta. I'm sick of the sight of it now. Think that'll be me till Christmas probably for pizza at least anyway.
Speaker 2:But there's a certain point at which once you've got the grasp on the calories and everything else as well, and you start to focus on food quality because it keeps you feeling fuller, higher protein, more fibrous foods, more whole foods. The next thing that a lot of people will then transition to is actually, what I noticed that when I eat my five portions of fruit of veggie day, or when I stay on top of my water intake, I'm focusing on better sleep, I actually just feel more better and I've got more energy. And I think like you get to a certain point when you don't do that, whether it's forced upon you or you choose to do it for a little break, like it's my version of a diet break, guess. You'd realize very quickly how much of an impact it has. And you start to think to yourself Oh my God, like how did I used to eat that way and feel that way?
Speaker 2:And when you've got that other kind of counterpoint, and I think that's really the transition from just focusing entirely on fat loss into, I wanna just be a healthy, active person who feels great.
Speaker 1:I think they are two separate stages as well. Think if you into this, if you into the, if you've got lot of weight to lose, and you go into the process with trying to optimize all your food intake and understand that you can have the food you like and all that you're going to kind of get yourself in the middle, and you're going get trapped with those, well, I have to eat clean, as they say, and I struggle and I eat my biscuit and I feel bad. I think it's better to start off by going look, eat what you like, including biscuits and chocolate. Look, you've lost weight. And they go, yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:I've lost weight. Okay, now eat some healthier food and see if you feel better. No, no, I genuinely do. Now you feel like you want to actually eat those healthier foods versus you think you have to. And once you want to do it, that's it then you don't look back on this kind of you kind of don't look back at it.
Speaker 1:And I think that's the magic is actually going through it like a system as opposed to trying to do it all in one move.
Speaker 2:Well, think that's a really, really good way of looking at it. It's like it's trying to create an environment where we want to do things or even if we don't wanna do them, it's at least understanding and seeing the benefits to the point at which that we will do it because they're not doing if it isn't worth it. Like for example, the one example I always use is like, okay, it's an overly simplistic one, but it's like brushing your teeth, right? It's like, if you hate the dentist, no one wants like gets in the morning, really looking forward to brushing my teeth today. Yeah, know.
Speaker 2:But we do it, right? Because the fear of having to have a tooth removed or whatever it is will go in the dentist might be worse, right? So again, even with like good nutrition, the thing is that it's even better than that because you will know if you become kind of more aware of how we feel around foods and stuff, that it's not something that like, yeah, okay, you might not like the taste of eating spinach every day. You might not see the value. I'm not saying you have to eat spinach every day, but I'm just using as an example.
Speaker 2:As one of the bro is the bro foods out there. You might not like it, you might not like fruit. I've had people say, don't like fruit. Like you don't like all fruit. It's like, okay, is that really a belief of yours or is that
Speaker 1:don't believe that.
Speaker 2:No, I don't believe that for one second. You mean is I don't like fruit is when I was, I probably got some previous experience with fruit of being force fed it as a child, which means that it's got deep rooted, like rebellion pushing against it type thing. And don't get me wrong, are definitely people out there who have guess
Speaker 1:psychological But in being a to why taste buds develop how they do though, and actually to be aware that your taste bud isn't like you. It's just when you were a baby, your parents will be fed you in a certain X way, not that way. And actually, can you overcome that? And you can, I don't know if I haven't looked into it too much?
Speaker 2:There's definitely psychological disorders where people have, like they won't eat anything but chips, for example. And those people don't tend to end up too healthy. That's an extreme example. And that's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about here is that a lot of people, it's not like they hate fruit or vegetables.
Speaker 2:It's just that one, it's either an effort to do it. Right? It's like, oh, I've made that effort. Can't be bothered. And it's just trying to come up with convenient strategies to make a diet a bit more helpful.
