Why you need to stop asking for meal plans
Good morning everyone. Let's get straight into this episode and I want to talk more health and fitness today obviously less philosophy. But I will be back obviously of course no no doubt no doubt. But today health and fitness really things like the the common things I see especially yesterday looking at posts and emails coming in and messages. The first thing I wanna say is stop asking people for meal plans, guys.
Speaker 1:That doesn't work. Stop asking people to control everything you eat. One, it's lazy. Okay? Two, you're given someone complete power over your food.
Speaker 1:Think about it. You want someone to tell you what to eat. You eat. Obviously, you eat every day, but that's under someone else's control. That's mental, guys.
Speaker 1:You don't that's just it doesn't work because you're giving someone else the power. You're not even empowered at all. Like it's like saying like you ever someone's gonna look after how you someone's gonna tell you to spend your money every day. Would you accept that? Well no you wouldn't.
Speaker 1:For my benefit. But is it for your benefit? You might get someone spending your money better. You might save some some some cash by someone else, you know, being a better spender than you. But what are you learning from that then?
Speaker 1:Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. You're getting no skills yourself. Someone else runs everything for you. You are powerless and you get used to that.
Speaker 1:You're gonna fall into a fall in line. So stop asking for meal plans. It doesn't work. The reason it doesn't work is the studies on I can't versus I don't. And if you say I can't, it means, oh, I kind of want to, but I can't.
Speaker 1:So you'll say, oh, can't eat that cookie. It's not in my meal plan. But you just say, I don't eat that. I don't eat cookies because it's up to you. You're in power.
Speaker 1:You can, but you don't. Okay? The difference in those two terminologies. The people who say I don't are way more likely to stick to eating healthier than the people who say I can't. I did this with smokers as well like I don't smoke versus I can't smoke.
Speaker 1:The ones that said I can't smoke ended up smoking again, ones that I don't smoke and I'm not smoking. It's just all about empowerment and that's the important theme here, the empowerment theme. It's up to you, you've got to take control of your own life. You can't keep asking other people to tell you what to do, especially when it comes to your meal plans. So when we look at it, what's the basics we need?
Speaker 1:What's the basis we need for fat loss? Well, you need to be in a calorie deficit. You've heard us a thousand times. You need to hit a decent amount of protein per day, high protein diet. And you need to have a good balance of carbs and fats.
Speaker 1:Okay? That's what we would do in our macro plan. And then the food choices are up to you. It's like a game of Tetris. You know, some days you'll be perfect, some days you won't.
Speaker 1:Alright? But you'll try and fit into those numbers. You try and fit the food you eat into the numbers. Okay? That's that's the game.
Speaker 1:Eat whatever you want. Are you vegan? Eat vegan foods. Try and eat those numbers. Are you a meat eater?
Speaker 1:Eat meat then. Fit to eat those numbers. Okay, it doesn't matter what your food preferences are. Of course for some people it's going to be more difficult, for vegans it is slightly more difficult for a higher protein diet. That's just the truth of it.
Speaker 1:This doesn't mean it's not possible and vegans are in a sense more they've got more empowerment in their food choices because they they decide to do something as, you know, in a sense, cutting out a huge amount of foods from a diet. They're doing it for ethical reasons. So for them to find a way to fit into the macros is no problem for them. They'll work for it because that's what they really want to do. You've got to applaud them in a sense.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to food, you have to learn to be self sufficient in terms of you know, you deciding what to eat and being used to that and stop giving away that power to someone else. Second thing, carbs are not the devil guys. Okay? Stop thinking carbs are bad. Carbs are energy.
Speaker 1:Okay? You need carbs for good workouts. The brain uses glucose. A lot of foods are carb based. Most diets are 60% carbs in general.
Speaker 1:A lot of foods are carbs. So you know if you're going to cut carbs out you're in for a really rough time essentially. In all honesty you're in for a rough time because you're going to hate it, you're going miss a lot of food you like. It doesn't really work. Second thing is problem foods.
Speaker 1:If you've got what we call problem foods, foods you can't resist. The only intervention that seems to work in the studies is to actually just be able to have a moderate portion of that food, not be scared of it, not know, not buying it doesn't work because you'll end up buying it, telling your friends, telling you not to eat doesn't work, having the diet version of it doesn't work, it doesn't correlate with weight loss. So what does work is being able to see it there and have a moderate portion of it. Now some of you say well, if I have it I'll just eat all of it. Okay so what's going on there is that you're not really understanding moderation and you have to work on it.
Speaker 1:Okay, I don't think the answer and this is what this is what I'm actually starting to think now when we think of, habits and like environment and you know, in Atomic Habits says you know, if you have if you don't want to eat the cookies and whatever the food, the bread you know put it somewhere you don't see it in the cupboard or whatever okay and then you're like okay I don't see it so there's less of a chance of me it. But is that really the answer? Is that really the fundamental change we need or is that just like the plaster on the cut? Are we really addressing the main the main cause there is that the fact that we can't control our we can't totally understand the environment affecting us. Therefore, we're always acting back on the environment, causing conflict in the mind, and then we break and we just eat it.