Speaker 2:And then notice the benefits. But like I say, it's the adult equivalent of taking your medicine, brushing your teeth, whatever it is. Sometimes we have to just make a tiny bit of effort. If we're truly concerned about just feeling better. I mean, forget the weight loss components and stuff as well.
Speaker 2:So many of my clients, even athletes that I work with who look great and feel great, who are of a healthy body fat mass. They don't eat enough good stuff in their diet is what I would say. I mean, it's astonishing when they make a little bit of effort to do that, that they notice that they just feel better, the recovery is better and all that stuff. And whether it's placebo effect or not, well, very much doubt it is, but even if it was, it's sort of drinking, not drinking. That was a weird thing to say.
Speaker 2:That was not what I was doing. Was thinking about water intake that for a second. It's not understanding that what you're doing is investing in your own health and well-being. That's what it is for me. Like whether fruits or not made any difference to my overall nutrient quality, like I'll always try and have some fresh fruit every day.
Speaker 2:Because that's like my little signpost to myself of actually, you didn't want to do this. I still might have the chocolate bar, don't get me wrong, but I'll have the chocolate bar and a piece of fruit because that's my little investment to myself that that extra 30 calories or whatever it is that I've had for like, punt strawberries or blueberries or an apple or something like that. It's like, I'm doing something good for my body. Cheers, buddy. Thanks for helping me navigate life.
Speaker 2:The least I can do is give you what you need. And that's kind of my kind of weirdly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good way of going about it. I think another way to look at it as well is like, you have to be in the position to want to do this. Because if for example, if you've got someone in poverty, and you want them to think about self fulfilment, then there's no way they can even see it. They just want to get to a foundation with a house and all that. And the same with someone who's got loads of weight to lose.
Speaker 1:They don't even want to think about feeling better because they're eating certain food, they just want to fuck on. So, for people listening who just want to fuck on, I just promise you that if you focus on not putting good and bad foods into buckets, good and bad, and you actually are open to eating all foods, you'll eventually get to a stage of poly, you just explained a big thing about your body like you're like, I'm eating this for me, and for my health, not anything else. Yeah, I think you can see this all around the world in different areas. There's narrow minded tunnel vision say, because they're in such a bad way they think in one end, the only way out is all the fat needs to go. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well,
Speaker 2:think within that as well, like, again, it's where you are on your journey. If someone is very overweight and they've got joint pain and the cholesterol is high and they're out of breath walking up a hill, then simply losing weight will have a massively significant impact on their So it's a graded thing. So yeah, like if someone's very overweight or obese, then yeah, like whatever you eat, you're gonna get the biggest bang for your buck health wise by losing that body fat mass to a certain point. However, what I'm talking about here is that graded approach towards what we discussed before, which is this idea of, I guess it's an idea of what your own version of sustainability is. And sustainability is yes, you've the physiological characteristics of maintaining a healthy fat mass.
Speaker 2:You've got, and I always encourage people to do this. It's like, if you think about those different buckets of what sustainability is and health is to you, some of those things are going to cause conflict. Might have bit of internal things we need to resolve. For example, if someone's like, right, I believe sustainable eating is being able to eat what I want when I want. Well, that's fine, but then does that come in line with, well, sustainable eating is something where I eat five portions of fruit and vegetables every day, even though I don't like it.
Speaker 2:And it's like, well, there's a potential conflict there where we need to reconcile that and figure out what our version. And that's where I would say where people need to figure out their specific individual version of balance is. It's different for me than it is for you. There's common themes and principles that we need to follow energy balance, protein, are we enough vitamins and minerals type stuff. But how much emphasis we focus put on those things is gonna be dependent on beliefs, environment, mindset at any given time, stress, relationships, whatever it might be, So I'm not trying to oversimplify that book.
Speaker 2:I do think that once people start to, if people can understand and say like, okay, well, what does sustainable eating mean to me? Or what does healthy eating mean to me? Then it allows them to actually start to quantify that in some way and aim at something rather than it just being health isn't just about, and yes, it's a big component of it. Of course it is. And it's obviously a big problem in society at the moment.
Speaker 2:Health isn't just about maintaining a healthy amount of fat mass, but it's a good starting point. But then we can change our definitions of what health is and we can change our definitions of what sustainability is. If we're willing to collect the data, be our own scientists, listen to our bodies and understand that like past a certain point, we are gonna have to balance eating what we want as long as it hits our calories with making more pragmatic food choices around things that keep us full and energized and our skin healthy and all of that kind of stuff. Yeah, not anyone listening to this. I don't think it's important to not think that this is a process rather than something where you're just like, right, day one, I'm not gonna eat anything that I would consider junk food.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna I'm just gonna live off whatever. It's like, no, still eat those foods. But for me, the balance is more about not sacrificing those foods for healthy foods. It's about eating a reasonable amount of what people might consider junk food, but also then just not sacrificing eating healthily for that. That's my version of it because I know I'll feel better if I have a chocolate bar and an apple than if I just had the chocolate bar and save the calories on an apple.
Speaker 2:That's my version of it because I feel like at least while I'm doing something for myself. Whereas for other people it might be, well, I'll have the chocolate bar, but I don't wanna have the extra calories. And right now that's where you are. And that's also fine. It's a process of defining where you wanna get to and doing it in a graded, like you said, systematic way rather than feeling you've got to solve all the world's, all your health world's problems all at once.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so yeah, think if people can define for themselves what sustainability is, it's always a good guide in light as well. And it like a nice little lighthouse to remind us of like, am I eating the way I'm eating now? Is it something that I could do at maintenance? Is it something that I'm willing to do? And my foods too bland and too boring?
Speaker 2:What can I do to use this up a little bit? Or do I have to accept that I need to eat a bit more of a boring diet because I can't live off pizza and McDonald's every single day for the rest of my life. And that's something else we have to reconcile with is like, sometimes we have to treat ourselves like a toddler. That's why I always describe to my clients, get to bed at regular times, not too many sweets, eat your vegetables. It's funny when you tell, you hear parents telling children to live in a certain way that they're not even doing themselves.
Speaker 2:Like all of a sudden you hit puberty and all of a sudden none of the stuff like sleep and good nutrition matters anymore. It only matters up until the point at which you go to university for a lot of people right and then it's you know take outs that sort Cool.
Speaker 1:Nice, that's good, there's lot of information packed there. What would you like to leave people thinking and what question would you like people to ponder?
Speaker 2:I think a good question for people to ponder and maybe something to sort of think about and write down is like, what is it that they want to get out of this process other than fat loss, if that's the goal? Or if they're at that goal, what is it else they wanna get out of this process? Because it's not necessarily that we have to aim at that, but it's trying to open up a conversation that there's more to nutrition and there's more to the way that we treat our bodies in terms of exercise and mindset stuff than simply the way that we appear. So I think if people can start to contemplate those ideas, it's a good starting point to open up thought patterns, processes, avenues, maybe. I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's to to thinking about the other stuff. But that's all it needs to be at this point, which plant planting a seed towards whatever their version of health is in the long run is important rather than and if you can do that, I'd say the benefit is that then nutrition doesn't just become about the frustration of not losing weight this week. It's like I've still done all of these things to invest in my health or whatever it might be, you know, give ourselves opportunities to win as much as we can. It's the goal of this thing.
Speaker 1:Exactly, that's brilliant. Well, people, you can ponder it, let us know the answers, but Doctor. P, thank you for sharing your wisdom to the podcast. I'm sure people would prefer this format and any questions guys, there's a form in the gold membership and silver membership to fill a form out for questions for Paul so we can answer them next time. Paul, nice one.
Speaker 1:Will speak to you soon obviously and focus on your one big thing today and Adios everyone.
Speaker 2:See you soon Turtles.