Speaker 1:Why can't we go even deeper and go, why can't we just be totally aware that that food over there I really like and I'd love to eat it, but be totally aware that you've got a craving for it, you really want it but not wanting to change that fact and just understanding the influence it has on you and then that melt away and then therefore you lose, you kind of the crave and the power of you wanting it just dies away because you're just totally aware of what's going on. You're just seeing it for what it is. I get it. I've seen it. It's over there.
Speaker 1:I'd love it. Like Slush, that cookie's stunning. Look at him. Unreal. I will eat him right now.
Speaker 1:Melt in the way over there. Smells gorgeous. But I'm just aware, though, I've just seen it, and that's causing me to have a craving. That's all that's happened here. I just wanna change it.
Speaker 1:It's how it is. Smells luscious there. And being able to be around these foods and all that and, like, dictate to my life all the time. Who's in like Don Roberson said in one of who's in control? You or the Dorito buddy?
Speaker 1:Like, you know, is the answer to throw away everything and create this perfect sterile environment where we have none of these things around us? That's not the reality of the world. The environment we live in is full of delights, is full of adverts for Doritos and Daily Milks and the shops are full of sweets. People are eating all the shit all the time. The bakery smell amazing.
Speaker 1:You walk past the street. Okay? Like, we're in this world. So is the answer really to be like, well, it's force change of environment all time. Does this mean not does this mean we shouldn't even bother making the environment easier?
Speaker 1:No. It means we should of course make the environment at our home easier for us to live a healthy lifestyle having water in vision when you walk in a kitchen for example, good way to drink more water, great. Things like that of course we should do. I don't think we should rely on that as the only way we're gonna want to change our behavior. We need to change it fundamentally.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense. But I think it's important to understand that because as much as I can say calorie deficit, high protein diet, get your steps and workouts in. If we understand what's going on day to day with these urges and cravings and we break and we eat this and now we don't even know what's going on, we're out of control, we go to bed the night going, oh my god, why am I such a pig, an animal, everything I see. If we don't address what's going on there, none of this stuff matters.
Speaker 1:We're just gonna keep falling prey to just these environmental influences we're inevitably gonna have. So we must address them and the way is to have awareness of them and they melt away. And to build an environment that's better helps as well of course. Hope I'm making sense here. So we spoke about stop asking people for meal plans.
Speaker 1:We spoke about oh, so we spoke ask people for meal plans. So carbs are not the devil. Okay, we spoke about how the problem foods, we must be able the only intervention that worked with them is having them there but being moderate with them. Let's work in moderation, moderation is sexy etc. We get more joy in having control of our urges and not you know falling prey to the urges in time than the actual pleasure of eating said food.
Speaker 1:Okay, that's the paradox. We actually get more joy from the fact we said you know what I said no to that extra pint and no to that extra slice of cake even though I thought it would have been lush, my joy now for saying no later than is better. That's important. Next point is don't run through too many workouts like we often think the more workouts we do the more weight we're going to lose. Okay, this is not even true.
Speaker 1:The fact is like the more hardcore workers you do the more you're going to be tired, lethargic, recovering then what happens is even though you've got to you do a big workout five times a week, the activity for the rest of your day plummets down because you're so tired, you don't want move. It's actually better that we start with an increased daily activity of doing 8,000, 6,000, 8,000, 10,000 steps a day as a base because that's really good for our mental health. It helps our appetite regulation system work like it's meant to if we don't have enough daily base activity, it actually doesn't work properly. Like because hunter gatherers back in the day we've evolved from being walkers. So the theory is that if we stray too far away from our ancestral kind of activities like walking and moving throughout the day that our body doesn't work properly.
Speaker 1:So we get more hungrier than we're meant to and that gap that surplus means you put weight on because we eat too much food, we're not moving enough, burn the calories we basically put weight on. So it's important first we actually raise our daily activity is to start getting walks in. Daily walks, morning, lunchtime, after work, building walks, it's so good for mental health. Walking in nature if you can, sometimes walking with no podcasts or no music you know unbelievable being able to just watch your thoughts as walk in, don't try to force any thoughts. Just watch them as they pass by, not even label them good thought, bad thought, just label the thought, hello thought, hello, bye bye, hello, hello.
Speaker 1:So saying just watch them by, just go for a walk for a wander, just let the mind go. These little things play a huge impact in our lives compared to five blitzing workouts. Sweat along, endorphins after a high, burnouts come in, people can't really, the average person doesn't really have the capacity to work five times a week, work at five times a week after work with kids, being you know a teacher, in the NHS stuff like that. So stuff like this for most people not possible but it doesn't have to be that work isn't actually gonna make you lose more weight. Your total activity will come down likely and then you're actually burning less calories each day.
Speaker 1:Okay, what is a good balance is I'm saying is we play Tetris with our macros, eat the foods we want, we empower our food choices, very important. We are empowered to eat what we want. Second is we are empowered to understand the environment affects on us, but we don't have to always retaliate against the environment. We can just be aware of what's going on and that's enough to stop the urges, stop us acting in the way we don't want to do. Okay, then we want to walk enough per day just to be like our ancestors to activate the you know what we can call it they activate the you know the full human mode like you know be a total human, walk about, let the mind wander, let the mind don't try and force a mind into whatever.
Speaker 1:Okay. And if we come on top of that as a bonus we get two to three strength workouts a week and the science is clear two to three strength workouts a week, it's better for fat loss, you lose more fat, you retain more muscle. So much benefits for weight training as well. As many people saw on the strength challenge, you know, some people tripled or quadrupled their strength in five weeks, which is crazy. Some people went from no press ups to doing full press ups.
Speaker 1:Know, adaption is amazing. And if we just look at those things as like, are we doing these things daily? You know, are we doing that? As opposed to what extreme boot camp can I do? What meal plan can I do to lose the most weight?
Speaker 1:You know, these are not things we should be looking at doing. They're desperate, they're lazy, you know, they're kind of like plasters, know, putting plasters in cuttings. Is it do, you know, is it enough? It's not. And we know deep down doing these kind of extreme three, four week challenges and like you know we're gonna just eat clean as they say, go low calorie, high workouts.
Speaker 1:You know we kind of, we think, we trick ourselves, this is the time it's gonna work. I'll keep the weight off and stuff like that, but you don't. You rebound slow and steady. That's what we do. Look.
Speaker 1:We build up to what you wanna do. If you wanna build up to be able to do five workouts a week as part of your routine, great. If you're going in straight five workouts a week from a Christmas and you've never done it or you've tried it before and you're going low on calories and stuff like that, you're gonna smash your mental health to bits. It's a you know, I'd go as far as say stuff like that as a form of self harm because research is clear in this. It's very clear in this.
Speaker 1:Extreme ways of losing weight and stuff. There's a big bounce back, and it's detrimental to mental health. Okay? So we don't wanna go down that path. But that's it for today.
Speaker 1:I hope that's just some stuff I've seen yesterday that I thought I'd bring shed some light on. Have a think about it. You know, if you're not walking enough steps today, that's an easy win. That's your one big thing today. How many steps are you doing?
Speaker 1:Can we get that up to at least 6,000 a day? That could be your one big thing today. Just getting how, you know, how how much time does it take you to walk? Is it a morning walk and and and and a lunchtime one? Is that enough for you?
Speaker 1:You know, try and work that out. Could be, you know, getting back on track of the macros, new update with the new barcode database, improvement and a lot of foods going on there. So, you know, it could be getting back on track of the macros. And if you've got those under your belt you know doing a strength workout getting back into again you know three strength workers in a week. Happy days, that's all it takes.
Speaker 1:We can then focus on them, the most important things in life. You know, let's take the, know, we take the health fitness box, great. But what are we really doing this for? What are we losing weight and getting healthier for? Just to be obsessed with our weight.
Speaker 1:Just to be just to say we can do 12 press ups. No, no, it's not that's not what we do it for. We do it to be better, stronger, happier, more joyful human beings to live more fulfilled lives and a more fulfilled life means having good relationships with people, in loving our jobs we do, bringing that bringing that mental shift to the jobs and stuff we do helping other people out. Know, again fulfilment in our lives outside of the weight and the training. That's why we do this, we're not just doing it for the sake of losing weight, It's not what anyone's doing it for us.
Speaker 1:Stop, you know, remember the reason we end up looking after our health is so we can go to the next level. Without health, we've got nothing. But with health, we can do amazing things with our lives for us and other people. That's why we do it. So we want to have the mental energy that we do gain from strength, health and fitness and actually give it to these other things we want to do.
Speaker 1:We want to unleash that. That's the point. We don't want to be trapped by alpha fitness like most people are. We want to be untrapped. We want to do the main, the basics, get it done.
Speaker 1:Let's look at what else we can do with our lives. Am I getting, am I making sense? There's a lot more things to do. A lot of people to help. A planner to save.
Speaker 1:Watch Don't Look Up. We've a planner to save you guys. We need to do something about this. That's another voice note. I need we we need a plan.
Speaker 1:We need a turtle attack. That's another one. So, yeah, hope I broke through. Maybe not. Who knows?
Speaker 1:But thanks for listening. Either way, have a good day one day at a time. What are you gonna do with today? That's all that matters. If you can make the most of today, you make the most of tomorrow, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 1:Put meaning to the moment in your life today, and then your life will have meaning. Simple as that. Enjoy your day, everyone. Love you all. Speak to you tomorrow.
